Total pages in book: 65
Estimated words: 63786 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 319(@200wpm)___ 255(@250wpm)___ 213(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 63786 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 319(@200wpm)___ 255(@250wpm)___ 213(@300wpm)
I turn and run.
I run all the way back to the main wing but eventually stop when Lev’s voice reaches me. It’s so guttural and sharp, I come to a halt at the base of the staircase. “I said stop.”
I swing back to him. He is walking along the corridor toward me, every step purposeful, every stride confident. He looks so self-assured and collected. Not at all like he just killed a man.
“You shouldn’t have been there,” he says.
I swallow thickly. “I heard voices.”
He eyes the spoon and ice cream in my hand. “So you thought you’d check it out and take care of whatever it was with ice cream and a spoon?”
“I had a craving.” I look up at him. “He was the man who attacked me at the hospital.”
“Yes. He was also the man who built and planted the bomb.”
I think back to the car explosion. The bright burst of light and the shockwave that rattled the glass in the windows.
Goosebumps creep along my arms.
“Who was he?” I ask, remembering the violent fear I felt that night.
“A bomb maker for hire. Don’t mourn him, zayka. His particular skillset has cost hundreds of people their lives.”
“But you killed him so easily.”
“Yes. Because he deserved it.”
I knew Lev was capable of dark things. But actually seeing him shoot a man dead scares me.
He offers me his hand, and because I don’t know what to do, I leave my ice cream and spoon on the step and take it and let him lead me into his office.
I’m not afraid of him. Or what he could do to me. I already know he would never do anything to harm me or his baby. But this sudden intimate insight into his world has rattled me.
He moves to his desk, but I linger at the door, as if moving any deeper into the room will pull me deeper into a world I don’t belong.
“Come,” he says. “I want to show you something.”
I cautiously approach the desk where he is spreading photos across the polished wood.
They are crime scene photos of what were once buildings and cars, even a private jet.
He points to a photo of a building with the side blown out and the interior spilling onto the street. In the center of the picture is a lone high heel lying on its side.
“Seventy-two people died. Most of them women. But he got the required destruction he was hired to create, so he considered this a win.” He points to another photo of what was once a boat. “In this case, the target wasn’t even on the boat, but an entire family of innocent people died.” He points to the plane. “And in this one, nineteen people never made it home.” The muscle in his jaw ticks as his dark eyes roam over the photos. “All of this destruction. All of these dead people. It all happened because of that man out there.”
Looking at the photos, I feel sick, and I wrap my arms around my waist. My baby isn’t even born yet, and I feel the need to hold it in my arms and protect it from the horrors I see in the pictures spread out before me.
Lev lays another photo out. It’s of his car. “He wanted to kill me, Brooke. And afterward, he tried harming you and our baby. I wanted to know who hired him.”
“Did you find out who?” I can’t take my eyes off the burnout wreckage. I could’ve lost Lev so easily that night.
“Yes.”
I lift my gaze to him. “Who was it?”
“Vlad fucking Bhyzova.”
16
LEV
Dammit.
Watching me put a bullet in that mudak’s head was the last thing I wanted Brooke to see. Especially when I know something between us has fractured. Witnessing a man’s murder has taken us another step back. I can see it in her beautiful face. The wariness. The fear. She’s wondering if I could ever turn that violence on her.
I brush my thumb over her cheek. “I will do whatever I have to when it comes to your safety and that of the bratva.”
I need to reassure her that she will never know that side of me. That I will not only protect her from my enemies but from that side of me too.
But it doesn’t change the facts. Brooke has seen something she can never unsee.
It was an error in my judgment, bringing him to my home. But I’m fucking exhausted. The plan was to get the information out of him, then dispose of him as quickly and efficiently as possible.
I walk with Brooke back to our room and sink down on the bed beside her. With our heads resting on the pillows, we face each other.
“I know what you saw tonight has frightened you, zayka. But tonight, I saved hundreds of people from becoming his victims.”