Total pages in book: 97
Estimated words: 91149 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 456(@200wpm)___ 365(@250wpm)___ 304(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 91149 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 456(@200wpm)___ 365(@250wpm)___ 304(@300wpm)
“With my life,” Nikolai answers. “As blood should.”
Sticky silence descends over us before Nonna suggests we all move to the sitting room for drinks. She is quick to follow our movements, already prepared with fresh beverages. It’s my third vodka cranberry of the night, and I am feeling it more than I should.
I don’t drink often. Only on a few occasions did I steal a sip from my father’s liquor cabinet or nurse a beverage during a dinner party, but in general, I don’t make it a habit of imbibing. In the past, it was partly because my father had high expectations for my behavior, but mostly, it was because there were too many calories.
Tonight, however, I am not thinking of the caloric content. I am only thinking of the impending doom that awaits me if this tension does not dissipate before Alexei takes his leave.
Watching Nikolai as he speaks to his brother in Russian, I’m cursed to wonder what made him this way. Volatile one minute, and placid the next. His emotions do not ebb and flow like a ripple in the sea. They are either a tidal wave or the eerily calm silence before disaster strikes. I have known him to be kind, and I have known him to be cruel. But it’s apparent I am not the only recipient of his mercurial mood swings.
He is self-destructive in his own right. For someone constantly surrounded by people, his relationships are shallow and meaningless. He seems to have sabotaged the only ones that stand a chance at a deeper connection. I have an intense desire to understand what caused the rift between these two brothers, and more importantly, why their shared DNA needs to be kept a secret.
While I’m attempting to sort through these thoughts, Alexei’s attention drifts back to me, much to Nikolai’s vexation. It’s deliberate at this point. Alexei wants to provoke his brother, and it might be amusing if I wasn’t the one who will bear the brunt of it.
“Enough.” Nikolai moves in front of me, obscuring Alexei’s view. “I thought we could be civilized, but it’s obvious that you can’t let go of the past.”
“Perhaps when I am dead,” Alexei answers. “I will let go of it then.”
Nikolai curses his displeasure in Russian. “You never listen. You would not listen when I told you she was a whore. You would not listen when I told you she was servicing your Vory brothers. You needed to see it for yourself.”
“And you needed to take what was mine,” Alexei sneers. “Because you couldn’t allow me to have anything. You are just like Sergei.”
Before I can comprehend what’s happening, the two men are grappling with each other on the floor. Rage-soaked insults are hurled between punches as I watch on in horror. Drink glasses shatter, and the coffee table splinters across the room as I take shelter behind the sofa. I am not immune to violence, but this is pitiful.
“Stop it!” I scream.
Nikolai is the one to turn and look at me. His eyes lance right through me, piercing me with blame.
“Come.” Nonna tugs on my arm, and I’m not even sure when she entered the room. “Leave the men to their business.”
Any hope that a hot shower would dissolve some of the tension in my body is lost when I climb beneath the sheets. My muscles are fatigued, my eyes are heavy, and soreness has taken a stronghold over me.
The house is quiet now, and I’m left to wonder how the evening ended. It should make little difference to me, but I’m curious how Nikolai fared in the gladiator sports downstairs. Reason dictates I care only because he’s my captor and he’s in charge of my fate. But if I’m honest with myself, I know it’s more complicated than that.
I’m not left to wonder for long. When I’m on the verge of sleep, the bedroom door thunders open, and Nikolai emerges from the shadows. The light from the hallway creates a halo of orange around him, illuminating a swollen jaw and blackened eye. But it isn’t his face I’m worried about.
When I meet his gaze, an edgy, twitchy feeling crawls over me. I need to get away. Far, far away.
He stalks toward the bed, and I scramble to the other side. I’ve got one foot on the floor when his arm comes around my waist and captures me from behind. His lips ghost over my ear, breathing fire into my skin.
“Where are you going, little doll?”
I squeeze my eyes shut, desperately seeking shelter from the storm in his. The strength I need to endure has abandoned me, and I won’t survive him this time. He’s going to wreck me.
He drags me back to the middle of the bed, immobilizing me with the weight of his body. His skin is feverish, and his breath is laced with whiskey. But it’s the tension rippling through his muscles that scares me the most.