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)
“драгоценный,” I call out when my search of the main area of my room comes up empty. The sketches we fucked on are still spread across the floor, but there is a stack of papers on the coffee table that wasn’t there when we left in a hurry. “Are you showering?” When I fail to register running water, I head for the papers while saying, “I hope you’re not sick already. It will be a heap harder to keep my secret if I’m making pancakes at two in the morning during the first trimester.” The chuckle that arrived with my last sentence is sliced in two when I pick up the first piece of paper. “What the fuck is this?”
My stomach rebels when the second photograph confirms my suspicion. It is a timeline of Anastasia’s walk to the laundry room the day she lost our daughter.
Like a sicko watching a train crash, I flick through the images until I reach the last one. It is Ana being lifted out of the laundry room on a stretcher. The jeans she had to wear with the top button undone are dangling off the edge of the stretcher, and the sheet they used to cover her is stained with blood.
I hate the devastated look on her face, but more than anything, I hate that I wasn’t there for her both then and now.
Whoever shared these images with Anastasia wants to hurt her.
And I begin to wonder if they succeeded when my race into the bathroom has me entering another empty room.
“Come on, драгоценный, answer your damn phone,” I beg when my call goes unanswered.
“Hey, you’ve reached Ana—” I disconnect before dialing a second number.
Yev answers two seconds later.
“Where is she?” I ask, not bothering to issue a greeting.
He sounds groggy while replying, “Ana?” He must hear my chin lift. “With you.” Sheets ruffle as his breaths pick up. “You said you didn’t need me anymore?” My brows furrow when I hear a woman in the background. I’d pay her more attention if she didn’t sound pompous and snooty. “I’ll be back,” Yev whispers down the line. “Don’t fucking run this time. I’ve been chasing your ass all over Kronstadt.” Once he kisses his female guest goodbye, muffling her reply with his lips, he asks, “Where do you want me to check first?”
Anastasia running when she’s scared isn’t unusual. I just figured she’d outgrown that during the past month. “Home.”
“Your apartment?” Yev asks, shocked. “I thought you’d check there.”
I shake my head. “No, the projects. She always goes home when she’s feeling lost.”
He tsks me. “Her home isn’t in that shitbox with her dad, Alek.” I worry something isn’t right when he murmurs, “It’s with you. It’s always been with you.” After waiting a couple of seconds for the honesty in his reply to sink in, he says, “I’ll check the penthouse.”
Again, I shake my head. It adds to the thump of my skull. “I’ll check there. You cruise any old haunts. The depot her catering trucks are at, the park she once called home, and…” this reply is so much harder to articulate than the first couple, “… the strip clubs she worked at. Keep in touch, and I’ll do the same.”
“All right.” I hear him requesting for his bed companion to hang around again before he disconnects our call.
I make sure I’m not overreacting by checking the kitchen and laundry at the compound for Ana before I eventually sink into the driver’s seat of my car. Speed limits weren’t invented for a guy in a hurry. They’re for the patient fucks with time on their side. I was forever told mine would be short when I woke up with a ton of bandages on my head and screws in my skull. The scar on my head is why I wear my hair long. I will tell anyone that listens that my father tried to kill me. I don’t need to show them proof. If they don’t believe me, that’s on them.
Ana believed me without proof, and she’s the only one I’ve ever shown my scar to bar Ghost. But he doesn’t count since my head was shaved when I rocked up at the boys’ home.
An uneasy feeling settles down on me when I arrive at my apartment block. The cars in the lot aren’t fancy, but that doesn’t mean Ana isn’t here. She once used a skateboard with three wheels to evade me, and I followed her on a stolen bike for miles.
The memory has me smiling when I throw open the foyer door. I’m about to head to the elevator, but something tells me I’m going the wrong way, so I double back and move for the area that had Ana wanting to flee again.
“драгоценный?” I pull open the door then flick on the light before galloping down the first couple of stairs.