Total pages in book: 159
Estimated words: 157450 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 787(@200wpm)___ 630(@250wpm)___ 525(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 157450 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 787(@200wpm)___ 630(@250wpm)___ 525(@300wpm)
“We’re home!” calls Anatoli from the hall, and he swaggers into the room carrying her duffel bag, expecting a hero’s welcome.
“Trust me,” Alessia whispers to Maxim.
He stares into her eyes, his face full of love, and he kisses the top of her head. “Always.”
Anatoli halts at the doorway. Stunned into silence.
* * *
Alessia turns to her father, who’s looking from us to the arsehole who kidnapped her. Anthony? Antonio? I don’t remember his name, but he’s a good-looking bastard. His glacial blue eyes are wide with bewilderment at first, but they narrow, coolly assessing me and the woman in my arms. I tuck Alessia under my arm, protecting her from him and her father.
“Babë,” Alessia says to her dad, “më duket se jam shtatzënë dhe ai është i ati.”
There is a collective gasp of shock that rattles through the room.
What the fuck did she say?
“What?” roars the arsehole in English, and he drops her bag as his face contorts with anger.
Her father glowers dumbfounded at her and me, his complexion becoming more florid.
Thanas leans toward me and whispers. “She’s just told her father she thinks she’s pregnant and that you’re the father.”
“What?”
I feel a little dizzy. But wait…She can’t possibly…We only…We used…
She’s lying.
Her father reaches for his shotgun.
Fuck.
* * *
“You told me you were bleeding!” Anatoli screams at Alessia, and a vein in his forehead pulses with wrath.
Mama starts crying.
“I lied! I didn’t want you to touch me!” She turns to her father. “Babë, please. Don’t make me marry him. He is an angry, violent man. He will kill me.”
Baba stares at her, both bemused and angry, while beside Maxim a man Alessia doesn’t know quietly translates everything she’s just said into English. But she has no time for this stranger now. “See,” she says to Baba, and opening her coat, she yanks down the neck of her sweater, revealing the dark bruises around her throat.
Mama sobs out loud.
“What the fuck!” Maxim bellows, and he lunges at Anatoli, grabbing him by the neck and throwing them both onto the floor.
* * *
He’s fucking dead.
Adrenaline coursing through my body, I take the fucker by surprise, knocking the breath out of him as he hits the floor with me on top of him.
“You fucking arsehole!” I roar, and punch his face, smacking his head to one side as I sit astride him. I hit him again as he struggles, taking a swipe at my face, which I dodge. But he’s strong, and he writhes beneath me, so I close my fingers around his throat and squeeze. He grabs my hands, trying to shake me off. He puckers his lips and spits at my face, but I dodge that, too, and his spittle falls back onto his cheek, so he’s covered in his own slime. This only enrages him more. And he bucks and bucks. He’s shouting at me in his own language. Words I don’t understand—but I don’t fucking care.
I squeeze harder.
Die, you fucker.
His face reddens. His eyes bulge.
I lift my hands, bringing his head up, and then slam it down on the kitchen tiles. Grateful to hear the loud thud.
Somewhere behind me I hear a scream.
Alessia.
“Get. Off. Me!” the arsehole gasps in broken English.
And suddenly there are hands on me, trying to pull me away. Fighting them off, I lean in close, close enough to smell his stale breath. “You touch her again and I’ll fucking kill you!” I snarl.
“Trevethick! Trevethick! Maxim! Max!” It’s Tom. He’s grabbing my shoulders, hauling me off. I drag air into my lungs as I stand, my whole body vibrating with fury and a lust for revenge. The arsehole glares up at me, and I find Alessia’s father standing between us holding his shotgun. With a venomous look, he waves the barrel, motioning for me to back off.
Reluctantly I oblige.
“Calm down, Maxim. You don’t want to cause an international incident,” Tom says as he and Thanas tug me back. The arsehole scrambles to his feet, pure loathing in his scowl.
“You’re like all Englishmen,” the arsehole snarls. “You’re soft and weak, and your women are hard.”
“Soft enough to beat the shit out of you, you piece of crap,” I snap.
As the red mist clears, I can hear Alessia fretting behind me.
Shit.
* * *
Alessia’s father stands between the two men, looking at each of them in consternation.
“You come into my house bringing violence? In front of my wife and my daughter?” he addresses Maxim and his friend Tom.
Where did Tom appear from? Alessia wonders. She remembers meeting him in Brentford and recalls him in Maxim’s kitchen with the scars down his leg. Tom runs a hand through his rust-red hair as he gazes at her father.
The translator leans forward and murmurs her father’s words to Maxim in English. Maxim holds up his hands and steps back. “I apologize to you, Mr. Demachi. I love your daughter, and I don’t wish to see any harm come to her. Especially at the hands of a man.” Maxim gives Baba a pointed look. Baba frowns and turns his attention to Anatoli.