Total pages in book: 81
Estimated words: 79211 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 396(@200wpm)___ 317(@250wpm)___ 264(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 79211 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 396(@200wpm)___ 317(@250wpm)___ 264(@300wpm)
I place the flute down and set my hands in my lap to steady the trembling, but Aleks is as placid as can be.
“What is it?” he asks in a low voice.
“It’s Misty.”
Misty? Who’s Misty — oh. His cat. Misty’s his cat. Did something happen to her?
“She’s sick. I thought it was just a normal thing like she had a furball or something clogged in her throat, but it’s way more than that. I think she’s been poisoned. But that’s not the worst of it.”
Aleks’s eyes are dark and dangerous. Lethal. “Tell me.”
“Do you remember?” Polina whispers. “She ate off the tray of food meant for Harper.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
Harper
It takes a few seconds for the truth to register before an icy mask of decision falls over Aleks’s face.
“Lock this room down. Now.”
It all happens so quickly. Guests are vetted and escorted out, staff is questioned. I sit, flanked on either side by two of the bodyguards who were stationed outside my room this morning.
I suddenly remember. “Aleks, earlier today you said you had a tray of food for me, and I told you we already had one?”
“Right. Who brought the tray in?”
“Aria.”
Aria says one of the staff members gave it to her and points out a pale, thin woman with blonde hair.
“I’m so sorry, sir,” she says, her eyes wide at the look on Aleks’s face. “I was instructed to bring it up. That’s all I know. I came in late for a shift and one of the headwaiters said you asked for it to be sent up.”
The poor girl quakes under his furious look. “Which waiter?”
On and on the questioning goes until Aleks has interrogated everyone on staff. Mikhail oversees the questioning with concern, his brow knitted, but he mostly appears like he’s trying to prevent Aleks from singlehandedly murdering everyone.
“Aria could’ve eaten from that tray,” I say in a whisper. “She had the food in her hand but got distracted.”
The thought of Aria being poisoned…
Now Mikhail joins Aleks with the murderous looks.
“I want every one of the staff dismissed,” Aleks says to Mikhail. “Fired. No one but my wife stays here.”
My heart stalls at those words, two words that are foreign to my ears.
My wife.
Within an hour, his cat’s been sent to an emergency vet and declared poisoned but fine, and now there’s no one but the two of us left in the house. Not a single member of staff. Not one bodyguard.
I have no doubt Mikhail and his men are doing whatever Bratva men do about a potential threat against their loved ones.
Aleks sits brooding, a bottle of beer in front of him. His tie’s long gone, his hair a little tousled. He’s broody as fuck, and no help for it.
I try to think of him as my husband but somehow the vision of him in front of me and the words don’t quite jive together.
I nurse a glass of wine and try to make the dots connect.
“We were all adopted, you know,” he says thoughtfully, running his thumb along the rim of the beer bottle.
“Oh? I didn’t know. I mean, I know hardly anything about you.”
“Each of us, in turn, came from nothing. My uncle told me it was a favorite strategy of his father’s. My grandfather’s.”
I take another sip of wine, welcoming the slightly fruity tang and burn. “What strategy?”
“To start fresh. Start anew. He said whenever he took over a business, the first thing he did was fire everyone so he could handpick who worked for him. It was his method of ensuring loyalty.” He talks in a low, dangerous growl that makes me shiver. “Burn it all to the ground and start fresh.”
“An interesting strategy.”
Does that apply to me?
Oooooh.
“You told me to bring nothing with me,” I say in a little voice as it dawns on me. “You wanted to start fresh with me.”
He nods. “It’s how my father established his family. One by one, he chose us. He ensured our loyalty by providing for our needs, taking care of us, fathering us. By giving us a mother that took care of us.”
“I see.”
He takes another sip from the bottle. I watch his Adam’s apple bob up and down while he swallows.
“Did you fire everyone?”
“Yeah.”
I polish off the glass of wine and reach for the bottle. He watches me as if mesmerized but doesn’t stop me. I try to keep my tone upbeat to quell my rising nerves. “I’m amazed they left so readily, given your cheerful nature and infectious joy for life. You’re like sunshine in human form.”
He narrows his eyes at me. “Are you baiting me?”
My hand shakes a little as I pour another glass. “Nah.”
Of course I’m baiting him. If I can get him focused on sparring with me, it takes his mind off things like murder, bloodshed, and the darker cravings that haunt him. I want to see the man he is beneath the scars and shadowed masks he wears.