Total pages in book: 94
Estimated words: 92549 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 463(@200wpm)___ 370(@250wpm)___ 308(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 92549 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 463(@200wpm)___ 370(@250wpm)___ 308(@300wpm)
Still, it made sense why she had run. A girl raised with every luxury, suddenly stripped of her security, left to fend for herself in a world that chewed up the weak. Of course she panicked. Of course she thought she had to handle this alone.
Once I had her cornered, once she had calmed down, we would talk.
No breaking down doors. No threats. No grabbing her and hauling her over my shoulder. No more attention-drawing scenes.
She would see reason.
I knocked. Actually knocked, like a civilized person, instead of the leashed animal I felt like. I had no choice. Not only Gregor but the boys over at the Four Monks were now on high alert over my actions in Chicago. The last thing I needed was any more attention.
A pause. Then the door creaked open a few inches.
But it wasn’t Marina standing there.
A skinny man with floppy black hair and a beanie pulled low over his eyes blinked at me. “Can I help you, bro?”
Whatever control I’d managed to hold onto snapped.
He opened his mouth to say something else, but I didn’t hear a damn word.
The only sound was the relentless pounding of my heart, urging me to kill.
I moved without thinking.
One second, he was standing there and the next, I had him by the throat, shoving him backward into the house. The door slammed shut behind us with a finality that should have terrified him.
It didn’t. Not yet.
I fixed that.
Driving him into the wall, I pinned him there with my forearm pressed against his scrawny throat. His eyes bulged, hands clawing at my arm as he tried—and failed—to pry me off.
“Who the fuck are you?” I growled, daring him to give me a reason to snap his neck.
A slow burn twisted in my gut, something I didn’t want to name, something I refused to acknowledge. My jaw ached from clenching so hard, but I didn’t loosen my grip.
Not even when his lips parted on a stuttering, useless breath. “I’m…I’m…I’m—”
Pathetic.
I ripped him off the wall just to slam him back against it. The drywall crunched under the impact, the sound sharp and satisfying. A dent. A reminder.
“Tell me who you are,” I ordered.
The boy trembled. Weak. Spineless. This was the kind of man she trusted to be close to her?
He was nothing. Not strong enough. Not good enough. Not worthy enough to even breathe the same air as her.
“I’m John,” he finally choked out. His face turned blotchy with terror, and then the unmistakable stench of piss filled the air. A dark stain spread across the front of his already-filthy jeans.
Disgust curled through me.
“Who are you to Marina?”
“No one,” he wheezed, feet scrambling to find the floor.
I lifted him higher, pressing him into the wall until his legs dangled uselessly. He made a garbled sound, something between a plea and a sob.
“I’m just her roommate,” he croaked.
I narrowed my eyes. “Marina wouldn’t have a male roommate.”
I didn’t know if that was true. I should have. But I had stayed away from her. Deliberately distanced myself from the one thing I had truly wanted during the short, miserable years of my marriage.
Her.
In Moscow, she wouldn’t have been permitted to live with a man. The only man she would have ever lived with other than family would be her husband.
And this little dick?
Not a chance in hell.
“She does,” he blurted. “But I swear, man, other than the chore chart, we barely talk. I tried hitting that, but something is wrong with her. She’s frigid or a lesbian or something.”
I stilled.
The casual filth in his tone, the complete lack of respect in his words. He was too stupid to realize he had just sealed his fate.
“Or maybe she just has higher standards.” I let the words slip out, sharp and cutting.
He frowned, as if the thought had never even occurred to him.
I was done.
This worm wasn’t going to be of any use to me. His presence here was already an insult. Letting him talk was only angering me more.
My grip tightened, forearm pressing into his throat, just enough to watch his face shift from red to purple to blue. His hands slapped against my arm, fingers scratching, grasping for relief that would never come.
His struggles weakened. His eyelids fluttered.
And then—nothing.
I let his unconscious body crumple to the floor. The impact rattled through the room, but I didn’t spare him another glance. I crouched, ripped his phone out of his pocket, and used his own shoelaces to hog-tie his limp form, leaving him lying in the center of the floor.
He would wake up with a headache.
He deserved worse.
With him dealt with, I turned my focus to Marina.
She wasn’t home, but if I could find her room, I might get answers. Maybe something would tell me why Solovyov was so interested in her.
What had Veronika given her? What could she have said that was worth hunting Marina down across an entire ocean?