Total pages in book: 80
Estimated words: 80643 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 403(@200wpm)___ 323(@250wpm)___ 269(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 80643 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 403(@200wpm)___ 323(@250wpm)___ 269(@300wpm)
It’s like what I’ve seen in the movies.
For some reason, I thought that people with mob ties wouldn’t be like this. So blatantly doing illegal shit, right in the middle of campus. I’m waiting for him to bring out a finger covered in white powder and test it on his gums, but I’m not even certain it’s drugs in the box to begin with.
Maks Petrov seems satisfied with whatever he’s looking at.
He reaches the box over to me and I’m already saying ten little silent prayers that this is going to be over with soon.
The low rumble of an engine suddenly cuts through the air. I glance up and a black SUV is pulling up fast on the road down below us, down the hill from the loading dock.
Maks yanks back the box right before I can grab it, then nods toward the SUV.
“Who did you bring?”
I blink at him.
“Bring?”
“This SUV is some friend of yours, correct?”
“What? No. I don’t know anyone with an SUV. I just came alone—”
“Fuck,” he mutters, shoving the box back into his associate’s hand. I see him reaching in his pocket and when he pulls out a small gun, my heart plummets in my chest.
“Wait. What’s going on?” I ask.
“Quiet. Stay right fucking here, behind us,” he tells me.
Another figure is coming at us now, through the thicket of trees between the road and where we’re standing.
A tight knot twists in my chest, and the fact that this guy told me to stay put somehow makes it worse.
The other guy coming toward us is tall.
And he looks nothing at all like Roman’s family.
His hair is lighter and it’s buzzed very short.
And as he approaches, he keeps his hands in his front hoodie pockets, but the most intimidating thing about the stranger is that he’s looking past the Petrov guys.
He’s looking directly at me.
He approaches Roman’s cousin and I try to shrink behind the men in front of me, already toying with the idea of making a break for it. I lean back against a tree trunk again, trying to seem calm even though I’m starting to freak the fuck out.
“Talk,” Maks says before the guy’s even stopped walking.
The stranger ignores Maks.
“Move,” the guy says as an ice-cold ripple shoots down my spine.
In a flash, the stranger lunges behind Petrov.
He grabs me, pushing me off of the tree trunk, and I almost stumble and fall to the ground.
“I’m only here to make a trade,” I say in a shaky voice, and Roman’s cousin shouts over the top of me at the same time.
“Get your hands off of him.”
Suddenly Maks is pointing his gun at the stranger, and my adrenaline surges to a new height.
The other man leans close to my ear.
He reeks of cigarette smoke. Vodka. Faint, sharp cologne.
“Shut your fucking mouth and move with me,” he says in a stern voice.
I see the gleam of metal coming out of the stranger’s pocket and I hope to God I’m wrong about what it is.
But I’m not.
“Let him the fuck go,” Roman’s cousin says. “I will shoot you.”
The stranger grips my arm hard and drags me a little further along underneath the tree tops, taking us onto the dark, grassy pathway.
Then I feel a cold, hard metal hit the side of my ribcage.
He has a gun on me.
The barrel is pressed up to the edge of my torso as the man immobilizes my arm, moving us along the edge of the path.
I can see now that there are at least three other men with him, too.
He brought friends, just like Maks did.
Holy shit.
He whips around to face Maks again and yanks my arm at the same time, pulling it so hard I’m afraid it might rip from its socket.
I turn my head backward, looking for any sign of other people nearby. Campus security, or fuck, even a random group of students.
But there’s nobody behind me.
Fuck.
Fucking fuck.
Don’t panic.
My heart rate is racing. I can feel each beat like a drum as the stranger pulls me harder again.
He yells at Maks.
“You are giving me that box, or I shoot this worthless fuck in his head.”
Maks gives him a steady gaze. “You aren’t doing that. And you have no right to this package.”
The stranger pushes me again and shoves the metal deeper against my ribs. As I stumble, I trip over a knotted tree trunk on the ground and fall against his black jacket, my face buried in the stench of him.
“Move,” he tells me under his breath, and then he’s pulling me forward.
We’re walking down the pathway and for a few beats, Maks doesn’t say anything. It doesn’t even seem like he’s chasing after us.
I try to look back at him, and I can see him and his two friends all have their guns drawn, now, but they’re staying silent.