The Agreement (Darkest Lies Trilogy Book 1) by Bethany-Kris (motivational books for men .TXT) 📕

Dima’s wedding. Only a mere week and some days away.

“Fuck.”

The curse came under his breath, too low for the man standing in the hallway of his loft apartment to notice. But not Marky on the phone—Roman had his cellphone pressed between his ear and shoulder, trying to multitask as usual.

And failing.

Marky only wanted to know what was going on. “What’s happening?”

“It’s the invitation.”

“For?” his friend asked.

Roman’s molars ached from how hard he clamped his jaws together, muttering only, “To the wedding.”

Marky’s answering silence was enough of an answer, but of course, it didn’t last long. It never did where his friend was concerned. “You haven’t seen her since that night, right?”

Yeah.

A night Roman didn’t want to remember.

Jesus.

Roman slammed the door to his apartment without a word to the man waiting in the hallway. It didn’t matter—the guy had done his job, there wasn’t anything left for him to do there.

“It’s been four days,” he said to Marky. “Fuck.”

“Roman—”

“Fuck, man. So, it’s ... it’s actually going ahead. It’s happening.”

Really happening.

Roman didn’t know how to process that. Or if he even wanted to.

He could hear Marky grinding his teeth through the phone. Back in New York for a few days on business—but apparently he had also been digging around matters concerning the Yazov Bratva—the man still wasn’t keen on Roman fucking with Karine.

Literally.

Or figuratively.

“The thing is, there’s nothing to be found,” Marky said quietly. “Not about her. Literally nobody knows anything about her—it’s like she doesn’t exist to most of them. You can’t keep asking about someone who isn't supposed to be found, Roman. Someone’s going to start to notice.”

Right.

But that also didn’t seem like a good option to him, never mind one he cared to go with. If his next statement didn’t make that clear to his friend, then nothing would.

“So, I have basically no time to figure this shit out,” Roman muttered, pinching the bridge of his nose as he tried to focus his thoughts. “And nothing to go on is what you’re telling me.”

“When there’s nothing to see, it usually means someone has tried very hard to keep it out of view, bro.”

“I know that. I can feel it in my fucking bones. It’s Karine. She is at the centre of everything going on with the Yazovs.”

Whatever it is, he added silently.

Which was the biggest problem.

Marky started throwing together his own theories, none of which made sense, and Roman didn’t want to encourage it.

Then, Marky said, “For my own peace of mind, I feel like I gotta tell you to leave it alone again, anyway.”

And that was enough of that. There was no point in continuing the conversation, and besides, Roman had other things to deal with now. Like the fucking wedding invitation in his hand. He needed to think—he didn’t need someone else’s voice in his head while he did it.

“I’ve gotta go. Got a new gig lined up for tomorrow and I’m meeting the crew in fifteen,” he said quickly.

Roman hung up the phone, and instantly turned on his heels, yanking open the front door and heading out of his apartment. He wasn’t lying when he said he had to meet the crew. He just wasn’t sure how he was going to keep his attention on that shit when all he could think about was Karine.

And that night ...

Her breakdown.

Maybe she didn’t want to be saved, but goddammit ... he couldn’t imagine her married to Dima, either. The hot anger that spilled down his spine at the very idea was enough to make him sick. He wanted to keep that motherfucker far away from her.

But how?

The thought was still lingering in the back of his mind when he turned the corner at the end of the hall of his loft that led to the stairwell. Roman was still trying to come up with a plan when he felt a crack land on the back of his skull.

He didn’t even see the bat coming. Everything went black when his body hit the ground with a thud.

• • •

It was the blinding ache in his ribs that finally brought Roman around to consciousness. The painful throbbing at the back of his head was a close second, though. Both were intense enough to push him to the edge of unconsciousness again, if only because the second he felt the pain, he wanted it to go away.

Roman crawled off that edge, forcing himself to open his eyes wide, and still wasn’t able to see anything at all. Dingy darkness surrounded him, a mustiness crawling into his lungs with every breath and making him want to puke from the smell alone. He couldn’t tell if it was just his swimming vision giving up on him or the actual lack of lighting in the space.

“Rise and shine, sweetheart,” came a dark voice, and a low chuckle from within the shadows.

Too close to him, really.

Roman blinked into the darkness, attempting to move if only to settle the swelling nausea. He quickly discovered that his wrists were tied together—stretched high over his head, the rope connected to a chain wrapped around a wooden beam.

His toes grazed the ground.

Barely.

Like an animal ready to be skinned, he hung there, helpless. Roman tried not to panic—he did. It didn’t work.

Fuck.

This was the end.

This was how he would die. After every stunt he pulled over the years—all the outrageous shit he managed to do, and the trouble he found time and time again ... Roman was going to die like this.

Jesus Christ.

Sorry, Papa.

His ma, too.

They didn’t deserve this.

“Down here,” came the murmur.

Roman tilted his head down, finding Maxim’s face staring back from down below. His brain was beginning to connect the dots—painfully so.

Maxim sat on his haunches, right in front of Roman’s feet. A smoky cigar rested between his fingers in one hand, and a baseball bat waited in the other.

For some fucked up reason that Roman couldn’t decipher, the man was shirtless. All his tattoos were on full display, the story of a high ranking bratva vor