Total pages in book: 93
Estimated words: 90084 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 450(@200wpm)___ 360(@250wpm)___ 300(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 90084 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 450(@200wpm)___ 360(@250wpm)___ 300(@300wpm)
Mama tells me everything. The men came to the door, pushed it open, and rushed inside. Her brother had sent soldiers, street-level enforcers, and they weren’t gentle just because she’s related to their boss. They roughed her up, ripped the downstairs to shreds, and made it clear that if she didn’t begin paying her brother back soon, they’d return and hurt me as well.
Her story finishes, and a heavy, freezing silence falls over the bathroom.
“I wanted to tell you earlier, but I never knew how,” she says after a while. All the sorrow’s been drained from her, and now she seems like all her energy is gone. Mama’s normally so vital. It’s strange, seeing her this way.
“I guess there isn’t an easy way to tell me that we’re related to mobsters.”
“No, honey, there isn’t, but I still should have. I knew Aram would come for his money eventually, I just hoped we’d have something to give him by then.”
“Your brother’s name is Aram?”
“Aram Sarkissian. Head of the Armenian Brotherhood. My god, Karine, your father and I moved here to get away from that part of my life, and yet I still went back to them when I was at my lowest. I was such a fool.”
I rub her back. “It’s okay. It’s going to be okay.”
“It won’t, honey, it won’t. Aram won’t stop just because I’m his sister. If anything, he’ll use this as an excuse to punish me for turning my back on the family all those years ago. He hasn’t forgotten the way I left, and my brother is a very bad, very vindictive man. I’m afraid, Karine. And I’m so sorry.”
I try my best to comfort her. It’s clear what this Brotherhood thing is very, very bad, but it feels so bizarre and distant. I’m learning about that side of my family for the very first time, and it’s like getting thrown into a frozen ocean as an introduction to swimming. I can’t even begin to process it all.
Eventually, Mama calms down. She puts on the shower and I leave her to get cleaned up. I head downstairs, ready to survey the damage and to find out what’s salvageable, when I stop at the bottom of the stairs.
Valentin’s sitting on the couch.
Chapter 11
Karine
Idon’t move. He only stares at me. Neither of us speaks for a long moment.
“I should’ve known you’d show up,” I tell him, taking a step forward. I crunch over shattered pottery. “Did you know this was going to happen?”
“No, I did not.”
“Could you have stopped it?”
“I wasn’t aware anything was wrong until you came home. I haven’t been watching your mother.”
My heart’s racing in my throat. The implication is pretty obvious: he has been watching me.
So much for that dinner date being the end of this.
I never really believed he’d get the message though.
“Did you know? About my uncle?”
He pushes himself to his feet like a glorious angel spreading its wings. Power and malicious intent roll off him in waves. A horrible feeling crawls into my guts, and I’m sure beyond anything I’ve ever been sure about before in my life that Valentin is a very, very bad man.
That he has done things, terrible things, maybe even things like this.
That he’ll do them again too.
And that maybe he’ll do them for me.
“I knew,” he confirms. “Not at first. After you stormed into my life, I looked into you. I couldn’t help myself.” He comes around the overturned coffee table, stepping over magazines. Their pages crinkle under his shoes. The shower water runs through the pipes in the wall, a steady white noise. “You fascinated me, malishka. You are beautiful, but also, I saw something in you. Something strong and perfect. I knew, in that moment, that I had to have you. But I didn’t realize what you were yet.” He stops in front of me, a massive storm front, a hurricane of a man.
“What do you think I am?”
“A gift,” he says, touching my cheek gently with his thumb. He moves it across my face and pushes down on my lower lip. “Heaven brought you to me. You are exactly what I’ve needed.”
He pushes his thumb against my teeth.
I open my mouth—and bite down.
His eyes widen in surprise. I don’t try to break skin, but I want to let him know that I’m not here for him to fuck with me. Except it has the opposite effect: he surges forward, grabs me by the hair, and slams me back into the wall. I gasp in shock and my mouth opens again, and this time he puts his thumb onto my tongue.
I whimper as his knee presses up between my legs. I suck down on him, more out of shock than anything else. He growls and it’s the sound of a hungry, barely restrained beast.
“The more you struggle, the more I want you,” he whispers and pushes his thumb deeper into my mouth. Then he pulls it back and smears my spit around my lips. “The more you resist, the more you draw me in.”