Total pages in book: 104
Estimated words: 104127 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 521(@200wpm)___ 417(@250wpm)___ 347(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 104127 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 521(@200wpm)___ 417(@250wpm)___ 347(@300wpm)
“I love you too, Gideon.”
He seals his mouth over mine, kissing me with enough passion and love to light me on fire and make me forget everything else.
No more Russians.
No more Roman.
Just Gideon and me.
I like the sound of that.
44
GIDEON
My work has become tedious. Normally, I wouldn’t care.
But with Sasha in the house, I can’t help but be distracted.
Case in point: she’s lying in her bed, on her stomach, feet kicked up behind her, and she’s talking to me.
Yep. She’s having a full conversation with me. Despite the fact I’m not even there.
Obviously, she’s smart enough to realize there’s a camera in the room. But she’s taken herself to name the camera Smoke and talk to it/me like I’ll answer.
The volume is on low, but I can hear her. She’s rambling about God knows what.
“How many records do you think I unknowingly hold?” she asks. I eye the camera, waiting for her to answer. “They’re not official records, mind you, but when I was growing up, my parents, Roman, and I had competitions. I am the proud winner of many medals. One, I’m able to spin a pillow on my finger for fifteen minutes. Yep. That’s right. Also, I once won the family record of the fastest time to eat five entrees. Not four, five. I can hold my breath for only thirty seconds, though. Roman won that one, but I won the spelling contest. I’m a nerd.”
I can’t stop the smile that spreads across my face.
At least she’s entertaining herself.
“Boss.” Julian’s voice has me pulling my attention away from the monitor in which I’m watching Sasha. When our gaze meets, his eyebrow is lifted.
“She seems to be enjoying herself.”
My hand reaches out, and I silence the footage.
Her words are for me and me alone.
Every time Sasha speaks to the smoke detector, she’s giving me little gifts about herself. Telling me things that I wouldn’t think to ask but want to know about.
I want to know everything about her. She consumes my every thought, and by the way Julian is looking at me, he sees it too.
“What do you need?” I bark, clearly pissed off, and I think he realizes that because he gives me a nod before motioning to the chair.
“Can I sit down?”
“Yep.” The chair screeches as he pulls it away from the desk, and then he’s lowering his frame into it. “Talk.”
“We need to go over some things.
“I’m listening.”
“First things first, Lorenzo ordered more.”
“Good. That should help make up for the loss of money from the missing order. Did you ever find out what the fuck happened to that shipment?”
“Lost at sea, if you can believe it.”
“I can’t. But it doesn’t matter. Lorenzo has his shit, and since we were able to give him the merchandise we had in the warehouse. No harm, no foul on his part. On ours, however, the lost money is definitely going to hit us where it hurts. We can’t have any other fuckups. This new order better go off without a hitch.”
“It will.”
I drum my fingers on the desk. “Okay, what else is going on?” Hopefully nothing else. After discussing Markov with Nikolai and the heads of other Russian families, I’m ready to call it a day.
“Let’s talk logistics.” Julian looks tense, and I can understand why. A lot rides on Sasha being safe. I might not come out and say it, but Julian knows she means a fuck ton to me.
“Okay.”
“We know Dima is involved. We know he wants the money Roman took, but where do you think it is?”
“Sasha doesn’t know.”
“And you believe her.”
My fist hits the desk. “Yes, I believe her.”
“Then we need to find someone who might know.”
“I want to talk to everyone who knew Roman.”
“That’s going to be hard, seeing as he was working for the Russians too.
“There has to be something we’re missing.” I stand from the chair.
“Where’re you off to?”
“I’m going into the city to talk to Jax. Maybe there’s something on the surveillance footage or another Russian we can get to? Maybe he had another friend.”
“And what do you want to do here? Does Sasha need to be locked up still?”
“Nope. All unsavory characters are gone. However, when I’m with Jax, I’ll discuss upping our security. She’s getting restless. I’m going to see about getting a tracking device for her and hiring more men to secure the property, just in case.”
“You don’t think we have enough men?”
“There are definitely points of entry that aren’t secure. I’m not worried the Russians will come here. It would be suicide. But I’d rather be safe.” I let out a sigh. “I’ll get Jax to take care of it when I’m there. Okay, I’m off to tell her the good news myself.”
I stride out of the room and make my way to hers.
When I enter, I find that she’s still in the same position, still talking to me via the smoke detector.