Total pages in book: 94
Estimated words: 92549 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 463(@200wpm)___ 370(@250wpm)___ 308(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 92549 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 463(@200wpm)___ 370(@250wpm)___ 308(@300wpm)
I stilled.
Veronika.
My fingers tightened around the stack of bills.
“Did you change the bag?” I asked, my voice quieter now, more dangerous.
I barely heard Marina’s response.
My mind was elsewhere, back in that room.
Veronika, gasping in my arms. Blood soaking her clothes. Her ice-cold eyes, always so unreadable, suddenly burning with emotion, more than I ever knew she was capable of.
Her last words whispered in my ear, her breath fanning against my skin.
She pleaded with me. Over and over. “It was a mistake,” she sobbed. “I didn’t know. I didn’t know. It was a mistake. Please, you have to protect my sister.”
Veronika had hundreds of thousands in her account. She had access to more money than some small countries. I made sure of it. Just because she was my wife in name only didn’t mean I didn’t provide for her. She never wanted for anything, not when I was the one ensuring she was taken care of. And it wasn’t as if she had any moral disdain for where the money came from. She had no problem spending it. No problem informing me when her next transfer was due.
No, this wasn’t about the money.
Something was wrong. So fucking wrong.
The hair at the back of my neck prickled. My instincts screamed at me, a warning just out of reach, like a shadow I couldn’t quite grasp.
The answer was staring me in the face. I just couldn’t see it.
“No. That’s the same duffel bag,” Marina said. “I didn’t put anything into it.”
“None of this makes fucking sense!” I roared, the frustration boiling over.
I had been so sure that the second I got my hands on this bag, everything would fall into place.
That it would give me answers.
But all I had were more questions.
There was barely ten thousand USD in this bag. A laughable amount.
Solovyov wouldn’t get out of bed for this kind of money.
Hell, this wouldn’t even cover one of Veronika’s shopping sprees.
So why?
Why was this so fucking important?
My jaw clenched, fury curling through my veins. I hated this. Hated having so many questions and no fucking answers. Hated how Marina was still in the crosshairs.
“I didn’t take anything out,” Marina insisted, panic lacing her voice. “It’s exactly as she gave it to me. I don’t understand why—”
Then I saw it.
I cut her off, sitting back hard on the sofa, my pulse pounding as I stared at one of the bills buried in the middle of the stack. “This is why.”
A single note.
Marked.
A series of numbers, written in pencil.
Barely there. Almost invisible. But I saw it.
Finally. A fucking answer.
I didn’t hear it at first.
Didn’t register the shift in the air.
Because I was staring at that bill, so absorbed in trying to decode what the numbers meant that I missed it.
The warning came too late.
BOOM.
The door exploded inward, the splintering wood a violent crack against the walls.
Fuck.
I was already moving, my fingers closing around the gun at the back of my waistband, spinning to fire. Too slow. I was too fucking slow.
A man stepped through the wreckage, icy blond hair, a jagged scar running down the side of his face.
The gun in his hand already up.
Already aimed.
Already pulling the trigger.
CRACK.
The first bullet slammed into my shoulder, a white-hot explosion of pain.
CRACK.
The second ripped through muscle, throwing me backward.
Marina’s scream split the air. “Kostya!”
My vision blurred; the world tilted as I hit the floor.
Pain.
Pain.
And blood.
Every instinct in my body screamed at me to move. To get up. To fight.
But I couldn’t.
Not yet.
And that hesitation—those few stolen seconds—might have just cost me everything.
CHAPTER 28
KOSTYA
The pain in my shoulder was intense.
Sharp, stabbing, burning, but it didn’t matter.
The only thing that mattered was Marina’s safety.
I fired two shots at the man who shot me, dead man number one.
Plaster exploded around him as he ducked for cover behind the doorway.
Marina screamed again.
She was closer to them than she was to me.
She was still standing in the bedroom doorway, and I was across the living room.
“Marina,” I said, motioning for her to get behind me.
I didn’t think she even heard me.
Her eyes were wide as they went between the new bullet holes in my shoulder and the doorway where the man had shot from.
The gunman who had already hit me popped out from behind the doorframe and fired again, barely missing me.
I returned fire, but my aim was shit.
I couldn’t shoot with my right hand. My shoulder wouldn’t lift as blood soaked through my sweater. I switched to my left hand and fired again, my shots going wide.
Fuck.
I should’ve trained with both my dominant and non-dominant hands.
With soon-to-be dead man number one still firing at me, I was forced to duck for cover, hiding behind the once pristine sofa that now had several bullet holes in it. Another man ran into the room, going straight for Marina. Dead man number two.
I tried to get a shot off, but shooting with my left hand, it went wide again and he grabbed Marina by the throat, whipping her around and using her as a human shield.