Total pages in book: 95
Estimated words: 89090 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 445(@200wpm)___ 356(@250wpm)___ 297(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 89090 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 445(@200wpm)___ 356(@250wpm)___ 297(@300wpm)
While fiddling with my shirt to make sure my hand doesn’t wipe the contemptuous look off his face for the second time tonight, I reply, “I cleaned up. Your place was a mess.”
“Yes, Polina, you’re right.” He cranks his neck to look at me. “My place was a mess. My. Fucking. Place.” He bangs his chest for each of his last three words.
Too stunned by his odd reaction to speak, I watch him march to the coffee table that had been housing hundreds of beer caps and dozens of empty bottles.
Its sparkling surface doesn’t fill him with gratitude. His hand shoots up to tug at his hair before his foot sends the thick chunk of wood sliding to the other side of the living room.
I school my features when he pins me in place with an angry glare. He will never physically hurt me, but mentally is another story. He’s more than capable of tearing my heart to shreds. “Where are they? Where are his things?” he spits out, his mood temperamental and hot even from a distance.
I’m lost to the cause of his rage, so the only answer I can give him is an uncertain shrug.
My confusion pisses him off more. “Where are Feo’s things, Polina! Where the fuck did you put them?”
That was Feo’s mess?
As Yev demands an answer with a heartless stare, a sound I am certain spells the end for us trickles into his apartment. The bins at the back of his building are being emptied. The clatter of the hundreds of alcohol bottles I dumped in them can’t be mistaken, not to mention the thousands of bottle caps I tossed out with them.
“You didn’t,” Yev says with a slur as he sprints to the window facing the back of his building so fast, his steps thunderous. “Please tell me you didn’t throw out his things?”
“I thought it was rubbish.” My voice is the most timid it’s ever been.
“No…” he mutters in a painful groan, his hands once again in his hair.
Only once the truck rumbles away does he spin around to face me. His expression breaks my heart. He is absolutely gutted, and the blame for his latest downfall lies solely on my shoulders.
“I swear to God, I thought it was trash. I would have never touched them if I’d known they were Feo’s—”
“Get out,” he interrupts, his voice low and quaking.
“Yev, I—”
A vein in his forehead pops when he shouts, “Get out. Get out. Get. Out!”
Needing to leave before I double his grief, I sprint out the door, down the hallway, then through the emergency stairwell doors, my speed only slowing when I crash headfirst into a firm chest.
4
POLINA
As I wipe up the mess the flowers Vasily arrived with earlier this week, Nat groans under her breath. “You know he wasn’t there that morning for no reason, right?”
She’s cautioned the same thing multiple times the past week, but I’ve yet to take her advice with the credit it deserves. Vasily is an ass. I know that better than anyone, but my time with Yev last week verified with the utmost certainty that Vas is my only salvation from a predicament I’m sure will gut me as well as Feo’s death did Yev.
I hate relying on anyone, but this is about more than me now, and despite my heart’s pleas, I can’t be selfish.
When Nat glares at me, waiting for an answer, I give her one of the many excuses Vasily gave me when he bruised my nose with his chest. “He said he was worried about me and wanted to be close by in case I needed him.”
“And you believed him?” The words whipping out of her mouth don’t give me a chance to announce I don’t believe a single thing Vas says. “Vasily Cabanow cares about nobody but himself.” After placing a returned dress onto the discount rack, she spins to face me. “And you didn’t see the way he reacted last Friday when you left with Yev. He gave arrogance a new name.”
I continue with excuses. It is easier than facing the truth. “Because his wrist was snapped in two places. He needs surgery, Nat. Have a heart. Not every man handles pain in the same manner.”
She stuffs a second dress between the many on sale with more force than needed. “He wouldn’t have a broken wrist if he had kept his hands to himself.” Her next words are a whisper, but I still hear them. “If only Yev were more violent.”
She can say that. She hasn’t met an angry Yev. She remembers the playful goofball he was before his personality did a one-eighty.
Vasily thinks Yev is reflecting his anger at me because he believes my family is responsible for his brother’s demise. I told him he was being utterly ridiculous until I recalled the brief conversation I had with Yev in the SUV.