Total pages in book: 126
Estimated words: 118309 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 592(@200wpm)___ 473(@250wpm)___ 394(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 118309 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 592(@200wpm)___ 473(@250wpm)___ 394(@300wpm)
I nod, eager for alcohol to numb the pain in my chest, but Maksim requests to be updated on the chef’s specials before I can order the strongest bourbon on offer.
“I’m not exactly sure what they are today.” If my jealousy weren’t suffocated by grief, I would take offense to the long stare she gives Maksim before she asks, “Would you like me to check with the chef?”
“Please. I heard the potato and leek soup is to die for here.”
Maksim’s reply barely leaves his mouth before Felecia snatches up our menus and skips into the kitchen. Her chipper personality would usually rub off on me, but I’m not in the mood today. Yulia’s sendoff was beautiful. Maksim didn’t spare a single expense, but I can’t stop pondering ways to make her father realize her death isn’t his fault.
“Can we please go home? I don’t want to be here.” I sound like a spoiled brat. Rightfully so. I am whenever I am in Maksim’s presence.
“Soon,” Maksim promises, his tone lowering from the bark he uses on his staff to the commanding rumble of a husband trying to force his wife back to the land of the living.
After squeezing my hand in silent support, he watches Felecia float across the room. She drops off a bowl of soup at the table near the door before collecting the tab from another.
When I signal for her service, still desperate for a numbing agent, she stuffs a handful of bills into her waitress apron before returning to our table.
“What can I get you?” she asks, forgetting she’s meant to update Maksim on the chef’s specials.
Again, I am interrupted before I can place my drink order. It isn’t Maksim. A waiter at the front of the restaurant is shouting for help.
“Is anyone a doctor? We need a doctor.”
Instincts have me shooting up from my seat without a single thought crossing my mind, but before I can get two steps away from the table, Maksim snatches up my wrists. He doesn’t pull me back into my seat, but his eyes silently plead for me to consider the consequences of my actions before jumping into the deep end without a life jacket.
“Please,” the waitress shouts, shifting my focus back to her customer. “He’s choking.”
Bile burns my throat when she commences conducting the Heimlich maneuver on a man with a headful of gray hairs and an arrogant expression even while being offered assistance.
“Get off me!” His voice is so familiar it features in my nightmares every night.
None of my dreams in the past week have featured anything but my kidnapping and when Maksim told me I was too late to save Yulia. They all centered around the death of innocent people, not the man who is meant to investigate and arrest the bad guys, so why was Detective Ivan’s voice included in the flashbacks of me lying semi-unconscious on a cold concrete floor?
My pupils widen when Ivan tries to pull away from the server trying to help him. His bruises have healed somewhat over the past five days, but they still reflect the damage a fist would cause to someone’s face when punched.
“I’m trying to help you,” the server curled around Ivan’s back announces when he rears up for a fight.
The waitress is doing everything right, but Ivan pushes her away from him and commences shoving his fingers down his throat like he knows the foamy white substance bubbling in the corner of his mouth won’t asphyxiate him.
His crimes will.
It takes several long seconds for the dots to commence connecting, but when they do, I’m hit with a savage amount of anger, not solely from how long it takes me to unearth the truth, but from the brutality of it.
“That’s why he looked at you like you were a ghost,” I murmur more to myself than Maksim. I lower my eyes to my husband, gasping when I realize he was almost taken from me by the very people who are meant to protect him. “He shot you.”
Maksim nods before he adds words to his nonverbal reply. “And he drugged you because, according to him, he doesn’t need to follow mafia law since he is the law.” The pain in his eyes cuts me raw when he murmurs, “He was going to kill you. He was going to kill my wife.” I can’t tell if he’s angry or relieved when he confesses, “But mafia law saved you.” I realize it is both when he sneers, “His name saved you.”
“No,” I deny, grateful for the latest splurge of memories. “You saved me. The man who rolled me onto my side knew I was your wife. That’s why he let me go.”
Before he can confirm or refute the sheer honesty in my reply, my eyes shoot to the front of the restaurant, where the waitress is squealing. Ivan is on his knees, and a puddle of vomit next to his shiny shoes announces he could be saved, but even with Maksim freeing me from his hold, I can’t force my legs to move.