Total pages in book: 79
Estimated words: 74633 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 373(@200wpm)___ 299(@250wpm)___ 249(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 74633 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 373(@200wpm)___ 299(@250wpm)___ 249(@300wpm)
Even as his gaze turned to me the front door suddenly burst open and his men rushed in. I halted in my tracks as they rushed over to him.
He gave his orders to them in Russian, but his gaze remained on me as they lifted him to his feet.
I couldn’t move. I was so shocked.
“Stay here and wait for me,” he said, but his voice was so low, I wasn’t certain if I heard the actual words, or just seen the movement of his lips.
I was still standing there frozen to the spot when the door banged shut.
At the resounding silence that followed, goosebumps broke out across my skin. I looked around the massive and empty house I had been imprisoned in, and felt utterly useless. While everyone else seemingly fought for me, I had no clue as to what was going on. All while, no one even felt like I needed to know. I ran my fingers through my hair in stunned confusion.
With a heavy sigh, I headed back into the kitchen. I walked to the counter and sat on one of the stools. I stared at the oven blankly. I felt sick to my stomach.
Suddenly, I was running to the sink, my body jerking as it tried to vomit out the poison I had seen and heard. There was no food in my stomach and only bitter bile came out. Tears were pouring from my eyes. I leaned heavily against the sink as my body tried to find some equilibrium again. But all I found was fear.
Terrible, terrible fear for Levan.
My hands started to shake. I closed my eyes and tried to think rationally.
I needed to speak to Aldie, now, more than ever. I ran to the counter, snatched up my phone and dialed her number … once again, the call didn’t go through. There was no way she would have been this off grid for so long. She was addicted to her phone.
The last time I had panicked, allowed fear to take over, and overreacted. This time I wouldn’t let myself do that. Levan’s men were guarding her. Maybe she lost her phone. Or she had let it run out of battery again. Yes, that was probably it.
Even so, I tried a couple more times, but when there was still no response, my instincts started screaming at me. I felt it was time to get Levan involved, but after the last time I didn’t want to be the boy who cried wolf either, especially since it was obvious he had something grievously serious going on between him and his brother. I wasn’t oblivious to the fact that it definitely had something to do with the mess I had brought into their family.
Torn with the need to make sure Aldie was really okay and the desire not to put more stress on Levan, I paced the floor restlessly. I stopped and stared out of the window. The world outside seemed full of danger. I was safe in here, but Aldie was out there. She didn’t ask for any of this.
I dialed his number and waited for his phone to ring. When it did, he did not pick up. Frowning, I dialed again. After a few more tries, I suspected he was ignoring me on purpose, but instead of going off the deep end, I calmed myself down with the thought that in his battered state it was even possible that he wasn’t even aware of the whereabouts of the phone. I looked towards the study and realized that the door had been left wide open from the squabble they just had.
I walked in like a zombie. I had never snooped on anyone before, but I knew Levan was keeping things from me. It was his way of protecting me, but I needed to know. Perhaps something would give me a clue as to what had caused the sudden brawl between him and his brother. It was absolutely unexpected based on what Levan had told me so far, his brother was well aware of him rescuing me from Bogdan. It made me realize I hadn’t been told the whole story.
With the kind of activities the Ivankovs were involved in I doubted there would be anything incriminating left out to be found, but I swept my gaze around nevertheless. My eyes instantly fell on an open laptop sitting on the desk. I walked over to it. I expected to see a black screen, ready to ask for a password ‒ but for some weird, totally insane reason, as if the angels themselves wanted me to know ‒ the screen was frozen on a video.
It wasn’t possible to see it clearly, but it looked like there was a barefoot, but clothed woman sitting on a dirty concrete floor. Her head was covered with a bag, so I couldn’t see her face, but I could see her hands were tied behind her back.