Sold to the Mob Boss: A Mafia Romance (Lavrin Bratva) by Nicole Fox (best e books to read TXT) 📕

“Let’s just get in the car,” he finally says and gestures to a nondescript black sedan parallel parked a few spots down.

He helps me limp over to the passenger side and struggle into the seat. I throw my bag in the back as Nikita comes around the other side and clambers in.

“Seat belt,” he says.

I almost laugh, but he isn’t kidding. If things weren’t so grim, I’d find this a lot funnier. He raises an eyebrow as he looks at me expectantly and waits for me to follow orders—almost like a dad with a feisty daughter. It’s so unlike him and almost ... cute? Protective, caring. Not qualities I’m used to seeing in him. “Are you serious?” I ask.

“Better to die by the gun than flying through a windshield.”

The moment of cuteness passes and I remember once again where we are and what we’re fleeing from. I gulp and do as he says.

Satisfied, Nikita turns the key and the ignition starts. He pulls out his phone and thumbs through messages but doesn’t make a call. When he’s done, he powers it off and removes the battery. “They can track it,” he says by way of explanation.

I shudder. These mob types have far more power than I ever realized before.

The neighborhood outside is dark and quiet. Nothing moves, nothing stirs. Nikita slides out of the parking spot, but before he can even straighten out, two cars screech around the corner, tires squealing, and stop in front of us.

They’ve found us.

Headlights shine in our direction, blinding us from seeing the driver or any other possible passengers. But the unmistakable click of doors cuts through the air. It sounds weirdly ominous.

For a moment, everything is silent. Then the world explodes.

“Get down!” Nikita shouts. He reaches across the console and shoves my head low just as bullets rain through the windshield. Glass splinters in a million directions, peppering my scalp like tiny needles. Nikita smashes the gas pedal and the tires screech against the asphalt. We careen into one of the enemy vehicles, but manage to slide through the gap and move down the street.

With one hand on the wheel, Nikita uses the other hand to grab a gun from his belt and fire out the broken driver’s side window at the cars pursuing us. The shots come rapid-fire, one after the next. It’s enough to keep the enemy shooters at bay, until I hear the metallic cough of the empty clip catching against the trigger.

“Fuck,” he growls. “Annie, grab another clip from my bag.”

I reach into the backpack on the floor in front of me and do as he says, handing over the metal sleeve with fresh bullets. He grabs it from me and reloads before sending another round of ammunition in the direction of the cars behind us. We’re whipping around corners, clipping parked cars, swerving all over the road as Nikita alternates between looking ahead and aiming behind.

A hard right, a sharp left, we’re flying now, doing sixty or seventy miles per hour in a crowded residential district. Thank God it’s nighttime, or else we’d have a dozen dead pedestrians smeared across the front bumper already.

But no matter how fast we go, the men behind us stay close. Their bullets fly near, their whine like deadly bees zipping past my ears. Occasionally, one hits the frame of the car and lodges there. I try to stay low and keep my heart from bursting out of my rib cage.

We bowl through another intersection. Nikita is down to the last couple bullets of this clip. He fires one and manages to hit the tire of one of the cars behind us. I look over my shoulder and see the driver struggling to keep it aimed straight as he fishtails all over the breadth of the road.

But when I turn back around to face the front, I scream.

A man with a hot dog cart is idling his way across the crosswalk. Our headlights catch his face and reflect off the wide, terrified whites of his eyeballs.

“Nikita!”

He looks up, sees the cart, and cranks the steering wheel hard to the right. For a brief moment, it feels like we’re flying. There are at least two wheels off the ground.

Then we smash down with a heavy crunch and an angry retort from the car’s suspension. We’re on the sidewalk now, tearing down branches of bushes and trees that drape over the low wall separating the apartment complexes from the street. Leaves and bits of wood fly in through the shattered windows, stinging my face. A loud bang on my side of the car sounds when we clip a mailbox.

Nikita sees an opening and twists us back onto the road, narrowly avoiding a pair of midnight dog walkers who look like they might’ve peed themselves at the unexpected sight of a sedan barreling down the city sidewalk with bullet holes in the windshield.

I look behind us. The pursuers aren’t visible. Did we lose them? I’m cautiously optimistic. Stay calm, I remind myself. This is just a bad dream. I want to click my heels like Dorothy, there’s no place like home, there’s no place like home.

Nikita checks the mirrors repeatedly and continues to take as unpredictable a route as possible. Left, right, straight, down an alley and out again onto a main drag, lit by harsh streetlamps. “Stay low,” he orders. He doesn’t have to tell me twice.

I slink low in my seat and bring my knees up to my chest as if they’re a shield that will protect me. This kind of thing just doesn’t happen in real life. Shootouts and car chases are for action movies, not for the city where I grew up. And yet, here I am, with the bullet holes in the windshield and the terror coursing through my veins to prove that this is all far too real.

But for now, it seems like the worst has passed us. The night is quiet again, aside from the occasional groan from the