Total pages in book: 158
Estimated words: 145729 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 729(@200wpm)___ 583(@250wpm)___ 486(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 145729 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 729(@200wpm)___ 583(@250wpm)___ 486(@300wpm)
“I don’t believe we were formally introduced. I’m Joshua Tregre.”
Sasha inclined his head. “I’m well aware of who you are.”
The tone was neutral. Quiet. Joshua had trouble getting a handle on him. His leopard had gone insane, raking at him the moment he recognized the Russian as his number-one rival for Sonia. He’d watched this man with her, and even then, he couldn’t tell for certain whether Sasha had his own agenda or he really cared for her and wanted her safe.
“Sonia told me the story, why you took her and why you supposedly protected her from your father. I’m trying to understand why you didn’t put a bullet into that bastard’s head. If my father was threatening to murder the woman I loved, I’d kill him – if I thought he’d really do it.”
“Oh, he’d do it. I was ten years old when he beat my mother to death in front of me. I will always have the scars he gave me that day when I tried to defend her.” Again, Sasha stated the facts without emotion, looking at him with dead eyes.
Joshua paced across the room and back. He wasn’t certain yet how to get his prisoner to tell him what he wanted to know. He either had an ally or an enemy. He had to know which. “You want me to believe your father beat your mother to death in front of you and you still haven’t retaliated? That he put a bomb in your woman’s car and you still let him live? You aren’t afraid.”
Sasha sent him a faint smile. “When you grow up with a father like mine, you lose the ability to fear.”
“Like yours?”
Sasha shrugged. “He beat me at every opportunity. He shoved a gun into my mouth countless times. Mostly, he tortured and killed other men as examples of what he would do to anyone disloyal. He killed their families – including their children. He set his leopard on me more than once. Suffice to say, my father enjoyed hurting others, me included.”
He turned his back on Sasha, pacing away. No one used their leopard like that. Certainly, they didn’t turn them on their own child. Still, he knew it was the truth. Fyodor and Mitya both had fathers that did the same thing. Their lairs were run by cruel shifters.
“You’re related to Fyodor Amurov.” Joshua made it a statement.
“If you expect me to help you find him and turn him over to my father as a bribe to keep him from killing Sonia, think again. Fyodor is a good man. He did what he had to do. Wherever he is, I wish him the best. Secondly, and more important, Nikita would go back on his word to you and he’d kill Sonia anyway. You can’t trust him. No one can. He likes killing. I’ve seen him take out his weapon and shoot a man across from him at a nightclub because the man looked at him too long. He got away with it too.”
“Why the hell haven’t you killed him?”
“Sonia, of course.”
Joshua’s heart accelerated and adrenaline hit his system. He spun around and faced Sasha fully. “What the fuck does that mean? Sonia would be safe if Nikita was dead. At least according to you.”
“If I missed, she would have been his first target, and I wasn’t strong enough. I had to wait. To get my men in position for a takeover. Nikita always expects it. He has me watched. When he came back with the photographs of Sonia’s painting, he thought I’d helped her escape. He thought I knew. He almost killed me.”
“He didn’t.” Joshua made that very clear. He also made it clear he thought Sasha was giving him a line of bullshit.
Sasha shrugged again. “You are leopard, you can hear truth. Nikita didn’t kill me because he realized I had no idea she was alive. I’ve worked my entire life to keep him from seeing any emotion, but I gave myself away. I was so relieved. So happy. The world needs Sonia. She’s remarkable.”
Joshua inwardly winced. He wanted the man gone. He wanted him to be the enemy. It wasn’t shaping up that way.
“Why didn’t you kill him? You’re obviously strong enough now.”
“Fyodor has been in hiding for several years. I wasn’t willing to go that route. There are more of them.”
“More?” Joshua raised an eyebrow.
Sasha nodded slowly. “Men who run their lairs cruelly. They murder their women and daughters. Or they sell the daughters to other lairs knowing the husbands will eventually kill them. I refuse to allow it to continue. Someone has to do something about it.”
Joshua stilled. “So your plan was to remain with your father…”
Sasha shook his head. “My plan is to take over. The other vors will accept me. Takeovers occur often, and if Nikita is dead, it will be a natural ascension.” He shrugged again. “Perhaps we will work together one day.”