Unprotected with the Mob Boss: A Dark Mafia Romance (Alekseiev Bratva) by Fox, Nicole (ebook reader online .txt) 📕

jaw is rigid, but there’s an emotion that’s less steady underneath her anger. “You don’t get to threaten me into marrying you, fuck me, and then talk about getting killed. Don’t drag me into your life and then tell me that you’re going to die and leave me stranded.”

I stare at her. In her own way, she’s right. I’m the tide, pulling her into the darkest parts of the ocean and telling her she may need to swim on her own soon. It’s cruel, but it’s also necessary. Part of the territory.

“Ilya will help you,” I tell her. “You just need to—”

Her laugh cuts me off. She starts pulling bobby pins out of her hair. Her hair comes out slowly, then all at once. She shakes her head, letting the pieces fall where they may.

“You are impossible,” she says. “I can follow instructions. You think that I’m worried about living in your mansion and burning your office down?”

“That’s what you were talking about.”

She pushes off the firepit, her knees hitting against my abdomen as she slides down. Her body pushes against mine as she turns, walking back toward the ocean. She stops where her feet sink into the wet sand. The waves wash over her feet. I follow her, trying to see what she sees, but we’re staring at two different perspectives.

When I put my hand on her back, I feel her take a deep breath and let it out slowly. I kiss her cheek, her neck, the curve of her neck, and her shoulder. She leans against me, her body melting. I wrap my arms around her waist. Her thumbs hook around my hands.

When she spins around, her elbow hits against my chest. She takes a quick step back, the ocean waves crashing higher up on her legs now.

“I’m going back in,” she says. “To be clear, that means I’m done with this conversation.”

As she goes over to her shoes, puts them on, and then starts to walk back toward the glow of the Tide & Shore, I see a lone person walking away from the hotel. For a second I think it’s her father, following us at last, but he’s not dressed up like the other guests. He’s wearing a white button-up shirt and dark pants, but they’re stiffer than most dress clothes and they’re nowhere near the price tag of anyone else’s attire here.

My gun is in my car. I couldn’t be certain if there was going to be a metal detector and I couldn’t risk someone at the gala noticing it when I was in a room full of police officers.

The dark metal in his hand is barely visible in the shadow cast by his body. My hands are clenched. I’ll end him slowly, just like the Colosimos kill people, so the next man they send after me will do it knowing the consequences.

My blood is racing, boiling. The fight is in my veins, ready to erupt. Ready to make this would-be killer suffer.

But the man isn’t Italian. His arms swing casually and he doesn’t notice Ally until she’s about twelve feet away from him. His eyes trace her body up and down. As she passes by him, he turns to check out her ass. The light hits the metal in his hand.

He isn’t carrying a gun or a knife. It’s a lighter.

He turns back around and sees me. He takes a quick step back as his face turns bright red.

“I’m sorry, mate,” he says. “I didn’t mean to, uh, stare. I’m just, uh, I’m just here to start the fire before everyone comes out.”

He stops walking when we’re less than three feet away from each other. His knees are slightly bent, his eyes shooting back toward the hotel—a prey animal prepared to escape. With all the simmering tension under my skin, it would be so fucking enjoyable to send this man running with his tail between his legs, flexing my power, and not dwelling on the fact that Ally seems immune to my authority.

But instead, I let him sidle past me, hurrying up his steps until he’s at the firepit. I consider going to the parking lot and getting my Glock, but I know it’d be an irrational choice. If the Colosimos sent someone here, it would be a suicide mission or, worse, a mission that would get them caught and interrogated by the police. The last thing the Colosimos want is police attention.

The hotel employee lights the firepit, standing by it as the flames grasp the bottom of the sticks, growing as the wind passes by and feeds it.

I take my cigarettes out from the interior pocket in my jacket. I walk up to the firepit and pop out a cigarette. I light it using the small, flickering flames.

I smoke through three cigarettes as the employee chatters about the chemistry of fireworks and how his job is part of his long-term plan to become the CEO of a Fortune 500 company. I try to be patient through the various nervous speeches, but he doesn’t seem to mind my lack of contribution to the conversation.

As I throw my cigarette carton into the fire, noise starts up behind me.

The donors and law enforcement stream out of the hotel. They remind me of angry townsfolk, but instead of pitchforks and torches, they cling to their purses and cell phones. They’re smiling, but underneath the pretense, there’s a tribalistic, anger-fueled self-righteousness. If the police get lucky and charge me for my crimes, they’ll point their fingers and scream for my head, but I slipped into business so easily because I needed the same traits in a legitimate business as a crime syndicate. Keep your knife behind your back until it’s needed and be willing to destroy before you’re destroyed. There is no compassion, only profit.

Ally is on the left edge of the crowd. She’s talking to a man with blond hair and enough hair gel to fill an oil tanker.

Jealousy isn’t an emotion I experience. It’s based in