Total pages in book: 93
Estimated words: 92254 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 461(@200wpm)___ 369(@250wpm)___ 308(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 92254 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 461(@200wpm)___ 369(@250wpm)___ 308(@300wpm)
I approach it slowly. The blankets look old and dusty. There’s a candle, an ancient radio, a few moldy adventure paperbacks, crayons, a yo-yo, two dull knives, and a stack of pens.
“It’s a nest.” My nerves are a freaking mess as I kneel down and rummage through the stuff. It looks like somebody used to come in here all the time. There’s even an old flashlight that doesn’t work.
But it’s what’s hidden in the blankets that makes my jaw drop.
The diary’s black. There’s nothing on the cover. No lock on the edge. Just a simple little book filled with tight, loopy writing.
The name Sona Sarkissian is written on the very first page.
I sit back against the wall, laughing like I’ve just discovered the cure for cancer, and skim the first page.
Dear diary. I’m not going to start every entry that way. I’m not that lame. But for the first one, it’s okay.
I’m back home again. I never thought I’d end up here, but life’s weird like that. I had all these big dreams: college, jobs, boys, money. The sort of stuff every girl dreams about. Winning big and slaying my enemies. And now here I am, back in my dad’s house again like I’m a freaking teenager. I’m even hiding in my old spot and writing in this dumb thing.
I made a lot of mistakes.
And I’m going to pay for them.
Sona’s asleep when I shuffle into the gap in the walls behind her prison room. She’s not tied to the chair anymore; Arsen brought her a cot and some stuff to keep her comfortable. The windows are covered in bars and the door was reinforced. I heard a few of the house guards talk about how she tries to escape every day, but she’s locked down tight.
“I found it,” I hiss at her. She twitches in her sleep. “Wake up, Sona. I found it.”
Slowly, she rolls onto her back. She’s an old woman and looks even older from her captivity. No matter how comfortable Arsen tries to make it for her, she’s still trapped in a room all alone. Her hair’s graying at the roots and her eyes are red and runny. She rubs at her face and stretches out her legs.
“Took you long enough,” she murmurs, putting her hands behind her head. “Did you read it?”
“I read enough.”
Her eyes close and she smiles. “What did you think?”
I open my mouth to answer, but stop.
I’m not sure how to answer that question.
I have a million thoughts—a million ideas—a million new revelations.
“It’ll kill him,” I say wearily, because that’s what I keep coming back to.
When he finds out, it’s going to break him.
“You think so? I don’t know. You don’t have much faith in your husband.”
“You don’t understand how he feels about this family.”
“I don’t?” She laughs bitterly. “I’m locked up in this fucking room. Says a lot about how he feels.”
“You were trying to kill him. You stabbed him in the chest.”
“Missed his neck,” she mutters.
“How?” I ask, moving closer. I bend down and press my ear to the drywall. “How did it even happen?”
I can’t see her anymore, but I can hear the smile.
“We met by accident. He had a stake at a biotech start-up around Philly, and I guess he heard that I was interviewing for a job there. He reached out and offered to buy me dinner. I figured getting together with an investor couldn’t hurt my chances, so I accepted.”
“Did you know? Who he was, I mean?”
“Of course,” she says like I’m an idiot. “Everyone knew Boris Zeitsev back then. The big, powerful pakhan of the Zeitsev Bratva. Ruthless, handsome, deadly. Surprisingly intelligent too. I never really liked Russian men all that much until I met him.”
“Was it just that one time?”
It sounds like she adjusts herself in the bed. “I thought it would be, but we had a connection. And the sex was very, very good. We slept together for a month straight, at least until I realized that I was pregnant. I guess you can imagine how he reacted to that.”
“Does he know? About Arsen?”
“Boris is dead now, but there was no way in hell I was going to let him know back then that he had an heir and a rival to his throne hiding away in Baltimore. He would’ve hunted Arsen down and smashed his little baby head against the sidewalk.”
I shiver at the image. I feel sick and exhausted. I press my hand to my belly, thinking about my own baby, about Arsen’s child growing in me.
“He needs to know.”
“He absolutely does not need to know.” Her tone is ice. “That boy is not my child. Do you understand? My older brother made a choice. He understood that I would be ruined if anyone found out that I fucked the head of a Bratva and got pregnant with his kid. My reputation and our whole fucking family’s reputation would’ve been torched, especially in those days. We’re surprisingly liberal now, believe it or not, but back then—” She sucks in a breath and blows it out. “So he took my baby. It wasn’t easy hiding away for nine fucking months, but his wife had to do it too. Nobody could know the truth. We made up some story and he had a million excuses prepared, and eventually Arsen came into the world, and I went back to my life. Garen doesn’t know. Nobody knows. Aram raised Arsen and I acted like nothing had ever happened.”