by Nicole Fox
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Trapped with the Mob Boss
Nicole Fox
Published by Nicole Fox, 2019.
This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental.
TRAPPED WITH THE MOB BOSS
First edition. June 11, 2019.
Copyright © 2019 Nicole Fox.
Written by Nicole Fox.
Table of Contents
Title Page
Title Page
Copyright Page
Also By Nicole Fox
TRAPPED WITH THE MOB BOSS: A Mafia Romance (Petrov Bratva)
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Sneak Preview of VIN: A Mafia Romance
About the Author
Also By Nicole Fox
Vin: A Mafia Romance
TRAPPED WITH THE MOB BOSS: A Mafia Romance (Petrov Bratva)
By Nicole Fox
I kidnapped her to break her. Now, I’ll do whatever it takes to protect her.
YURI
In this business, you cannot afford to lose control.
No emotions. No weakness.
I’ve worked too f**king hard building my mob empire to let one feisty little girl ruin everything.
But Bella refuses to fall in line.
I’ve pushed my prisoner to her limits, and yet she will. Not. Break.
She takes every savage kiss...
Every cruel touch...
And asks me if that’s all I have to offer.
Breaking her down will require breaking a rule of my own:
Never, ever fall in love.
But when Bella’s senator father doesn’t follow orders like we expect, things get more complicated.
I’ll need her help to take my rightful place on the throne of the city.
And more time with her by my side means unleashing something inside me that cannot be contained again.
As our fates become entwined, betrayal barrels towards us.
I’m forced to make an impossible choice:
Do I follow my destiny to become the mob boss I was raised to be?
Or do I sacrifice everything to save the woman who has stolen my heart?
Chapter One
Bella
Every paparazzi picture ever taken and printed of me shows me standing in front of luxury shoe stores or high-end clothing brands. Those are the pictures that sell. The ones the public likes to see. Regular people enjoy feeling like the upper class is far beyond their reach. As though we’re another species entirely. Alien. Remote. Untouchable. No one wants to see a senator’s daughter walking past Clip ’N Trim Haircutters on her way to a comic book store.
But that’s what I’m doing, and there’s no one around to document it. And surprisingly, no security, either. They often give me a wide berth when I’m in less occupied areas of town, but not being able to see them lurking behind me like muscular shadows is unusual, although I’m not complaining. I like feeling like a normal person. A person who hasn’t been on the cover of magazines and newspapers since she was a small girl, standing next to her smiling, suited father, an American flag pinned to his lapel. Without the hulks with headsets lingering around me, I could be anyone. Just a normal twenty-five-year-old girl.
Too bad that’s never going to happen.
But no matter how bad I wish I was normal, old habits die hard. I look over my shoulder for security and see a man walking behind me. He’s still a long way off, but even from a distance, I can tell he’s handsome. Devastatingly so. Toned body visible even under a hoodie, wide shoulders, well-groomed stubble covering a strong jaw. I’m considering slowing my pace to let him catch up, seeing how long I can keep up this “regular girl” routine before my security steps in to intervene, when my phone goes off.
My eyes bulge as intense rap music with lyrics about pounding women and licking private parts blares out of my purse. I scramble to grab my phone.
“Ivy.” I sound like a frustrated mother scolding her child.
She only laughs. “You like my new ringer? I set it last night. Family-friendly, don’t you think?”
“You are so lucky I’m alone,” I say, managing to hold in my laugh. I don’t want to encourage this behavior. The last time she called I was with my grandma, and she didn’t find my heavy metal ringtone to be “suitable for a woman of my ilk.”
“Oh good, you’re alone. Come over.”
“Over where?”
“The club,” she says, as though it’s obvious. Ivy is always at the club. She spent her early and late teen years despising every second she had to spend there with the wealthy and privileged, but as a young single woman, I wouldn’t be surprised to hear she sleeps on the golf course. “Lots of eligible men here today. There’s a charity golf tournament going on. Do you realize how short golf shorts are? Muscular man thighs, everywhere you look. Yum.”
“‘Man thighs,’” I grimace, shaking my head. “No, thank you. I prefer my men covered. Preferably in jeans and leather.”
She sighs. “When are you going to let go of that particular preference, Bella? Nice boys don’t wear leather.”
“Who says I want a nice boy?” I ask. “Also, you sound like my grandma.”
“Then be a good girl and listen to your granny. Come to the club. The men are all out on the course, and I need someone to drink with me until they get back. Day drinking alone makes me look sad.”
“As much as I wish I could help you get day drunk, I’m busy right now,” I say, stepping to the edge of the sidewalk and leaning against a concrete planter box. As a well-groomed female in a dress and heels, I’ll get enough weird looks inside the comic book store without also being on my phone and disrupting everyone inside.
“You said you were alone,” she argues.
“And busy,” I add. “I have plans, but I’ll let you know if my schedule clears up.”
I look back down the sidewalk and don’t see the handsome man from before. Surely he didn’t go into the Clip ’N Trim. From what little I saw of him, there was no way he was only paying ten dollars for his haircuts. Either way, he’s gone, and I’m more than a little disappointed.
