Total pages in book: 115
Estimated words: 115964 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 580(@200wpm)___ 464(@250wpm)___ 387(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 115964 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 580(@200wpm)___ 464(@250wpm)___ 387(@300wpm)
“I wasn’t going to touch you again, when I sent a man to Raize for you,” he informed me. “I’d heard what you could do.”
My stomach rolled over, because I knew that wasn’t true.
“I mean it.”
“You’re a rapist,” Jake spat. “That kind of sick doesn’t change. You’re sick. You stay sick. Sick fucking monster.”
Bronski shook his head. “Right. Because you’re so much better? Raize doesn’t rape, but he has just as much blood on him. The dude is a one-man army. Do you even know what he can do? Can really do? How many men he’s actually killed?”
“We’ve both seen him in action. You can’t say anything to shock us.”
Bronski looked between us. “Is he fucking her?”
I shot Jake a look. I didn’t want anything said about that.
Bronski smirked. “That’s interesting. Are you two fucking?”
Jake heaved a sigh. “New topic, asswipe. That’s old.”
He fell silent. So did Jake.
I was grateful to feel the weight of my gun next to my leg. I’d pulled it out when Bronski first spoke, but I hadn’t picked it up. It was ready to go, though. Just lift, aim, and pull. Then I’d be a different kind of killer.
I was still waiting, though I didn’t know why.
“You told Korkov your name was Brooke, but no last name. Got me thinking. Once the rumors started going around about you—the canary in the streets—I remembered where Korkov told me he’d picked you up at. Massachusetts. I don’t remember the town, but Maxim had a man working girls there. Picking them. Making them fall in love with him. A girl named Brooke came from that circuit, but she had dark hair, dark eyes. The face, though… I saw her last week and got to thinking. She still goes by Brooke. Same face.”
My heart pounded. My sister is alive?
Bronski tried to raise his arms, but he couldn’t bring them around. “She had a tattoo on the inside of her wrist. A four-leaf clover, or something like that.”
It was a pot of gold.
God.
I wanted him to shut up.
I wanted him to keep going.
“Wait. No. It was… What was it? A pot of something. Not like pot pot—dope. Pot of… what? I got it wrong. Not a leprechaun—a pot of gold! Yeah. That’s what it was.”
He knew her.
He saw her.
She was alive.
There’s no way he could make that up. No way he could guess that tattoo randomly.
Maxim?
Leo, my sister’s boyfriend, had worked for Maxim?
I’d had it wrong? All this time?
I thought Igor, not Maxim.
How had I gotten that so wrong?
Bronski laughed to himself and ended up coughing. “Fuck, my ribs hurt. But yeah. I got her, right? That’s your sister? I remember the story was that you approached Korkov. You wanted in the game, and he was all excited because he knew you were different. He told me you were a virgin—”
“Shut it, man!” Jake growled.
My body threatened to dry-heave, but not because of what Bronski had done to me. I had the power now. I wasn’t scared. It wasn’t that. It wasn’t even my sister.
It was because I knew now what I was going to do.
“Leo worked for Maxim?” I asked.
Both heads swung my way. Bronski’s eyes widened. He was surprised that I wasn’t affected by him, not in the way he’d been hoping. I could read it from him. His lips thinned into a frown. “Yeah, but you came in under Korkov who works for Igor. You got that wrong, huh? There was a time period where Leo was hanging out with Korkov, until Maxim shut that down and moved him to a different location.”
I nodded. “I got that wrong.”
Jake stood and pulled out his phone. “I’m going to make a call.” He pointed his gun at Bronski as he spoke to me. “None of the shit he spouts can be trusted.”
I knew that, and I nodded, letting him know I’d be fine.
Bronski watched him walk away, his eyes darkening, and he licked his lips. “What’s he doing? Who’s he calling?”
“He’s calling Raize.”
Bronski shifted his attention back to me. I could see the calculation starting. “Why would he be calling your boss?”
“Because he’s killing Maxim and his men right now.” I stared at Bronski, feeling dead inside—what he was going to be soon. Very soon.
But not in a cold-blooded way.
I couldn’t do that. I knew that now.
I knew my lines. I had always known my lines, but then I stepped over them. One after another.
This was another one, and this one I couldn’t step over.
I knew that now.
I wished I’d known sooner.
It was all about the lines.
He licked his lips again. He’d be making his move soon. His head swung back, looking toward where Jake had gone. “You guys moved on Igor, then Maxim? I got it wrong? It’s Roman making the move?”
I didn’t respond. That’s not the move either of us was waiting for now.