Total pages in book: 113
Estimated words: 106541 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 533(@200wpm)___ 426(@250wpm)___ 355(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 106541 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 533(@200wpm)___ 426(@250wpm)___ 355(@300wpm)
My teeth crunch together when I recall the test Kirill did before determining my pregnancy wasn’t viable. “Um… he… ah… did a test.”
“An ultrasound?”
As my stomach flips, I shake my head.
“Then what did he do?”
I’m saved by answering when a knock sounds at my door. It isn’t Alek as suspected. It is a lady with dark hair and kind eyes.
Lera’s head pops up when she asks, “Должен ли я взять, Lera?”
“Rusha!” She sprints for Rusha as quickly as she did Ghost earlier. After leaping into her arms, she rubs her candy-stained face over the collar of her maid’s outfit.
“I’ll come check on her later.” Before Rusha can leave with a sleepy Lera, Ghost adds, “Check her sugar levels. She was pale before she scoffed down half a packet of jellybeans.”
Rusha dips her chin in understanding before leaving my room, closing the door behind her.
With Ghost’s attention fixated on me, I am afraid he is going to return to his earlier interrogation, so you can imagine my surprise when he asks me what I’d like to eat.
“I’m not really hung…” I swallow my words when anger hardens his features. “Grilled cheese?” We’ve shared grilled cheese sandwiches multiple times the past three months. It was a staple in my childhood years but more a luxury now.
I joked last week that if I ever get out of here, I will have a grill press placed in my stovetop and will have ghastly colored curtains throughout my house to ensure it would never represent the same bland palette I’ve faced every day the past four months.
“Pickles?”
When I nod, Ghost pulls his cell out of his pocket and dials a number he knows by heart. Once he’s placed an order for two grilled cheese sandwiches and a jar of pickles, he dumps his cell onto the table then undoes the top couple of buttons on his dress shirt. It sparks a memory of my cheek resting over his heart and him whispering kind words into my ear.
I shake my head, certain it is making things up.
Ghost isn’t as cruel as some of the men I’ve been associated with the past eight and a half years, but there’s no way he comforted me in a moment of need. I don’t think he has a nurturing bone in his body.
“Can I shower?” A good soak will clear up some of the muddled confusion in my head. “I feel gross.”
Ghost nods, but his eyes don’t lift from the floor. “Make it quick. A doctor will be here to check on you within the hour.”
I grimace more than I feel grateful. The only doctors I’ve been associated with the past few years are the ones wanting to clarify my purity before sullying it.
Will that be the case this time around as well?
33
GHOST
“Something isn’t right.”
Alek props his ass onto the table Katie usually eats at before straying his eyes to the bathroom still sounding with running water. “I’ve been saying that for a while.”
“He couldn’t have known she was carrying a girl. It was too soon.”
He folds his arms over his chest. “Did you ask the doctor what test he ordered?” I give him a leering look. “Oh, that’s right. Dead men can’t talk.” His chuckles are breathy. “Want me to ask her?”
“No.” His eyes snap from the bathroom door to me when my abrupt reply leaves no room for misunderstanding. If he makes Katie feel as uncomfortable as I did earlier, he’ll join the good doctor in the industrial freezer out back. “I’ll find out.” It just won’t be by asking Katie.
She almost died, but she was more concerned about eating my sister’s jellybean than acknowledging that.
We fucked her over good, and I hate that I’m the one who snuffed the gleam in her eyes I was so fucking desperate to relight.
“What do you want to do, Ghost?” Alek eventually asks, his tone as low as my mood.
“First, get rid of them.” I nudge my head to the cameras in Katie’s room. “Kirill knew I was coming. That’s how he got Sofia and Lera there before I popped a bullet between his brows, so he’s either watching me, or he has a nark shadowing my every move.” Alek nods, agreeing with me. “Then bring me some blow like I fucking asked you to do days ago.”
I’m jittery and in pain without drugs in my system, not that I’ll ever admit that.
“If you want to cut your fuse even shorter than it already is, you can get that shit yourself.”
Alek drags a chair over to a camera perched in the far corner of the room before removing a utility knife from his pocket. He won’t leave a single wire intact, much less a microlens.
As he yanks down the first device to stomp on it, I enter the bathroom to check on Katie. She fell in love with showers on the ship, but they’ve never lasted this long.