Total pages in book: 89
Estimated words: 85224 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 426(@200wpm)___ 341(@250wpm)___ 284(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 85224 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 426(@200wpm)___ 341(@250wpm)___ 284(@300wpm)
That people will always disappoint you. And that hope is the most dangerous thing of all.
“You picked me,” I tell him. “You picked me because of those things. You took a whore for a wife because you knew you could never love me.”
His face is blank. Devoid of the hurt I thought I saw only a few moments ago.
“Yes,” he answers.
The tiny bit of peace I thought I’d found in this sanctuary withers under his words and turns to dust. My feet are moving and my mind is repeating the only words that can bring me comfort now.
One day. One line.
One angel.
17
Alexei
I am in the gym. Piss drunk and with bloody knuckles when Magda finds me. I meet her panicked gaze in the mirror, and my heart beats too hard in my chest.
“What is it?” I demand.
My body is moving from the room before she can even explain. I find the cause for her concern when I walk into the sitting room and see the sofa cushions piled onto the floor.
My gaze moves up to where Magda points. Where on the ledge of a beam across the roof, Talia sits. Her back is facing us, her long blonde hair a halo around her white pajamas. Her legs dangle freely as her white knuckles grip the beam and keep her steady.
“She is singing a song,” Magda informs me. “I cannot get her to answer me.”
My body is stiff as I move forward. Towards the front of her body where I know I will find lifeless eyes if they meet my gaze. Because I put them there.
“Talia.”
The word is a command. One hidden behind the veil of fear I feel inside.
Her eyes flutter open, dead and empty, to collide with mine.
“You can’t catch me,” she says.
“I can,” I tell her.
“But you wouldn’t.”
“I always will,” I insist, my throat working to get the words out. “Come down from there.”
She takes one hand from the beam and uses her fingers to trace my face in the air. My heart is beating too hard. Too fast. I know she’s going to do it this time. Before she was unsure. Now, there is no doubt in her mind.
I’ve seen that expression before. That peace on her face is hauntingly familiar.
And for a moment, I am no longer thirty-five, but ten. And powerless.
My mind knows every dimension of this house. The height from the floor to that beam. But right now, the calculations are failing me. The pillows Magda has carefully placed below will not be of any help. Not from that distance.
“I was the wrong choice,” Talia says. “You picked wrong.”
There’s a moment where she meets my gaze again, and I try to find the words I desperately need. The words I have sought all my life. The ones that could save us both. They do not come. They have never come.
“You can’t destroy what’s already broken,” she says.
And then she lets go.
I step forward.
In front of me, Magda screams.
She is falling too fast. But she is light.
When I catch her in my arms, we both hit the floor, and her head bounces against my chest. There’s a momentary pause of silence before she blinks open her eyes and stares at me in confusion.
My relief is swiftly chased away by rage.
Magda is already hovering over us, attempting to coddle her. But I am done coddling the girl. I speak to her in Russian, telling her to retrieve my bag from the closet.
She does so reluctantly, and I heave the girl into my arms. She yelps when I grab her by the hair and yank her head back, forcing her gaze to mine.
“We are done with these games.”
Her throat bobs and tears threaten at the edges of her eyes. But she holds them in, like the brave girl she is hiding beneath the illusion. The one who has no choice but to go on because I will not allow any other option.
I carry her up the stairs and throw her onto the bed, her slight body bouncing against the mattress when I do. When Magda comes in, her expression worried, I instruct her to leave the bag and go. She hesitates, and it only fuels my anger.
“Go!” I roar again.
They both flinch, and Magda gives Talia one last glance before leaving. I dig around in my bag and find the rope. I use it to tie Talia’s wrists to the bed posts and her ankles to the base. When I finish, I step back to examine her. Spread open for me, her eyes wide and her chest panting.
My cock is painfully hard.
I want to bury myself in her now. To fuck her and fill her with my come. To impregnate her with my child. To prove to her that she is never leaving me. That the contract she signed with me is signed in blood. To remind her whose name and star she has carved into her flesh.