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

My feet take me in the direction of the apartment, my brain on autopilot. After everything I’ve been through in the past couple of days, I’m not exactly sure how I feel. Confused. Angry. Scared. Alive. All the emotions are jumbled and not one wins.

“Mizz Thornton?” a familiar voice calls out when I cross the street.

Henry.

I turn to find my old friend huddled in the corner. His face is bruised and his lips are cracked from the cold weather. “Henry? What happened to you?”

“I could ask you da same thing? Haven’t seen ya around. Ya okay?”

I offer him a sheepish smile. If he only knew what I have gone through. “Henry, are you okay?”

“Yes, ma’am. Went to the shelter, like ya said to do. Wasn’t very friendly. Won’t go back.” Henry glances at a passerby and holds up his cup. “Mizz Thornton, ya wouldn’t happen to have any spare change?”

“I’m sorry, Henry. I lost my bag.”

“No worries. Ya go head on home before ya catch a chill.”

I nod and head off down the road. When I get to the building, I head to the bush on the side, hoping the spare key is still there. Nikita never gave me back my stuff. I doubt I’ll ever see those things again.

I find the key, steady my shaky hands, and put the key in the door. Before I open it, I offer up a quick prayer: please let the house be empty. If I see my friends, I’m going to sob like a baby. I’m not ready for that, or for any human contact, really. I just want a hot shower and a cold, dark room, and maybe to sleep for the rest of my life. If I can get that, I’ll be okay. Now if I can just make it to my room before—

“Annie!”

“Where have you been?”

My roommates rush at me, hugging the bejesus out of me, and I groan, not from the contact, but because my body aches and they’re squeezing way too tight. I should’ve taken a minute to come up with a cover story before I came home.

The two drag me over to the couch and the three of us collapse onto the soft cushions. Jenna and Wendy stare at me expectantly. And when I don’t respond, Wendy purses her lips. “Annie, we were so worried. Jenna planned on calling the cops if you hadn’t come home today. We were going to file a missing person’s report.”

“Yeah, especially when we couldn’t reach you. We looked all over the club for you. And then I found your phone on the floor. We haven’t really slept since that night. You better have a good explanation,” Jenna says.

I bite my lip. It would be so easy to tell them. I could just start at the beginning and tell them about being kidnapped and sold and screwed and shot at and chased and about sprinting up a mountain and falling asleep in Nikita’s arms. Wouldn’t that be easy? Wouldn’t that make me feel better? And once I’d told them, we could go to the police together and I could turn Nikita and his whole crew in, and they’d all be arrested and rot in jail for the rest of their lives.

Don’t they deserve that fate? Don’t I deserve that closure?

They do. I do.

But I can’t.

I open my mouth to tell the story, starting with Augustin at the club, and it’s like my voice gets stuck in my throat. I can’t tell them, no matter how much I should.

Because there’s a man in Nikita worth saving.

He’s a coldhearted bastard and a cold-blooded killer—I know that.

He’s a ruthless mob boss and a seller of women—I know that, too.

He’s a thief and a crook and a monster and the right thing to do is throw him behind bars so he can never hurt anyone else the way he did me. But beneath all that, there is a good man. A man who is loyal and smart, caring and kind, and who looked at me in a way that I’ve never been looked at before.

I felt something when he kissed me. Something special. The thing they tell little girls to seek out—the kiss that feels right. There isn’t much that’s made sense since the moment I was dragged into the back hallway at the club, but that’s the only thing I can hang onto, the only truth that fits into my reality.

I say it to myself for the first time, and I know it to be true: I’m in love with the mob boss.

I suck in a deep breath and glance between my roommates. “Well, remember that guy I was dancing with?”

“Yeah, so?”

“I ... went home with him.”

Both of my roommates gasp.

“Actually, I shouldn’t say home. He had a little cabin we went to a little outside the city. It was very romantic. A nice little getaway. I realized I lost my phone and when I asked to borrow his, we found the reception was out up in the mountains. Must’ve been some interference.” I roll my eyes dramatically and sigh, hoping they buy the crap I’m feeding them. “And, as luck would have it, when we decided to head back into the city, his stupid tire ended up getting stuck in the mud and we had to push the car out. Common sense should’ve dictated not to bring a sports car into a rural area, but what’re you gonna do?”

Jenna grabs my hand as Wendy giggles. I offer up a tired smile.

“So yeah, that’s pretty much it.”

Jenna sucks in a big breath and my two friends look at each other. “All right, time for the big question ...” Jenna says.

They chime in at the same time.

“Are you going to see him again?”

Chapter Nineteen

Nikita

Three weeks. Three fucking weeks.

My fist crashes into the table. No matter how hard I’ve tried, I can’t figure out a way to wage this war against Gino. Three weeks since