Total pages in book: 84
Estimated words: 79087 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 395(@200wpm)___ 316(@250wpm)___ 264(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 79087 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 395(@200wpm)___ 316(@250wpm)___ 264(@300wpm)
“Do you want to talk about it?” Slavik asked.
He was heading back to his own territory. To Aurora, and his kids. He had the family I always wanted, and I was happy for him. That was why I chose Aurora for him.
I knew they could make it work together. As long as he got his head out of his ass, which he did.
“There’s nothing to talk about,” I said.
“Ivan, you and I both know it has been a long time since this happened. You’re quiet. You’re not meddling with Victor’s marriage. You’re not ... smiling.”
The truth was, I rarely smiled. I was happy for my men. Volkov Bratva was thriving in ways I had only ever dreamed about. I had taken us out of the gutter and made us something great. It had come at a cost. Many years ago, I had lost my wife. No one knew about her. Well, Niamh knew. The wife to Peter, one of my Brigadiers.
“Freya is my sister,” I said.
“I heard.”
“And she has a death threat against her that I can’t control.”
“It’s why I’m here. It has been a long time since you have been unable to control something like this. You’re out of your comfort zone.”
“No, I’m not,” I said.
I would figure it out. It all came back to Harris.
Demanding The Beast and The Butcher, they thought I was going to take the easy road, which told me they didn’t know who they were dealing with. I had never in my life taken the easy road. I was happy to take the hard road, to get knocked, to have setbacks, to keep fighting. I loved breaking the odds, and coming out the victor. I had even faked my own death, and the shit that came from that was nothing more than child’s play to me. It had all been easy.
But this time, things were different. Freya was my sister. She had a shit life that I know of. I had been able to get the truth out of the men who claimed to be her brothers. They had told me how they would scare her nearly to death, that for a whole year, she wouldn’t go to sleep at night for fear of what they might do. She would sleep during the day, and then at night, she would stay awake, waiting.
They found it funny. How they would drag her out to the pool, and force her to hold her breath under water. Nearly killing her because of how much they pushed.
They hadn’t been laughing by the time I was through with them. My sister had lived a shit live, and then I gave her to Victor.
Now, I know their wedding night hadn’t been ... pleasant. Not killing Victor was difficult.
It was like a switch had been triggered inside my head, and I wanted to protect her. I wanted to take her away from all the shit that had come her way, and tell her it was going to be okay. Only, The Grid wouldn’t allow me to fucking do that, because they had a hit out on her. There was a way to bring The Grid down, I just didn’t know how.
“This started with Harris,” Slavik said.
“No,” I said, shaking my head. “This started with my father.”
“He’s dead, Ivan.”
I looked toward my friend. “Yeah, I know, and from the grave, he is still fucking with me. But don’t worry. I will figure this out, and then there will be nothing left.”
Slavik got to his feet and put a hand on my shoulder. “Of that, I have no doubt. No one is stopping you, Ivan.”
****
Freya
I hated planes and helicopters, and it would seem spending years trapped on my father’s—no, fake father’s—property, it wasn’t easy for me to move.
We didn’t go to Victor’s place. That would have been easy. Instead, we went to Peter Orlov’s territory. We didn’t stay with them. There was a special safe house, and we had some luggage, and none of it was my sewing equipment.
We had left Ivan’s private island, and were now locked in a secure location. The Butcher was there, and she hugged me, welcoming me. She didn’t stay. No one stayed. The house was secured with just Victor and me inside.
I didn’t know if this was better or worse than being on an island. The windows were boarded up, so there was no way to see the outside. I wanted to cry. Only, I took a deep breath, folded my arms across my chest, and looked at the windows.
“Cozy,” I said.
Victor didn’t say anything.
“Is this what it will be like?” I asked. “Because I think I would be quite happy to run the risk of starving to death.”
He moved up behind me and wrapped his arms around my waist. “Peter has this place closed most of the year. It’s a safe house he hasn’t used in quite some time. It’s boarded up because of a bad storm a couple of years ago. If he opened it and didn’t stay here, it would raise suspicion. Going to a hotel would be too risky.”