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)
But it isn’t Anton.
My heart thumps hard when I see Vadka.
My thumb hovers. My pulse picks up.
Stupid. It’s just a name. Just a man.
Just a man with hands that could crush skulls and a voice that commands attention.
Just a man who loved my sister.
I go back to pouring drinks like my hands aren’t shaking, trying to get my shit together. Like I’m not already answering him by pretending I haven’t seen it.
Finally, when there’s no one else to serve, I sigh and open the text.
Vadka
Are you hiding something from me, Ruthie?
I close my eyes for a beat, already tasting the fire in his words. He didn’t fuck around before Mariah was gone, and now that she is, any semblance of politeness has vanished.
My heart beats faster, and my hands are immediately clammy. Which one of those bastards ratted me out?
I handled it without you needing to add another tat to the collage, Vadka.
The Bratva mark actions with ink. He doesn’t need another murder. Not on my watch.
Vadka
You deprived me of the chance of putting a predator in the ground? Why?
“Excuse me? Anyone here to take a drink order?”
“Be right there. Sorry, we had a bit of a commotion just now that I had to handle.” I serve the three young women standing by the bar before I text Vadka back.
Because you have a son and I won’t let my nephew be motherless and fatherless.
Now my hands are shaking.
Son of a bitch.
I put my phone away and ignore the rest of the texts.
I ignore the real reason I don’t want him here tonight.
Four hours later, when the bar’s finally closed for the night, I still have the nighttime routine to complete, but I pull out my phone to check my texts.
I blow out a breath. I don’t think so. I have work to do. He can wait.
I run through tomorrow’s prep work and wipe the bar again. Clean enough for surgery now.
Vadka
You underestimate me.
Oh, no, I don’t. That’s the problem.
I grab a broom and sweep the floor, mindlessly pushing crumbs and dust into a pile. I sweep aimlessly, trying to get the job done.
I considered leaving the bar after Mariah’s death, but this is the place I call home, and I hate to think I’m such a wuss I couldn’t stand the pressure. Seriously. I’m an adult.
I turn my back to the bathroom, to the place that reminds me of Mariah. I can’t think back on that night. No, not now.
I told myself that if I kept coming to work, if I kept putting one foot in front of the other, I’d eventually erase the memory of her vacant eyes and Vadka’s screams of pain and devastation from my memory.
But I can’t.
So this time, I don’t try to. I face the vacant room and the whisper of Mariah’s ghost. I let the tears fall silently and don’t bother to wipe them.
“Why you?” I whisper into the stillness. If it had to be a random person, why did the universe have to pick my sister, the woman who was married and in love, the woman with a child? Why her? Why sunshine in human form and not me?
I was the one who was alone and barely lovable. I was only a bartender. Single, and probably would be for life. I had no children, and even my mother, god bless her, would look at me through the haze of dementia and still call me Mariah.
Why not me?
I choke on a sob and let my shoulders sag.
Why? Why am I still here, and the only person I’ve ever loved more than myself, erased from existence forever?
Why?
My phone rings. I hiccup through a sob and glance blearily at the screen.
Mom.
I let out a ragged breath and answer the phone.
I let myself hope that this time, she’ll remember.
“Hello?”
“Hello? Who is this?”
“Mom. Mom, it’s me. You called me, remember?”
“Ohhh,” she says, and I cringe at what I know is coming next. “Mariah, honey, can you please bring me some groceries?”
“It’s not Mariah, Mom. It’s Ruthie,” I whisper, squeezing my eyes shut against the pain that chokes me. I don’t say the next sentence that’s on the tip of my tongue. I don’t have the energy to explain it again. I don’t have it in me to make anything harder again.
It’s me, Mom.
Mariah’s gone.
Chapter 3
VADKA
Grief is strange. I swear to god, it rots you from the inside, so you still carry the shape of who you were, but inside, you’re just… hollow.
At least that’s how it feels.
The house is too quiet, even when Luka’s awake and pushing his trucks into walls, complete with sound effects.
I sit in the living room, slouched in my armchair. This was one of my favorite new purchases when I first got a job with the Kopolovs—a large, well-constructed, luxury leather armchair. My family never could’ve afforded anything nice like this when I was a kid, and it was the first thing my mother pointed out when she came here, her nose in the air, with a sniff. “Nice chair.”