Total pages in book: 53
Estimated words: 52062 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 260(@200wpm)___ 208(@250wpm)___ 174(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 52062 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 260(@200wpm)___ 208(@250wpm)___ 174(@300wpm)
When we finally break apart, I'm still trembling. Still crying. But the worst of the terror is starting to fade, replaced by something else.
Questions.
So many questions.
"Who were they?" I ask, my voice hoarse. "What did they want?"
Nikolai goes very still.
I pull back enough to see his face, and what I find there makes my stomach drop. There's guilt in his expression. And dread. And something that looks almost like grief.
"Nikolai?"
He doesn't answer.
"Please." I take his face in my hands and force him to look at me. "Please tell me what's going on."
"There are things I should have told you before now,” he says quietly. “Things about who I am. And things about who you are."
"What do you mean, who I am? I know who I am."
But even as I say it, a cold tendril of doubt curls through my chest. I think of my parents and their insistence on self-defense training. Their sad, knowing smiles. The way they always seemed to be preparing me for something they refused to explain.
How my mom never spoke of her past.
"Holly." Nikolai takes my hands in his. His grip is gentle but unbreakable. "Your parents... there are things they never told you. Things about your family. Your real family."
I stare at him.
The room feels like it's spinning.
"What are you talking about?"
He hesitates. And in that hesitation, I feel everything shift.
And I know the dreamy bubble we've been living in is about to pop and shatter into a million pieces.
"What are you talking about?" I ask again, and this time my voice is sharper.
Because I'm starting to understand that whatever comes next is going to change everything.
29
HOLLY
He leads me into the great room and only leaves me so he can secure the lodge. I stand near the fireplace, my arms wrapped around myself while he checks the windows and doors and resets the alarm.
He covers the bodies with sheets, but I can still see the outlines of them. Still smell the copper tang of blood in the air.
He comes back into the room where I'm still hugging myself, trying to keep it together, but my hands won't stop shaking.
"The code is 120656," he says, his voice steady and controlled. "If anything happens, anything at all, you punch those numbers into the keypad by the front door or the back door. You can trigger the alarm and alert my security team or disarm it."
I nod, committing the numbers to memory. "120656."
"Good." He studies my face for a moment, and despite the calm mask he wears, I catch something flickering in those ice-blue eyes. Fury. It's there for just a second before he locks it down tight. "You'll be safe here, Holly. Noone is getting in."
“But they did,” I whisper.
He nods. His face cut from stone. “Yes, malyshka, they did. Because someone gave them the code. But I have reset it. New code. No intruders.”
“And the men outside who patrol the perimeter?”
“Dead.”
I freeze as the word settles over me.
When he tries to lead me over to the couch, I shake him off.
"Just tell me," I say. My voice is shaky. "Whatever it is, just tell me what is going on."
“Please, malyshka, you should sit. Because what I am about to tell you is going to be a lot to accept.”
“I don’t need to sit. I just need you to tell me everything you have been keeping from me.”
He runs a hand through his hair. When he turns to face me, there's something in his expression I've never seen before.
Fear.
Nikolai Morozov, the man who just killed three intruders without breaking a sweat, is afraid.
"Your mother," he begins, then stops. Starts again. "Your mother wasn't who you thought she was."
"What does that mean?"
"Her real name wasn't Sarah Winters. It was Katerina Orlova." He watches my face carefully so he can manage my response when it comes. "She was the only daughter of a very powerful man. A man known as The Wolf."
I stare at him blankly. The name means nothing to me.
"Yuri Orlova," he continues. "He is the Pakhan of the Orlova Bratva."
"I don't understand. My mother was a schoolteacher. She grew up in Vermont."
"That's the identity she built when she fled your grandfather." Nikolai's eyes hold mine. "She changed her name. Changed everything. Married a boy she fell in love with and never looked back."
My father.
"She spent fifteen years hiding but living the life she wanted to," Nikolai says quietly. "Fifteen years pretending to be someone else. And she was good at it. So good that even a man with Yuri’s reach couldn't find her. Eventually, Yuri had her declared legally dead.”
"How do you know all of this?" I ask.
Nikolai is quiet for a long moment.
"Because I am in an alliance with him."
The confession hits me like a slap. “You know him?”
"Very well.”
“You’d better tell me what the hell you’re talking about.” My voice trembles. “Because I am very fucking confused right now, Nikolai.”