Total pages in book: 92
Estimated words: 86238 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 431(@200wpm)___ 345(@250wpm)___ 287(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 86238 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 431(@200wpm)___ 345(@250wpm)___ 287(@300wpm)
“Honey, are you ready? Our guests are waiting.”
25
ANASTASIA
I’m taken aback when my entrance into the room Kirill guided Ghost and Katie into has me stumbling onto Dr. Marc slouched on the floor. It is obvious he is dead. His chest isn’t rising or falling, and there is blood splatter on the wall Katie’s bed is braced against. But there’s one good thing about spending your formative years on the street. Your shell hardens to unbreakable, and you become a pro at hiding your emotions.
I once used my skills on Alek, but with hormones and maturity altering my mindset, I can’t do it as readily to him anymore. I’m more of a blubbering idiot, which is even more frustrating than how horny I become when pregnant.
Ghost appears appreciative of the interruption, although the relief is barely seen through the anger darkening the scars on the right side of his face. “I’ll be there in a minute.” After running his hand over his jaw, tracing the tic there, his eyes drink in the ultrasound fluid spread across Katie’s stomach before they lift to Kirill. “Anything else? We have guests waiting.” During the ‘we’ part of his statement, he nudges his head to me.
Kirill’s focus doesn’t shift from his phone when he dismisses Ghost from the room with a stern, “No.”
The hairs on the back of my neck prickle when Ghost crosses the room in three quick strides before he bands his arm around my waist. I’m not frightened by his forlorn expression. I am gasping in response to Walter’s new position. He looks like he’s napping. The bruises on Alek’s knuckles expose he isn’t. He’s out cold, most likely for hours.
I inconspicuously wave to Yev as Ghost guides us to the hierarchy section of the table before nudging my head in the direction of Alek. From what I witnessed in the ultrasound room, Alek will need more than muscle to clean up the mess, and although things have been tense between Alek and Yev the past month, Yev doesn’t shy away from owning up to his mistakes.
I also don’t believe he should accept any blame for our downfall. He pleaded with me for hours to wait until I got Alek’s side of events before responding. I was too heartbroken to listen. He’s also the reason we found out Stace’s pregnancy was a ruse. When she caught Kirill’s attention, she finally thought she had hooked a big fish. Like all immature twits, she thought the only way she could keep him was by trapping him with a child.
She was wrong. Kirill only left that morning he tried to drown Katie because someone mentioned Stace’s stomach falling out of her dress when she was wheeled into the ambulance.
Shockingly, she’s still breathing. I’m not exactly sure why. Kirill has been rumored to kill women purely for wearing off-white instead of pure white. He is a menace to society, and the quicker Alek and Ghost get Lera away from him, the better it will be for all involved.
Lera is the sole reason I’ve continued my ruse with Ghost. That little girl was born fighting as I wish our daughter had. She deserves people in her corner, and for once, I realize that Alek has enough protectiveness for me and everyone else he cares about—including our unborn child.
After haphazardly shoving me into a chair, Ghost slumps into the one next to me. I doubt we will ever be close, he has a lot of issues to overcome as well, but I hate how twitchy he seems. He’s a bomb waiting to go off. One wrong move will see him explode.
Detonation becomes imminent when Katie and Kirill arrive at our table. Just like me, Katie isn’t given a choice as to where to sit. She is placed on a chair directly across from me, so try as I may, I can’t miss her groan when Ghost plucks me from my seat to sit on his lap.
I’ll pay for his public display of affection later tonight, but since that will involve Alek’s cock in some way, I’m more giddy than worried.
“What?” I murmur on a whisper before leaning in closer to Ghost. He whispered something but since Kirill commenced the first lot of toasts, I missed what he said.
“The test you got from the pantry.” I inch back to stare him dead set in the face when he murmurs, “I need one of them.”
To everyone not in our little bubble, we look super intimate. Only Alek knows we’re not because he can see the panic on my face when Ghost’s command reaches my ears.
He truly believes Katie deceived him because it is the exact same expression that reflected from the vanity mirror of my hospital bathroom when I ran in there to vomit. I was trying to convince myself that Yev lied, but the longer I stared at myself, and the more I hated what I saw, the more theories I added to Yev’s confession.