Total pages in book: 187
Estimated words: 177397 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 887(@200wpm)___ 710(@250wpm)___ 591(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 177397 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 887(@200wpm)___ 710(@250wpm)___ 591(@300wpm)
I nod. “We do. But not now. Not until I know she is safe.”
His quick check of his gun announces he’s on board with my plans, not to mention the wave of his arm across his body. He’s giving me the lead and, for once, plans to follow my orders.
He may even kill for me. That’s how badly he wants to protect his baby sister.
It is almost on par with the lengths I will go to bring my wife home safely.
“Wait. Hold up,” Konstantine murmurs a second before I gallop down the stairs. “You can’t go.”
“Is she here?” My gut is picking up something, but I can’t quite work out what it is. I sense Zoya’s closeness, but is that because her son is sleeping only doors down from my location?
“No,” Konstantine replies. “But Zak’s new heart is.”
His swallow matches the heavy sentiment on Anoushka’s face as she races to the bottom of the stairs at the speed of a bullet. “We need to go now, Andrik. His new heart is already hours old. It won’t hold out for much longer.”
I look at Mikhail, then back at Anoushka, lost on what to do.
My eyes veer back to Mikhail when he says, “Go with Zakhar. I will find Zoya, and I will keep her safe. I promise you.” He steps closer before sealing my fate with the only pair of eyes ever able to pull me out of the madness until Zoya was introduced to my life. “This is what she would want, Andrik.”
I nod, conscious he is right.
“When you find her, tell her I—”
“You can tell her yourself when I bring her home,” Mikhail interrupts before removing the bead from my ear, stuffing it in his, and then requesting directions from Konstantine for Zoya’s last known location.
Whatever Konstantine relays to him gets his feet moving as quickly as the wheels on Zakhar’s bed. His medical team wheels him across the foyer of the home I tried to escape more than once when I was his age.
73
ZOYA
With my intuition screaming at me to get out of Boris’s van before it is too late for me to plead innocent, I ask Boris to pull over a couple of blocks away from Myasnikov Private Hospital.
He does so, seemingly relieved.
“Anywhere here is fine,” I murmur when he glides further and further down the alleyway.
The van’s speed has barely dipped below thirty when he commences removing his belt and unbuckling his jeans. “I’ve been dreaming about this for hours.” He shifts his eyes to me. They’re brimming with lust. “But I had to exercise patience. I didn’t want us to crash.” He wets his lips while eyeing mine. “Your lips look capable of instigating a crash.”
I laugh like he’s cute.
It is either laugh or puke. I went for the one that causes less mess.
“Uh-uh,” I tsk when he flops out his erect penis. It’s uncut and smells as funky as the white ooze dripping from it. “There could be cameras here, Boris. You don’t want your mother to see what we’re doing, do you?”
He tucks his penis away so fast that I wouldn’t be surprised to learn his zipper nipped his skin.
“What I need you to do is hop into the back of the van for me. There are no windows in the back.”
“You want me to hop in there?” He hooks his thumb in the direction he refused for me to look over the past several hours.
“Uh-huh.” I bring back the cutesy sex pot that had him eating out of my palm. “Because I’m really hungry, Boris, but I don’t want your mommy to hate me. She will never let me be your wife when she sees all the naughty things I’m going to do to you.”
He swallows harshly before nodding. “All right. I can do that.”
He nods like he needs more convincing before he climbs through the minute gap between our seats.
While he pushes aside a box leaking a weird watered-down red liquid, I pretend to fluff my hair in the rearview mirror. The instant his back turns to me, I snatch the keys out of the steering column, throw them into an overflowing dumpster at the side of the van, and then hightail it down the street.
“Zoya?” I hear Boris shout when I’m half a block down. “Are you coming back? My mom would really like to meet you.”
I increase my speed, my footing stumbling when a loud bang reverberates down the isolated alleyway.
As my eyes pop open, Andrik’s threat from weeks ago rings through my ears.
Don’t test me on six because I can guarantee neither you nor him will survive the outcome.
He couldn’t have found me already.
Surely not.
When I recall how unhinged Andrik has been of late, I push off my feet.
I barely make it two steps before my wrist is grabbed and I’m pulled into a side alley.