Total pages in book: 97
Estimated words: 92133 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 461(@200wpm)___ 369(@250wpm)___ 307(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 92133 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 461(@200wpm)___ 369(@250wpm)___ 307(@300wpm)
Each lesson was pointless. They didn’t give me the rules and he was doing it on purpose.
Ivan’s words came back to haunt me: “That is not a man who hates you, Adelaide. I am going to give you a piece of advice. He has probably already told you what he needs for you to have more freedom. Andrei doesn’t trust easily.”
I shouldn’t care about him.
Andrei could handle himself, but even as I thought it, I couldn’t help but wonder about the man I’d married. What had made him this way? Why didn’t he trust easily? Who had hurt him in the past? Why did it bother me? It’s not like he was a good person. This was the man he wanted to be. Who he chose to be.
But that didn’t mean I couldn’t wonder about him.
He always got in late. The last couple of nights, I heard him arrive home, but I chickened out of kissing him, pretending to be asleep, until I finally drifted off before he even made it to bed.
Tonight, I’d drunk coffee—a lot of it. I enjoyed coffee but usually I gave myself a cut-off time so that I wasn’t wired all the time.
He didn’t come to the bedroom. For a good twenty minutes I lay in bed listening, waiting for him to arrive, but nothing.
Pushing the blankets off, I slid my feet into my slippers and went to find him. I wore a pair of pajama shorts and a tank, quite modest compared to the negligees neatly folded in the drawers. Stepping out of the bedroom, I waited a moment, unable to hear him. He wasn’t in the kitchen or the living room. The dining room was clear, which left the small library, study, his office, or the spare bedroom.
I decided to check his office, and sure enough, that’s where I found him, standing at the floor-to-ceiling window, enjoying a glass of liquor, staring out across the city.
The moment I entered, he pulled out a gun and pointed it directly at me. I froze into place. This was the first time a gun had been pointed at me. I held my hands out in front of me.
“You shouldn’t be sneaking around,” he said.
“I wasn’t.”
“Why are you awake?”
“I … er … I heard you come in.” This wasn’t going according to plan. I had hoped he’d come into the bedroom, get ready for bed, and I could kiss him quickly and swiftly in the hope of getting out of the penthouse tomorrow.
This was confrontation. This required me to look at him.
“Do you know what today is?”
“No?” I asked. He didn’t need me to be smart with him and tell him the date, month, and year.
“This is the anniversary of my father’s death,” he said.
“Oh, I’m so sorry.”
He burst out laughing. “Oh, sweetheart, you don’t have to be sorry for that. I was the one who killed him.”
I’d never been privy to his past. I’d never heard of him doing anything wrong, at least not before tonight. There was always the hint in the news, across the media, and amongst the circles my parents were part of. This was … I didn’t know what to say.
“The bastard had it coming,” Andrei said.
How the fuck should I respond to that?
“You do know the Bratva isn’t some childish gang where we share secrets with one another. It’s a blood loyalty.” He put his glass on the edge of the desk and moved toward me. I stayed perfectly still, watching, waiting.
Button by button, he started to open his shirt, revealing his muscular and heavily inked chest. The only time I’d seen him up close was out of the corner of my eye in the shower, but I’d not faced him. Not as he washed himself. I’d kept my back to him, trying to keep my body covered, from my husband. It wasn’t how I imagined a marriage to be.
The shirt fell to the floor.
“You can’t see it, but you can still feel.” He reached for my hand, pulled me close, and put my hand on his arm. “This is where he slashed me for breaking his fucking vodka bottle. I nearly died because of it.” Next, my hand went to his stomach. “He beat me so hard, I was pissing blood. Here is where the buckle of his belt slashed me.”
He ran my hands over his body, which was covered in scars, most of them from his father. Tears filled my eyes as I imagined Andrei as a scared little boy.
“So, when the opportunity came to kill him, I took it.” He held his arms open wide. “I am the only surviving Belov, Adelaide. The only one of my line and I’m loyal to Ivan Volkov. The bastard son of the previous Pakhan. You want the rules to survive. You’re loyal to him. You swear your life to him, and to me. You don’t see or hear anything. You see me covered in blood, you help wash it off. You bear my children. You belong to me, and in return, you will have a life you only ever dreamed of.” He dropped his hands. “That is what your father wanted. To have our wealth and power, and to do it, he gave us you. Betray us, and you will long for death before I grant it.”