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)
After dismissing the agents from the room, he squashes his thumb on the finger scanner and then murmurs, “I had to do something. I couldn’t let him die.” More tears fill his eyes, showing a side of him I’ve never seen. “I didn’t play by their rules for decades to let them kill your mother’s only grandson.” He raises his eyes to me. They’re still glistening with wetness, but the deluge does little to hide his determination to return the respect his family lost centuries ago. “So I made them pay.”
When he opens his briefcase instead of revealing the access code that will allow Konstantine to hack into any security system in Russia, he hands me a simple USB drive.
I stop considering the importance of the microdrive when he mutters, “Give it to Henry. He will grant you access to anything you need once he opens the file inside.”
I have questions. Many of them. But since I don’t have time, I kiss his cheeks without the begrudged groan any affection usually forces from me before sprinting for the exit.
I almost make it into the clear when my grandfather calls my name—my real name. “Andrik.” He waits for me to face him before he says, “Tell your father I’m sorry, and make sure he knows the truth.” He lowers his eyes to the USB drive. “Everything you need is in there.”
“No,” I reply, shaking my head, unwilling to do his bidding. “He needs to hear it from you…”
My words trail off when he makes sure there’s no possibility of him facing his mistakes head-on. He raises a gun I didn’t realize he was holding until now to his head and fires one shot.
“No!”
The scream didn’t come from me. It came from someone behind me, and the familiarity of her voice has me spinning so fast my legs almost buckle out from beneath me.
Zoya is standing across from me. Her hair still has a tinge of red coloring from where she split her head, and her clothes are two sizes too big, but I would recognize those curves anywhere. And that face… fuck.
Her wide eyes drift from my grandfather, slumped over the edge of Zakhar’s bed with a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head, to me. I assume her cheeks whiten because she’s never seen a dead body before, but remorse pulls her in another direction.
“I’m so sorry.” She strays her eyes around a mansion now in ruins. “This is my fault. I caused this. I—”
“No,” I cut her off, my one word as fast as the steps I take to bridge the gap between us. “This is not on you, милая.” I weave my fingers through her hair nowhere near her wound and breathe in her scent before aligning our eyes. “This was never on you.”
“But—”
“No buts. No ifs. Life is too short for doubts.”
She is as stubborn as a mule. It is one of the things I love about her the most. “I—”
“Do I need to take you over my knee, милая?”
I should have known lust would force her from her stupor state before anything else. It blazes through her veins, making her hot, but before I can pretend the casualty of our battle isn’t in the thousands, a childlike voice interrupts us this time.
“Daddy.”
Zoya’s pupils blow wide before her motherly instincts kick in even with her being unaware of her connection to Zakhar. She races into this room and places herself between him and a scene that will scar him for life before his eyes are halfway open.
“You can’t open your eyes yet, Zak, or you’ll ruin your surprise.”
He swishes his tongue around his mouth to loosen up his words but keeps his eyes so tightly shut that wrinkles spread across the bridge of his nose. “You got me a surprise?”
“Uh-huh,” Zoya lies before gesturing like a badass mafia boss for me to remove the dead man at the foot of the bed. “But I forgot to wrap it, so I need you to keep your eyes closed for a little bit longer. Okay?”
“Okay,” Zakhar replies as Konstantine assists me in carrying my grandfather out of the room. The doctors Henry ordered to monitor Zakhar’s recovery do nothing but stare. I’m not even sure one of them is breathing.
“We’re almost ready.”
Zoya grunts and groans while using some of the supplies we left the hospital with to clean up the brain matter splattered across the bottom of Zakhar’s bed.
Now is not the time to admit this, especially since I am hiding the body of the man who saved my life in the closet of my son’s room, but I’m hard as fuck.
I knew Zoya had the gall to take down a kingdom, but I had no clue it extended this far.
“Okay.” She breathes out heavily when I return to the room before she scans the stark confines. Henry’s crew destroyed ninety-eight percent of this compound, but Zakhar’s room is basically untouched. His control shows you can be a man of mass power without being heartless. I plan to mimic his constraint as I rebuild.