Total pages in book: 88
Estimated words: 84968 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 425(@200wpm)___ 340(@250wpm)___ 283(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 84968 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 425(@200wpm)___ 340(@250wpm)___ 283(@300wpm)
The few who tried working with the government did not fare as well.
If Alina was working for them…I wasn't sure I could protect her.
Sucking in a deep breath, I held it until my lungs burned, making a silent wish that it wouldn't come to that.
Then I focused my attention on the first photo.
The image made my blood run cold.
Alina stood beside her grandmother again—but parts of the grandmother's face had been burned away in perfect circles. A cigarette had been placed on the photo, blackened holes where the old woman's eyes should have been.
I flipped it over, and my stomach twisted at the words scrawled in red ink.
"Do as you're told, or she's next."
The federal government might be ruthless, but they didn't operate like this. This was personal. Intimate. Designed to break Alina’s spirit.
Well, unless the FBI had grown a fucked-up pair of balls in the last few years, I didn’t think they were the ones threatening my girl.
Kostya peered over my shoulder and let out a low whistle. "That's not good."
"No shit," I said as he took the photo from my hands, passing it to Artem.
Artem took one long look, then grabbed the envelope from my hands and poured the rest of its contents out onto the table.
We sifted through the remaining pictures.
Each image was a masterclass in psychological torture.
Each photo was worse than the one before it.
Artem's lip curled as he looked through them.
Bile rose in my throat, burning its way up and leaving a sour taste in my mouth as nausea rolled through me.
The methodical cruelty behind each threat spoke of someone who enjoyed the process as much as the result.
Each image we found only added to the growing storm inside me. One photo had Alina's face violently scratched out. Another had her entire head burned away, blackened and distorted, the photo paper melting and twisting.
So many threats, telling her that her debts were due, threatening her grandmother, her life.
More than a few even suggested that if she didn't pay, they would collect what was owed another way.
The worst one made my fingers tighten around the edge of the paper, as red filled my vision.
Someone had cut my sweet girl's face out of another photo and taped it onto the body of a naked, mutilated woman. The carnage was depraved even by my standards. I was no stranger to gore, but the shit we did was to send a message and was never done to women.
Whoever had cut up this woman may have started with that intention, but at some point, they liked it. This wasn't a job, it was the work of a rabid madman who needed to be put down like a dog.
The message on the back was clear.
"You know what happens to disobedient girls."
A red-hot rage pounded through my veins. My grip on the glass in my other hand tightened until the glass cracked.
Artem exhaled slowly, his fingers tightening around the edge of another particularly disturbing photo. "What the goddamn fuck?" he muttered.
Kostya, ever composed, leaned back in his seat and rubbed his jaw. "Looks like you weren't her first, brother."
"Excuse me?"
At first, my mind immediately—stupidly—went to the memory of taking her virginity, of the feel of my cock crashing through her delicate maidenhead, of her body yielding to mine for the first time.
I knew I had been her first.
There was no denying the way she had clenched around me, the little gasps she had made, the physical evidence.
My possessiveness flared, a primitive response I couldn't control, as my hand tightened into a fist ready to defend her honor.
Then I caught the way Artem bared his teeth in disgust as his eyebrows lowered and seemed to pinch together as he nodded toward the photos, and I realized what Kostya meant.
This wasn't about sex. None of this was about sex.
This was about power.
Control through fear and ownership.
Someone else thought they got to play their sick little games with my girl.
The realization hit me like a physical blow.
Alina had been marked long before I ever laid a hand on her.
Someone was making a claim on what was mine.
And that was unacceptable.
And that made me mad enough to want to burn the entire world to the ground to stake my claim.
I hadn't spent my life clawing my way to the top just for some nameless bastard to think he could touch what was mine. Threaten what was mine.
The glass in my grip shattered. Vodka mixed with my blood dripped down my fingers, but I didn't feel it.
The only thing I could feel was the slow, calculated rage curling its way through my veins.
Kostya set his glass down with a sigh. "Looks like we're not the first dangerous people your girl has pissed off."
"No shit." Artem was still eyeing the photos like they could reach out and pull him into their depravity just by existing. "Looks like they are making her pay a debt."