Total pages in book: 51
Estimated words: 45957 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 230(@200wpm)___ 184(@250wpm)___ 153(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 45957 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 230(@200wpm)___ 184(@250wpm)___ 153(@300wpm)
Sighing, I grabbed the chair in the corner of the room and dragged it to Adrian’s beside. After tucking his arm connected to the saline drip beneath the mountain of blankets piled on top of him, I settled into the chair and pulled my phone out of my pocket, making a phone call to my consigliere, Igor.
“You’re home late,” he noted, his voice gruff and raspy from smoking way too many cigarettes a day. The shit would eventually kill him, but he always hit me back with, “Well, this life will kill me, too. Might as well go out doing something that pleases me,” and honestly, I couldn’t argue with that logic.
“We hit some trouble,” I explained. “We secure?”
“We are,” he confirmed. “What’s going on, Ivan?”
I ran my eyes over Adrian’s still form. He hadn’t budged a single bit, and seeing him so still made me feel like I was crawling out of my damn skin. He was always mouthy. Always so strong and capable. A leader. A man who took no shit and didn’t falter, even when shit got rough.
And now, he was weak and practically on his fucking death bed. I knew it even if Dr. Lebedev hadn’t said it out loud. Adrian really needed a hospital, but a hospital had too many variables I refused to contend with. I couldn’t be assured it would be one hundred percent safe for him. And while, right then, I couldn’t promise we were safe in my own home, I could at least sit by and protect him. I knew who had access, and I had back-up security for my back-up security here.
“I need you to track my jet—Mark should be able to help with that—and get the pilot and the flight attendant out.”
“Dead?” Igor asked as if he were asking how the fucking weather was.
“Deader than dead,” I confirmed, remembering their bodies and how graphic it’d been. “Probably frozen by now. I want you to do an autopsy and let me know what you find. We crashed. An engine went out. When I tried to get into the cockpit, I couldn’t. Door was locked. Flight attendant was MIA, and the pilot wasn’t letting me know a fucking thing.”
“Foul play,” Igor said. But it wasn’t a question.
“That’s what I’m thinking. Someone is already going after the Jacksons, and I think, by offering them my assistance—” Igor snorted at that, making me scowl, “—I’ve dragged us into it as well.”
“You’ve got one goal in mind here, Volkov, and it’s not helping James Jackson deal with his enemies. You want to get your dick wet inside his consigliere. Hell, you’ve been drooling over him since the moment you met him.”
“I do not drool,” I growled into the phone.
He scoffed. “Ivan, the moment you laid eyes on him, it was like you were a fucking mutt, and Adrian was a bitch in heat. But yeah,” he continued before I could threaten to cut his tongue out, “I’ll get on it. Keep an ear out. I’ll let you know what I find.”
With that, he hung up. When I looked at Adrian, I was surprised to find him already watching me through slitted eyes. His face wasn’t as pale anymore, though his skin still didn’t have the color it needed, and his lips were still too bluish-looking for my comfort.
“Not a bitch in heat,” he slurred, clearly having heard Igor. And then, he was out again before I could even process what he’d said to me.
I leaned forward and toyed with a strand of his dark hair, frowning at him while his breath fanned the skin of my wrist.
“When I find who caused this, kotik, I’m going to gut them like a fucking svin’ya,” I murmured, using the Russian word for pig because the English version just wasn’t fucking doing it for me.
I didn’t get a response from him, though I didn’t expect one. But it was a promise I vowed to keep.
I’d slaughter every single person who had almost taken him from me.
8
Adrian
I slowly peeled my eyes open, thankful the room I was in was mostly cast in shadows so I wouldn’t burn my retinas. There was a fire burning in the fireplace near the bed, providing the only light in the room. When I turned my head to look at the other side of the bed, I was surprised to find Ivan sitting in a chair, his arms crossed over his chest as he quietly slept, his chin resting on his chest.
How long had he been sitting there? He looked as if he hadn’t showered in days, and instead of his usual button down shirt, pressed and fitted slacks, and his expensive as fuck Oxfords, he was wearing a plain black long-sleeve shirt, a pair of gray sweatpants that did nothing to hide his massive cock, even soft, and his feet were only covered with a pair of black socks. His stubble had grown out, and hair was unruly and messy.