“I finished second in my class,” I told him. “They sent me your grades,” he said, nodding toward a heavy gray envelope with a handwritten report.

He stared at me like he had no idea of the year, let alone the month. “What are you doing back here?” he muttered. He looked up at me, confused, with his one good eye bleary, the other milky and blind. And he had always maintained his personal appearance, even as the rest of our home fell to ruin.īut I found him sitting behind his desk in a filthy robe, his hair down to his shoulders and his fingernails two inches long. That space, at least, he had always kept clean. It’s like he wants it to collapse on top of him so he can suffocate in the rubble. I scaled the stairs in anger and resentment at how far he had allowed our house to continue to decay. My father hadn’t met me at the airport-I had no expectation that he would. I doubt you could offer them a king’s ransom to return. He banned the maids from the house years ago. Rats certainly, and perhaps even a pigeon or a cat.

Where the house used to smell of dust and mold, now I had to pull my shirt up over the lower half of my face to filter out the stench of something that had died beneath the mounds of garbage. My father’s burgeoning collection of trash overflowed into the entryway: stacks of books, newspapers, magazines, boxes, bags, and packages piled to the ceiling in labyrinthine channels that forced me to weave my way down the hallway and up the stairs. But the moment I opened the front door, I was hit with a wave of fetid, rotting air.

From the exterior, the sandstone facade looked as expensive and well-maintained as ever. He’ll have to leave our house on Noble Row for the first time in months.Īs accustomed as I’ve become to the chaos inside our mansion, I was still shocked when I came home from school in the spring. The Bratva high table meets tonight in a private room on the top floor of the Bolshoi Theater. Love you all so much - you really mean the world to me ❤️ As long as you believe in me, I promise to never phone it in or let you down!!! This one is for all you ladies who love self-destructive bad boys, sad boys, and epic redemption arcs! Especially for my beautiful Love Larks who saw the potential in Dean from the very beginning, even when he was at his worst.Īlso thank you to all you wonderful women who trusted me to take something they might not be excited about initially (academy, love triangles, younger protagonists, etc) and grow it into something unique and powerful.

The Spy by Sophie Lark