Total pages in book: 95
Estimated words: 89090 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 445(@200wpm)___ 356(@250wpm)___ 297(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 89090 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 445(@200wpm)___ 356(@250wpm)___ 297(@300wpm)
With a sigh, she breathes out, “It was an accident.”
While tightening my grip on the steering wheel, I huff. “Accident. Right. Kinda like his broken wrist was an accident.” I signal to turn onto the highway. “Is Vasily left- or right-handed?”
She’s confused by my line of questioning, but answers nevertheless. “Right, why?”
“No reason.”
“Yev—”
“Takeaway or eat in?” When her brows crinkle, I nudge my head to the fast-food signage coming up on our left.
Polina grimaces before dropping her eyes to her fitted skirt and shimmery blouse. She’s dressed like she’s closer to her late thirties than twenties but is still hot as fuck. “Takeaway. It would look a little stupid turning up for burgers and fries in a three-thousand-dollar skirt.”
“Three thousand dollars.” I choke on my middle word. Nothing against Polina’s skirt, but even when my bank accounts were stuffed with funds, there was no fucking way in hell I’d ever pay three thousand dollars for an article of clothing.
When she giggles and nods, I steer my ride to the drive-thru while replying, “I might need to up my game again. I don’t think correct pinkie placement is going to cut it.”
She’s lost, but since the fluro-lit menu board is bringing her back to her youth, she keeps her confusion as closely guarded as the many secrets her eyes are dying to reveal.
13
POLINA
When it comes to people I care about, lying isn’t my forte, so I’ll admit I was peeved as hell when Yev tossed me into his negotiations earlier tonight. But once I settled my frustrations and realized most of them should have been directed at Vasily instead of Yev, I saw things in an entirely different light.
I haven’t eaten carbs in God knows how long, and although I had to pop a button on my skirt when I gorged like a pig, the guilt was nowhere near as bad when I wasn’t the only female in Yev’s vicinity bulging at the seams.
Several little girls at the homeless camp we delivered food to were also on the verge of a food coma. They stared up at Yev like he was a sports star, and it reminded me of the times I delivered food to the home Alek lived in for a few years after he was discharged from the hospital’s care.
He’s never told me why our father attacked him with a steel pipe he kept hidden under his bed, but I have a feeling it is why he was placed in a boys’ home instead of the foster care system.
I begged for my father to take Alek in as well when I found my feet in my new environment, but by then, Alek was thirteen and causing a heap of trouble. He refused to follow any rule he didn’t make up himself, and my new foster father had a book full of them.
We stayed in contact, but most of my youth was spent away from Kronstadt’s known criminal activities.
Alek’s revolved around it.
Although we weren’t overly wealthy, staff at the franchise across the country received a fifty percent discount on any orders across the country, so I went a little crazy with my first paycheck when I could finally work. The bags of food I arrived with at Alek and Ghost’s new haunt were meant to last them a week, but when I saw the glee on the faces of the younger boys they shared with, I strived to work out a way that I could do more than a two-hour shift after classes.
Yev was one of the boys my deliveries fed. He was scrawny and dirty, and the pain in his eyes cut through me like a knife, but my god, he was as cocky as a rooster. No one in our hometown was game to touch me after I informed Alek I was moving back to Kronstadt after graduation, but Yev didn’t care about his no-touch order.
He teased Alek relentlessly that they would one day be brothers-in-law.
You can imagine how well that went down with Alek.
He is overprotective. I guess most big brothers would be if they walked in on their father telling their baby sister, “Don’t tell your mother about this, or I will kill her.”
That’s when it dawned on me that our exchange was more than a father ensuring his daughter didn’t get sunburned.
I’m drawn from my somber thoughts by Yev. “You good?”
As he pulls into the front of my apartment, I plaster a fake smile onto my face before nodding. I hate that I have to act around him, but the past couple of weeks have been such a clusterfuck, I’m having a hard time remembering who my enemies and friends are. “Of course. Why wouldn't I be?”
When he looks like he’s about to respond with a number of reasons, I curl out of his stinky ride, then head for the stairs at the side of my boutique.