Trapped with the Mob Boss: A Mafia Romance (Petrov Bratva) by Nicole Fox (ebook smartphone TXT) 📕

to hit him. He swings his arms like a propeller and knocks one of the men across the face with his gold watch. When the man ducks down to avoid getting hit again, I see him reach for his hip and realize he has a gun. Before he can pull it, I fire and hit him in the leg. He buckles while his friend dives away to avoid being shot too.

I wag the gun between my dad and the downed man. “Grab his gun!”

I turn back and see that Yuri has the last man in a headlock and is raining blow after blow after blow to his abdomen. The man is trying to fight back, but he can’t seem to get a good grip on Yuri. I lift my gun, but quickly realize there’s nowhere to shoot that won’t also hit Yuri. So, I step back to wait for my moment. And then an arm wraps around my neck.

The final Society member, the one who dove away. I was too distracted between my father and Yuri to think about him once he was out of my range of vision, and now I’ve screwed everything up.

“Drop your gun,” he sneers, his breath hot and acidic on my neck.

I hesitate, trying to figure out if there’s a way I can spin out of his grip and shoot him without breaking my neck. Then, his arm tightens around me, and he reaches down and yanks the gun from my hand.

I sag against him. The fight is over. Just like before. As soon as Yuri sees that I’m being held at gunpoint, he’ll stop fighting to keep me alive. He’ll let himself be captured, my father and I will be thrown back in a cell if we aren’t killed immediately for being such a nuisance, and then any hope of escape will be gone. I screwed everything up.

I close my eyes, letting a wave of exhaustion wash over me. Maybe dying won’t be so bad. It has to be better than this endless fighting and scraping to survive.

“Enough,” the man yells in my ear. He holds the gun up, but doesn’t point it at me. He points it at Yuri. “Let him go and step away, Yuri.”

Yuri spins around, and as soon as he sees the man’s arm around my neck, he backs away just like I expected him to. He holds his hands up in surrender. “Don’t hurt her. I’m done. Don’t hurt her.”

The man points the gun at Yuri. “Your father told us to beat you to death, but given the circumstances, I’m sure he won’t mind if I end things this way.”

I thrash in his arms, hoping to distract him, to throw his aim off so he misses, but the mountain of a man barely feels my struggle. He just smiles. “Final words?”

And despite the fact that he’s seconds away from death, Yuri smiles. “Drop the gun.”

The man scoffs. “And why would I do that?”

“Because if you don’t, I’ll kill you.”

The voice is my father’s coming from behind us, and suddenly I hear the bullet sliding into the chamber and remember he took the gun from the other society member.

“Drop the weapon,” he repeats, emphasizing each word. “Or I will kill you.”

Slowly, the man untangles his arm from around my neck and bends down to place the gun on the floor. He lifts his arms, and I can see the sweat gathering in his armpits and along his forehead. He takes slow, careful steps.

“Okay. Don’t shoot. I won’t hurt her. I won’t hurt any—”

The shot echoes through the room, and the man falls face forward onto the cement floor, blood pooling from the hole in his head.

I spin around and see my father holding the weapon. His face is pale white, but his expression is stony and set. When he looks at me, he shrugs. “I never told him what I’d do if he did let you go. He should have asked.”

Yuri kicks out at the man he was fighting before I was taken. The man is still on the floor, clutching his stomach from the beating, and it only takes two blows to the head for his eyes to roll back and him to collapse completely to the floor.

I grab the gun from the floor and run to Yuri. He takes a step towards me, but it’s a limp.

“Are you okay?” I ask, grabbing his face, turning his head from side to side. He’s bruised and cut and swollen, but he’s still Yuri. He’s still alive. Before he can answer, I pull him down to me and gently kiss his lips.

Yuri wraps a hand around my waist and clings to me, partly out of desire and partly because I think he needs the help to stay standing. He sucks my lower lip into his mouth for a moment and then pulls away, resting his forehead against mine.

“Are you okay?” he asks.

I smile up at him. “You answer first.”

His eyes flutter closed, and he nuzzles into me. “Never better.”

I know what he means. Not knowing whether he was alive or dead had me going crazy. Just seeing him in front of me, breathing and talking, feels like the entire world has been lifted off my shoulders. I feel like I can inhale for the first time in hours.

But we aren’t done yet.

“What about your dad?” I ask softly, leaning away while keeping my arms around his waist. “Where is he?”

Yuri’s face darkens. His eyes narrow. “I don’t have a dad anymore. The man I thought was my father is gone. I’m on my own now.”

“But he’s still alive?” I ask.

Yuri nods. “Not for long.”

I understand his anger. He has the same drive to kill his father as I did to find him, but now I see my father’s point of view, too. I just want to get out of here.

“Are you sure it’s a good idea, Yuri? Wouldn’t it be better to talk to your brothers and explain everything to them?