Total pages in book: 106
Estimated words: 98566 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 493(@200wpm)___ 394(@250wpm)___ 329(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 98566 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 493(@200wpm)___ 394(@250wpm)___ 329(@300wpm)
So I used my own money and built new, safe apartment buildings for them, with a playground for the kids, and I had my people make sure no dealers came near it. It turned into a nice neighborhood.
And now someone had tried to burn it down.
When we arrived, the streets were slick with water from the firefighters’ hoses, and they reflected so many roaring tongues of flame, it looked as if the streets themselves were on fire. My heart sank. Four different buildings were ablaze and it wasn’t just a few apartments: flames poured from entire floors.
I checked in with the firefighters. No one was hurt: I’d insisted on the best fire alarms and everyone had gotten out in time. But the arsonists had spread gasoline up and down the hallways to ensure the fire spread fast: we’d likely lose all four buildings. Hundreds of people lined the street, shivering in their nightclothes as they watched their homes burn. Cinders started to drift down out of the sky: little fragments of what were once wedding photos and favorite toys.
I sent guards to organize hotels for them and then walked through the crowd, checking what people needed and reassuring them it was going to be okay. I turned to check Christina was alright and—
Before the accident, she’d always been sort of reserved, when it came to meeting the people who lived on my streets. I used to gloss over it and tell myself she was just shy, but she never seemed shy when she was at some party surrounded by celebrities.
Now... I watched as she helped to distribute blankets and organize hot food. The old Christina had thought she was above these people. This new one was... humble. How? How has she changed so much?
I was still thinking on it when the squeal of tires split the night. People scattered as three huge black SUVs roared up the street and skidded to a stop right next to me.
I knew who it was.
People think that bonds are formed of love but they can be formed of hate just as easily. You can’t do what he did without creating something permanent, something that’ll link us like a thread, across miles or continents, until one of us kills the other. I could feel him in that car, the raw evil of him throbbing out of it in waves, shaking loose the memories I work so hard to lock away inside me. And the memories unleashed the pain, jagged and violent, clawing its way up into my chest. By the time he finally stepped from the car, I was standing there with fists bunched and my breath shaking, fighting for control.
“Hello, Konstantin,” said Dmitri Ralavich.
I took a step forward without consciously willing it. The blood was roaring in my ears. I wanted—needed—to kill him and I needed to do it myself, to punch and crush and gouge until there was nothing left.
Eight men leveled guns at me. I froze. While I’d been focused on Ralavich, the other two SUVs full of his guards had emptied. I’d sent most of my guards off to help the victims of the fire and only three were close by. We were completely outnumbered.
This whole thing had been an ambush.
And the talk about Ralavich bringing lots of his men to New York was true. Why? Why bring an army here when he has no hope of winning?
Then a sudden, unexpected stab of fear cut through me. Christina! Where is Christina? I spun around and found her a few steps away, staring at Ralavich, her face pale.
Ralavich is an ugly man, in every sense. He’s strong, but he’s too fond of beer and gorging himself on platters of meat and cheese. His gut stretches out his shirt and the waistband of his suit pants and this thick, nicotine-stained fingers look like pale, uncooked sausages. But it’s his face that sticks in everyone’s mind.
He hadn’t been a handsome man even before Luka Malakov caught him running one of his “rape clubs” in Moscow. Luka had beaten him so badly the surgeons couldn’t fix it, and he’d healed with one side of his face sickeningly misshapen. No woman would willingly be close to him. But then—my stomach twisted in disgust—Ralavich never liked them to be willing.
Even as I had that last thought, I knew something was different. I was facing off against Ralavich like I’d done a hundred times before, the two of us glaring at each other, both refusing to move an inch. But even the soul-deep hatred for him was being overshadowed by something. Christina. I didn’t want Ralavich anywhere near her.
And so, even though I knew it looked weak, I took a step back. And then another. And then I could put myself protectively between Ralavich and Christina, and I felt immediately better.