Total pages in book: 83
Estimated words: 78912 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 395(@200wpm)___ 316(@250wpm)___ 263(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 78912 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 395(@200wpm)___ 316(@250wpm)___ 263(@300wpm)
He has the fucking balls to shoot me an audacious glare. I glare back, narrowing my eyes on him. He knows I'm watching his every fucking move. The prick swallows hard and visibly pales.
Good.
My phone rings again. I answer on the first ring.
"Yeah."
"Listen to me." It's Laina. "I had to go where no one would hear me. I'm alone but I don't want anyone to overhear. Do you see Myron?"
"Yes," I say, my eyes reluctantly moving from Marissa to Myron.
"I went on a walk just now and overheard a talk between two of his men." Her voice is hushed, shaking. We deal with high stakes in the Bratva, and I know intuitively anything that would send Laina into a panic matters. "He made a deal, Nicolai."
The blood rushes in my ears so hard and fast it's hard to hear her. I know the kinds of deals she could be talking about.
"He's sold her," she says, her voice breaking. "He's put her up for auction. One week."
"Who did?" I want utter clarity.
"Myron," she breathes into the phone. My hands clench into fists of rage so tightly my knuckles turn white. I could kill him, right here, I could beat his motherfucking body to within an inch of his life before I slit his fucking throat.
This can't be. Our brotherhood does not deal with human trafficking rings. There are no auctions with us.
What can she possibly be talking about?
"How do you know this?" I demand. This is no small task she's given me, no small accusation she makes.
"I heard it with my own ears," she says on a shaky whisper. "You have to take her. There's no other way."
Take her? What the fuck is she talking about?
"No," I whisper into the phone. "I can't do that. I'll come home and we—"
"Everything okay, Nicolai?" Myron stands a few feet away, his dark black eyes suddenly looking more menacing than I remember.
Is it my imagination? Or is he really guilty?
Laina would not lie.
"Fine," I tell him. It takes effort to keep my voice steady. "Are we off to the party?"
He's rented a large hall. Food will be catered and he's even hired a live band.
"Yes," he says, and then he reaches for Marissa. He strokes his hand along her hair with a wistful expression and kisses the top of her head. A fatherly gesture, but in light of what Laina's told me, his gesture makes my skin crawl.
"Nicolai," Laina pleads into the phone. "You have to believe me. She's being taken. Groomed. And put up for auction."
"Where?" I ask, rage boiling inside me at the very thought of anyone touching Marissa.
"I don't know," she whispers. "I have to go. Get her out of there."
The phone goes dead.
I look wildly around the auditorium.
If Laina is wrong, my father will lose his mind, and I'll be punished as a Bratva traitor, facing painful, brutal torture and death.
If she's right...
I curse under my breath and follow them to the party.
Chapter 2
Marissa
Nicolai always looks angry and brooding, but I swear, he looks angrier than I've ever seen him look. And it makes me want to cry.
I try not to look at him if I can avoid it, since I'm terrified he'll see me gawking at him one of these days. That one day, he'll know the way I feel about him. And today will not be that day.
But even when I'm actively not looking at him... even as I look past him and focus on my boyfriend, my friends, hell, even my father, I feel him. His brooding, powerful presence. Stern blue eyes on me. Those full lips and taut, tattooed, muscles, the way his—
God.
I'm a wreck. I can't think about him now.
But how can I not?
I swallow back tears as I accept the praise of everyone but the one man I would do anything to please.
I worked hard at achieving high honors. I was proud walking across that stage, earning my ribbons and diploma with the rest of my class. And I'll miss the friends I met here, as I go off to college.
So it hurts when he does nothing but glare at me when I get my diploma. It isn't fair.
I did nothing to deserve his hate. If I could control this, I never would have had him work for my father at all. For over four years, I've endured his endless hovering and thin-lipped silence, his complete lack of humor and smothering overprotection. His stern lectures about how to behave and keeping myself safe. He'd wrap me in fucking bubble wrap if he could.
Because I'm nothing but a child to him.
I'm ready to move on, move away from his ridiculous, patronizing ways. Ready to branch out and become who I'm meant to be.
"Marissa!" Chelsea runs to me when we go outside to the school lawn and throws her arms around me, her blonde hair billowing in the wind. "We did it!" She brings her mouth to my ear and whispers. "Meet me at my house tonight? My parents are out of town. Epic party."