Total pages in book: 95
Estimated words: 89090 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 445(@200wpm)___ 356(@250wpm)___ 297(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 89090 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 445(@200wpm)___ 356(@250wpm)___ 297(@300wpm)
“Polina…” Nat mutters when my silence somehow equals a yes in her crazy logic of answers. “Don’t let him play these games. We will get your dad back, but not like this.”
“It’s been months,” I mumble, my words barely audible. “I don’t know if I can wait any longer.”
Since Vasily is only standing inches in front of me, I can’t admit that I also don’t want to lose Yev for years again, either.
I finally felt like I was getting my family back. Now it’s close to imploding again.
“You won’t have to wait a month if you keep your side of our agreement. You might not even have to hold out for a week.”
“A week?” I ask in disbelief.
Vasily nods before propping out his elbow in offering.
Realizing there’s only one person capable of getting me to see sense through the madness, Nat sprints for the storeroom while screaming Yev’s name on repeat.
Vasily hammers the final nail in my coffin just as quickly.
24
YEV
Adrenaline surges through my veins when I burst through the front door of Polina’s boutique. It’s a high I’d usually relish, but not like this. Not when it is delivered with a heap of panic. Polina’s boutique is empty, and the black town car Nat mentioned during our sprint out of the storeroom is nowhere to be seen.
While scanning the street, seeking any sign of which direction Polina went, I yank my cell phone out of my pocket and dial Polina’s number.
As the annoying shrill of a phone ringing sounds through my ear, a retro beat thumps from my left.
“Fuck,” I cuss when I spot Polina’s cell phone and purse in the gutter at the front of her store.
Mistaking my fear as anger, Nat says, “This isn’t just about her dad anymore. He threatened to have charges drawn up against you for the fights Friday night.”
“And she believed him?”
Okay, maybe some of the lines etched on my face are anger.
Polina and I had an agreement. She promised she wouldn’t be alone with Vasily. That she wouldn’t associate with him unless I was with her.
If she goes, I go. That’s our deal.
I guess if she doesn’t need to keep her promises, neither do I.
Kliment answers my call half a second later. “Hey, news travels fast, even with it needing to trek across several continents.” I’m even more lost when he asks, “What’s your wager? Most are sitting on a ten-pounder. I think they’re way off the mark. She’ll be girlie and compact like her mother.”
“What the fuck are you on about?” With my worry too high to discount, I demand, “Put me through to Alek.”
The squeak of an office chair sounds down the line as Kliment asks, “Do you think that’s wise?”
“Yes!”
Air whistles through his teeth as he succumbs to the demand of my short reply. “All right. It’s your funeral.”
After a brief stint of silence, Alek’s rough tone breaks over the grunts of a woman in a heap of pain. “This better be fucking important.”
“Having a late lunch?”
“I wish.” He cups the phone’s speaker, then mutters, “Breathe, precious. In through your nose, out through your mouth.”
“I… am… fucking… breathing…” Ana bites back between groans.
When a tormented scream booms through my phone’s speakers, and a male voice not belonging to Alek asks Ana if she wants to reconsider her decision not to have an epidural, the obvious smacks into me.
Ana is in labor.
As memories of the last time she birthed their daughter flash through my head, I ask, “How long has she got left?”
“Doc said it could be anywhere from two hours to two days.” Alek’s voice drops to a whisper. “I really fucking hope it’s two hours.”
“So do I,” I murmur to myself before pushing my phone in close to my ear. “Keep me updated, and I’ll do the same.”
Alek doesn’t miss the meaning of my reply. We’ve hardly talked since I confessed that Annika’s baby is my brother’s, but this saying goes way back from that. It started with Ana, and now it is shifting to Polina. “What’s going on?”
“Nothing,” I lie. “Just keep me updated, okay?”
“Yev—”
“Go hold her hand like you promised you would if you were ever given the opportunity to support her through this again.”
That gets his focus back on Ana. Not wholly, but mostly. “I’ll stay in touch.”
I issue my thanks with a head bob before promising to do the same.
“And Yev,” Alek mutters, forcing me to return my cell to my ear.
“Yeah?”
He waits a beat before muttering, “She could have done worse.”
His praise is unexpected and premature, but since I need his focus on Ana, I shake the shit out of his tree as I have for years. “Remind me of that when I force you to wear a monkey suit and walk her down the aisle.”
“It’s too fucking early to talk marriage.”
“Says you.”
I hang up before I spill that I’m not the person he should be worried about. Vasily isn’t helping Polina out of the kindness of his heart. He needs a wife, and around here, you can get married as quickly as a celebrant’s empty calendar date presents.