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)
“I don’t have my phone on me anyway,” I blurt out, unsure what to do.
“How long ago was this?” Mikhail asks.
Mara checks her watch. It isn’t as fancy or as expensive as Mikhail’s. “Around tw-two hours ago. Maybe a little longer.”
When my eyes shoot to Mikhail, panting and desperate, he nods like he knows exactly what we need to do. “Get in.”
His demand isn’t just for me. It is for Mara as well.
“It’s okay, Mara,” I assure her, feeling her scared shakes from here. “You can trust him. He’s one of the rare good ones.”
“When you can, tell him I’ve got her, but that we need to take a quick detour,” Mikhail murmurs as he opens the back passenger door of the SUV for Mara. “That’s good. I’ll tell her.” As he jogs to the driver’s side, he removes a bead-like device from his ear. “Zak’s surgery was a success. His body seems to be accepting his new heart.”
I sigh in relief. “That’s great. I’m so glad.”
“Di-did you say he got a new heart?”
After instructing Mikhail to go around the hospital’s perimeter that makes traffic shit no matter the hour, I twist to face Mara. “Yeah. Zakhar has a hereditary heart condition. He’s been in cognitive heart failure for the past twelve months.”
I’m truly stoked for Andrik and Zakhar, but I can’t fully express my feelings until I know that Nikita is okay. Mara made it seem as if she was found at our bus stop, which makes no sense. Maksim would never let her visit that side of town unaccompanied, and why would she be at a bus stop?
“Take Forty-Second Street. It will bypass the nonsense.”
Mikhail nods before turning down the street I suggested as I snatch up his phone from the middle console. It is still unlocked from when he showed Mara a picture of Nikita.
“We’re going to discuss this.” I twist his phone to display the album of photographs I’m referencing before hitting the call button. There are hundreds, and although I feature more than Nikita, I am not okay with his level of snooping.
I suck at interviews, but I am a whizz with numbers. I can remember most by heart. Since I have called Ano’s a handful of times since objecting to Aleena’s wedding, that’s the first number I call.
Ano is Nikita’s shadow. He sits in the hospital’s underground parking lot for hours every day, watching the live feed of the hospital surveillance. He wouldn’t just leave his post.
“Come on, Ano,” I murmur when my call rings and rings and rings. “Pick up.”
“Hey, you’ve reached Ano—”
I hang up and try again as a soft voice from the back mutters, “Did you s-say Ano?” When I nod, Mara’s cheeks whiten before she shifts her eyes to Mikhail watching her in the rearview mirror. “You should pull over before it is too late.”
He does so without interrogation. The sheer panic in Mara’s gaze is enough to crumble the knees of the strongest man, let alone what she says next.
74
ANDRIK
Ipull off the hairnet flattening my hair and then remove my face mask, unmuffling my voice just as Konstantine answers my call.
“Did he find her?” I ask before he can speak a word.
“Yes,” he replies, his pitch high. “But we’re fucked.” My heart rate surges as erratically as it did when Zakhar’s new heart took its first pump hours ago. “I said this was fucking suicide. They’re coming at us from all angles. Henry’s army is too big. They’re going to wipe us out.”
“They?”
“The Gottles and the Ivanovs.” It sounds like his finger jabs a trigger more than a keyboard. “Zakhar’s heart didn’t come from the fe—”
Our connection is lost before he can finalize his reply. I don’t need his words to understand what is happening, though. It is midday, but even if the sun wasn’t bright enough to light up the street, I couldn’t miss the swarm of armed men racing toward the main entrance of the hospital.
The front runner is gunning for blood, and that is precisely what I’ll give him if he’s here for what I think he is.
As I return to Zakhar’s room to protect him from the hellfire about to rain down on him, I remove my gun from its holster and point it at Maksim Ivanov’s head.
My fighting stance scares away the nurses settling Zakhar into his room after a few hours in the recovery unit, but since their cowardice won’t affect Zakhar’s rehabilitation, I let them leave.
Machines are no longer the sole thing keeping my son alive. His new heart is—a heart I am suddenly fretful Maksim is here to collect.
Maksim enters Zakhar’s room without fear for his life, like I won’t gut him where he stands if his sneer is anything to go by.
I understand his cockiness when I recognize the face of the man who enters next. He’s bigger than the federation. More feared because his army isn’t confined to one country.