Total pages in book: 90
Estimated words: 85156 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 426(@200wpm)___ 341(@250wpm)___ 284(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 85156 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 426(@200wpm)___ 341(@250wpm)___ 284(@300wpm)
“Maybe Evgeny didn’t kill Jordan, but you can’t tell me that my involvement with him didn’t have anything to do with it. I was working for him against Tsepov, for Christ’s sake!”
“Evgeny has spent the past two months trying to figure out who killed Jordan and why. We’re getting close.”
It’s not hard to push me toward feeling unsure about my certainty. But I try to hold on for dear life until I can’t anymore.
“Why hasn’t he told me himself?” I ask.
“Because you asked him not to. You asked him never to contact you again. He might be a powerful man, but he has honor, Eva, and he respects you. The Evgeny you saw? It wasn’t some stunt. You saw the real man, the one hiding under all those scars and snarls.”
I think about Marco’s tuition, and the bookstore’s rent as I chip absently at the worn wood of the desk with a fingernail.
“He thinks he’s lost you entirely, Eva.” I look at Dmitri when I hear an unexpected note of sadness in the big man’s voice and realize how worried he is for his boss, how much he cares for his friend. “Eva, being away from you is killing him. He’s a wreck.”
So am I, I want to say. I want to let out the tears squeezing my throat tight, which seem to be never-ending since that day in the warehouse.
“Just give him five minutes, Eva. Just talk to him. Let him tell you what happened and look over all the information I’ve collected. Just five minutes.”
Dmitri climbs to his feet, and I watch him cautiously.
“I won’t tell him about it, yet.” He jerks his chin toward my rounding middle. “But he has to know.”
I take a deep breath in through my nose and let it out. “I’ll think about it.”
Dmitri nods, satisfied for the moment with my answer, and leaves as unobtrusively as he arrived. I’m still not sure how a guy that big can move so quietly.
I stand at the counter, staring at the empty doorway. At the window Evgeny had replaced the day following the incident.
I think of how Evgeny looked at me, as if I were the only other person in the world. As though I was the only person in the world he wanted to be with. The way his touch and the way he held me told me the same.
I think of the softer side he had shown me, the way he had cared for my family and me, even when he knew I didn’t want to see him.
Could I trust what Dmitri said? That I’d seen the real Evgeny? I’d been so overcome with grief and shock when I saw Jordan’s body, my mind had immediately moved to the worst. I hadn’t been able to think, hadn’t been able to reason, hadn’t been able to do anything other than scream and cry and rage.
Just give him five minutes, Eva. Just talk to him.
Marco passes by the window holding a 7-11 bag, the bell jingling yet again, too cheerful for the storm bubbling up inside me as my brother comes back in.
“I have to go.” The words are out before I even have a moment to think about them. “Can you watch the store? I’ll be back. I just—” I’m already grabbing my keys and purse without waiting for Marco’s reply. “I’ll be back.”
“Eva, what—?”
“I’ll be back soon,” I call over my shoulder, closing the door on his next question, heading for the old car parked halfway down the block.
It takes me three tries before the engine finally turns over, my heart racing a mile a minute as I curse at it, my palms sweating as I finally get it going.
As I head across town, it’s all I can do to remain calm as I navigate through traffic. I seem to hit every red light on the way to Palos Verdes. I just hope Dmitri is right and Evgeny will talk to me instead of turning me away.
Things were going smoothly until they weren’t.
I see the car out of the corner of my eye, large and black, and speeding toward me without a sign of slowing. The force of the impact reaches me at the same time as the sound of shrieking metal and shattering glass. The sensation of being jerked back and forth makes everything blur, pain erupting in my head and shoulder, and then the world goes black.
29
EVGENY
Never before in my life have I been so scared.
Not angry. Not energized. Not buzzing with nerves I can burn off with a run or a boxing session.
I’m scared. My palms sweating, my heart racing, my chest tight, and blood rushing in my ears.
Eva’s been in a car accident.
On his way to the hospital, Marco didn’t have any more information to give me. He’d called my personal phone, the number I’d given him in case something came up. I hadn’t expected it to be Eva’s life hanging in the balance.