Total pages in book: 89
Estimated words: 85224 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 426(@200wpm)___ 341(@250wpm)___ 284(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 85224 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 426(@200wpm)___ 341(@250wpm)___ 284(@300wpm)
This is not my mother in the bathtub. This is someone else. Another woman in a different bathtub.
And there’s blood. So much blood. Murky red water and a face I don’t recognize. The photo is snatched from my hand before I have a chance to make sense of it.
“Breathe.” I hear through the haze of my confusion.
My chest is heaving hard. Deep in the grips of a panic attack. Something I have not experienced since I was a child.
There is no breath in my lungs. I’m clawing at my throat, and he grabs my hands.
“Shh, shh, shh….” The words are whispered into my ear as his hand rubs my back.
The attack ebbs away with the soothing tide of his voice. I open my eyes and meet pale blue. And something else returns as I jerk away from him.
Anger.
My lip trembles when I speak. “This is why you took me.”
It’s the only sentence I can manage to get out. But it means so much more. And the guilt and shame in his eyes leave no doubts to the answer.
He could never love me. Because I’m damaged beyond repair. And he wanted a wife in name only. I don’t want him, I tell myself. I don’t want any of this.
“You had no right to know me!” I scream. “You don’t know anything about me!”
“I know everything about you,” he answers.
“I hate you!” I charge at him and the surprise makes us both tumble to the floor in a heap. “I want to cut your name out of my skin!”
I want to hurt him, the way he has hurt me. But instead, a split second of luck gives me the opportunity I need. He’s wearing his shoulder holster. And a gun. I take it before he regains his composure and scramble backwards on my legs, into the corner of the room.
He’s watching me.
And smiling. It’s not a normal smile. And it doesn’t fade even when I shove the gun up beneath my chin, meeting his gaze.
He moves closer. Slowly. Daring me with his eyes. Challenging me. Like he doesn’t believe I’ll do it.
I want to do it. It’s what I’ve been wanting for so long. So I don’t know why I’m frozen. Why I can’t let go of his gaze and just pull the trigger.
“Your move, Solnyshko,” he taunts me.
I don’t reply. And I can’t stop shaking. He moves closer still. And now my hand is trembling. Watching him watch me with disbelieving eyes.
“You want me to do it?” he asks.
Alexei sees the indecision on my face. And he revels in it. He moves too close. Capturing my wrists before I can do anything, trapping me in place with his too large body. Then he’s lying on top of me, pinning me against the floor. Rejoicing in my failure. Mocking me with his eyes.
“Do you want to drown, baby?” he asks.
“No,” I answer. “I want to fly.”
“You know I’ll never let you go,” he tells me. “Maybe I need this angel here with me, yes?”
“I hate you!” I scream in his face again.
I don’t expect anything from him. But he flinches. A visible reaction to my words that proves he isn’t the only one with power. I take this knowledge and run with it. I keep screaming the words over and over. His hand comes down on my face and he squeezes hard, forcing my lips together so I can’t speak. The gun in his hand caresses my cheek and down the sensitive flesh of my throat, soft and deadly.
“Do it,” I murmur beneath his hand.
He digs the gun into my flesh, holding my jaw in place with the force of it. For a minute, it looks like he is actually debating it. But instead, he grabs me by the hair with his free hand and holds me in place while he kisses me.
It isn’t nice. It isn’t sweet.
It’s pure rage and chemistry. He wants to hate fuck me right now. I would let him.
In fact, I want him to.
But in the end, he decides against it.
And then the only sound in the room is his heavy breathing and my angry sobs. He saw my weakness. He saw my past. And now he thinks he knows me. Thinks he can use me. Just like Dmitri did. Like everyone has always done.
“Go to your room.”
He moves away from me. There is still anger on his face as he gathers up the photos, but he has no right to be.
“I hate you!” I tell him again.
His shoulders tense, and my body trembles under the anger in his gaze. Directed at me.
“As you should,” he answers. “Because I will destroy what is left of you.”
I blink. And there are tears on my cheeks. Wetness. I hate that he’s made me cry in front of him. That he’s made me feel things he has no right to. Dug around in my past and my life. I need validation. That my thoughts are right. That my deepest fears are right.