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

paperwork that, unfortunately, is a part of this business.

Then my cell phone buzzes on the desk.

I flip it over: the doctor.

Anticipation moves through me, undercut with an unfamiliar nervousness. I have never been the skittish type, and yet my hand is shaking as I unlock the screen.

Good news, Mr. Ivanovich … the text begins.

I barely see the rest.

I am on my feet, running around the study, pumping my fist in the air.

“Yes!” I roar, jumping up and down. “Fucking … yes! Yes! Camille!”

I run through the mansion, heart pounding in my ears.

“Camille!”

“Erik?” she calls from the hallway. I hear her drop her bag on the floor. “Erik! What’s wrong?”

I jump down the stairs three at a time. A piece of artwork leaps from the nail and clatters to the floor, glass shattering.

I ignore it and run over to her, sweeping her into my arms. I twirl her around as wild laughter escapes me.

“You are pregnant!” I roar, crushing her in a hug.

“Oh my God …” She buries her face in my neck, her body trembling. “Oh Jesus. It’s real—it’s real.”

I nudge her face to get a look at her. Tears are streaming down her cheeks.

“Oh, Erik, this is … I just … I can’t believe it.”

A moment later, I put her down.

An odd distance opens between us.

She tilts her head and I know what she is thinking, the same thing I have been thinking all day: What now? Where do we go from here?

“Want a drink?” she asks after a too-long pause.

I nod shortly.

“We’ll take them in the library.”

We sit just as we did when Camille first came here, when we were strangers to each other. She pours me a vodka and takes a can of orange soda from the fridge in the corner—giving me a half smile as she does—and then sits down opposite me.

I place my hand on hers and we sit in a silence that seems to build, full of unanswered questions. It seems absurd to me that only earlier today I was romanticizing it.

Now, reality is setting in.

It is not just the fun stuff, the flurries of imagination. I have to think about Fyodor and his wolves who would wish my child harm. I have to consider practicalities: inheritance, keeping the pregnancy secret from the Aryan Pact and the remnants of the Italians.

I have to think about life.

“Are you okay?” she asks softly.

I sip the vodka, give her a small nod.

“It’s a lot, isn’t it?” she offers shakily. “Now that it’s real, I mean.”

“It is.”

Part of me wants to jump across the table and sweep her into my arms again, but something holds me back. It is like I’m shedding the skin of the man I was becoming, whoever he was, and turning into the old Erik again.

16

Camille

“See, that’s what I’m always lacking,” Bethany says. For once, we have taken the cool kids’ seats at the back of the class. “That’s why I like the unconscious ones a lot better. Less sass, y’know?” We both stifle laughter.

The teacher has given us a discussion topic: What is one key element of dealing with distraught patients?

“Patience,” I mutter when our laughter fades. “Maybe I got used to that growing up …”

“Go on,” she urges when I trail off. “I’m not gonna spread your dirty laundry, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

“No.” I shake my head, offering her a smile. “I just don’t wanna unload on you.”

She waves a hand.

“Unload away. Anyway, it’s schoolwork.”

The pregnancy news bounces around my head like a pinball, my stomach getting tight every time I think about that downright fucking bizarre scene with Erik in the library. Talk about hot and cold. One second he was the Human Torch and the next he was icy, looking at me like he hardly knew me.

But then again, I guess he doesn’t.

“Camille?” Bethany narrows her eyes in concern.

“Sorry, I was off in the clouds. It’s just … growing up, I had to deal with a relative. I won’t say who, but I had to use a whole oil tanker of patience with him. Every day it was something new, some new scheme, some problem he’d made for himself. Maybe I let him treat me like a doormat. I don’t know.”

“Patience can feel like that, sometimes,” she says kindly. “Don’t beat yourself up. Just think: what if some old kook decides he wants to turn his room into a scene from a porno? I’ve heard about that, you know, old men who hit on their nurses. And old women, too, now that I think about it. I don’t think I’d be able to use my usual strategy in that case.”

“And what’s your usual strategy?”

Laughing, she raises her hand in a slapping gesture. “One forehand and one backhand, just to really get the message across.”

“Well, that does seem thorough—”

Suddenly the door at the front of the class crashes open. Heads spin and immediately I grit my teeth, anger pulsing through me.

Rob, swaying and gripping the doorframe, takes a shaky step.

“Camille!” he roars, almost falling over as he swings his gaze around the room. “Camille, y’in here?”

“Oh Jesus,” I murmur, putting my face in my hands as though that will make everybody forget my name.

I glance up a moment later. Everybody’s staring at me.

“Rob, what the hell do you think you’re doing?” I hiss.

“I need to talk to you!” he snaps, as though I’m the asshole.

I pace across the room as quickly as I can, all too aware of Cecilia letting out a huffing breath. She’s been gunning for me ever since Bethany and I became friends. That bitch really could do with a lesson in patience, not to mention manners, and maybe one of Bethany’s one-two combos just to help the lesson sink in. She seems to think it’s unfair that the two top achievers have joined forces. I resist the urge to tell her to go fuck herself as I take Rob by the arm.

“This is fucked, Rob. I hope you know that.”

He shrugs himself free