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)
My knees soften.
The pain is swift.
Two dead.
And I suddenly realize I might not want to see what is on the other side of the curtain.
Trembling, I stumble backward to the chair and collapse into it.
Please, no, not Lev.
Not Igor.
The shock sinks in, and I start to cry.
3
BROOKE
I’m going crazy with worry.
After being ushered out of the ER, I’m stuck in my hospital room with a detective who wants to know everything I witnessed.
“Please, do you know anything about Lev or Igor?” I beg him.
But the man standing by my bed doesn’t care that I’m losing my mind with worry. He’s here to grill me, whether I like it or not.
His name is Detective Blaine Zell, or so he said when he found me crying in the ER and promptly dragged me to my hospital room, telling me I wouldn’t be leaving until I gave him a statement.
Five minutes with him and I already don’t like him. Since we got back to my room, he’s been talking to me like I’m guilty of something.
“Please, you must know something. Are Lev and Igor okay?”
I’m so desperate for news I’m ready to cry again.
But something tells me this guy would get off on it.
“How about we go over your story one more time and then we can find out about your friends,” he says, opening up his little notebook again. “So you were at the window when you saw the blast.”
“Yes,” I huff.
“And then what did you see?”
“Like I’ve already told you, I saw Lev lying on the ground and a man in a hoodie walking toward him with his gun aimed.”
“But this mysterious figure didn’t fire the gun.”
“No.”
“Just pointed it at Mr. Zarkov but didn’t shoot?”
Oh my God, douchebag, how many times do we need to go over it? “No.”
“And why do you think that is?”
“I know why he didn’t, it was because two of Lev’s men disturbed him when they ran outside, and he walked off.”
Detective Zell, a smarmy know-it-all who looks like he might be in his late forties, narrows his eyes at me.
“Tell me again how you knew they were…” He air quotes, “Lev’s men.”
The fact that he just air-quoted me makes me want to punch him in the face.
“As I’ve already explained, I know Lev, and I know they are employed by him.”
“Remind me, how well do you know Mr. Zarkov?”
This is the second time he’s asked how well I know Lev.
The first time I replied with a vague, “Well enough.”
This time, I reply with, “I’m his fiancée.”
Zell’s eyes light up, and then his lips slide into a smirk, and I immediately realize it was a mistake to tell him. Now he’s going to grill me harder, drill down as far as he can to get to any of Lev’s secrets I might be harboring.
“You’re his fiancée—well, congratulations,” he says with a fake smile. “I didn’t realize the mighty pakhan of the Zarkov Bratva was engaged.”
I narrow my eyes at him. “Well, now you do.”
He’s letting me know he’s wise to Lev’s association with organized crime. He’s trying to catch me off guard.
He looks at me like he’s trying to crack a code or something. I have a feeling I’m even more of an interest to him now that he knows I am engaged to Lev.
“So this hooded figure disappears, and you run outside into all that mayhem but get pulled back by the two men we found dead in the corridor leading into the ER. Then all three of you get attacked by a mysterious man dressed like an orderly.” He laughs like it’s ridiculous. “It sounds—”
“Like the truth,” I snap. “Because it is.”
“I was going to say, frightening.”
He wasn’t.
He’s trying to intimidate me. Trip me up so I’ll say something incriminating.
“Listen, can we do this later?” I ask, exhausted by my panic.
“You got somewhere else you need to be?”
“Yes, two people I care about just got blown up.”
“Two? There were three.”
My eyes dart to him. “What?”
“There were three people.”
Who was the third person?
“I overheard a police officer say there were two dead… please, can you tell me if that’s true?”
But he just smirks, clearly enjoying my desperation.
Jerk.
“What are you in the hospital for?" he asks.
“That’s none of your business.” I glower at him. “Look, I told you what I saw. About the hooded figure. About the orderly attacking me and those two men. There is nothing else to tell you.”
I throw back the bed covers and swing my legs over the bed. I’m not staying here for another goddamn minute.
“Where do you think you’re going?” Zell snarls.
“Since you repeatedly ignore my requests for information about my fiancé and my friend, then I’m going to find out for myself.”
“Get back into bed,” he growls. But when I don’t, he yells, “I said get back into the goddamn bed.”