Total pages in book: 187
Estimated words: 177397 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 887(@200wpm)___ 710(@250wpm)___ 591(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 177397 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 887(@200wpm)___ 710(@250wpm)___ 591(@300wpm)
He isn’t saying what I think he is, is he?
Zakhar’s new heart was from someone who accidentally died, right?
That’s how bribes work. You pay a premium to push a desired recipient to the top of the stack. You don’t murder someone for what is meant to be readily available.
Before I can pry the truth from Maksim’s eyes, Nikita asks, “Then how did your mother end up on that list?”
I take a moment to breathe through the heaviness on my chest when Maksim attempts to appease Nikita’s curiosity. “The man she came to see was a chef. With his business not doing well, he substituted some of his produce with supplies a charity worker was skimming from the food banks.”
“The tainted food is why there were so many outbreaks over the past several months.”
I’m brainstorming out loud, mindful this is bigger than just Zakhar’s new heart, but Nikita doesn’t know that. “And also why there was an increase in surgeries.” Her eyes widen as her mouth gapes. “I saw bananas. They were being carried out of the hospital. Does that mean…?” My stomach gurgles when she clicks on to the truth half a second before me. “Yulia’s father lost his job. He couldn’t afford food. He was supplementing his lost wages with produce that was donated to him. That could be what is making Yulia sick.”
Yulia is almost the same age as Zakhar.
The same height.
The same weight.
She also has the same blood type. I saw her patient details on the invoice I paid for a blood workup Maksim funded on behalf of her family weeks ago.
Please, no.
When Nikita races for the exit, Maksim grabs her wrists and tugs her back.
She doesn’t take kindly to being manhandled, but unlike me, she uses words to announce her dislike. “Let me go, Maksim. I need to help her. There are ways we can reverse the damage of the poison.”
“Oh fuck,” I murmur on a sob when Maksim says, “It’s too late.”
“No.” The devastation in Nikita’s voice cuts me like a knife. Its slashes are nowhere near as damaging as the ones my guilt is instigating. “She can get better. I can help her.”
As he stares at me as if I am the professor who threatened to fail Nikita every semester if she wouldn’t put out, Maksim says, “My men found her this morning. She was in a room at the back of the loading dock. Her organs had been harvested. There was nothing we could do.” My heart breaks along with Nikita’s when he says without remorse, “We took down the people directly responsible for her death. We made them pay.” A tear rolls down my cheek when he adds, “And I won’t stop until every person who hurt her has paid.”
“Promise me,” Nikita demands, unaware she is signing my death certificate.
After a final glare hotter than the sun, Maksim lifts Nikita’s tear-drenched face before he murmurs, “I promise.” His eyes are back on me, hot and heavy. “No one will ever hurt you like this again.”
I don’t know what compels me to do it, but I nod as if his confirmation of protection isn’t a threat.
My agreeing gesture pacifies Maksim enough to put our confrontation on the backburner until he settles Nikita, though it does little to stop my knees from pulling out from underneath me when I’m left alone in the foyer.
I fall to the floor with a clatter and muffle my howling sobs by biting my palm.
76
ZOYA
I’ve moved past my grief by the time Maksim returns to the living area. I buried it deep in an anger that’s so volatile I don’t consider the aftermath of my actions when I storm up to Maksim and throw my fists into his chest and face.
He blocks my first two hits, but my third and fourth send his head rocketing to the side and a sickening crunch sounding through the entryway of Gigi and Grampies’s apartment.
“Did you kill them! Did you punish them for something they didn’t do?” I don’t give him the chance to answer. My grief is too strong to see through the madness. “It wasn’t them. They didn’t initiate the bribe. It was me. I sent the email. I bribed Dr. Sidorov to put Zakhar at the top of his list because I didn’t know about the agreement Andrik had made with you.”
Air whistles through my teeth when I drag in a much-needed breath. I’m still belting into Maksim, still overwhelmed with remorse, but I won’t stop fighting.
I should have never stopped fighting.
Maksim’s tattooed forearm blocks my fist before his hands clamp my wrists and he pulls them to my sides. Although his sneer is barely a whisper, I have no trouble hearing him since he tugs me to within an inch of his face before bobbing down low so we’re eye to eye. “Admissions like that will get you killed, so if you want any chance of fixing your mistake, you need to shut your fucking mouth.”