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

“No, I’m just cursed with the curls.”

Emily tuts. “A blessing, not a curse!”

“Erik, I trust the club business is proceeding nicely?” Anatoly asks.

Camille raises her eyebrows. “You know, Erik hasn’t actually told me what he does yet.”

“He is a proprietor,” Anatoly says easily. “He owns many businesses all throughout the city. And yet, somehow, he has managed to maintain his humility.”

“I am just following your example, Uncle,” I say with a slight smile.

“Him, humble!” Emily giggles. “I can only wish!”

“A proprietor,” Camille echoes, glancing between us. “That sounds fancy.”

I cannot tell if she buys it, but it does not matter. The mantra in my head repeats itself: This is just business. Yet her searching gaze unsettles me. I wonder if it was a mistake bringing her here, intermingling these worlds.

“You’ve seen his estate!” Emily croons warmly. “It is very fancy.”

“More than this little hovel we call home,” Anatoly chimes in.

Camille shakes her head firmly. “This is a lovely place,” she says, glancing around at their two-bedroom apartment. In truth, Anatoly could afford to live on a much grander scale, but he has always been one to keep a low profile.

“So,” she goes on, “if you’re Erik’s uncle, you’ll be able to dish all the gossip.”

“Gossip?” Anatoly arches his eyebrow.

“Woman talk,” I say dismissively, taking a small sip of coffee.

“Not woman talk,” Camille corrects. “Like …” She pauses, thinking. “What sort of kid was he?”

“Oh, don’t get him started!” Emily giggles, buttering a bread roll and offering Camille one with a raise of the eyebrows.

“He was an industrious boy,” Anatoly says carefully, eyes flickering with light as he smiles at me. The old bastard is enjoying this far too much. “He was always getting into business that did not concern him. But once he was in it, try getting him out! And here is the worst part: he would invariably make whatever he was involved in more successful.”

“Hmm, like what?”

I give a subtle shake of my head. He is talking about business, most likely the time I was involved in interrogating an Italian mafioso when I was just fourteen years old.

“Oh, this and that,” Anatoly says vaguely. “I always knew he would be the most successful man I ever met, though. From day one.” He raises his mug to me. “It is not the first time I have been proven right.”

“There is his famous humility,” Emily puts in.

“I would still just be a boy without your help, old man,” I tell him.

He shakes his head. “No, you were always destined for greatness.”

Camille rolls her eyes at Emily. “Are they always this serious? You have to tell me where you got that necklace.”

Emily smiles as she raises the carved gold links to the light. “Anatoly brought it back from Russia from his last business trip. Isn’t it lovely?”

“What are they?” Camille peers closer. “Princesses? Carriages?”

“It is a scene from Peter the Great’s court,” Emily nods. “I studied history in Moscow, you see.”

“Oh, how interesting!”

The afternoon wears on, with Emily and Camille growing closer and me studying Camille, studying the whole scene, trying to push down the unbidden thoughts rising like hot air balloons in my mind. Anybody looking on would see a family at ease here, whereas I know the truth: we can never be that.

If I do, I am in danger of feeling something.

I refuse to let that happen.

“Come with me, nephew,” Anatoly says when the girls have gone on a tour of the apartment. He leads me onto the little terrace and offers me a cigar from his pocket. I take it and the lighter he passes me. We lean against the wrought-iron railing and survey the horizon.

“I must say,” he begins, “I am surprised by how … untarnished she seems to be. She is a delightful girl. You could make a life together, Erik.”

“I never took you for the sentimental type,” I drawl.

“A man softens as he ages. Well, most men do. You seem intent on retaining your edge.”

I throw him a fiery glance. “One doesn’t keep what I have without ‘retaining an edge,’ Uncle.”

He settles back onto one elbow and takes a thoughtful puff of his cigar. “True enough, and yet I don’t see anyone in this city capable of taking even a morsel from your table. Do you?”

“None who deserve it,” I mutter. I take a long drag on my own cigar, feeling the smoke rush into my lungs, the woodsy sting of it filling me.

“Then what do you fear?”

“The same as always: everything and nothing.”

He laughs at that. I just scowl. “Heavy lies the head that wears the crown, indeed. I do not envy the life you have chosen for yourself.”

“And what of the one you’ve chosen for yourself?” I say suddenly, surprising even myself. “Does it suit you?”

He spreads his hands as if to say, Look at my kingdom. “Nephew, I live with the woman I love. I have food enough to satisfy a fat old man’s appetite. I have fine cigars, and if I wake up early enough, I can hear the birds singing in the morning. What more does one need?”

I don’t know how to answer that question. I don’t even know if there is an answer. All I know is that I thought I once knew what I needed, and now everything seems less certain. “According to you, I need an heir.”

He nods. “An heir would solve some things, yes. You fear that, don’t you?”

I pull the cigar from the corner of my mouth to grumble, “I’ve killed men for asking less impudent questions.”

My uncle’s response is to chuckle. “Bah, you would not harm a hair on my head. I’m just a silly old crackpot. Ignoring me is almost certainly your best course of action. And yet …”

I feel exhausted all of a sudden. Anatoly knows how to worm his way inside my thoughts. “And yet …”

“And yet, you know that there are questions living in your head. Questions about a child, about that pretty girl inside. Ask