Total pages in book: 87
Estimated words: 86242 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 431(@200wpm)___ 345(@250wpm)___ 287(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 86242 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 431(@200wpm)___ 345(@250wpm)___ 287(@300wpm)
He’d lose his fucking shit. The Rafail we all know and love would be gone and buried forever.
Just like me.
Just like me when I lost Mariah—my last link to sanity. Without her, the world blurs and ceases to have meaning.
“I won’t abandon Luka,” I tell him, my voice cracking. “I will cleanse this city of every trace of the Irish before they get within breathing distance of him.”
He turns to go, and the empty bottle rolls and hits my foot. I’m seized with blinding, irrational rage. Without a second thought, I grab the bottle and hurl it across the room. Rafail watches, implacable.
The sound of glass shattering doesn’t do what I hoped it would. It only makes what’s broken feel irreparable.
“Then pull yourself out of this fucking quagmire and act like it,” Rafail snaps, his limited patience fraying. “Because right now, brother, you’re drowning. And you’re dragging the rest of us under with you. Promise me. No more. Not until I give you the go-ahead.”
I nod, my voice hoarse. “I promise.”
I rise slowly, my gaze on Rafail. My breath still heaves with the effort of breaking the bottle. With the effort of not falling apart.
“Maybe we fucking drown them first.”
Chapter 2
RUTHIE
I wipe down the bar top for the hundredth time.
“You know,” Zoya says thoughtfully, tipping her head to the side. “It’s really okay to only wipe that down like fifty times. It’s a bar, Ruthie, not an operating room.”
At twenty years old, Zoya Kopolova is easily the youngest one here. Petite with dark-brown hair and brown eyes, she makes the room feel warmer and the crowd friendlier.
“That’s what you think.” My voice is flat, but my lips quirk up. “If you knew what truly happened at a bar, you’d realize it’s not as far from an operating room as one might think.” Here, hearts are broken and mended, pasts buried and surfaced. Here, couples meet and break apart. I have seen it all and sometimes fancy myself part therapist, part miracle worker.
The Wolf and Moon isn’t a popular bar for young adults but an older bar with worn wood and comfortable seats saved for regulars. We’re filled to near capacity on weeknights, and weekends are barely tolerable.
There are trendier places for the younger crowd to go, but Zoya chose here. She was always what my mother called “an old soul.”
“Refill, please,” Zoya asks sweetly, pushing her empty glass to me.
“Haven’t you already had two?”
Zoya is everyone’s younger sister and my close friend. I can’t help it.
“I’m fine,” she says, an adorable divot forming between her brows. “Hey. Seriously. The better question is, how are you?”
“Fine,” I lie.
I’m here, aren’t I? The truth claws at my throat. We don’t need to talk about the sleepless nights, the anxiety attacks, the memories that surface like ghosts when I least expect it.
I hate working here now. Every time I set foot in this place, I remember everything that happened that night in sordid, nightmarish detail.
“How are they?” I ask Zoya quietly, not meeting her eyes. She knows exactly who I’m talking about.
I haven’t seen Vadka or my nephew in weeks. Months, even. I can’t. It’s too damn painful, and honestly, I feel like a piece of shit because of it. Who abandons their dead sister’s husband and child?
Me, that’s who.
But it kills me every time to look at little Luka and see my sister’s eyes. To see the raw pain in Vadka that mirrors my own.
“Luka is great,” Zoya says quietly. “He likes to play with Stefan.”
“Ooh. Perfect.”
Stefan’s sister Anya married into the Kopolov family.
“Stefan is so good with him. Honestly, they all are.”
A lump rises in my throat. I know. It was one of the things my sister Mariah loved best about the Kopolov family, the family she married into by proxy. Found family. Immediate extended family for her son. Something neither of us could ever offer him.
“And Vadka?”
Zoya looks away for a moment, not replying. I hate how sometimes no reply is a reply.
My heart aches, and unbidden tears spring to my eyes.
“I don’t know about Vadka,” Zoya says softly, her face pained. She bites her lip as if she’s said too much.
“What?” I lean in closer. “What are you talking about?”
It’s been three months.
An eternity.
Yesterday.
“Well, he—he’s not doing so well after Mariah’s death, is all. He took it hard.”
How could he not? He fell in love with her when they were young. They got married, bought a house, and had a child. And they were smitten. Madly in love. I didn’t believe in fate until those two met.
My nose tingles, and my throat aches.
I can’t think of this now. I have work to do.
So I turn halfway to the side so Zoya can’t see me, even though I can’t hide the husky tone of my voice. “Yeah? What’s he doing?”
Zoya shrugs a shoulder. “He’s kind of gone… well. Rogue, I guess you’d call it? If he wasn’t Rafail’s best friend…”