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)
I call myself a dickhead for the second time when she gathers up her toiletries bag from her suitcase. She wasn’t snooping. She was just ill-prepared for a shower since all my products are for men.
Incapable of holding back her disappointment for a second longer, Polina says, “He almost died, Yev. But I guess you wouldn’t know that since you rushed off on a coastal vacation with Ana.”
The jealousy in her tone is shocking but not enough to stop my retaliation. “My brother did die, Polly. He’s fucking dead.” My voice is vicious and roaring. “And for what? A grave next to a cunt who knew about him but wanted nothing to do with him until he showed up at his door with only the clothes on his back.”
Her shouted reply knocks me into the dresser. “You need to stop playing the same goddamn playlist on repeat. Feo is dead so you aren’t. He died for you! So you can live. Love. Breathe the air you filtered for him day in and day out. How can you not know that? It is obvious to everyone else, but you seem blind to it.”
She has it all confused.
Feo didn’t die for me.
He’s dead because of me.
When I say that to Polina, she frantically shakes her head. “He didn’t position himself at known Bobrov haunts for no reason. He wanted to be close so if you needed him, he was there for you as you always were for him.” When I mimic her head shake, she lowers her tone and says, “He told me himself, Yev, when he drove me to a stranger’s house after untying me from your bed.”
I’m too shocked to think rationally, so I ask the first stupid question that pops into my head. “Why didn’t you tell me?” I’m lashing out at the wrong person, but that’s how I operate lately. “Why didn’t you fucking warn me that I was walking him toward a storm? He could still be here, Polina. He could still be alive if you had told me what he was planning to do!”
I hate everything about myself when I pick up a half-empty bottle of scotch and send it flying across the room. It smashes into the wall Polina is standing in front of, but doesn’t get close to her. Although you wouldn’t believe that with how red her face gets.
“You… I…” Steam billows out of her ears when she screams before she storms across the room to snatch up her bag and race for the door.
“Where the fuck are you going? We had a deal.”
“A deal you can shove up your ass,” she snaps back in an instant, her earlier fear of being alone forgotten. “I put up with Vasily’s shit for a reason, but I refuse to accept it from you.”
Clutching her bag for dear life, she freezes partway out the door when I say, “You walk out that door, and the first person I’ll call is Alek.”
Her eyes are on me, angry and blinking. “Alek has enough on his plate.”
“And I have fucking nothing, so choose your team, Polly. Me or him.”
My cock twitches more than my jaw when her lips form into a snarl. “I don’t want either.”
I love her sassy. Her attitude makes me so fucking glad I didn’t die with Feo.
Won’t ever tell her that, though.
“You don’t have a choice. Pick.”
She finds a button Vasily missed earlier when she mutters, “What if I want to pick my boyfriend?”
“I’ll put him in a grave,” I answer without pause for consideration. I’m done playing games. Vasily is bad news, and I refuse to act as if he isn’t.
I wonder just how much Vasily has on Polina when fear floods her eyes long before relief. “You can’t do that,” she breathes out through panicked breaths.
“Why?” I step to the right, blocking the bag of cocaine her eyes snapped to the instant I asked my question. “Why, Polina?”
I have a feeling she’s referencing someone other than Vasily when she mumbles after a hiccup, “Because I love him,” but I lose the chance to ask who when she dumps her bag back on my bed and storms into my bathroom, slamming the door behind her.
15
YEV
“Can you run his image through facial recognition software?”
Kliment exhales deeply before replying, “Doubtful. The image is grainy as fuck, but even if I could clean it up, do you see any Russian intelligence agency letting someone in from this part of the world?”
He has a point. Kliment is still in the US with Alek, Ghost, and the rest of the gang. I made out I’d return after bringing Feo home, but anyone who knows me knew my plan was full of holes.
My entire world altered the instant my eyes landed on Polina again, not to mention the lies I told myself for months.