Total pages in book: 137
Estimated words: 132791 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 664(@200wpm)___ 531(@250wpm)___ 443(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 132791 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 664(@200wpm)___ 531(@250wpm)___ 443(@300wpm)
We went up a side stairway near the kitchen, where two more soldiers waited. The place seemed as guarded as my Long Island home. Somehow, it did nothing to ease the knot doubling and tripling in the pit of my stomach. I watched my husband’s muscular back, clad in a black dress shirt and charcoal slacks, as he took the stairs two at a time. We arrived at a corridor with two doors facing one another.
He slid a key into the left-hand keyhole, pointing at the opposite door. Since he had his back to me, I couldn’t see what he was saying. I bit my lower lip and followed him inside. A thousand questions swam inside my head.
The apartment was scarcely refurnished, clean, and as cold as a freezer. I guess that’s what Mama meant when she used the term bachelor’s pad. Blacks and grays, modern fixtures, and a kitchen more virginal than Mother Mary. His errand boys disposed of our suitcases and scurried away without a word. Tiernan filed into the hallway, and I trailed behind him hesitantly, drinking in my new reality.
It was a short, stuffy corridor, with only two doors. The first one led to my room. He pushed the door open and stepped aside, expecting me to enter my new cage.
I peered inside. Mama’s servants must’ve prepared it beforehand. It had my pink duvets, huge dollhouse, wood-carved chairs and table with my tea and china set which I loathed. Her silent way of reminding me I needed to keep the charade alive. I wondered if she sent me any books. My Kindle. My sketchpad. My pencils. The things I loved and what kept my sanity intact.
My back was to Tiernan. When I turned to look at him, a scathing scowl was stamped on his face. He shook his head. He must’ve been talking to me, and I completely ignored him.
Oh, well. He better get used to it. That was my strategy for our entire sham of a marriage.
The more he believed he couldn’t communicate with me, the better the chances he’d leave me alone. I needed a way out of this place and back to my parents’ house. I had to speak to Mama.
Offering him an empty stare, I drifted to the dollhouse at the foot of my bed, crouched to my knees, and plucked two Barbies from their pink lounge chairs by the fake pool. I picked a smiling wax figure, taking a small brush and running the comb through her synthetic hair.
A few moments later, I threw a glance behind my shoulder.
Tiernan was gone.
But the knots in my stomach remained.
CHAPTER TEN
TWENTY-FIVE YEARS AGO
OYMYAKON, RUSSIA
The little worm was finally going to die.
It only took three years.
And, well…yes, fine, slipping poison into his formula bottle and, later, food every now and again.
Igor couldn’t put a bullet in his head. Killing a baby in cold blood felt like shedding the last layer of civilization separating him from being a demon.
It was a mistake to take the twins. This fact he willingly admitted, but only to himself.
He should’ve let them die in the bitch’s womb.
But the temptation had been too strong, the sorrow too raw, the pain too fresh.
Tyrone Callaghan had taken the one thing Igor couldn’t replace—his heart.
“You should come see him, sir.” Olga nudged her swinelike face between his office door and its frame. “His fever hasn’t broken in five days. The closest hospital is a two days’ journey away. I doubt he’ll make it.”
Igor set his pen down and plucked his shuba from the back of his chair. The turndown fur collar tickled at his whiskers as he trudged out of the wooden cabin. He picked up his rifle on his way out. Mercy killing, he told himself. Luba would not be mad at me for that.
A thick sheet of white covered the roofs and what few vehicles were parked outside the encampment.
Barren roads encircled the former gulag camp Igor had purchased from the Politburo shortly before the union had collapsed. He turned it into a training camp for his future Bratva soldiers and a prison for his adversaries.
He made good use of the work camp facilities. The barbwire gates kept his prisoners from escaping. The punishment cell block was the classroom in which valuable lessons were learned. He forged warriors, not little pansies.
They trudged the length from his firelit office cabin to the living quarters, snow crunching under their boots.
Olga—heavy, short, unbearably pink—pulled the door open, fighting the force of the swirling winds. The stench of sickness and rotten teeth hung in the crisp air. The children slept in their coats and working boots on long planks of wood stretched on either side of the wooden cabin. They were too exhausted to wake up to the sound of Igor stomping across the rotting floorboards, his hand lantern rocking from side to side like a ship caught in a storm.