Total pages in book: 84
Estimated words: 79087 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 395(@200wpm)___ 316(@250wpm)___ 264(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 79087 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 395(@200wpm)___ 316(@250wpm)___ 264(@300wpm)
Opening the door, I stepped into the room, and I wasn’t surprised to see her space completely clean. Freya also liked to clean. My chef, Umberto, complained that she would offer to wash dishes, or attempt to clean up. I had staff who cleaned. She didn’t have to lift a finger. All she had to do was stay out of my fucking way and be quiet.
“What?” I asked, answering the call.
I had already seen it was Ivan, and although I had a deep respect and would do anything for him, I was still pissed that he made me marry a woman I didn’t love or want.
“Someone is a little testy this fine lunchtime,” Ivan said.
I hadn’t had lunch. Usually, I was out keeping an eye on Ivan’s vested interests. I ran this territory, but it all belonged to Ivan. He just paid me to do my job, and I was damn good at it.
My territory thrived. I did have some problems after the last few years. Between Ivan faking his death and one of our Brigadiers being a traitor, leaving his territory exposed, as well as the cartel threat, MCs, and soldiers who thought they had a chance at taking over and running stuff. It had been a shit show for a long time.
Finally, I had everything under control. No uprising, no problem cartels. The MCs have backed the fuck off, or been outright killed.
We were all back on top. Probably because Ivan refused to fucking stop. I had seen stubborn assholes, but no one rivaled Ivan Volkov. That man knew what he wanted, and he went for it. Either that, or he didn’t have a fucking clue what he wanted and it just sort of came to him. Either way, I was more than happy to work for him.
Ivan was many things. He was cruel, manipulative, intelligent, deadly. He was everything anyone would want in a leader, but all of those negatives were often directed at our enemies. He was not cruel to those that followed him. Those who became his were taken care of. Those that threatened or opposed him, well, none of them were alive to tell. They were all fucking dead. I’d helped to put several of them in the ground.
Running fingers through my hair, I tried to assess if there was anything else Freya needed. One entire wall was covered in neatly folded fabric, but as I looked at her collection, I saw some of her online orders had arrived, and although it was neatly folded, I knew she needed more shelves.
“I’m fine,” I said, leaving the room and heading toward the back door from the library. Freya was out the front and although she was no gardener, she loved to spend a lot of time outside.
Rafael, my gardener, didn’t mind her at all. I asked him if he wanted me to stop her from disturbing him, but he liked her. Rafael was a sixty-year-old man with grey hair, but he kept himself in shape. A happily married man, who’d been with his woman forty years, and often liked to say the key to a good marriage is letting the woman think she is in charge.
I like Rafael. He was loyal. And he’d helped save my ass a few times, especially when shit had us spread quite thin. He’d been there to slit the man’s throat who dared to sneak into my home. We’d cleaned up together, and in an odd kind of way, he was more of a father to me than my own ever was.
Not that I ever thought about my own dad. To follow Ivan Volkov, I had to make a sacrifice. Taking my father’s life had been easy. Killing the previous Bratva had been necessary. Allowing them to live would have meant Ivan failed. They were old-school.
Ivan didn’t want to keep things in his little rut. He had big plans, and killing my father had been easy, especially after I saw him on video kill my mother and sister in a fit of rage. I wasn’t there to witness it myself. My father claimed our enemies had attacked the house. It was Ivan that showed him for the liar he was. The whole thing had been recorded, and Ivan had stolen it and showed me as my mother begged. How she tried to stop him from killing my little sister, who had only been fifteen years old. He’d snapped her neck. Then he beat my mother until she couldn’t fight back. He kept hitting her until there was nothing left and she couldn’t be identified.
I hated that bastard. Killing him was justified. I didn’t like that I had to do it quickly. I wanted to take my time, to make him suffer. I couldn’t do that, and it angered me in a way I was not prepared for. That anger had taken a long time to subside, but now I know I did the right thing.