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)
He smiled. “Peter’s a good cook. He learned to fend for himself. He doesn’t like to rely on anyone.”
This made me stop. “He doesn’t?”
“No, relying on anyone else always got people into trouble. You’re aware of some of Peter’s past, I assume?”
“Yes, he told me what his father used to do. How he turned it into a game for him.”
“Peter saw a lot of people he assumed were his brothers or sisters get killed, when in fact, they were just strangers. Lost souls if you will, that fell through the cracks of the system.”
“Is that what you were?” I asked.
Ivan smiled. “No, I wasn’t lost, I was nothing more than trash, tossed out because I wasn’t what my father wanted. I had a stutter.”
“A stutter?”
“Yes.”
“And your father kicked you out?”
“Actually, my father sent me off to be killed, but the guy who was sent to destroy me couldn’t do it. My only problem was a stutter. Probably the biggest mistake that man ever made, because I was young, and I knew in that moment my father was not going to see the last of me, and he didn’t.”
“You rose up.”
“Yes, I rose up, and I made sure he suffered before I took over and created what you see before you now.”
“You’re a rich, powerful, and wealthy man.”
Ivan nodded.
“But you’re not happy,” I said.
He tilted his head toward me. “What makes you say that?”
“Because … you don’t seem it.”
“I am very happy. I have three men who are happily married, having children, and creating an empire.”
I took another bite of my oatmeal. “But you’re not.”
Ivan stared at me. Silence fell between us.
“When I met you in that hospital on the day my mother was getting her stomach pumped, you were the same man you are today. You have the best suits, and you are as dangerous now as you were then. But that day, in that hospital, you died. Your happiness went with it.”
“You speak so bluntly with a man you claim to be so dangerous.”
“You can hurt me,” I said. “I know you can, but after all these years, you didn’t forget me. I’m not claiming you love me or anything like that. I made an impression on you that day. How?” The only reason I was in this penthouse suite, protected, and married to one of his Brigadiers was because of what I did.
“I told you back at the hospital. I was a stranger. You weren’t looking to help me, or to make yourself feel better. You just behaved like a decent human being, and from where I come from, that is rare. I owe you, Niamh.”
I laughed. “You don’t owe me anything.”
He shrugged. “Yes, I do.”
I stared down at my oatmeal. “What was her name?” I asked.
Ivan didn’t say a word.
Finally, I looked up. “I’m not going to claim that I understand what you’re going through, or went through, because I don’t. I lost a baby, and I think last night I suddenly realized what that meant to me, and it scared me. I lost a child, and don’t know if it was a boy or a girl … I think it was too early into the pregnancy to know, but you lost someone you loved. You lost a wife, a woman who meant something to you. You’re not married now either, so she made that much of an impression on you that you haven’t found someone else. Peter doesn’t know. No one else knows, only I do. Wouldn’t you like to talk about her?” she asked.
I waited.
I didn’t even know why I was being nice to Ivan. He sent a man to manipulate me, to get me pregnant.
Finishing my oatmeal and coffee, I got to my feet, about to leave, when Ivan’s voice stopped me.
“She was beautiful,” Ivan said.
I stopped and turned to look at him. I didn’t say a word as he looked at me. There was no sadness or pain, or even guilt. It was like Ivan was completely numb.
“I met her when she was eighteen. I was older than her by ten years,” Ivan said.
I knew he was near his forties now, and she was dead five years ago.
“I had already taken back what was rightfully mine. Killed my father, and was putting my Brigadiers in their rightful places. Everything was going exactly the way I wanted. Then, one day, I parked my car next to hers in a parking lot of a mall. I didn’t even know why I had gone to the mall. Perhaps to pick something up for the woman I was fucking at the time. When I came out, there she was, yelling at my inconsiderate parking.”
There was a smile on his lips and I knew he wasn’t with me in that moment, but back in time, when he first met her.