Total pages in book: 74
Estimated words: 68931 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 345(@200wpm)___ 276(@250wpm)___ 230(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 68931 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 345(@200wpm)___ 276(@250wpm)___ 230(@300wpm)
“Thank you, Mama,” I say softly, closing my fist over the necklace as I rise to my feet. “I will treasure it.”
“Oh, it’s just a trinket,” she says, waving her hand. “I’m sure Alexei will gift you much prettier things.”
I freeze in the middle of putting on the necklace. “Alexei?”
She nods, looking a bit sheepish. “Did I forget to tell you? He’s coming by to pick you up first thing tomorrow morning. Wants you to spend the day together. He didn’t mention it to you? He was going to come by today, see you as soon as you got home, but his flight from Hong Kong was delayed.”
“No,” I say in a choked voice, dropping my hands. “He didn’t mention anything to me.”
The last time we had any interaction was at my eighteenth-birthday party, or rather, when he dropped me off at home with the admonition to rest and feel better. At least I think that’s what he said. I was mostly out of it during the car ride due to the headache and the lingering effects of the pills. In fact, that whole evening is a blur. What I do remember clearly is that Alexei promised me six months, and six months from late July is not the end of December. I have almost four more weeks of freedom. Except… did he also say my winter break is when we’d decide the timing of everything?
Fuck. He did, and I totally blocked it out of my mind, latching on to the six months as if it were a date carved in stone.
Idiot. I don’t know what I was thinking. No, it’s more like I wasn’t thinking. I was so giddy at the unexpected reprieve that I threw myself into college life with the reckless abandon of someone who has six months left to live. I took all the classes, went to all the parties, did every extracurricular activity I could, and whatever free time remained in my jam-packed schedule I spent exploring every nook and cranny of New York City, from well-known museums to invitation-only poetry slams in basements on the Lower East Side.
For the majority of the past five months, I was busy from the moment I opened my eyes at sunrise until I passed out from sheer exhaustion after midnight, and the only time thoughts of Alexei were able to invade my mind was at night, in my nightmares and dreams. Even on the plane ride over here, I was frantically fixing a bug in the app I wrote for my Intro to Computing class, so I could send it to my professor and score some extra credit.
To Mama, I must look like a deer in headlights because she says with fake brightness, “Well, now you’ve been informed. Have fun at Natasha’s, okay? Say hello to her family for me.”
“I will, thanks.” On autopilot, I walk out of the media room and head to the front door, all the anxiety I’ve been holding at bay with nonstop activity hitting me at once.
Alexei.
He wants to spend a whole day with me.
Tomorrow.
What the fuck am I going to do?
My head begins to ache. Hoping that the freezing evening air will stave off a full-blown migraine attack, I pull on my warmest boots, hat, gloves, and coat, and send a text to the bodyguards waiting downstairs that I want to walk to Natasha’s and thus don’t need a car.
I’m already halfway to the elevator when Papa’s hulking frame appears in the doorway. “Going out?”
His words are slurred, his face bloated and unshaven. His black hair, now liberally sprinkled with gray, is a disheveled mess, as are his clothes, with his white shirt stained and buttoned askew, the tails half-tucked into his partially unzipped slacks. No tie, no shoes of any kind, only one sock on his left foot.
I’ve never seen my powerful, handsome father look like this, not even when he was drunk out of his mind in the past.
“You okay, Papa?” I ask softly, an unfamiliar pity stirring inside me.
The man in front of me has never been the kind of dad they show in movies, the one who hugs you, has important talks with you, and generally acts like you’re more than an object to trade away. Still, he’s my father and he’s hurting. However broken and toxic his relationship with Mama has become, at one point he loved her, I’m sure. Maybe he still does, in his own twisted way.
He snorts and stabs his fingers through his hair, the gesture uncharacteristically erratic. “Why the fuck wouldn’t I be?” He lurches toward me, his movements reminding me of an overcaffeinated zombie. “So you’re going or what?”
I take a wary half-step back and lift my hand to hide the pendant hanging around my neck. “Yes, to Natasha’s. I’ll be back in a couple of hours. Is that okay?”