Total pages in book: 92
Estimated words: 86238 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 431(@200wpm)___ 345(@250wpm)___ 287(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 86238 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 431(@200wpm)___ 345(@250wpm)___ 287(@300wpm)
Her laughter is ear-piercing and ends with a snort. “I wasn’t pinning anything on Kirill.”
When she strays her eyes to the door we’re standing next to, my stomach drops to my feet. “Why would you want to pin a pregnancy on Ghost?”
She straightens my pendant so it sits in the middle of my chest while murmuring, “Because anyone in the know understands he’s the big fish around here.” Once it is nestled directly between my breasts, she raises her eyes to mine. “You should be careful. Men around here will make up any lie if it suits their agenda. They’ll even make it look like an accident when it wasn’t.” With her eyes on my stomach for the second time, she murmurs, “Don’t let it happen again. You might lose more than your daughter this time around.”
26
ALEK
When Ghost enters his office with his eyes blazing and his fists balled, he glares at me as if I am a piece of dog shit on his boot. I smirk at him, aware I am in for the fight of my life but willing to give it a go since he’s saved mine more than once.
I wouldn’t have survived the boys’ home without him. I had an attitude a mile long and a wish to take down anyone in my path. He was the only one who didn’t put up with my shit, and on more than one occasion, he took the blame for stuff that would have seen me shipped back to my father’s family.
Since they made my father the abusive shit he was, I bunker down and prepare for World War III when Ghost’s cravings announce he wants more than a helping of Katie’s cunt.
He’s going back to the crutch I used to stop the pain that regularly rocketed through my head when Ana wasn’t there to smother the pain with lust.
He wants the brick stored in his floor safe, and the tasteless cunt of a woman undeserving of his time. Stace has arrived at the festivities, and her unexpected presence has me unsure of who to direct my focus on.
I go for Ghost when he snaps out, “Move!” His voice is as lost as the lifelessness in his eyes. He is dead on the inside, a direct replica of how I felt when Anastasia’s train clattered down the tracks.
“Gh—”
He cuts me off with a glare of a madman. “Move!”
“Fine.” While cussing under my breath, I step back with my hands held in the air. He’s so unhinged, I can’t be certain he won’t reach for his gun, and as much as I’d give anything for a second chance to prove I’m not the wimp he beat for the top bunk that was rightfully his for years before I demanded it to be mine, now is not the time. Stace’s presence tonight proves Ana isn’t safe. She’s far from being protected from the fuckers always out to get her, and I sure as fuck refuse to force her to struggle without me again.
“Fuck…” My lungs deflate like an airless balloon when Ghost dumps a pregnancy test onto his desk so he can remove the chair and rug sitting on top of his safe. Its positive sign is brighter than the one Ana stashed in my pocket yesterday. “You know—”
He cuts me off with a growl this time, then a heap of pained words. “Two months. Two whole fucking months I’ve been working to get her out, and for what? For her to switch her focus from me to him.”
Ghost acts tough, but in reality, he’s the unwanted boy no one cares about. He lived at the boys’ home full-time because no one wanted a kid with a scarred face. I know that, and so does he.
But Katie doesn’t see him in the same light as those fuckwits. She’s been good for him, and if he can’t see that, losing himself to drugs and a bitch like Stace won’t help the matter.
“Ghost.” I try to think of a way I can explain that Katie isn’t like every other useless fuck in his life, but when I fail to work out a way to do that, I use the same excuse I’ve given him the past couple of months. “She’s not like…” He stares at me like he wants to kill me, like my death will be the answer to the pain crippling him. Since it isn’t, I murmur, “You need to step back and look at things properly. Something isn’t right. You’ve been saying it for months.”
“Because you’ve been fucking with my head!”
He tosses open the thick safe door as if it weighs nothing, lifts out a brick of cocaine, and tosses it onto his desk. When his nostrils flare to suck in the white cloud puffing in the air, I know I’ve lost him.