Total pages in book: 101
Estimated words: 94436 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 472(@200wpm)___ 378(@250wpm)___ 315(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 94436 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 472(@200wpm)___ 378(@250wpm)___ 315(@300wpm)
I steeled myself not to cry, not to beg, cradling my stomach. No, I wouldn’t cry or beg, I’d watch. I’d trust Jay was going to come. And I’d fight. For me. For our child. And for Jay. Because if anything happened to me, to our unborn child, he would be gone. All trace of humanity would drain from him like water draining in a bath.
He wouldn’t do anything like hurt himself. No. He’d hurt other people. He’d hurt everyone and anyone without remorse. He’d hurt himself most of all. Torture himself with guilt, and he would live every single moment of his remaining life in agony.
There was no way that was happening.
I wasn’t tied up. There was no need for it. We were in an obscenely decorated living room. Gaudy, full of gold, stiff couches and fifty thousand-dollar rugs. I was sitting on an ornate armchair, digging my fingernails into the fabric, watching father and son fight about my fate.
“Why are we bothering with this bitch anyway?” Dimitri demanded, yanking his hand from his father’s grip to pace the room.
His father stayed in one place, watching him.
“We have the manpower to take him over, with force,” Dimitri continued.
“What? And let the blood stain the sidewalks of this city?” his father asked coolly.
Dimitri’s eyes went wide. “Yes, Father, that’s exactly what we do. That’s what we used to do.”
His father shook his head. “And fighting like that almost ended us,” he countered softly. “The world has changed, and to survive, so must we. We do not fight like animals in the streets, drawing attention to ourselves. We work in the shadows, the darkest of which even the most penetrative eyes cannot see. We wear our suits, we look civilized in the daylight. We cultivate relationships. That is the way forward.”
Dimitri stared at his father. “Cultivate fucking relationships?” He threw up his hands. “You have gotten soft, old man.”
The man moved in a blur to even my eyes, and I was watching them very closely. His hands were around Dimitri’s throat before the man could blink. He wasn’t using the action to send a message either. Dimitri’s eyes bulged, and his face reddened as he let out spluttering, choking noises. He pawed at his father’s wrinkled but strong hands, but it was no use.
“You have gotten stupid, moy syn,” the old man retorted softly. “You were in diapers when we fought wars on the street. You are spoiled, weak and only playing pretend. You are insolent.”
Dimitri’s face was so red it was turning purple, his hands weaker now as they pawed at the wrinkled hands. The father still held fast, choking, killing his son.
“You forget that your blood may protect you from many things, but it does not protect you from me,” he continued, speaking slowly, elegantly. His accent was thick, but his English was impeccable. “I am still the head of this family. I am the reason this family still exists.”
Finally, he let Dimitri go, to collapse on the floor, gasping, coughing and clawing at his throat.
He looked down at his son with contempt. “You see only the surface. Jay Helmick is a lot more than his surface. He is smart. He is powerful. He is utterly ruthless. It would’ve been stupid and suicidal to approach him earlier. He was strong and had no weaknesses.”
The man speaking had ignored me since I’d entered the room, expect to stop his son from hitting me. Now his attention was focused on me, and my bones chilled underneath his gaze, my skin crawling.
“Now the man has a weakness. A way in. He will sit down with us and be forced to listen to our proposal. Jay Helmick is a smart man, he will not turn us down.”
I jutted my chin upward. “You’re wrong,” I contradicted him in a firm voice. Being the weak, vulnerable woman right now would not serve me. I remembered the conversation with Wren that seemed like a lifetime ago where I’d been certain I couldn’t be that type of woman. The wife of a man who dealt with the Russian Mob.
But in this moment, I found out that I could.
“Wrong about what, milyy?” Though the endearment was in another language, I recognized it, the patronizing tone, the way he barely even focused on me. To him, I was not worth focusing on. I was not a threat. Little did he know, that if he gave me the chance, I would be.
“Him sitting down with you,” I replied, straightening in my seat. I needed to stop cradling my stomach, calling attention to it. The second they knew I was pregnant, things got more dangerous for me, for Jay. For our baby.
It was a good thing that Jay didn’t know. It would’ve made him more dangerous and unpredictable.
“You’ve taken something from him,” I continued. “You,” I nodded to Dimitri, still wheezing on the floor, “put your hands on me. There is no going back from that.” I smiled, wide and seething. “He’s going to kill you all.”