Owned by the Mob Boss: A Dark Mafia Romance (Ivanovich Bratva) Nicole Fox (year 7 reading list .txt) 📖

She glances over her shoulder—at me, I think—and for a second I almost pursue her into the back.

I stifle the thought. This is just business, I remind myself.

Nothing more.

4

Camille

Seventy thousand dollars.

In the back room, I replay the sum in my head again and again, trying to convince myself that it’s real. It’s more money than I have ever dreamed of having in my hands at once.

I’m supposed to go to the man—Mr. Ivanovich, someone called him—who bid on me and ask him for help to take the art to his car, but nerves swirl around my belly and there’s a sour taste in my mouth.

This is real now. I just sold my virginity.

The man was supposed to be ugly, old, and off-putting, the kind of man that would buy a woman because he had no other way of getting one in his bed.

This man, though, was anything but ugly. In the dim light of the auction room, I caught glimpses of him: tall and lean with jet-black hair combed stylishly to the side, his hands inked with tattoos and his eyes so intense that I felt even more naked than I already was. He couldn’t have been older than thirty, yet he radiated power with his presence alone.

I have to be strong now, I remind myself. For Mom.

I take hold of the framed art piece and wheel it back down the hallway to the auction room, ignoring the pit in my belly.

I am halfway across the room—which is bustling as the other women find their bidders—when the drunk asshole who was shouting all night comes ambling over. He is a squat man with squinty eyes, cradling a glass of whiskey.

“Oh look,” he leers, mumbling through fat lips. “It’s Miss High and Mighty.”

He makes to grab at my ass.

I react without thinking, slapping him across the face.

He stumbles back, trips, and ends up in a heap on the floor.

But as soon as he hits the ground, my blood runs cold. What did I just do? I’m way out of my element here, and now I’m slapping the guests of the event? I look around. Every single person in the room is staring at me, eyes wide, jaws dropped. The girls in particular look at me like I’m a dead woman walking. I broke a rule, a big one, in a big way.

I’m fucked.

You could slice the silence with a knife—until, from across the room, somebody laughs deeply.

I look over. It is Mr. Ivanovich, standing with his powerful hands hanging at his sides, looking even bigger in the light.

He walks smoothly over, everybody flinching away from him as though he is on fire.

“No,” he drawls down to the man I hit as he tries to climb to his feet. “Stay there, where you belong.”

“Fuck you,” the guy sneers drunkenly, trying again to find his balance on unsteady feet.

My buyer is impossibly fast. He kicks the man’s ankle out from under him, grabs one flailing wrist as he tumbles over, and lands with a knee in the middle of the man’s back, arm wrenched behind him.

The drunkard’s angry tone is gone now, replaced with a blubbery whimper. I’m the only one close enough to hear what Mr. Ivanovich hisses into his ear.

“Do not ever say those words to me again, my friend. Or you may regret it even more than you should regret your behavior tonight.”

The man nods frantically, tears streaming down his face where it’s pressed against the carpet floor.

Satisfied, Mr. Ivanovich stands, straightens his tie, and smooths back the strand of hair that has fallen over his forehead.

I haven’t moved an inch. Who the hell is this guy? And when his gaze falls to me, a shiver courses down my spine.

“This way,” he commands. I follow, mute.

I wheel the art piece behind him, studying his broad back. He is all muscle, bulging against the fabric of his expensive suit.

In the hallway, he hands me a small package: my clothes. I duck into a corner to pull on the glittering dress and slip into the heels.

When I’m dressed, we go outside. He leads me across the parking lot to a sport car done in the same jet-black as his hair.

He doesn’t look at me as he reaches for the art stand. I move to help him and our hands brush, a moment of tingling contact as his fingers close over mine, like lightning leaping from one to the other.

I snatch my hand away, ignoring the warmth that moves through my body. He is a monster, I tell myself. He bought a woman.

I just wish he wasn’t so handsome.

I slide into the passenger seat and he climbs in next to me, his shoulder brushing mine. Heat seems to radiate from him.

“So,” I say, “some party, huh?”

The words hang in the air, and I curse myself immediately for saying them. ‘Foot in mouth’ syndrome has been a very real thing in my life for as long as I can remember. There’s a part of me that just can’t let an opportunity for snark pass me by, no matter how ill-advised it is or how much trouble it threatens to bring me.

This, in particular, seems like a Hall-of-Infamy-level bad time to open my mouth.

But the man says nothing. He just looks at me for a moment, and his eyes travel shamelessly up and down my body. If it were a normal day, I’d be insulted to have someone checking me out so openly. But he doesn’t care. He doesn’t hide it. He eyes me like a treasure.

Or, I gulp, like I’m his property.

Then, satisfied by whatever he was looking for, he backs out of the parking lot without a word. I bite down, staring at my hands in my lap, trying desperately not to let any fear show on my face.

“Where are we going?” I ask after a few minutes have passed.

“Home,” he mutters. His voice is deep, with the barest hint of a Russian accent. It fills the car, fills me.