Total pages in book: 113
Estimated words: 106159 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 531(@200wpm)___ 425(@250wpm)___ 354(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 106159 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 531(@200wpm)___ 425(@250wpm)___ 354(@300wpm)
I’m prepared to dig my fingers into the half-an-inch hole at the side of her stomach when she instructs, “Check for an exit wound. I couldn’t tell if the warmth was because of blood or Maksim’s closeness.” She laughs until her body tells her this is no laughing matter. “Oww. That hurts.”
I wait for the pinch of pain on her face to lessen a smidge, before carefully pulling her away from the shelf she’s resting on to check for an exit wound.
“There’s a hole!” I shout a little too loudly, relieved. “It looks bigger than the hole in the front and has tissue surrounding it.”
“Good,” Nikita breathes out in relief. “That’s a good sign.” She sounds groggy, and it has me eager to jump to her every command when she says, “I need cotton thread, a needle, and a lighter.”
The lighter is easy. Several are stored next to the gas pilot that looks like it hasn’t been used in years. The cotton and needle are a little more challenging.
“Check the boxes over there.” Nikita nudges her head to a box with cell phones scribbled across one side. “If they’re burner phones, there could be needles in there to switch out the SIM cards.”
I want to ask her how she knows so much about this place, but the hurt in her eyes stops me. She is in a horrendous amount of pain.
“Yes!” I squeal like I hit the jackpot as a small kit of sewing needles topples out of the box when I flip it on its head. “Now we just need cotton.”
I scan her blood-soaked clothes before dropping my eyes to the hem of my skirt. Its stitch is impeccably detailed, but it won’t come out in the length Nikita needs to sew her wound closed.
“There’s a…”—her breathing is shallow and dangerous—“a… a… seamstress room upstairs.”
“Upstairs?” I double-check when her last word comes out slurred.
Nikita nods. “Irina loves to sew. She used to make a-all of Bastian’s and the b-boys’ outfits by hand.” Since she’s too busy yanking on the collar of her shirt, she misses the painful bob of my throat. Bastian is a common name in some parts of the world, but I will never hear it and not grimace. “Is it hot in here? I feel really hot.”
Panic rains down on me when I place my hand on her forehead.
Her skin is on fire.
“We need to call for help. You’re burning up.”
She stops me from grabbing one of the burner phones by shouting, “No! We can’t. Maksim will come back before making sure Irina is safe. He needs his mother in his life.” The pain in her eyes is from something more than the gunshot wound when she says, “They both do. They had nothing when Bastian left them. They had to start from scratch, and then it was almost all swiped out from beneath them again when Bastian remarried.”
“Who did he marry?” I often hate my curiosity, and coincidences occur daily, but there are too many murky holes in her story, and only one person capable of solving the riddle.
“Irina has never said.” Her next words are almost a sob. “Just that she was young and entitled to everything, even though she killed him on their wedding night.”
She must be delusional.
She can’t be lucid.
She’s mixing her stories up, surely.
I guess there’s only one way to find out.
“What was Bastian’s last name?”
I don’t breathe when she stutters out, “Fer-Fernan-dez.”
“Fernandez?” I almost fold in two when recognition dawns on Nikita’s face, but before I can react, her nod is replaced with a painful groan.
Any movement hurts her, even something as simple as moving her mouth, but she continues to feed the panic slicking my skin with sweat. “Matvei and Maksim took Irina’s maiden name. They rebuilt from nothing, unaware that their mother hadn’t filed for divorce. Bastian was entitled to—” A moan of pain stops her from talking. “Please. I need—”
I snatch a bottle of vodka off the shelf, yank out the cork with my teeth, hand it to her, then tell her I will be back with cotton and pain medication as soon as possible.
I climb the stairs two at a time, my race fueled by both my curiosity and morals. I can’t unravel the knot in my stomach if Nikita passes out, but I want to help her save herself as well.
My brutal speed slows when I enter the main hallway on the upper level of the house. It is covered with family portraits, and although the two dark-haired boys in the main image are barely pre-teens, their strong jawlines and devastatingly gorgeous eyes can’t be mistaken.
It is a family portrait of Matvei and Maksim sitting between their parents. The woman is a younger version of Irina, and the man looks eerily similar to the one who forced himself on me under the guise that he was my husband so I had to do as he said.