Total pages in book: 140
Estimated words: 140940 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 705(@200wpm)___ 564(@250wpm)___ 470(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 140940 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 705(@200wpm)___ 564(@250wpm)___ 470(@300wpm)
Goddamn idiot. You saved my sister and. . .hurt yourself.
I let out a long breath and inhaled Emily’s hair some more.
Now I will never kill you. Now. . .you are truly my brother.
Misha and Emily already formed a violent line to kill the people who shot Maxwell. With Ufuoma’s arrival she would get in that line too. And of course, Valentina would be there.
Everyone wants to kill for Max. But none of them know that I will not be waiting in line. I will be bombing all that shot him.
I closed my eyes and tried my best to push away the looming war.
Sicarios. . .now walk in a city where my cubs lay their heads.
I yawned, noting how the stakes were now higher than ever.
After this dinner, will the Butcher join the war? And whose side will he stand on?
My thoughts slowly began to unravel as sleep beckoned.
And after a while. . .in the quiet of the night, with the soft sound of Emily’s breathing and the silent watchfulness of my men, I finally succumbed to the exhaustion that had been gnawing at me.
My last conscious thought was a silent promise to Emily, my sons, and even Maxwell.
I will kill them all.
Soon. . .this cold slumbering darkness swallowed me up, but. . .
This wasn’t the benign darkness that followed the flick of a switch, nor was it the peaceful shade provided by night’s gentle hand.
This was different.
It was an all-consuming void, an endless expanse of emptiness that devoured light, sound, and hope with a voracious appetite, leaving nothing but the cold touch of despair in its wake.
And I was not exactly asleep either. . .
What is this?
While I was no longer. . .up. . .I surely was conscious.
But it was not conscious with my eyes closed it was something else like dream walking, like when I talked to Pavel in my slumber.
I was very aware.
And then. . .
even though I was not standing. . .
I was falling. . .
And this fall wasn’t a gentle descent, the kind you might experience in a dream, floating softly towards the ground.
No, this was a harsh, relentless plunge, as if I had been ripped from the realm of the living and cast into an unseen chasm. I was caught in a merciless grip, sucked into a vacuum that spared no thought for mercy or respite.
What the fuck?!
Terror—cold, unforgiving, and relentless—seized me. It wasn’t just fear; it was a primal dread that clawed at my insides, icy talons raking over raw nerves, igniting a firestorm of panic within me. My heart thundered in my chest, a rapid, chaotic beat that felt as if it could burst free at any moment, its rhythm the only sound in the suffocating silence of the void.
I don’t understand. This must be a nightmare.
I tumbled helplessly through the darkness.
Powerless.
“No!!!” My silent scream echoed in the void, unheard, swallowed by the abyss just as I was.
This was no ordinary nightmare.
No mere figment of the imagination.
This was something else.
Something deeper.
Then, the fall abruptly ended, not with the jarring shock of impact, but with a disorienting, gentle halt.
And. . .
Where am I?
I found myself in a dark, damp basement.
The air was heavy with this musty scent of neglect and decay.
Wait. . .
Beside me, Emily lay sleeping on the cold, hard ground. Her chest rose and fell in the shallow breaths of deep slumber.
What kind of nightmare is this?
Confusion twisted inside me, a knotted mess of questions and disbelief. This couldn’t be real; I knew it, felt the certainty of it deep in my bones.
Yet here we were, or seemed to be.
Then, I looked up and froze.
Ten feet away, Pavel stood, dressed in a gray suit that absorbed the meager light in the space, his long black hair flowed around him like a dark halo. His expression mirrored my confusion. “Kazimir, this is not good.”
“What sort of dream is this, cousin?”
“It is not a dream.”
I eyed him.
Pavel scanned the basement. “This is. . .something else.”
Chapter thirty-nine
Kaz in Wonderland
Kazimir
Pavel’s words hung heavy in the dark, musty air.
Something else?
I gazed around, feeling out of place and on edge. The chill of the damp basement seeped into my very soul.
It was all alien.
Unsettling.
My nerves flared, and this overwhelming sense of dread filled me.
My mind raced, trying to piece together the transition from my bedroom to this dark, confined space.
“No, Pavel.” My eyes settled on Emily, lying motionless on the unforgiving cement floor. “There is no reality where I would allow my mouse to sleep on the ground. Someone would die. This is a dream.”
“It is not, Kazimir.”
But how could I accept his words?
Pavel had died by my own hands, now he stood before me as if no veil of death had ever parted us. He was only a figure relegated to my dreams.
I reached out to Emily.
“I would not do that, Kazimir.”