Total pages in book: 67
Estimated words: 67553 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 338(@200wpm)___ 270(@250wpm)___ 225(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 67553 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 338(@200wpm)___ 270(@250wpm)___ 225(@300wpm)
Yet, I found myself telling her the truth anyway.
“I was pulling my sleeves up this morning as I waited to leave, and my hand slipped on the sleeve, and I accidentally punched myself in the face,” I answered honestly.
Nastya blinked for a few seconds before she said, “I feel like you might’ve had it coming for some time now.”
“I did,” I snorted. “You have to cast the bait out there to catch anything.”
“Whatever,” she grumbled. “Your annoying face deserved that bruise.”
A flash of blonde hair caught my eye, and I couldn’t stop myself from looking toward the boat a few feet down the shore from me.
Brecken.
God, she was beautiful.
She was standing on the nose of her boat. She was wearing so many jackets that she looked like the marshmallow man in The Ghostbusters movie from the eighties.
Even her legs were puffy from what looked to be her brother’s hunting coveralls.
Her hair was blowing in the wind, and the cute little fuckin’ crocheted duck hat she was wearing was really cracking me up. The flaps hung well past her ears, and the orange bill of the duck hung across her forehead.
“Are you even listening to me?” Nastya asked angrily, casting her bait so far it landed in the trees.
Artur helped her get it out, and the bait fell into the water right beneath it.
She started to reel it in, and a fish came out of nowhere and swallowed her bait.
She squealed and reacted, yanking her pole backward in surprise, inadvertently setting the hook while she did.
“Reel it, Nasty!” I yelled, laughter in my voice.
Nastya reeled it in, her eyes huge as saucers, and started to jump in excitement as Artur used the net to get it out of the water.
Eyes huge at the tiny little bass she caught, she said, “I win!”
“You didn’t win.” Artur laughed. “But I’m just fuckin’ happy we landed a fish. We can go home now.”
I discreetly turned to look at the woman a couple hundred feet from me.
Again, she was casting, but this time she was doing it with a donut in her mouth.
“What exactly does that mean?” Nastya asked. “We can’t win a bass fishing tournament off of only one fish.”
“Artur has a rule that you have to catch a fish before you can leave. Even if you’re not catching shit,” I said as I cast my own bait out there again.
Artur moved us along, and I casted, reeled. Casted. Reeled.
But while I did this, I kept an eye on the woman to the left of me.
I memorized her every facial expression.
In fact, I was watching her when I felt my pole jerk in my hands.
I cursed when it nearly slipped right out of my fingers and yanked it backward.
A cry from the woman in the next boat over had me glancing her way as I reeled my own pole in.
She was leaned way back, and her pole was bent much the same as mine was.
She got her fish into the boat by reaching down and lifting it up, and I had to laugh at the contradiction that she and my sister made.
Nastya wouldn’t touch her fish if she was forced. Meanwhile, there was Brecken, uncaring that the fish was slimy and cold.
“Holy fuck,” I heard Artur say.
I looked back to my own fish to find that Artur was holding up a massive fish in his net, his eyes huge.
“Is that good?” Nastya asked. “It looks so gross.”
“It’s fuckin’ great,” Artur said.
Artur quickly removed the bait from the fish’s mouth and said, “You want it?”
“No.” I shrugged, looking around now. “Have you seen Falliday yet?”
“Not yet,” Artur said. “I’ve been keeping an eye out for him, but there are a fuck ton of people out here. I know he checked in.”
“He’s in a purple boat,” Nastya said out of the blue. “I noticed because it was so bright and sparkly.”
“Jesus,” I grumbled. “You would notice that.”
“How did you know it’s his boat? Did you see him?” Artur asked.
“I saw his girl in the bathroom. She was talking about ‘Cazzy’ and how ‘she had to get up at the ass crack of dawn’ when she was peeing and talking on the phone,” she answered as she pitifully threw the bait out into the water again. “I followed her out, and she got into a pretty sparkly purple boat.”
I wouldn’t normally bring my sister into Bratva business.
It was best to leave women and children out of it for the betterment of the world.
Once you brought them in, it was hard to keep them out.
Plus, my sisters were nosy as hell and sometimes couldn’t stop themselves from having gut reactions, whether those gut reactions would get them hurt or not.
Since Casmere Falliday was, according to Lev, a small-time player in the disappearance of my men—he was the one that allowed his warehouse to be rented for events—I didn’t see any harm in allowing Nastya to help me by being the female we needed for the tournament.