Total pages in book: 55
Estimated words: 51889 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 259(@200wpm)___ 208(@250wpm)___ 173(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 51889 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 259(@200wpm)___ 208(@250wpm)___ 173(@300wpm)
Phase one: keep her safe
Phase two: make her mine
Phase three: keep her forever
Sounded simple, enough right? But it wasn’t. I was beyond fucked on almost every level and I knew it.
Each phase had seemingly insurmountable obstacles and crazy odds. And those odds were not in my favor.
But she was here, looking pretty as a picture. That had seemed impossible only a few days ago. I wouldn’t give up hope. And I couldn’t regret having her with me for a second, even if it did get my ass killed.
I just hoped I got a taste of heaven first.
After I made sure my angel was safe for the rest of her long, beautiful life. She would be far from the family or anyone who wanted to hurt her, free to live as she saw fit. And if luck was on my side, I might get to share a little bit of that life with her.
Or a lot. Maybe even all of it.
Once I had found her, known her, touched her, I knew I would never ever let her go.
Jesus Christ, Vice, you sound creepy as fuck, I thought with a grimace.
“I’ll go cook something for breakfast.”
“I’m not hungry,” she said, her stunning eyes still narrowed at me.
“But you’ll eat. Training takes energy,” I said before she had a chance to argue, as I knew she would. Anastasia had a stubborn side, I was beginning to see.
It should have annoyed me. Instead it made me like her more. It only served to make me even more curious about her. I was finding that even her quirks were adorable, and I wanted to know every single one of them. I would learn what made her tick if it was the last thing I did.
Which, again, it very well might be.
I could feel her glaring daggers in my back as I left the room. I wondered if they taught that to mafia princesses. In her case, the expression ‘if looks could kill’ was more than just a turn of phrase.
I only hope she isn’t the one to end me, I thought to myself with a chuckle. But then I reconsidered. Truth be told, it wouldn’t be a bad way to go.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Anastasia
“Good work today.”
I toweled off my neck, casting Vice a questioning look. He was staring at me in that intense way of his. But for once, he looked pleased, not worried. Not like he was in physical pain.
“What?”
“You’ve really taken to this. It’s impressive,” he said, sending a warm flushed feeling through my body. I craved his approval, I realized. I did not like it, but it was true. “And reassuring,” he added, an unwelcome reminder that he did not expect to survive the coming conflict.
At first I had thought his attitude strange. But now things were different. Slowly but surely, I had started to trust the tatted up biker. Slowly but surely, I had started to want him to live.
The thought of his dying created a strange ache in my chest. I wasn’t sure what to call it. It was something I had never felt before. Not since childhood, anyway.
That horrible feeling of loss. I didn’t remember my mother, but I had felt it all the same. Losing my favorite doll had devastated me. And despite my begging for a pet, my father had never allowed me to have one. It had been crushing to wake on each birthday and every Christmas and have my dreams dashed when none of the packages wiggled like they did on TV.
But Vice wasn’t a misplaced doll or a puppy that never arrived. He was a person. A person I was coming to… care about.
More than just a little bit.
Neither of us had any doubt we were in for a war. There wasn’t just one battle ahead. This would be a life long fight to survive. I had many enemies, or at least, interested parties who did not have my best interests in mind. But now, thanks to Vice, I was getting more and more proficient at protecting myself.
Hand to hand combat, escaping knots and zip ties, picking locks, using several kinds of guns with a small amount of proficiency, and other weapons, including knife work, which I had taken to like a duck to water.
“You’re quite the little bad ass, Stasia,” he said with a rare smile. He had started calling me Stasia about a week into training. Now we were coming up on almost three weeks, and we had fallen into a routine. Wake, eat, train, eat some more, train some more, eat dinner and talk, then finally we would sleep.
I’d never slept as well as I did after a hard day of training with Vice. But it was more than the exertion. It was knowing he was there, watching over me when I slept. I was slowly coming to trust him, and to believe that he meant what he said time and time again.