Total pages in book: 47
Estimated words: 44321 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 222(@200wpm)___ 177(@250wpm)___ 148(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 44321 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 222(@200wpm)___ 177(@250wpm)___ 148(@300wpm)
Nikki closed the door behind him. He wore a pair of black, pinstripe pants, a crisp white shirt, and shoes that seemed so shiny. There was a plate of food in his hand, and he moved to the bed, to put it on top.
“You’ve got to start eating something,” he said. “Dad is not happy.”
Faith looked over at him and then down at the food. She didn’t have an appetite. It was kind of hard to want to eat food when fear played a heavy role in her life. Her mother had spent a lot of her childhood complaining about what a waste she was. How disappointed she was, how important it was to be part of the Golubev Bratva. But after the past week, Faith struggled to see the charm.
There was nothing good about being part of this Bratva. This was a nightmare. She thought about Tank.
She had no idea of the family she was connected to. There were moments she found herself thinking about the shipment of women.
“Did you ever … care about my mother?” Faith asked.
She and Nikki had never had a long conversation.
“No,” Nikki said. “She was an easy fuck. That was all. I should have known she’d try to get pregnant. I wasn’t the first man she’d tried to manipulate, but I was the first man she caught.”
“You hated her.”
“The bitch pierced the condoms. She wanted to get pregnant. That woman was a whore who wanted a title,” Nikki said.
“And what am I?” she asked, feeling the tears fill her eyes.
Nikki shrugged. “I know you’re a good woman. I’ve watched you grow up.”
“How?”
“I wasn’t there, Faith, but regardless of what people say and think, I was aware of you. I knew your achievements. How you got your head down at school and focused on your studies. You weren’t interested in boys. You’re a hard worker. You don’t make waves, and then you got taken.”
Faith frowned. “You expect me to believe that you care?”
“I care about all my kids. They just don’t know it. Like, I know that Paul is not a good man for you, but it will be good for the Golubev Bratva,” Nikki said. “Everything we do is good for business.”
“And what about this?” Faith asked, holding out her wrist. “I didn’t have to be part of this world. You made me.”
Nikki smiled. “I did what I was told to do. I followed orders.”
“Orders?” Faith asked.
“Yes. Do you really think I’m the one who controls who bears the mark of the Golubev?”
“Sergey?” Faith asked, pulling her wrist in close and glancing down at the marks.
Nikki didn’t deny nor confirm it. There was no need. She had been lied to.
“We all have our roles to play and my advice to you is find something that makes you happy. Something where you escape while you’re in this. There is no getting away from it.”
“Is it true?” Faith asked. “That I look like your sister?”
Nikki had gone to the door, about to leave. “Yes. You looked like her when you were a kid, and even as a teenager. You’re exactly how I imagine she would have looked.”
With that, he was gone. The door closed.
She didn’t have enough answers. There was no way she was going to believe her father cared. It was all just a trick. That’s what this family did. She had come to see that now. They liked to play tricks, manipulate to get what they wanted.
She walked over to the bed and stared down at the food. It was a beautiful-looking pasta dish, one of her favorites, but she didn’t have the stomach for it.
Perching her ass on the edge of the bed, Faith didn’t know if she could do this. She had no idea how her life had gone wrong so quickly.
****
“Fuck you, man. I can walk,” Tank said.
Brute had forced Tank to remain in bed. It was on doctor’s orders. The only way to make sure he recovered, and fast, was to give him as much bed rest as possible. Tank was a pain-in-the-ass patient.
No one else would work with him. Road had called it quits after the first ten minutes. Igor had threatened to start removing body parts by the end of the hour. Hail, Vlad, Maxim, and Nikolai hadn’t lasted an hour each. Sarge had done a day, Stan two days, and Krill had threatened to drive a car over him.
The women couldn’t handle him either. He just shouted and it turned them all into crying messes. The other men were happy with Tank’s anger and aggression. According to them, it made for an easier fuck.
With all the brothers tapping out, it left Brute. As it happened, he didn’t mind Tank’s charming personality. In fact, he found it rather humorous, the constant insults and badgering tone.
In the beginning, he cleaned up the mess from Tank, when he’d throw shit, but now that Tank was on the road to recovery, he forced the brother to clean up his own shit. If he threw a bowl of soup, that was all fine and dandy, but he was cleaning that shit up. He wouldn’t have it any other way. It had taken three cleanups—one of soup, another of cheese sauce, and finally one of porridge—but Tank had stopped throwing shit, which was a miracle.