Total pages in book: 95
Estimated words: 89985 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 450(@200wpm)___ 360(@250wpm)___ 300(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 89985 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 450(@200wpm)___ 360(@250wpm)___ 300(@300wpm)
“Let him go,” Finn Byrne Sr. said.
“Let him go? Do you seriously think I am just going to hand over your son? No, I want something in return,” Ivan said.
“What?”
“Quite simple really, I want Niamh. You know, brown hair, brown eyes, you’re her shit father, but I kind of like her,” Ivan said. “You will get your son, and I will get Niamh, and I’m not negotiating.”
Ivan hung up the phone, and I was ready to fucking scream.
“What the fuck are you doing?” I asked.
“I’m waiting to see what we’re dealing with.”
“My dad won’t call back. He doesn’t do deals with the likes of you,” Finn the son said.
I was already sick of thinking about the name Finn.
I didn’t know for sure how much time had passed, but then Ivan’s cell phone rang.
We needed to make a deal.
I had to get to Niamh.
“We have a deal,” Finn Byrne said.
****
Niamh
Present Day
This was a trap.
My father was not going to let any man from the Volkov Bratva get the better of him. It had been hard to hear the full conversation, as it was vague. The Volkov Bratva had my half-brother, Finn—the son and child my father did want—his eldest, who he wanted to guide and build the empire with.
I didn’t know exactly where we were. I’ve been forced onto my knees on the cold and dirty floor. The stench was making my head spin.
I had a horrible feeling I’d lost the baby I was carrying. I hadn’t taken a test, but I had done the math, and I understood basic biology. I was pregnant with Peter’s baby.
We were going to have a baby, or we might have been. I didn’t think … after the beating I’ve just been given, I didn’t know if I still carried his child. There was a lot of blood between my thighs. The bottom of my white dress was now stained with blood.
My father had stopped when he saw it, and I think he might have known what he’d done. He seemed happy about it.
Pain sliced through my whole body.
I hoped Peter had gotten away, but then the memory of him with a gun … I didn’t know why that bothered me so much. Guns didn’t scare me, I was used to men holding guns. I’d been around them all my life. I even knew how to fire a gun myself. One of my father’s men had shown me. I think he took pity on me and the fact my own father didn’t love me enough to care what happened to me. Either way, guns didn’t matter to me.
Peter and a gun, did matter. It meant something, but I didn’t know what.
Until I watched as Peter walked into the room with another man, who for some vague reason I recognized. Then, there was my brother, who looked like our father. He considered it a curse to look exactly like Finn Byrne, but he loved being the oldest son.
I looked at Peter, and I knew he must be part of the Volkov Bratva. That was the name that kept going on repeat. I wanted to ask him what this was all about.
He didn’t have a gun in his hands, but gone were the gym sweats and jeans I’d become accustomed to. Before me stood a man of business. A man I knew to avoid. The ink on his arms and chest all made perfect sense to me now.
I’d been lied to.
****
Peter
Niamh was on her knees, on the dirty floor, and I didn’t need to be a doctor to know she’d lost the baby. The blood on her thighs and coating the edge of the dress was a clear sign of that.
The bruises on her face and body already showed what she’d been through. Parts of the dress was torn, which could only come from a belt buckle, and one glance at Finn Byrne’s buckle, even in the low light, I saw the staining from it. He’d whipped her with the belt. He’d beaten her. The urge to grab my gun and end that son of a bitch increased.
“Hello, Finn. I don’t think we’ve been properly introduced. I’m Ivan Volkov—”
“Let go of my son.”
Ivan stopped and he sighed. “You know if there’s one thing I cannot stand, it’s rudeness, and you’re being so very rude.” He gave another tut.
Niamh cried out as her father’s grip on her hair tightened. “I want my son, or she is going to have her head blown wide open.”
Ivan clapped his hands. “I do love it when the theatrics are thrown about, but I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”
Now, this is what I loved about Ivan Volkov. Nothing ever went down without him being one hundred percent aware of the danger, and he always made sure he had a Plan B, Plan C, and Plan fucking D.