Total pages in book: 83
Estimated words: 78587 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 393(@200wpm)___ 314(@250wpm)___ 262(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 78587 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 393(@200wpm)___ 314(@250wpm)___ 262(@300wpm)
“So, you came here?” Mila yanked me inside so fast I nearly stumbled over my own feet. The door slammed shut behind us, her fingers gripping my arm hard enough to bruise. Her voice was sharp, angry, and low, like she was trying not to wake the neighbors. “Are you insane?”
“I didn’t know where else to go.” Her anger wasn’t fading, so I pleaded, “Mila, please. I need you.”
“Do you have any idea what you’ve done?” She raked her hands through her hair as she started pacing back and forth in the small living room. “If he finds out… If anyone saw you come here…”
I understood my sister’s fear and why she’d kept her distance all these years. In our world, there was no greater sin than betrayal, and when you betrayed the family, there would be hell to pay. My walking away from Alek, no matter how dire the circumstance, was the ultimate betrayal. Which was one of the many reasons I’d been so careful.
I tried to reassure her by saying, “No one saw. I made sure of it.”
“You made sure of it?” She threw her hands up in the air. “Are you forgetting who we are dealing with? This is Alek and his whole crazy family! There are cameras everywhere! They’ll use them to find you, which means they’ll be coming here and God knows what he will do.”
“I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking.” I touched my swollen lip, the sting reminding me of every blow. “But I had to leave. I had to. He would’ve killed me.”
She froze, and for the first time since I’d arrived, she looked at me. Really looked at me. For a second, I thought I saw the sister I remembered. Soft. Loving. Protective. The girl who used to braid my hair and tell me stories when I was upset. But it was gone in a blink and replaced with a mask of fear and fury. “And you thought you could just walk away?”
“I had to do something.”
“The family will never allow it! They will kill you before they let that happen, and you coming here is dragging me into this, Alina. Me. My life. My safety.”
“You’re my sister, Mila.” Tears blurred my vision as I said, “Look what he’s done to me!”
I shoved my hair back, revealing the bruises on my face, and then I lifted my shirt, exposing the black and blue around my ribs. Mila winced, but only momentarily. I knew she wasn’t convinced, so I added, “And this was nothing. He’s done far worse.”
“Alek is an asshole. Always has been.”
“He’s more than that. He’s a monster.” I tried to fight back the tears as I asked her, “You really think I can survive going back?”
Mila’s jaw trembled, but she didn’t reach for me. She didn’t show even the slightest sign of compassion. She simply shook her head and said, “You have to go back. You know what they’ll do if you don’t. You know what they’ll do to me if they find you here.”
Her words hit harder than Alek’s fists ever could.
I felt like the ground had been ripped from under me. My own sister, my last hope, was telling me to return to the man who would eventually bury me. “Mila, please…”
“I’m sorry, Alina. I can’t. I just can’t.” She pointed to the door as she told me, “You have to leave before it’s too late.”
“But where would I go?”
My heart sank at the thought of going back out there alone with no one to turn to. Mila sensed my desperation, and her eyes darted away from mine, fixing on the floor as though the answer might be written there in the cracks of the old linoleum.
She didn’t speak at first, just stood there, arms wrapped tight around herself. Finally, after what felt like forever, she whispered, “I don’t know… What about Viktor? You two were always good friends. Maybe he could come up with some way to help you.”
Viktor.
His name cut through the fog with a tiny flicker of hope.
But that hope quickly faded when I remembered I hadn’t spoken to him in years. I had no idea where he was or how I would track him down. “I don’t even know where to find him.”
“You’ll figure it out.”
Mila darted over to the cabinet and pulled a wad of cash from the drawer, then shoved it in my hand. A change of clothes followed, along with a box of cheap hair dye. I didn’t bother looking at the color. It didn’t matter. I needed to do what I could to disguise myself, even if that meant going platinum blonde or a dark shade of red.
She looked at the pile like she was checking to see if she’d forgotten anything, then stepped back and said, “Now go before it’s too late.”