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

receding completely. It lingers in the background like an unwelcome houseguest.

“Okay, wait here,” she says. “And try to play nice, okay?”

“Did you hear that, Rob?” I call over, trying to breathe through the pain. “It seems we are to become the best of friends after you tried to take my life. What do you think of that?”

He grins manically. I see the boy he once was, the boy he has never outgrown. Absurd pity whirls through me. He never had a father, I remind myself, and with some men, that is one step below a death sentence.

“My father beat me every day of his life,” Anatoly told me once. “But I would take that a million times over a weak man, or no father, for it made me strong. You do not toughen iron by keeping it away from the fire.”

“Maybe we should play Guess Who,” Rob sighs. “You know this radiator’s on, right? I’m gonna be bacon by the time you uncuff me.”

“It is summertime. Nice try, though.”

Rob shrugs as much as the cuffs will let him, and then blows a spidery strand of hair from his eye. “Can’t blame a man, right?”

Camille returns. She kneels before me, cracks open the first aid kit, and starts mopping up the blood from my torso, sleeves rolled up, her hair tied back from her face. The look of intense concentration captivates me.

“What?” she asks quietly.

“Just you,” I mutter. “You are truly a Bratva woman, a queen.”

“You’ll make me blush.” She bites her lip for a moment, worry flitting into her blue eyes, darkening them. “Everything is going to be okay, right, Erik?”

I smooth my hand over her cheek, feeling the heat of her, wondering how many men I would slaughter if she were ever taken from me. A part of me would die, I know. A part of me I never dreamed existed.

“I will always protect you. I love you. Nothing can ever change that.”

She smiles and nods. I can see the fear in her eyes retreat—just a bit. It is enough for now.

Once she has dealt with the wound, I watch her as she stands up and goes into the bathroom.

“Will you stop ogling my sister, man—”

“Quiet.”

I jump to my feet. Something is wrong.

“What climbed up your—”

“Quiet,” I growl.

Downstairs, I hear doors opening and closing quietly, and then, almost silent footsteps. Camille returns a moment later with Rob’s cell phone in her hand. Something in me drops like a leaden weight. How could I be so foolish?

“Who were you calling, Rob?” I snarl. “Camille, check the phone.”

Anybody who knew what they were doing would have masked the number, but a junkie is not a Bratva.

“It’s password-protected,” she murmurs. “Rob? Wait, hang on.” Her shoulders slump as the phone unlocks and she sees the most recent call in the log. Some strange mixture of sadness and pride enters her face. “It’s Mom’s birthday. Erik… he was talking to Fyodor. That’s your, um, lieutenant, right?”

I charge across the room and grab Rob by the shoulders.

“You have a chance to redeem yourself,” I tell him. “But you have to listen very carefully and do exactly as I say. If you do not, Rob, not even your sister will stop me from taking my revenge. Do you understand me?”

He glances at the door with watery eyes, his fear of Fyodor, of me, of the world a tattoo on his face.

Licking his lips, he says, “W-what do I have to do?”

26

Camille

“I did it,” Rob says, speaking way too loudly.

It makes me think of when he played a talking tree in the school play. He was so nervous he ended up shouting all his lines, waving his hands around like there was a hurricane moving through the magical forest he was supposed to be in. I laughed back then, but this is far from funny. My heart drops and again I have to remind myself that this is really happening.

Erik wraps his arms around me as both of us press our ears against the wall. I feel his heartbeat in my back, pounding and steady.

A long silence passes, way too long. I almost want to scream at the asshole not to keep me in suspense. No matter what Rob has done, he’s still my brother.

“Hmm,” Fyodor finally says. “And what have you done, little man?”

“I got my hands on his gun and I killed the bastard!” Rob growls. “He thought he was some big man, but big men fall just as much as little ones, ain’t that right? Hell yeah it is. Motherfucker fell, yes he did.”

“What are you babbling out?” Fyodor snaps. “Look at me, boy. You, a rat, killed Erik Ivanovich? If that is the case, why did you call me telling me the precise opposite? Do you imagine I am here for my health?”

“I fuckin’ killed him!” Rob whines. “My sister’s never gonna forgive me, man. Jesus Christ. I shot him right in the head and there was blood everywhere. It just exploded out of him like a fountain and I … I can’t believe it. I did it. I’m a killer.”

“Are you rehearsing for the Oscars?” Fyodor asks. “Take me to the corpse.”

I stiffen in Erik’s arms, glancing at the door. If Fyodor works out that Rob is lying, he’ll kill him. I’ve been around these men long enough to know how it works.

In my memory, I see Rob with big rips in his jeans, a lopsided smile on his face as he holds his skateboard up like a trophy. He was so proud that he’d almost ridden down the ramp at the skate park, the one everyone called the Big Cheese.

And then another one: he’s bringing Mom hot chicken soup on a cold night when the heating went bust. So proud of himself. So full of love.

And now—my mind really is torturing me—he’s standing up to Billy Hickson, a kid twice his size, because he groped my thigh in math class.

“I … uh …”

“Is there a problem? I would