Owned by the Mob Boss: A Dark Mafia Romance (Ivanovich Bratva), Nicole Fox [book recommendations for teens txt] 📗

A soft murmuring comes from somewhere to my left, toward the library. “Do you hear that?”

She eyes the gun.

“Don’t hurt him, Erik.”

I don’t answer—I cannot, because it might yet be necessary—as I prowl through the mansion, gun raised. I can’t rule out the possibility that he has another weapon. I’ve known men to die from smaller oversights.

I pause outside one of the smaller bathrooms, his voice louder now. He is talking frantically, but it’s too quiet for me to make out the words. I wave for Camille to back off and then kick the door, ignoring the screaming protest the wound sends through my body.

Rob leaps up like a startled cockroach, scuttling into the corner of the room, his back to the sink, phone in hand.

“Who the fuck were you talking to?” I growl.

“N-nobody,” he stutters.

“Drop it.” I aim the gun at his head. “Do not make me ask you again.”

He drops the phone and holds his hands up. His lips tremble like a coward’s and sweat runs in streams down his face, coating him.

“I should end your life right here.” I walk across the room and place the barrel of the gun against his head. “Do you have any idea what you have done? I am not some loan shark hanging around on a street corner. You have just committed a crime punishable by death.”

“Erik.” Camille appears beside me. She puts her hand on my wrist, nudging me as though to lower it. “You can’t kill him.”

“If he were anybody else …”

“But he’s not,” she says firmly.

“You really think I can let this pass?”

In this moment Rob is Fyodor, Damir, all the men who have ever disrespected me. A bullet in him is a bullet in all of them.

My finger itches for the trigger.

“He deserves something, but not this.”

Unbidden images rise in my mind: Camille crying at Rob’s funeral, turning her back to me, bundling into a car with Angela and a trunk full of their belongings. Disappearing forever.

I lower the gun. “So be it. But he does not walk away free. I am going to have my lawyer pin the cocaine on him,” I tell her. “We will let the courts decide his fate.”

“Now wait a sec—”

“Rob, shut up!” Camille hisses. “Would you rather be dead?”

I prod him with the barrel.

“You should be grateful I love your sister,” I say. “Camille, go to my bedroom. In the second drawer of the bedside table there is a false bottom. Underneath you will find handcuffs. Bring them here. We don’t want him slipping away before the police arrive.”

“Fine, Erik, okay. But you have to let me look at that wound.”

I nod, my eyes never leaving Rob. “Do you agree to the terms?”

Rob’s wide, drug-inflected eyes don’t blink or twitch. The pupils are huge. Slowly, he nods, lips trembling.

I let loose a cynical sigh. “Then it seems we have a deal.”

“So your dream has finally come true, eh, sis?”

Camille twirls her fingers, biting down as though a retort is trying to fight its way out of her mouth. “Turn around and show me your hands.”

“You’ve finally got all the control,” Rob grumbles. “Does that make you happy? Big shot Camille?”

“Don’t be stupid,” she sighs, slapping the handcuffs on him.

They close with a loud clicking noise and then she turns to me, eyebrows raised. Disbelief stands clearly in her eyes. Is this really happening?

I give her a short nod. Unfortunately, yes.

Camille and I could have a whole conversation without saying a single word, it dawns on me. That is a level of communication normally reserved for soldiers in battle.

But then, what is Camille now, if not a Bratva soldier?

“Where do you want him?”

“We will take him to the library.”

“Perfect, I always knew I should do some more reading,” Rob mutters sarcastically. “You got any picture books?”

I trail them as she leads him there, not lowering the pistol for one moment.

“What, you think I’m fucking Houdini?” Rob laughs. He won’t shut the fuck up. The drugs have loosened his lips far too much for my liking. “I ain’t going anywhere. Sis, did you disinfect these before you put them on me? I don’t wanna think about what you two get up to with them.”

“Jesus Christ, Rob, will you just quit it?” Camille hisses. “Don’t make it worse for yourself.”

“Is that even possible at this point? I’ve got the Russian godfather with a gun pointed at my back, and my own sister leading me off in cuffs so her new boy toy can beat the shit out of me. Ain’t exactly heaven, is it?” He laughs hollowly. It’s a nasty sound, like metal grating on metal.

I nod to the radiator at the side of the room. “Cuff him to that pipe there. Sit down, Rob.”

“Aye-aye, captain.”

Once Camille has secured him to the radiator, I allow myself to drop down at the table at the far end of the room. The stink of my wound rises up like vapor, drifting acidic up my noise. Invisible hands tug and tear like hooks at my abdomen muscles and I blink away sweat. Once the fury of warfare passes, pain always returns.

Camille kneels down beside me, leaning forward to study the gash.

“It doesn’t look like it hit anything major,” she says under her breath. “But it needs disinfecting, and bandaging. How do you feel, light-headed?”

I touch her chin and raise her eyes to me. “A little.” I smile.

She glares. “This is serious, Erik.”

“I cannot help how beautiful you look right now, can I?”

She rolls her eyes, but a cute smile touches her lips. Even in the midst of this supremely fucked-up chaos, I think to myself for the thousandth time that she is a treasure I must protect at all costs. Then the pain strikes again in a wave, and I wince and close my eyes.

“Where’s the first aid kit?” she asks.

“Bathroom. Above the sink.” The agony is squeezing my throat, making it hard to talk. Gradually, this wave passes, but the pain is far from