Total pages in book: 92
Estimated words: 86238 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 431(@200wpm)___ 345(@250wpm)___ 287(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 86238 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 431(@200wpm)___ 345(@250wpm)___ 287(@300wpm)
I brush away the dark tuft curling down his forehead that Yev always gels into place a second before I am pulled away from him.
I’m too tired to fight, but that means I’m left defenseless when the man we locked in the room with two of his ‘brothers’ rams his fist into my stomach. It rockets pain through my midsection and has me certain Feo’s life isn’t the only one I’ll lose today.
33
ALEK
Vomit sits at the base of my throat when I groggily detect someone approaching me. I feel like I’ve been hit by a truck, and I’m not even sure I am not dead, but nothing will stop me from reaching out and grabbing the fucker whispering shit I don’t want to hear.
“I’m old, but I am not that fucking old.”
Against the screaming protest of my head, I crack open my eyes. Yev grins that his rile forced me to respond. From the smell of my pits and the thickness of the stubble on his chin, I’d say I haven’t done that for a while. “Brain damage, my fucking ass.” As he pries his shirt out of my fists, he murmurs, “This guy is a tank. He’d need more than a little brain bleed to take him down.”
As I sit up, once again against the directive of my head, I ask, “Where the fuck am I? And what the fuck did they do to me?”
It smells like I’m waking up in a hospital, and the bed underneath me is as uncomfortable as the one I rested in for weeks after my father cracked my skull, but I don’t know any hospital that allows men to openly display their weapons.
Yev is weaponed up for a fight.
“We’re at one of the Yurys’ offsite compounds.”
“The Yurys?” I double check, certain I heard Yev wrong. Don’t get me wrong, for the right amount of coin, Asher was willing to come to the party for Ghost, but they’ve fought for Bobrov turf for years. There’s no way he’d just forget their biff to keep two of his enemies alive.
My eyes pop fully open when I recall it wasn’t just me fighting to live. “Gho—”
“Was wondering when you’d wake the fuck up.” He’s quick to hide the flare of pain crossing his face when he stands from a chair at the corner of the room to hobble to my bed. Don’t tell him I said he was hobbling, or he’ll break my knee to ensure he isn’t the only one showcasing battle wounds.
When he stops at the end of my bed and unshadows the scarred side of his face, I cuss again. His face is shredded to pieces. The speargun one of Kirill’s men tossed in for fun ripped through his skin as much as the grenade he jumped on during his first family war.
After waiting a minute to settle the fury in my voice, I ask, “How long have I been out? And what the fuck did Asher stab into my chest?”
My eyes dart to Yev so fast, I almost fall back into the land of the space cadets when he replies, “Three days.” He waits a beat before saying, “And technically, he killed you. He had to stop your heart before it flooded your head with too much blood. Your pulse was barely a trickle for hours.”
Although shocked, it isn’t the first time I’ve been told I had to die to live. The same happened when I was rushed to the ER with a cracked skull. But the first part of his confession is shocking.
“I’ve been out for three days?”
When Yev nods in confirmation, I yank out the flimsy drip and shit attached to my arm and throw my legs over the bed.
Since there’s no longer a mattress keeping me upright, my knees crumble out from beneath me, and I drop to the floor like a bag of shit.
Won’t stop me, though. I’ll crawl to the fucking docks if I must.
I’ve left Anastasia without help for three days.
I’ll never fucking forgive myself if something has happened to her.
Aware that there is only one person who will slow me down, Ghost shoves a photograph under my nose. “It was taken yesterday afternoon around four. They were keeping her in the orlop before that.”
Ana is standing near the scour I placed in the metal railing of the Bobrov ship. I didn’t want her hooking her leg over anywhere. Although the ship was docked during renovations, our boat was on the side facing the ocean because we didn’t want nosy dock workers spying on us. The fall could have killed her, so I lessened the possibility of that happening by marking the spot with a screwdriver and refusing to let her climb first.
She never visited the boat unless I was with her.
“Yev talked to Feo not long after we got back to shore. He’s keeping an eye on her as promised.” Ghost nudges his head to the image, highlighting Feo standing next to her. His stance is somewhat protective. If Yev wasn’t staring at me to gauge my reaction, I would swear I was looking at him. That’s how closely they resemble each other. “We lost contact shortly after this, but if the trajectory is right, we should pick them up again sometime tonight.” He twists his torso to peer at someone over his shoulder. “Right?”