Sold to the Mob Boss: A Mafia Romance (Lavrin Bratva), Nicole Fox [ebook reader 7 inch txt] 📗

ground was smooth under our shoes and the light of the sun filtered through the tree foliage on each side of the trail. We were barely a third of the way into a three-hour hike and I was already drenched in sweat.

“So, your mom told me you came home late a couple of times this week. Or, I should say, she claimed you came in during the early hours of the morning.” Dad quirked his brow at me as he waited for my response.

“Went out with my friends.”

“You know, you’re graduating soon. I need you to be more responsible.” Dad grabbed a tree branch and hoisted himself over a fallen log. “I need you ready to take over the business. I need you to take things more seriously instead of running around nailing every girl you come across.”

“I said I was partying, not fucking.” I cringe instantly. Sometimes I forgot to curb my vocabulary when speaking to my father. “Sorry, sir. I didn’t mean to curse.”

“At least a certain level of maturity is present,” he sighed. “But son, you aren’t a child anymore. It’s time to grow up and be responsible. You can’t just go running around doing whatever you want.”

I stopped and turned toward the old man. “I help out at the office, I help with the books, I lie to the cops. I’m not even twenty yet.”

“And yet there are some younger than you who are lieutenants running parts of the family businesses. I need you to step up your game.”

I felt my temper rising in my chest. “What’s next? Are you going to tell me I’m not a man yet?” My feet stomped into the dirt trail and I kicked a stone. This was supposed to be our annual bonding time, not a lecture.

My dad took a deep breath and shook his head. “There’s more to being a man than age. Maturity and responsibility have a lot to do with it. But so does experience. And so does looking at the bigger picture, and seeing the areas of gray that exist. Son, you still see only in black and white. Right or wrong. You beat someone up for looking at you the wrong way without ever questioning why they looked at you in the first place.”

Again, with this. I’d barely hurt the guy. Some blood, some broken bones. He was fine. And he shouldn’t have looked at me like that, anyways. He started it, if you asked me. My temper ratcheted up another notch.

“What? I’m supposed to let some punk disrespect me? You weren’t there.” My voice rose and my temples throbbed as I thought back on the incident my father was referring to. Sure, I’d lost my temper and put some kid in the hospital. But my father, of all people, should have understood, especially with who he was. Hell, he had had people killed for not respecting him.

“The dumb kid made fun of you.” My father turned to face me, his eyes narrowed and his lips pressed tight. “He was a dumb kid. You should’ve let it go. He didn’t threaten you. He didn’t pull a gun on you. He was some insignificant kid. Nikita, part of being a man—part of maturity—is learning to choose your battles.”

I raked my fingers through my hair and sighed. This argument had gone on for two weeks now and no matter what I said, he just wouldn’t drop it. “Dad, I apologized to you. Hell, I even dropped an envelope of cash off at the kid’s house. What more do you want from me?”

But before he could respond, the sound of crunching leaves caught our attention. My fists balled immediately as a burst of chirps filled the air and a nearby bush shook. My father inched toward the bush, crouching low to peer between the branches. “A bird is stuck.”

I could see it now, a little bluebird hooked on thorns at the base of the shrub. The closer my father got to the bush, the more the bird frantically flapped its wings. But there was nowhere to go. Every flap only drew more blood and got it entangled further. My father swung his backpack over his shoulder and placed it on the ground. He unzipped the bag, reached inside, and pulled out a pair of gloves. “Nikita, come help.”

I dropped my own backpack to the ground and walked over to my father. It seemed hopeless to me. Even if we got the sucker out, it looked like one or both wings were broken. The thing was a goner. “Dad, there are tons of thorns. You’re going to get all cut up. Leave the bird.”

“Son, the poor creature needs help. We’re not leaving it to die.” He stepped toward the bush with a small knife in hand and started cutting branches out of the way.

I watched the frightened bird as its tweets and chirps became hysterical. Its wings beat as if attempting to fly away with the bush in tow. My father whispered to it as he kept working. Slice by slice, the thorny whirls fell away, until finally there was a clear path to the bird. My father reached in and took gentle hold of the small creature, pulling the bird from its thorny prison.

He stood and pivoted towards me, keeping the bird cupped in his hand as he inspected it. I was wrong about the broken wing. Free of the bush, it looked relatively intact, if a bit bloodied and ruffled. It seemed content to sit in my father’s hands for now. “Little guy got off easy. No real cuts, nothing broken.” He smiled and slowly opened his hand further. The bird flapped its wings once, twice, as if testing to make sure it was okay. Then it flew off through a gap in the branches overhead. We watched it go.

My father turned to look at me. “Nikita, being a man sometimes means putting yourself in harm’s way to do the right thing.”

***

Someone coughs and pulls me from