Total pages in book: 148
Estimated words: 147734 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 739(@200wpm)___ 591(@250wpm)___ 492(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 147734 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 739(@200wpm)___ 591(@250wpm)___ 492(@300wpm)
The painting shows two faceless figures on stark white—one slumped, bleeding, the other reaching out but never touching. Cold shadows. Violent reds.
I ignore whatever the man beside me says as I stride toward the reason I made this impulsive trip. Vaughn doesn’t hear me over the quiet hum of classical music and polite laughter.
My nostrils flare with his scent as I stand beside him and stare ahead. “This is what you abandoned me for? Shit art?”
His head whips in my direction, his eyes wide, but his jaw tics as he searches our surroundings, then speaks in a whisper-yell, “Why on earth are you here, Yulian?”
“Wanted to see the event that’s so important it prevented you from coming home, and I’m not impressed.”
“That place is not my home,” he says in a low tone, then stares at the painting. “This is.”
He might as well have shot me in the chest.
No, seriously, my heart is in so much pain, it hurts to breathe.
“You should go.” He speaks coldly, emotionlessly. He’s nothing like the smiley, warm Vaughn who grins lazily upon seeing me on the island.
It’s as if he’s had a personality transplant.
Fuck this asshole.
How dare he treat me like this?
“Vinyoshka?”
Vaughn tenses up at the careful feminine voice, and when we turn around, we’re faced by his parents, who are both watching me as if I’m a threat.
Did his dad just reach into his waistband?
Fuck me. This is the last thing I needed.
I grin. “Hi, I’m Yulian.”
“I know exactly who you are, Dimitriev,” Kirill says, his hand still in his waistband. “What I don’t know is what you’re doing here, in my city, next to my son. If your father has anything to say, he can talk to me.”
“No, no, it’s not about my father. I was just around and figured I’d say hi to Vaughn.” I’m speaking coolly, forcing myself to remain relaxed, which is a sharp contrast to Vaughn’s tense jaw and blanched expression.
His brain seems to have short-circuited since his parents showed up. Guess he’s probably panicking about the prospect of them finding out he really loves dick—more specifically, my dick.
Kirill frowns the same way Vaughn does on the regular, and Alexandra watches me intently as she asks, “How do you know Vaughn…?”
“Cursed summer camp four years ago, remember?” I laugh, but they’re not joining in. “We met on the island again when he came by to visit Jeremy and the others.”
“Right,” she says.
“Is that true, Vaughn?” Kirill asks, and only when his son gives a sharp nod does he remove his hand from his waistband.
I guess I’m not going to get killed tonight—for now.
Honestly, I wouldn’t risk anything with them. Not only do I know they’re badass ex-spetsnaz—since Vaughn sings their praises all the time—but they both look guarded.
I wouldn’t be surprised if Kirill decides to put a bullet in my head just for the fuck of it.
“Why haven’t you told us you reconnected with Yulian again, Vinyoshka?” Alexandra asks, watching her son closely.
“It’s not important,” he says assertively, cold-bloodedly twisting the knife in my chest.
The smile I’m forcing cracks at the edges.
Not important.
He said that I am not important.
The past few months that I considered the best time of my life were just not important.
Heat blossoms in my chest as if a fiery being is sitting right on top of my heart, and I need to move before I knock Vaughn’s teeth out in front of his parents.
“If you’ll excuse me,” I murmur, then push through the crowd gathered around the painting and head straight for the exit.
Fuck this. I should’ve never come here.
The pain of not seeing him this weekend pales in comparison to the pain of being so coldly treated by him in public.
I rush to the parking lot, pulling out a cigarette and lighting it. The smoke blows in the air, forming a cloud into the night, but it doesn’t expel the pain that’s lurking in my chest.
Fuck.
The lot is lit with dim lights that illuminate the cars lined up throughout. As soon as I reach the rental bike, I kick it. My foot explodes with pain, but I do it again, then again.
“Yulian, calm down.”
My chest constricts at the sound of Vaughn’s voice, and I push back my hair with one hand as I take a drag off the cigarette with the other.
“Calm down?” I spin around and face him. He’s shrouded in the harsh glow of lights, his features guarded.
I release a cloud of smoke in his face, but he doesn’t flinch. “All right, I’m calm. Does that mean I’m important now?”
“You know I didn’t mean that,” he says apologetically. “I only said that because my parents were there.”
“I don’t know!” My voice rises, and he flinches. “I don’t know what the fuck you’re thinking half of the time, Vaughn. You refuse to move to the island, you refuse to let me in completely, and I just don’t know where we stand. You make me feel like the most important person in one breath, then act like a stranger in your home territory in the next. It’s giving me fucking whiplash.”