Total pages in book: 129
Estimated words: 120165 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 601(@200wpm)___ 481(@250wpm)___ 401(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 120165 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 601(@200wpm)___ 481(@250wpm)___ 401(@300wpm)
“But you have work!”
“I also have a fiancée, and this is important to you.”
He ended the call. I stared at my phone, biting my lip as a warm bomb went off in my chest.
Ten minutes later, Radimir pulled up in his Mercedes and whisked us all off to a nearby coffee shop. Luna, Sadie and Jen bombarded him with questions and...he was nice. Pleasant and patient and as close to warm as I’d seen him. He even managed to not wince too much when Jen patted his arm right where the knife wound was. He was trying. Or...maybe even changing?
My friends loved him. As they were getting ready to go, Jen pulled me aside. “This is still super-fast,” she said doubtfully. “But...he is kinda great.”
I could hear the hurt in her voice: she still thought I’d been having a secret romance with Radimir for weeks and keeping it from her. And I couldn’t tell her the truth, or she’d try to save me. “He is,” I agreed.
“And he’s obviously crazy about you,” said Jen.
My heart started racing. I tried to sound casual. “Crazy about me?”
She smirked. “He can barely drag his eyes from you. And when he talks about you, his voice changes. It’s adorable.”
He’s acting. That’s what it was. It had to be. I looked over at Radimir. He wasn’t capable of falling for someone. Right?
Radimir insisted on driving my friends back home, so they didn’t have to get cabs. “It’s good that you have friends,” he said as the last one of them waved goodbye.
“What about you?” I asked.
His jaw tightened. “People like me don’t have friends. Civilians don’t understand my world. And the people in my world all want to stab me in the back. All that’s left is family.” He put the car into gear, and we accelerated away.
“Isn’t there anybody?” I asked.
He shook his head. Then, half a block later, he stuck out his lower lip and reluctantly shrugged. “There was one man, once…” He glanced across at me and sighed. “I wasn’t always a Pakhan: a boss. When I first came to America, I…” He looked around the car, scowling. “I did what Valentin does now.”
He used to be a hitman! That explained how he’d killed Borislav so easily, how he’d dealt with the two men who attacked me in the bookstore. But he hadn’t wanted to say it out loud. I realized I was going to have to get used to that: watching what I said in case the car was bugged. “Go on.”
“My brothers and I were in New York, back then. I worked for a man called Luka Malakov. This man was Luka’s best...problem solver. The best in the whole city. He taught me and we became...close.” He scowled at the rear-view mirror, not meeting my eyes. “We lost touch when I moved to Chicago.”
“You could get back in touch,” I said gently.
He shook his head. “It was a long time ago.
There was clearly more to it than he was saying, but with Radimir I always knew when a subject was closed. A lot of his past seemed to be off limits. I still didn’t know what happened to his parents, or why he and his brothers had come to America. Was he ever going to let me in?
We fell into silence, and I watched him as he drove, the setting sun painting gold highlights along the hard lines of his jaw and cheekbones. God, he was gorgeous. And my gut instinct had been right, back when I first met him. Under all that coldness, he was completely alone…
The feelings had been building for weeks but I’d been fighting, denying, pushing them back behind a dam. Suddenly, as I stared at his profile, that dam began to creak and buckle.
He’s alone and he shouldn’t be. There’s a side to him no one else sees, a side that’s good.
The dam started to spring leaks, faster than I could patch it. The feelings began to blast their way through, a firehose that threatened to knock me right off my feet.
He doesn’t deserve to be alone. And he doesn’t have to be because… Because…
The feelings surged and the dam disintegrated.
Because I’ve fallen for him.
I sat there motionless, barely breathing, my mind spinning. Then I slumped back in my seat, turning it over in my mind.
I’d fallen for him. But that didn’t change what he was. I still hated the world he lived in, the senseless violence of the gangs. I couldn’t just ignore that. So, for there to be any chance of us working, I had to understand it. Accept it.
“Radimir,” I said, my voice a little shaky. “Could you tell me about...what you do?”
He glanced at me and his jaw hardened. “You don’t need to know.” Protecting me, as always.
I shook my head and put my hand on his. “I do need to know,” I told him. “I need to understand. I need you to tell me why you do what you do.”