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)
I still haven’t told Yev about the tapes my father recorded. It won’t be an easy conversation, so I’ve been leaving it for a better time.
“That’s it. If you could just sign here.”
I scribble my name across the driver’s consignment sheet as a clap of thunder sounds above our heads.
It has him as eager as me to leave.
“See you soon,” he farewells before he slips into the cab of his truck backed up to the storage room.
Since I can’t exactly ask him to walk me out of my store, I farewell him with a wave while lowering the roller door the best I can without putting down my phone.
I need it for the light.
When my cell tumbles out of my hand, it mercifully lands with its light up. It keeps me filtered in light and exposes why the electricity is out. The circuit breaker box is open, and several of the switches are off.
As I flick the switches back on, moving from left to right, the first set of lights to turn on is the basement lights. I never go down there. For one, I’m too scared, and two, I’m fairly sure it is infested with rats.
The reason the safety switch activated is announced when I turn on the main lights for the boutique. It switches off every light in an instant before announcing that I’m not alone. A groan comes from the basement. It is similar to the moans that seep from Yev’s lips when he attempts to stand on his mangled leg.
It belongs to a human. I am one hundred percent certain of that. But they sound in a heap of pain.
“Hello…” I call out, as confident I’m not going to enter the basement as I am that Yev will never let me live this down when fear strangles me too perversely not to dial his number.
“You are in so much trouble,” he grinds out down the line, not bothering to issue a greeting.
He seems set to say more, but I stop him by whispering, “Someone is here.”
Sheets ruffle in the blow of his balk before he asks, “What?”
“Someone is here.” I step closer to the partially cracked-open basement door. “In the basement. Someone is in the basement.”
His demand doubles my panic. “Get the fuck out of there, Polly. I’ll send someone to check.”
“What if it’s Nat?”
“It’s not fucking Nat. Get out, Polly. Get out now!”
His shouts get my legs moving, but it’s too late.
Someone is entering the storeroom from the other side.
He is carrying a gun.
33
YEV
“Polina, I’m not playing. Get the fuck out of there!”
I stop thrashing against the headboard, endeavoring to free my hands by breaking my wrist when Polina’s frightened tremble sounds out of my phone’s speaker. Thank fuck for flexibility because I wouldn’t have taken her call if I couldn’t reach the connect button with my big toe. “I can’t. Someone is coming in from the other end.”
My brain is scrambled, but when it comes to this woman’s safety, it is quick. “What about the roller door?”
I thrash, crash, and bang until the headboard splinters away from the wall and I can pull my hands through the opening and scoot to my phone.
I’ve only just gathered it in my welted hand when Polina replies, “They’re out there too. I can see shadows.”
“How many?” A groan unlike anything I’ve ever heard before rips from my lips when I forget about my busted leg. I practically run off my bed, which buckles my legs out from underneath me.
My phone skids under the mattress, so I miss Polina’s reply.
It doesn’t matter either way. Her answer won’t alter my reply.
“I need you to hide.”
The rustles of a head frantically shaking is the only response I get.
“I know it’s scary, but I need you to do this. If they find you, they will hurt you. I can’t let that happen, Polina. I can’t live without you, so I need you to hide.”
“I-I can’t,” she murmurs as my fingers fly over my screen to alert Alek of the potential threat invading his baby sister’s boutique. “It-it’s dark.”
A second after my message is delivered, Alek’s face pops up on my screen.
I deny his request to FaceTime before focusing my attention back to Polina. “You can do this. I know you can. Do it for me, baby girl. Show me how brave you are.”
As the clangs of the chains that lift the roller door in the storeroom sound through my ear, I fight through the pain shredding through me to stand and head to the door.
It fucking kills me walking on my leg, but it has nothing on the terror that zaps through me when foreign accents sound over Polina’s shallow breaths.
They sound Italian.
“Now, Polly,” I demand as I move through my apartment so fast my cast cracks and falls apart with every stomp I take. “I need you to hide now.”