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

treat my mother, remembering the pain. And remembering, too, how stunned I was at how gentle Anatoly was with Emily.

Detective McCauley watches eagerly, further complicating matters.

“Wait,” I order when Bethany is at the door.

She wheels on me, but has the good sense to keep her head bowed.

“Let me go after her,” she pleads.

I push away from the table and rise slowly to my feet.

“No,” I say. “That is my job.”

I find Camille in her bedroom, tossing clothes into her bag.

“What do you think you’re doing?” I grab the bag and hurl it to the other end of the bed.

She jumps at me, hands flailing. She makes to slap me in the face but stops herself at the last moment, perhaps because I do not flinch away. I stand there ready to take it. I deserve it, I realize, when I see what I’ve done to her.

This whole plan was a mistake.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” she hisses. “Playing sick fucking mind games with me! What did I do to deserve that?”

“You lied to me, Camille,” I say, struggling to keep my voice under control. “You said you never spoke with the detective.”

“Oh, and you’re Mr. Fucking Honest, are you? Abraham Lincoln in the fucking flesh! That Bethany shit is fucked all the way up, Erik, and you know it. Don’t you realize how much that meant to me, having a friend in class? But oh, what a surprise, it’s just another one of your sick games. I guess I should’ve expected that from a pervert who buys virgins!”

She grabs her bag. I walk across the room and shut the door.

“You are not leaving,” I tell her calmly, returning to the bed.

“Try and stop me,” she snaps. Her hands are shaking so much half the clothes are thrown across the bed. “I’m not staying here just do you can treat me like a … like a fucking toy!”

She throws the bag and it bounces off my shoulder. I wince at the flash of pain. For a second she looks like she might apologize, but then she mutters a curse and makes to grab for it again.

I kick it across the room.

“You still owe me a child,” I remind her.

“I don’t care,” she snaps. “The deal’s off. I won’t be your prisoner anymore!”

I dive around the bed and wrap my arms around her, passion moving through me.

“Is that all you are?” I ask, pressing my body close to hers. “Are you really going to tell me there’s nothing else here?”

“Get off.”

She shoves me in the chest.

I step back. Usually I know what to do when women get like this—leave, never look back—but with Camille, indecision grips me. The pain is too achingly clear in her face, in the tears she rubs at as though annoyed at herself for crying.

“Maybe there was something more going on,” she whispers. “But now? I don’t know, Erik. I’m a fucking idiot. I was really starting to trust you. Can you believe that?”

“You can still trust me,” I say. “I did what I did to protect you.”

“Can you just go?” She falls onto the bed and curls her knees to her chest. “I need to be alone. Like, leave me the hell alone. I can’t talk to you like this. I can’t look at you like this. I’m afraid of what I’ll do.”

She has her back to me.

I sit on the edge of the bed and raise my hand to place on her shoulder. Suddenly I wish I could reverse time and kill tonight’s plan before it ever entered my mind. I thought it would give me a tactical advantage, but all it has accomplished is making me even less certain.

“Camille …”

“Don’t, Erik. Just don’t.”

“You cannot speak with that detective again,” I say. “Do you understand?”

“Sir, yes-fucking-sir. Any other requests? You tell me to jump, and I ask ‘How high’? Put a collar on me and I’ll bark on command? Just leave me alone, goddammit. I need to calm down.” She laughs bitterly. “Men … you, Rob, my fucking deadbeat dad, you’re all the same.”

I go to the door, pausing to look at her one last time.

Her shoulders are trembling, but her sobs are silent. I picture myself walking across the room and kneeling down beside her, stroking my thumb over her tear-wet cheeks and whispering: I am so sorry. I will never betray you like that again. I love you, Camille. I just couldn’t let it pass. It’s dangerous for a man in my line of work.

Maybe she would collapse into my arms and cry herself out. We could rebuild the bridge.

Instead, I leave the room and walk down the hallway, hating myself more with every step.

McCauley is emerging from the room opposite—the library—glancing around like an intruder.

“Did you find anything interesting?” I growl.

“I was looking for the bathroom,” he mutters.

“Of course,” I laugh. The urge to slam his head against the wall until his body goes limp almost overpowers me. Tonight has been a disaster. “I think it’s time you left, Detective. Dinner is done. Be a good public servant and give Bethany a ride home.”

I follow them both to the door and then slam it behind them. Ashley is standing behind me when I turn, a silver platter of escargots in hand.

“Ran when they heard about the snails?” she says with a half-smile. “Erik, what were you thinking?”

“Perhaps I wasn’t,” I say, shaking my head. “I am sorry your efforts have gone to waste.”

I push past her and head up to my study, meaning to drown myself in vodka until I forget the whole night.

My cell phone rings after my first glass.

“Fyodor,” I say, answering.

“Erik, it is nothing to worry about, but—”

I clench my hand on the phone, nearly breaking it. If my second tells me it is nothing to worry about, then I know I should be worried.

“A few of Damir’s friends stepped out of line with the Aryan Pact. I had to deal with them, you understand. We