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)
When my shock renders me silent, he drags me into the servants’ stairwell and then shoots his eyes to the door he walked me through only seconds ago.
Satisfied his wife isn’t going to burst through it to ask what the hell is going on, he shifts his focus back to me.
He stares at me like he hates me, his nostrils flaring and his jaw tight.
My glare mimics his to a T. He seemed like a fair man. Just. I never considered he would be a monster who’d kill an innocent child for the stupidity of an adult.
“He wasn’t even five. His birthday isn’t for another ten days,” I stammer out when my grief becomes too much.
“And Yulia was only six. Six!” he shouts. “Yet you sent her to her grave in the cruelest way possible.”
“I didn’t know. I swear on Nikita’s life I had no clue—”
“Don’t bring her into this! Don’t use my wife to fix your mistakes.”
He frees my wrists from his hold before he steps back to pace the corridor. I can see the struggle on his face not to retaliate with more violence, sense his struggle. He wants me to pay for hurting Nikita, and I honestly want the same as well.
“This is my burden, so I’ll take the shame. I will tell her everything. I’ll admit to every horrible thing I’ve done.” I wait for him to look at me before adding with a sob, “But not until you tell me what happened to them.” I hiccup. “Did you kill them?” His silence agitates me to no end. “Answer me, goddamn it! Did you kill them?”
“No!” Maksim shouts, his angry roar reverberating in the tight confines of the corridor. “But don’t think that was my choice. I promised my wife I would take down the people responsible for hurting her.” He stares me up and down and then shakes his head in disgust. “But he was right. Keeping that promise may hurt her the most.” He hates his next words. His expression announces this, not to mention his tone. “She needs you in her life. I doubt she would have one if it weren’t for you. But you’re going to tell her the truth. You’re going to tell her everything when I say she is ready to be told.” He bangs his chest when he says I. “Do you understand, Zoya? Not a second before and not until I know she is strong enough to endure the pain your shame will place on her shoulders.”
Tears topple as I nod. I am both ashamed and relieved.
Nikita will be devastated when I tell her what I did, but I can live with that shame if it means Andrik, Mikhail, and Zakhar are okay.
After staring at me long enough to ensure he is confident I am telling the truth, Maksim signals to a man at the end of the stairwell to move forward.
“Take her to this address.” He hands him a business card and then returns his eyes to me. “That is as far as I can take you. He’s not exactly welcoming to visitors right now.”
He drinks in my solemn head bob for half a second before he spins on his heel and walks away.
He is almost back in the foyer of the penthouse suite when I slow his steps. “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry.”
It feels like the sun circles the planet a hundred times before he accepts my apology with the briefest chin dip.
I gallop down the servant stairs half a second later.
77
ANDRIK
“Idon’t give a fuck what Henry said. Find my wife!”
I slam down my phone as if it is an old-style rotary phone before smashing it with my fist. Henry has an army of millions because he is a fair man. He looks at the evidence to ensure his decisions aren’t based on the wizardry men in our field often use to get their way. His verdicts are swift but accurate, hence Zakhar, Mikhail, and I making it back to our compound relatively unscathed. But I’ve yet to hear the outcome of Zoya’s mistake.
Henry knows she threatened Dr. Sidorov, and that a sternly worded email is sometimes all you need to motivate a coward, but he wouldn’t issue a ruling without first speaking with Zoya.
I pleaded with him to let me accept the consequence of Zoya’s mistake, that she wouldn’t have made it if I hadn’t pushed her so hard.
Nothing I said got through to him, so I shifted my focus to Maksim.
He is as stubborn as me, and just as unhinged, so I knew the perfect way to get him to listen.
I used his wife against him.
I told him that she’d never forgive him if he took away the one person who kept her standing when her entire world crumbled beneath her feet, and how Zoya didn’t solely sell her eggs for herself. She also did it to buy Nikita textbooks and fund the first round of medication her father’s incarceration could no longer fund for her grandfather.