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)
“Beckett—”
I can’t help the grin that pops onto my face when Beckett interrupts. “Don’t make me remind you who is the eldest of our duo. It might be by only twelve minutes, but I’m still your elder, Brecken, so you need to respect me.”
I used to say the same thing to Feo. He loathed it as much as Brecken does.
Once the storeroom echoes with nothing but the torrential rain hitting the boutique’s roof, I steady my stance before saying two words I know Polina will obey no matter how snowed under she is.
“Knees. Now.”
Polina barely flinches, but I know I’m getting through to her. For the first time in minutes, her throat bobs through a stern swallow.
“Don’t make me ask again, baby girl. Get on your fucking knees. Now!”
Euphoria pumps through me when my command breaks through her fear and she lands on her knees with a thud.
The pounding of my heart is heard in my voice when I snap out, “Now crawl to me.”
EPILOGUE
YEV
SIX MONTHS LATER…
“Knees. Now.”
As the woman I still masturbate to—in front of her now instead of by myself like a loser—lowers herself to her knees, I palm my cock, needing it to calm the fuck down before I make a fool of myself.
We’re on the Bobrov containership, only two doors down from the man who has threatened to cut out my nuts more than once during our visit to ensure our niece feels our love in person instead of via a phone screen, but a woman as ravishingly beautiful as Polina Kotova is still willing to get on her knees and suck my cock.
I am a lucky, lucky man.
And I only see things improving when she immediately complies to my next demand. “Now crawl to me.”
Even with grief still occasionally wreaking havoc on my mood, I can’t say things haven’t been great for the past six months. Brecken was reunited with his wife and daughters, Polina learned that even members of the CIA have hearts big enough to take in the child he wrongly believed he damaged beyond repair by forcing her out of the hidey-hole of a child pornography ring, and I discovered even men with squeaky clean personas can have skeletons in their closet.
Somehow Feo found out about the money I’d sent to him to finish school, and although to this day, I believe he paid his dues back tenfold long before he attended college, he didn’t see things the same way.
He wanted to pay back every dime I’d spent on his education, so he took up a trade I refused to dabble in six months ago.
His short stint in drug running had him stumbling onto more than crackheads seeking their next high. The drugs Maksim’s organization imported were laced with dangerous shit. It was killing more street kids than creating the addicts’ organized crime syndicates like the Bobrovs and Ivanovs crave.
When Maksim ordered the removal of the tainted drugs from sale, his supplier was pissed and gunning for blood, but instead of taking it out on the big dog, he went for the small fry. He set his sights on Vasily and his boss, Mr. Lenkov, the importers for that region of the country.
They were close to being taken out when Vasily made them a deal they couldn’t refuse and promised that not even the CIA could interfere with the new operation he’d helm for them in Kronstadt.
Since they had no idea Vasily was stealing a massive chunk of their shipments before making up the numbers by mixing the leftovers with dangerous ingredients, they agreed to his offer—on one condition.
He would kill whoever was responsible for both tainting their drugs and calling in tips to a local CIA officer who couldn’t be bribed.
Feo, Maksim’s youngest runner and the man who delivered the cocaine for Vasily’s last fake engagement party, was Vasily’s implied scapegoat.
I couldn’t help but smile when Brecken said Feo only had eyes for one girl in the months leading to his “disappearance.” Not even the promise of seven figures and an endless number of whores saw him agreeing to leave Annika’s bed for what would have been his final run if Vasily’s plan had gone off without a hitch.
Vasily shit bricks for almost a week when the Bobrovs turned on each other, and Feo was nowhere to be found, but eventually, he saw the distraction as a godsend. Instead of placing the blame for the tainted drugs on my brother’s shoulders, he accused Brecken—the CIA agent Feo had been feeding intel to so well he was close to taking Vasily down.
With a handful of crocodile tears, Vasily convinced his father that Brecken had threatened to pin a false drug charge on him.
He spun the story when he met with the Sicilians again.
He told them when he’d witnessed firsthand what Brecken was doing, he shot him as asked. Like fools, both his father and the Sicilians believed him.