Total pages in book: 80
Estimated words: 77118 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 386(@200wpm)___ 308(@250wpm)___ 257(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77118 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 386(@200wpm)___ 308(@250wpm)___ 257(@300wpm)
As one of the poorest girls in town, yeah, I’d really enjoyed being spoiled, having someone take care of me for a change.
It wasn’t long before I was in love with the man.
But, objectively, it was that young, needy, obsessed kind of love.
All-consuming.
Unhealthy.
I’d say we were almost a year into shit when the cops showed up with a search warrant for the first time.
I’d been naked in bed and horrified as they charged in, pulling the blankets over myself, and watching as they all but ransacked Czar’s place.
Looking for, well, I didn’t know what.
At the time, I’d been naive and a little bit gullible. So when Czar said they were just harassing him, I didn’t press.
But then he got pulled over.
The car got searched.
He got searched.
There was another search of the house.
And, yeah, it didn’t matter how good the sex was, or how much I liked being spoiled, even I couldn’t ignore the red flags anymore.
Czar was clearly into some criminal shit.
I should know.
I worked for a fucking Irish mafia family.
“What do you want, Nyx?” Conor, the second-youngest Murphy brother asked when I walked into the office at The Bog one night before my shift.
“Conor, can I ask you a question?” I asked.
To that, he let out a sigh.
Conor was the moodiest of the Murphy brothers. Always scowling. Had a bad temper.
I don’t know why I chose him instead of the more steadfast and reasonable Cillian. Or the lighthearted Rian. Or even the more standoffish Sean or Eoin.
I guess maybe I knew that Conor would be the one to give it to me the straightest. And that was what I’d needed right then.
“Fine,” he said, clearly annoyed at the interruption.
“Is Czar a drug dealer?” I asked, watching as Conor’s brows furrowed.
“Are you fucking serious?” he asked, looking at me like I was a complete idiot.
“The car. The cash. The police always harassing him…” I explained, thinking he was insinuating that I was being paranoid.
“Jesus Christ, Nyx. You’re shacked up with the biggest heroin dealer on this side of California and you don’t even know it?”
I felt like all the blood rushed out of me at those words.
“Heroin dealer?”
“Czar,” Conor said. “Czar Petcova.”
“I know what his name is,” I said, snipping at him because I was so disappointed in myself.
“Petcova, Nyx,” he said.
“You keep saying that like you think I know what that means. I don’t.”
“Petcova. They’re a huge fucking Bulgarian crime syndicate. He used to work out of LA, but the heat he was under there smoked him out in our direction to lay low. His whole operation is still there. And spreading out everywhere in between.”
So, yeah, that was how I found out that I’d been dating a Bulgarian crime lord.
I wish I could say I’d smartened up right then and there, that I fell instantly out of love with him, that without the rose-colored glasses, I no longer liked what I saw when I looked at him.
That just… wasn’t true.
I stayed on with Czar for a full two years after that, ignoring all the red flags.
Until, of course, I couldn’t do that anymore.
Because Czar got arrested.
Then he got charged.
Then, eventually, he went away.
Locked up in the prison I looked at every single day.
I figured it was over then.
I had no choice but to move out of his house.
And in a desperate attempt not to have to return home with my tail between my legs to a mother who told me she thought the man looked like bad news, that she was the queen of bad news guys, that she could spot one a mile away, I found a bag of Czar’s cash I once saw him stash in one of the abandoned buildings in town, claimed it as my own, got an apartment, and tried to just… move on.
Forget about it.
Put him in my past.
Then the flowers started to show up.
The notes.
The reminders that I still belonged to him.
I’d just figured it was, you know, a desperate, lonely man trying to hold onto the woman he had on the outside.
But then, after I finally trusted myself to see another man again, the threats started.
Reminding me who I belonged to.
Telling me there would be consequences if I ‘stepped out on’ Czar.
For a while, I’d seen those threats the same way I’d seen the love notes. A man without any control on the inside, desperately trying to hold onto some on the outside.
But then the guy I’d been casually seeing nearly died in a “car accident.”
I’d even, with time, been able to tell myself that was just a coincidence.
Until the next guy was “mugged” walking down the street.
I mean, yeah, sure, we had petty crime in Shady Valley. I was sure people had been mugged or robbed. They probably even got roughed up sometimes.
But it seemed too coincidental.
Too vicious.
I decided one night to test my theory that men were getting hurt for getting involved with me.