Total pages in book: 187
Estimated words: 177397 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 887(@200wpm)___ 710(@250wpm)___ 591(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 177397 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 887(@200wpm)___ 710(@250wpm)___ 591(@300wpm)
It is a hard fucking feat when you feel like your life won’t stop circling the toilet.
A pfft vibrates my lips when Anoushka replies with a thumbs-up. As quickly as my annoyance surfaced, it clears away. Anoushka’s thumb still features in her next image, and so does my little brother.
Mikhail looks like hell. His skin is scaly, his beard is unkempt, and his eyes are sunken, yet he still looks more alive than Zakhar’s whitening expression.
That shows he proved right when he chose his location today.
Just like I did when I let Arabella live.
My father straightens my suit jacket when I reach the end of the altar before fiddling with the white rose the wedding planner pinned on in a hurry. I pull away before signaling for the quartet to commence playing the song Dina selected for Arabella to walk down the aisle.
The quicker this is over, the sooner my son will have a new heart.
As I twist to face the people filling the pews the event company donned with thousands of roses and hydrangeas, my eyes instantly land on one face. It isn’t hard to spot her in a crowd. She is the most beautiful in the room, and the most feared.
She could ruin everything with two little words. I object.
She won’t, though, right? I don’t approve of the approach Arabella used to scare her away, but a ruse of an absentee father will be the most effective. Zoya is unaware of her lineage because she was raised without a father’s influence. To her, he is a shadow. A nightwalker. Someone who only ever comes out when it’s dark. She’s never seen his face.
Well, she has. She just doesn’t know it.
In case Arabella’s delivery wasn’t convincing enough, I permitted Konstantine to release some information Maksim’s team would have never stumbled onto even if they were looking into me. I know they are—that’s all part of the plan—but if they don’t interfere in Zakhar’s procedure today, I have no issue with them using anything they unearth.
I just have to hope Zoya feels the same way, or I’m fucked.
When the crowd ahs in sync, I try to shift my eyes to the end of the aisle—to move them to the woman I am marrying. I fail.
I can’t take my eyes off Zoya for a single second. It isn’t solely her beauty that demands the attention of any man with a pulse. It is how fast her lips move when a man wearing a backward baseball cap butts shoulders with her.
Whatever he whispers in her ear pisses her off and balls my hands.
That should be the end of my reaction. It isn’t, however. After slanting my head to hide the movement of my lips from the people in the front three pews, I ask, “Who is he?”
The earpiece in my ear crackles before Konstantine murmurs, “No fucking clue. I ran him through facials after he approached her at Le Rogue. Nothing came up.”
I accept Arabella’s hand from her mother before guiding her onto the podium where the celebrant is waiting for us. Her veil and puffy white dress should be enough incentive to let this go, but Zoya’s agitation grew the further Arabella walked down the aisle, which means mine tripled.
“What about in the other system we’ve been utilizing over the past few months?”
“I wasn’t sure it was worth the hassle.” My jaw tightens when Konstantine says, “You said you were done with her.”
“I am done with her. But I still want to know who he is.” I glare down at Arabella while saying through clenched teeth, “Since she is my soon-to-be sister-in-law, I should probably look out for her.”
Konstantine’s shocked huff announces my exchange with Arabella in the elevator last night wasn’t monitored. “All right. I’ll run it now. It may take a bit.”
“You have five minutes.”
He calls me an asshole before the strokes of his keyboard are drowned out by the celebrant commencing proceedings. “Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to witness the legal union of Kazimir Andrik Dokovic and A—”
“I object!”
As everyone’s eyes snap to Zoya, the celebrant says, “We haven’t reached that part yet, and you better have a very valid reason for the interruption, young lady.”
I hope he kissed his family goodbye this morning. The derogative tone he uses to publicly dress down Zoya ensures it would have been for the final time.
“I have a good reason,” Zoya murmurs as her eyes shift from her sister to me. “I’m pregnant, and from what I read last night, there hasn’t been a Dokovic child born out of wedlock in over a hundred years. I’d hate for my child to be the first.”
Although everything she is saying is true, I scoff before gesturing for the celebrant to continue. The “I’m pregnant” ruse is the oldest in the book. I’ve dodged it numerous times in the past twenty-plus years without incident.