Total pages in book: 95
Estimated words: 89090 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 445(@200wpm)___ 356(@250wpm)___ 297(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 89090 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 445(@200wpm)___ 356(@250wpm)___ 297(@300wpm)
I slap him so hard his face flings in the opposite direction, and my hand burns as painfully as the hole his comment charred into my heart. I want to call him a liar before demanding he apologize, but that would make me a hypocrite.
I am whoring myself out. Just not for any reason I can tell a man barely holding on by a thread.
Slowly and purposely, Yev returns his head front and center. He doesn’t look at me. He doesn’t even project his anger in my direction. He just sits in silence, peering down at his bruised hands, until Saka pulls up to his apartment building like he has the address of every member of Nat’s inner circle programmed into his GPS.
I have no intention of following Yev inside until he says, “They wouldn’t let me bring him home. Said some shit about it not being safe for us to venture back to Russia yet. Feo had to stay, so I had to stay too. It was our agreement.”
Oh, Yev.
When he stalks to the front door of his building, his shoulders low and his chin balancing an inch from his chest, I remember the reason he never purchased an apartment in the more desirable areas of Kronstadt.
It took Feodor a year to find out where Yev had been left when he was shipped off to live with his father. By then, Yev had been jumped by gang members wanting to prove they were tough, spent a month in juvie for theft, and was so skinny he weighed half what his brother did, even with him standing an inch taller than Feo.
He was a mess, but Feo’s father didn’t see a boy crying out for help. He saw a runaway, a street kid, a boy he didn’t want his son to become.
He thought he was helping Feodor by trying to keep them apart.
All he did was make their bond stronger.
It was Feo who learned about an underground fight ring that didn’t have any weight or age restrictions. He was the one who pleaded with the nuns to take Yev back. He never stopped fighting for his brother, and the only thing Yev could give back those first couple of years was a promise to do the same for him if he ever needed it.
Feo needed it four and a half years ago when his father died in a traffic accident. He was eighteen and drowning in the debt he inherited from his father. Yev paid it off before making out his brother’s university fees didn’t almost deplete his bank account of every penny he had each term.
Part of me wonders if that’s why he accepted Alek’s offer to become Ana’s shadow abroad. The pay was so good it ensured Feo would stay in school, and then Yev wouldn’t need to admit how he left me high and dry when I needed him the most.
After a deliberation nowhere near as long as it deserves, I thank Saka for the ride before telling him I’ll find my own way home. I have no clue what I’m going to walk into at Yev’s apartment, but I’m reasonably sure I don’t want anyone witnessing our confrontation.
Ten seconds too late, I remember that my cell phone is locked in the middle console of the SUV. It’s too far gone for Saka to spot the frantic flap of my arms, and he’s probably deafened by the roar of the highway still packed with vehicles, even at this late hour, to hear my shouts for him to stop.
It’s for the best. No one but Vasily blows up my cell phone, and after his disgusting performance tonight, he is the last person I want to speak to.
There’s no doorman in Yev’s building, no smiling person in the foyer to greet me. That isn’t the way things work around here. This building is for hardworking people who understand life isn’t handed to them on a silver platter—people like Yev and Alek.
After taking a moment to breathe out some of the nerves in my stomach, I ride the elevator to Yev’s floor. They’re still fluttering in abundance when I knock on his door. It’s locked. I checked before searching under the mat for the key.
When the door handle jiggles, I steady my breathing and brace myself for World War III.
It arrives as expected, but it isn’t Yev standing on the other side of the door, staring at me in shock. It is a pretty blonde with vibrant green eyes and an angry snarl.
“I should have known,” she murmurs with a childish roll of her eyes. After snatching up a fringed purse with a set of keys, she darts by me. “Good luck with that. You’ll need it.”
Her abrupt departure has me regretting my decision to chase down Yev until I glance into his apartment. It is a mess. Bottles of alcohol and beer coat almost every surface. There are numerous half-eaten takeout containers, and the smell is horrendous.