 by Bethany Kris.jpg)
Total pages in book: 49
Estimated words: 47716 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 239(@200wpm)___ 191(@250wpm)___ 159(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 47716 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 239(@200wpm)___ 191(@250wpm)___ 159(@300wpm)
The Russian Guns series should be read first.
*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************
White Sand, Black Beauty
Foreword: White Sand, Black Beauty was done by request of quite a few readers who wanted to see more of that “first time” from the flashback in The Arrangement. So, you’re going to find a sixteen-year-old girl doing bad things and an eighteen-year-old boy who encourages her to do it.
*
“Anton?”
“Hmm?”
“How did you fall in love with me?” Viviana asked.
Anton looked up over the edge of magazine he was reading. Viviana sat on the rocking chair in the corner, her hand ghosting over the five-month pregnancy bump shaping her stomach round. They’d found out earlier in the day that they were having a boy. The baby hadn’t cooperated the last two ultrasounds, but they finally caught him this time.
Viviana still couldn’t pick a name.
“Anton?” she asked again.
“Instantly,” he said quietly. “Like I was gasoline soaking into the sand and you were a match. Smoke, that’s all that was left the second I saw your eyes.”
“Some people think that kind of love doesn’t exist.”
“Some people aren’t us, baby.”
Viviana smiled. “True.”
He adored that when she was sad about something, she could still smile her way through. He also hated it that she was sad about something and talking her way around whatever it was.
“Vine?”
“Hmm?”
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
“My first instinct today after we knew the gender was to call my parents and tell them,” Viviana admitted softly. “It took me an entire ten seconds to realize they wouldn’t pick up that call. I know because I watched the clock on the wall. And you were standing right next to me, but I just ... felt like I was standing there by their graves again, looking at the filled in spaces, so alone.”
Anton cleared his throat, sitting straighter in the bed. “Actually, you were sitting ... both times.”
Viviana’s head snapped up, her gaze meeting his with unshed tears welling. “What?”
“When you buried your parents, after everyone was gone and you were the only one left, you sat beside their graves. You didn’t stand.”
“How do you know that?”
“You were never alone, Vine.”
Not since the moment he met her, anyway.
Anton Avdonin fell in love with a girl on a white sand beach.
She was beautiful. A dark-haired, brown-eyed paradise and nothing like who he thought she would be. An angel. Too innocent to know better. Kind of perfect. But he knew, behind that innocent face, was a blackened beauty waiting to show.
Even if her beauty was blackened by him.
After all, she said yes.
*
If it were possible, Anton would have sunk as deep as he could manage into the leather backseat of the rental car to avoid the heavy, piercing stare of his step-grandfather. Nicoli Avdonin was watching him through the rear-view mirror from his spot in the driver’s seat, silent and stoic. There were a million and one things the older man was saying with his gaze.
It was kind of fucking sickening how a simple look could chastise an eighteen-year-old without even saying a word.
“I expect you to act like the respectful, charming young man your mother and father raised you to be on this trip, Anton,” Nicoli finally said, breaking the silence. “This is your last chance to clean up and figure out what you need, my boy. I suggest you take the time to do so.”
Anton scowled at the window. Things weren’t as out of control in his life as people were making it out to be. What difference did it make if he liked dabbling in ecstasy and blow once in a while? His family fucking sold it for profit, for Christ’s sake. So he’d gotten into some shit with a bull for the Bratva. Big fucking deal. Sprained his wrist while he busted up his knuckles on the idiot’s face for running his mouth.
Wincing, Anton was also reminded on the bullet he took that lodged in his shoulder. There was that, too. Sasha dug it out, at least.
“So my punishment is a vacation to Barbados?” Anton asked sarcastically. “What, clear my head while I lay on white sand and see how many girls I can fuck in—”
“Anton Daniil, I swear to God,” Nicoli snapped, frustration lacing his tone thick. “Not every woman needs to be a conquest for you to conquer. If you’d have a little respect for women, the results might surprise you.”
Anton snorted under his breath. “Right. Listen, if they’d have more respect for themselves, I’d show them respect back.”
As of now, Anton was just fine and fucking dandy with going about his exploits the way he wanted to. Fucking when he felt the need and dropping them before they turned clingy.
“They’re all willing,” Anton added quieter. “It’s not like I’m forcing anybody, Grandpapa. You don’t have to worry about that. I’m not a fucking monster.”
Just learning to be, he thought wirily.
He was the prince, after all. The sole heir to a crime dynasty. And as of a month ago, he was officially a Vor. A made man for his Bratva family. Finally beginning to fill the shoes everyone around him wanted him to. The path to his future as the boss was paved with guns, drugs, and blood.