Total pages in book: 33
Estimated words: 30437 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 152(@200wpm)___ 122(@250wpm)___ 101(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 30437 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 152(@200wpm)___ 122(@250wpm)___ 101(@300wpm)
He glanced around the street, checking to make sure there were no enemies lurking. Even though no one knew who he was, there was no room for error. He was a ghost.
Many in the Bratva feared him because they didn’t know who he was. One moment he was there, another he was not. No one had seen the devil ghost. It always made him smile that people knew his name but didn’t have a clue who he actually was. It made walking amongst them easier. People let their guard down. They figured he was just another soldier, or a Brigadier. Just a rude one. They had no idea who they were dealing with, and he wanted to keep it that way.
****
Dmitriy said she didn’t have to cook, clean, or do any housework. The moment she was removed from her family’s house nearly four years ago, she had been living on her own. No maid, no one to pay her bills. They had removed her from the family with what they thought was nothing, but she had skills.
Anastasia had known there would come a time she would risk it all for freedom. That had come when they tried to marry her off to a fifty-year-old man who had already killed his previous wife, and the man was a pig. Most girls—daughters—did as they were told. It was their duty. The Gnesin Bratva was life.
Not to her. She had wanted freedom since she was ten years old. All she could do was taste it. Crave it. Freedom.
And then, when her father hit her so hard it bruised her eye, swelling it shut, Anastasia had left. She had looked her father in the eye and told him she would slit the throat of her husband. She would make the Babkin name no better than dirt if he forced her to marry a man she could not stand. It had been a standoff.
Her father had been torn between anger and admiration. He, nor her mother, had raised a weakling. She was strong, confident, independent. She refused to bow down to the pressure. There was no way she would balk.
He told her she would not be able to come back. Anastasia knew she would miss her parents, but freedom meant more to her than being trapped in a prison with a powerful man.
She had been saving for this moment. Since she was ten years old, she had saved every cent of her allowance and any money she had been given over the years. There was no great fortune, at least, not to many, but twenty thousand dollars across eleven years had meant she could leave, get a job, make rent, and survive.
She learned to survive first. Trust no one. Being raised in the Bratva, that had come first. Locks on her doors were a must. She took self-defense lessons, and she found the means to take care of herself.
Until six months ago.
She hadn’t seen her family in four years. Well, apart from her father, who would make random stops to the artisan supermarket to see her. There was no love or affection, but in his own way, she knew he cared.
Her family was now all dead. Her three brothers, her mother, her father, her two grandparents, all of them gone.
When she had woken to Dmitriy in her room, she knew he was the ghost, the devil that many feared. The man who did Gnesin’s work. Killed without mercy. She had no idea if her parents deserved death, but to come from Gnesin, that was on strict order. Dmitriy would have no choice but to abide by it.
That night, alone in her apartment, facing certain death had terrified her. She knew the risks. Even though she had been cast out, her father had warned her that if it was deemed the family needed to be removed, that would include her. It was why she never dated and didn’t allow herself to get close to anyone, and why at twenty-five years old, she was still very much a virgin. She would not bring an innocent person into the life she was part of.
She glanced across the cabin, and saw it was a little after six. Dmitriy usually arrived, and he would be quiet for some time, then ask about her day. There was not much to tell. She had read the books he had on the shelves, about forty. She had worked from most of the cookbooks. He didn’t have a television. It was a cabin in the woods. The days were spent out in the garden, tending to the vegetables and keeping her mind busy.
Dmitriy had saved her. She knew she should probably hate him, but against all odds, he had saved her. She had no idea why he had opted to save her.
Anastasia had no idea he was the “ghost devil” people talked about. She had thought it was stupid when people called him that. At least, she assumed he was the ghost devil. He had admitted to killing her family, but he didn’t mock her, or make it worse. All he did was tell her the truth.