Total pages in book: 113
Estimated words: 106541 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 533(@200wpm)___ 426(@250wpm)___ 355(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 106541 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 533(@200wpm)___ 426(@250wpm)___ 355(@300wpm)
I don’t have a look-but-don’t-touch rule.
You bow your fucking head when royalty enters the room.
You don’t gawk like the possibility of more is in your realm.
It isn’t.
After another line of snow to keep my attitude high but my wish to kill low, I fetch my gun off my desk, store away the barely touched brick, then make my way to Grigori’s room to set up.
Alek’s men work fast. There won’t be an ounce of evidence of Grigori’s passing, but he was a sick fuck, so I need to ensure the instruments I’m about to use on Katie are sterile.
If you lie in a bed with strays, you’re bound to get fleas.
The same can be said for the women Grigori ‘inspected.’
14
KATIE
My steps shudder when the familiarity of the rooms we’re passing smack into me. I’ve only been down this corridor once, but it was so horrifying I don’t see myself forgetting it anytime soon.
Like a reoccurring nightmare, Alek stops us outside the unmarked door Ghost did seven days ago. This time, he knocks before twisting the lock. I shouldn’t exhale in relief when I spot Ghost inside the room, but I do. He’s alone, and despite the odd smell in the air, the doctor’s room doesn’t look as grubby and unsterile as it did last week.
After lowering his eyes to my sweatpants, Ghost spears them to Alek. “You didn’t request for her to change?”
“I told you, man, I don’t know this shit like you do.” As he waves his hand around the room, a strand of blond hair falls into his eye. “I handle weapons, distribution, and that shit dusting your nose.” While dragging the back of his hand under his nose, Ghost sniffs. “This shit is not for me.”
“It’s not for me either, but some of us don’t have a choice.” Ghost glares at Alek while gripping my arm, yanking me into the room, then plopping me onto the hospital bed now covered with clean sheets. “Stay,” he barks out when Alek twists toward the door. “His trust is low. He will want proof.”
“Your word should be enough.” Alek’s reply is cut off by the low, throaty groan rumbling up Ghost’s chest. With a shrug, he folds his arms in front of him, leans his back on the door, then drops his eyes to his boots.
I drift my eyes from his slumber-like stance to Ghost when he murmurs, “Lie down, маленький ягненок.”
I wait for further instructions. When they don’t come, I place my head on the pillow and straighten my legs. After what feels like a lifetime but is barely seconds, Ghost lifts my T-shirt to sit under my braless breasts then tugs down the waistband of my pants.
“You need to go lower than that if you want to see anything.”
Ghost grumbles a Russian curse word under his breath before doing as Alek suggested. He tugs down my pants until they sit just above the opening of my vagina.
“What is that?” I ask, my curiosity too high to discount when Ghost rolls over an odd-looking television on wheels.
Not speaking, he pulls out a gray wand and loads it with a jelly-looking substance.
“Where are you going to put that?”
Ghost remains quiet, but thankfully, Alek is more forthcoming. “This one remains outside your body. It is the long skinny one you need to be wary of.”
After shutting up his husky chuckles with a vicious glare, Ghost presses the now-slippery contraption onto the lower half of my stomach. He swivels it around a handful of times while looking at the black and white image on the monitor.
Once almost all the lower half of my stomach is covered with sticky residue, Ghost shifts on his feet to face a camera dangling in the top corner of the room. I didn’t notice it the last time I was here. My focus was on surviving, not surveillance.
Barely a second later, a ping dings from inside the pocket of Ghost’s pants. His jaw spasms when he yanks out a thick brick-like cell phone and flips open the screen.
“There’s nothing,” he bites out after squashing the phone to his ear. “Alek will tell you the same.” I can’t hear what his caller replies, but whatever he says, it doubles the tightness of Ghost’s grip on his cell. “Very well.” He snaps his cell shut, tosses it onto the doctor’s desk, then picks up the device I’m reasonably sure Alek was referencing earlier. “Give me a condom.”
A condom? Why does he need a condom?
My silent questions are answered when Ghost demands I remove my sweatpants and underwear.
“But…” I blink while recalling how quickly Madame Victoria and Master Rudd reacted when I questioned their authority. If you exclude the narrowing of Ghost’s eyes, I’m not punished with anything but unspoken words.
After ensuring Alek’s eyes have returned to his shoes, I shimmy my pants and underwear down my thighs while Ghost rolls a condom down the long, gray wand.