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

at all. I’ve been doing mental laps around these questions and a billion more since the moment I left his house, but I still can’t land on any kind of satisfying answers.

One thing that’s for certain: he is like no one else I’ve ever met. I think back on the scant handful of men I’d know in my life. High school boyfriends that I wouldn’t exactly call exemplars of masculinity, a couple flings in college that fizzled before they ever reached escape velocity… None of them made me feel the things that one little smile from Erik made me feel. Like I was a bug in a microscope and a statue on a pedestal at the same time. Exposed and exalted. Yada yada, on and on.

What I want more than anything is to sleep. I’d love to get my own IV tree to match Mom’s, and see if one of the kinder nurses here will pump me full of something to help me find a reprieve from the chaos raging in my head. But short of that happening—and it’d take quite a hefty bribe to get a night nurse to break a half-dozen health-care laws in one fell swoop like that—I’ve got nothing to do but toss and turn in this uncomfortable visitors’ chair while I keep wrestling with the same questions.

The one that lingers most persistently at the back of my head: Now what?

What scares me even more than that question, though, is the possibility of an answer, the one that Erik himself gave me.

I could have his baby.

It’d solve my money problems—our money problems—immediately. Boom, bills would vanish into thin air. No more scraping things together for meal money. No more worrying whether the end of the month would find me selling drugs on a street corner for spare change. A hundred and forty thousand dollars would buy my mom comfort for a very long time. That’s what matters more than anything, right? So why did I say no? Am I being selfish? Am I a bad daughter?

How much did my mother give up to raise Rob and me? So. Freaking. Much. She worked triple jobs for as long as I can remember to put food on the table. She never complained, not once. She has been a cheery force of positivity since the day I was born. Even after Dad left. Even after Rob fucked up, and then fucked up again, and then again. Even when I could see the exhaustion penciling wrinkles in her face that she was thirty years too young to deserve, she didn’t complain.

No, shut up! I scream silently. I cannot have some stranger’s freaking baby just for a pile of cash. It might be a lot—like, a lot a lot—but it will run out eventually, and then where will I be? Where will Erik be? It’s impossible to say, and the darker possibilities in that future make my stomach churn.

I can’t do it. I won’t do it. I’m not some breeding cow, not some rich prick’s surrogate. I don’t give a shit if he swiped my v-card, or if I came hard—several times—while he was doing it. I don’t give a damn if he was handsome, or perceptive, or fascinating beyond belief. None of that matters, because I’m not going to see him again, and I’m sure as hell not going to take him up on his mind-bogglingly insane offer.

N. O.

A beep from a machine interrupts my thinking. Mom’s eyes flicker open and she smiles at me as best she can.

“Sweet girl,” she says, voice slurring slightly. “You look stressed.”

“No, Mom.” I feign a smile, touching her hand. “I’m okay. It’s you that you should be worried about.”

She giggles, bringing up memories of the woman she was before this hideous disease hit. “They’re taking very good care of me. We had apple pie for dessert.” She talks slowly, each word drawn out. My heart breaks more with each syllable.

I lean down and kiss the back of her hand. “You’re so brave,” I tell her.

“How could I be anything else, with a daughter like you?” Her smile droops. I force mine to remain in place. “But enough about me,” she says. “How’s nursing school going?”

I tell her about my studies as she listens eagerly, but I don’t mention last night, nor do I even hint at our financial troubles. She has enough to worry about.

When she falls back to sleep mid-conversation, I go out into the waiting room to grab a coffee. Rob walks down the hallway, all fidgety like he’s on coke. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was something more. The only thing I’m surprised about is that he’s actually here. He doesn’t usually show up at the hospital unless he’s looking for a handout.

“How’s she doing, sis?” he asks. The seemingly real concern in his voice touches me in spite of my better instincts.

“She’s a fighter.”

He nods with a sad smile, touching my shoulder and leading me to the chairs. “And what about the other thing?” he whispers.

“The check’s clearing,” I say tersely.

He beams. “Good, that’s good. But …”

“I know, Rob,” I snap without meaning to. “It’ll be enough to cover her stay in the ER, but after that?” I shake my head.

“And my debt,” he mutters, glancing at the floor. “I got a message today. There isn’t much time. The sharks, Camille, they’re fucking circling me.”

I slump down in a chair. “How much, Rob?”

He sits down next to me. “Fifteen.”

“Fifteen hundred? Jesus.”

“No,” he shakes his head.

My belly drops. “Fifteen thousand dollars?” I grit my teeth. The urge to slap him across the face is almost overwhelming. “Fuck, Rob, just … fuck.”

“I know,” he says quietly.

Part of me wonders if he’s asking for more than he needs. There’s always another bet, another inside scoop, another get-rich-quick scheme. I’d like to think he wouldn’t stoop that low, not with Mom in this state, but I know I can’t put it past him. And what am I going to do,