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)
They tortured Brecken for days on end for the location of the drugs Vasily had stolen.
He didn’t crack—men like Brecken don’t—but his disappearance forced an older and more deadly Fleming out of the covert operation he had been undertaking the prior few months.
Beckett pinched the title of “eldest” from Brecken by mere minutes, but he did what every big brother does when their sibling is in trouble.
He upended the world for Brecken, and it started long before he disappeared after his “arrest.”
The instant news circulated amongst his team that a CIA officer had been arrested for espionage, and he couldn’t get ahold of his brother, Beckett landed in Russia under an alias.
He had no clue he was on the same flight as his brother until he unearthed the footage Kliment had stored on my laptop when he broke into my apartment the night before the fight.
For months, Beckett worked behind the scenes to clear his brother’s name, but unlike gangbangers like Kliment and me, he went straight to the source when he unearthed a connection between Brecken and the Cabanows.
He may have even taken down the people responsible for his family’s pain.
From what the Feds discovered on a phone they raked off the bottom of the lake, Polina’s public humiliation the night of my last fight wasn’t the end of her punishment. Someone just took Leon out before he could place a bounty on her head as he had Vasily’s last fake fiancée.
He’s not a man to allow shame to rain down on his family, even when it is his son causing the shame, so he wanted Polina dead no matter the cost.
The Sicilians were suspicious of Vasily’s shady deals long before Brecken’s return. They tapped his phone, so when Vasily saw who he thought was Polina’s father at the match, he sent word to his limited crew for the untainted drugs to be moved in case the rumors about Brecken having a recording of him tainting the drugs were true.
Local authorities believe the Sicilians finally taught Vasily the consequences of double-crossing the mafia. Only Polina and I have opposing opinions.
He will never admit it, but the boot prints left at both the scene of Pavel’s death and in the marshland near the lake Leon’s town car plunged into were the same size.
Fourteen and a half—the exact tread length of Beckett’s army boots.
With the media’s focus on Leon and Vasily’s deaths, it took the Sicilians a few days to lure Vasily’s top men out of hiding, but when they did, they were quick to torture the location of the drugs out of them.
They were in the process of organizing the shipment of the untainted drugs with a local runner when the courier company called Polina.
It is lucky Alek’s men responded as fast as they did, or who knows how the Sicilians would have reacted when they learned the drugs had been moved again.
They were pissed by the interruption, and Alek lost two men, but the sole purpose of our raid was left untouched.
With my mood grateful, I don’t fist Polina’s hair and yank it back when she reaches me. I rake my fingers through her glossy locks before tilting her chin so her kneeled position doesn’t diminish the eye contact she maintained while crawling to my side of our shared cabin.
I did the same when I coerced her out of the hiding spot in the storeroom of her boutique. She remained kneeling at my side for almost ten minutes, shaking and silent. Seconds never felt like hours until that morning, and I was beginning to wonder if her fear would ever leave, but eventually, she blinked before her nails released their firm clutch on my thigh.
Five minutes after that, she gingerly walked up the stairs to be reunited with her father.
I can’t recall the exact words I whispered to her while waiting for her fear to subside, but they were similar to the ones I spoke while convincing her to hide. I reminded her that she was brave and that no one would ever hurt her again. That she didn’t need to leave the storeroom until she was ready and how I’d wait until the end of eternity for her.
It was only ten minutes, but my fucking god, those minutes were tethering. They tied me to her for eternity and secured my placement in her life for just as long.
My grief will never leave me, but the past six months have taught me that I had no reason to fear Feo ever being forgotten.
When you love someone to death, they never leave you.