Total pages in book: 77
Estimated words: 71003 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 355(@200wpm)___ 284(@250wpm)___ 237(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 71003 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 355(@200wpm)___ 284(@250wpm)___ 237(@300wpm)
Sighing, I slump into the chair. I guess I’m being interrogated now.
For the next hour or so, I tell Ivan my story. I repeat the same thing three times. I tell him how they kidnapped me from the hospital. How they kept me in that cell. I tell him everything I can remember about my stay there. Every conversation I overheard. I describe every person I saw and anything else I can possibly remember, none of which gives a single clue as to why they were keeping me there in the first place.
By the time I’m nearly finished telling him the same story for the third time, my interrogation is interrupted by Ivan’s phone ringing. He pulls it out of his pocket and looks at the screen before looking at me and back down again.
Ivan answers the phone with a grunt, then raises his eyebrows curiously when the person on the other side says something. I can hear a male voice coming through the receiver, but I can’t make out what he is saying. I feel like a small child right now. My butt is sore, and my back is stiff from sitting on this plastic chair for so long. I’m exhausted, physically, and mentally, and all I want to do is to lie down somewhere and go to sleep.
“Got it, boss,” he finally says and ends the call. “Well, this is going to be either really bad or really good for you.”
Fear replaces the pain in my butt cheeks. “Huh? What does that mean?”
“The boss himself is going to come here and talk to you,” Ivan explains.
Puzzled, I stare at him. “I thought you were the boss?”
“Not quite.” A shiver runs down my spine at the thought of meeting the man that has the power to order a guy like Ivan around. I chew on my bottom lip nervously as we wait in silence.
A few minutes later, I hear footsteps approaching from down the hall. I instinctively sit up a little straighter, wanting to seem less like a bug that this man can squish. Wringing my hands in my lap, I watch as the door opens, and a tall man, wearing a black tailored suit, appears. He’s not as large as Ivan, but his dark eyes tell me he can cause just as much damage and mayhem… maybe even more than him.
His eyes are downcast, reading something on a paper he is holding as he steps into the room. He looks angry, almost furious, like he is about to yell at me, maybe beat me or worse.
“You interrupted my family dinner, little girl,” he growls, his voice dripping with annoyance and hatred… hatred for me. He throws the stack of papers on the table in front of him and looks up at me.
Dark eyes connect with mine, and for a moment, I’m so scared, I forget to breathe. Then, something weird happens. An emotion I don’t understand flickers in his gaze… pity? His eyes soften, but not much, and they swirl from pitch black to stormy cloud gray.
He takes the seat next to Ivan, never taking his eyes off of me. His stare is so intense, it makes me even more uncomfortable than I already am. It’s like he’s inspecting me, trying to figure me out. I do my best not to squirm in my seat, but that’s a little hard with two of the most intimidating men I’ve ever seen sitting before me.
After an awkward moment of silence, he starts talking. “Dove, is it?”
“Yes,” I answer before asking, “Who are you?” I don’t know where this burst of confidence comes from, but I kind of like it.
He raises one of his eyebrows and leans back in his seat as if he is just getting comfortable. Maybe I should’ve kept my mouth shut. Screw my newfound confidence. That shit is going to get me killed. I need to be quiet like a mouse to get myself out of this.
His lips twitch up into the tiniest smile before he introduces himself. “Xander Rossi. And you, Dove, are at my compound. I expected you to tell Ivan the truth. We did save you after all, didn’t we?”
“I didn’t lie,” I start to defend myself, but Xander holds up his hand, shutting me up.
“You told us you were kidnapped at the hospital, but your employer reported you missing a week prior to that. There was a police report stating that your apartment was broken into, nothing of value was taken, but it was ransacked like someone was looking for something.”
“My apartment?” I question as if that’s my biggest issue right now. “I-I can explain.”
“Explain then,” Xander growls a warning in his tone, “Better make it good.”
“I didn’t lie. Everything I said happened… I just didn’t tell you what happened before that. I didn’t think it would matter.” I shrug. “And I really just didn’t want to talk about that part.” My lips tremble as I speak, and if I didn’t want to make myself look weak, I was doing a really shitty job of it.