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)
I’m surprisingly calm for someone whose girlfriend of four years cheated on him.
Someone who had to watch what could only be described as a sex tape of her riding another guy’s dick.
And not just any guy’s.
Yulian’s.
Not that it matters whose dick she was riding, but the blow is harsher knowing it’s him.
The one guy I just can’t stand.
Danika doesn’t know about it, or she wouldn’t have shown up at a charity ball put on by Aunt Reina, mother to my friends Gareth and Killian. She’s also Nikolai’s maternal aunt and an ex-mafia princess, but unlike Niko’s mom, she chose to stay away from the Bratva world and only indulges in charity-related organizations.
Her sons aren’t as distant, though. Jeremy, Nikolai, and I—the future mafia heirs of the New York Bratva—are their best friends.
I don’t even need to be here, but I asked Mom if I could attend on her behalf. She’s a big champion of this charity and is friends with Aunt Reina, but I convinced her it’d be good if I were to give the check instead of her.
However, I possess no philanthropic intentions tonight. I had the guards organize a romantic dinner for my parents and made each of them believe it was the other’s idea—you know, so they don’t have a chance to bail.
They’ll eventually know it was me and I had a plan, but by that time, I’ll be done.
I don’t want them to witness my most disgraceful form.
“Hon!” Danika throws herself into my arms.
I don’t hug her, just pat her shoulder mechanically, with a complete sense of indifference.
Once upon a time, I saw her as a partner. Right now, she’s nothing.
It should be frightening that I’m able to discard her so easily. I suppose it did hurt when I watched the video of my one and only girlfriend of four years cheating on me so blatantly.
But did it hurt enough? Should it hurt some more?
Possibly, yes.
I think other guys would be more devastated if they were in my place.
But then again, I’ve always been a pragmatic person, and emotions have little influence on my decisions.
Danika is just a rotten limb that needs to be amputated. That’s all.
“I missed you.” She drops a kiss on my cheek, then looks around. “This place is amazing. You should’ve told me beforehand, and I would’ve worn a better dress.”
That’s usually my cue to tell her she looks gorgeous in whatever she’s wearing—tonight, it’s a red spaghetti-strap dress. The marks from her wild night are hidden by makeup, but she was sloppy with a finger mark near her nape that’s not completely concealed.
A simmering hurricane bubbles beneath the surface of my psyche, shoving itself against my harrowing emotions with inexplicable intensity.
I reach out, meaning to skim my fingers against the mark—not even sure why I want to do that—but instead, my thumb stays there, on his thumb’s mark. This is where he put his fingers when she was giving him head before he grabbed her hair, making her choke on his cock.
I’ve never made her choke on my cock, but he took the liberty to do so with what belongs to me.
So now, I press down on the faint trace of Yulian’s thumb.
This is entirely…novel. I don’t know why I want to do this or why I feel the need to dig deeper, go harder, as if it’s his thumb that I’m jamming.
“Ow!” Danika yelps and I let my hand fall as if I’ve been possessed.
When I don’t apologize and just keep staring, Danika’s mouth pulls in a downturned pout.
“Is everything okay, Vaughn?”
“Not really, no.”
“What’s wrong?” She rubs my arm.
I stare at her hand, at the red nails that were digging into Yulian’s arms and back, holding on for dear life, and then at her face. “I think you know exactly what’s wrong.”
“What do you mean…?”
I pull out my phone, make sure the sound is off, and show her the video. At first, she frowns, then her eyes widen, and she tries to snatch it away, probably to hide it? Delete it?
I don’t know, and I couldn’t care less, so I slide it back into my pocket and keep my hand there, in my pocket. “Was he the first guy you cheated on me with?”
“It’s not what you think, it’s—”
“Was he the first?” I cut her off, my voice unchanging, too calm, too detached. It should be disturbing how easily I’m able to see her as less than a speck of dust.
She bites her lower lip and looks down, tears welling in her eyes, confirming my suspicions. Of course he’s not the first. She looks like she does it on the regular.
And I didn’t notice.
Maybe I didn’t care enough to notice.
Maybe I trusted her too much to question what she told me.
“I just… I just needed more,” she whispers, looking around, searching to see if anyone is listening to her fall from grace. Danika has only ever cared about her reputation, which I’ve always thought was a shallow fixation, but I’ve never really faulted her for it.