Being a senator’s daughter means I have a very full social calendar and very few dating prospects. Every man who comes into my life has to be thoroughly vetted by my father, my grandmother, and our security. Their pasts are combed over to ensure they have no seedy connections, nothing lurking in their closets that could become a problem for my father’s reelection. In high school, I couldn’t go to prom with Isaac Daines because he helped use grass killer to burn a giant penis in the school’s front lawn. It was visible from every single classroom in the science wing, and even though I laughed until I
cried, the school officials didn’t like it much. Neither did my father.
I have a bit more freedom as an adult, especially if I keep the relationships private—ordering dinner to eat at my apartment, late night hookups, drinks in shadowy corners, and leaving in separate cars. But as soon as things are out in the open, the press picks up the story and the fledgling relationship is subjected to intense speculation from both the public and my family, which is usually enough to kill whatever spark may have been there.
My father has always done his best to protect me and love me, so I try not to blame him. But it’s hard when Ivy can serial-date every member of the club beneath the age of forty with no repercussions, while I can’t even get coffee with a cute guy from my coding class without a tabloid running a background check on him and speculating that my food baby from the burrito I had for lunch might in fact be a baby bump.
“You know, I would drop everything to join you at the club,” she says.
“I know you would, but that’s because you’d probably already be at the club anyway,” I retort.
She grumbles but doesn’t respond, which means she knows I’m right. “I’ll call you in a bit, okay? Try to control yourself. You’ll be really bored if you get yourself banned from the club for groping the golfers.”
“Very true,” she says, as though she’s actually considering it. “Alright, well, call me back soon before I do something irresponsible.”
I sigh as she hangs up. Then I put my phone on silent, making a very important mental note to change Ivy’s ringtone later, and smooth my hands down the front of my dress. It’s knee-length, like Father politely requests, but the neckline is cut low and revealing. I have to get a little wild, in whatever ways I can get away with it.
That being said, as I head into the comic book store, I’m wishing I’d brought a sweater. Not every person shopping inside will be a nerd with zero skills regarding the opposite sex—I’m a frequent shopper here, after all—but that is a large percentage of the clientele. Between the nerds and the teenage boys who ogle my bit of cleavage, I can feel like a slab of meat when I’m inside.
I take one step and suddenly, someone is standing right next to me. I jump and yelp in surprise.
“Sorry. I didn’t—”
Then, I look up. The man is tall and broad, but a dark hood is pulled low over his face so I can only see his mouth and chin. His lips are tightened into a scowl.
For a second, I wonder if it’s a member of my security team. But it can’t be. They usually opt for civilian casual—jeans, T-shirts, baseball caps. Not shadowy hoodies. Besides, this man is standing way too close and hasn’t said a word to me.
I shy away from him, spinning so I’m walking backwards towards the store, my eyes on the man’s looming frame. I regret making fun of the men who frequent the comic book store, because now I’m praying one of them will notice this creep outside and come save me. But I only manage two steps back before I hit something solid and warm. When I try to jump away this time, an arm wraps around my upper body, pinning my arms to my side.
Someone is grabbing me like they mean business.
I’m being squeezed so tightly I can barely breathe, but I strain my neck to look back. Same hood, same shadowy face, but unlike the other man who looked like he was gritting his teeth, this man’s mouth is parted, almost as if in shock. And his jawline. The stubble.
The handsome man from earlier.
A hand clamps down over my mouth, and I realize with horror that I’ve missed my opportunity to scream. Maybe if I hadn’t been so busy eyeing him before, I would have noticed something suspicious about him. And maybe if I hadn’t been staring at his square jaw and wide mouth, I would have had the presence of mind to scream.
I struggle, legs flailing, body thrashing, but I can feel the fight leaking out of me as if I’m a balloon and someone has poked a hole in my side. My vision goes black around the edges, my arms and legs get heavy, and my head sags to the side. I’m fighting unconsciousness and losing badly. If the man wasn’t holding me up, I would fall flat on the pavement.
Then I feel an arm behind my knees and my neck, and the gentle sway of his body as he carries me down the sidewalk. I don’t even have the energy to be terrified.
“Sorry about that,” he says, his voice a baritone lullaby carrying me off to sleep.
Then... darkness.
***
My eyes jerk open. I sit up, aware that something is wrong before I’m even conscious. My head swims, and I press a palm to my forehead to try to keep my brains from sloshing against my skull. I feel worse than I did after my twenty-first birthday when Ivy and I stupidly tried to take twenty-one shots to celebrate. We didn’t get anywhere near twenty-one, but I probably vomited twenty-one times. Happy twenty-first to me!
I’m clammy and cold. The air around me feels stale and still, and I don’t need to look around to know I’m in a small room. Each movement of my eyes sends a stab of pain straight to my central nervous system, but thankfully (or unfortunately) there isn’t much to look at.
I’m in a cell. Four white walls, no windows, one door with a sliding cutout big enough for a pair of eyes to look in on me. It looks like a room created to hold psychotic patients. I look down and practically expect to see myself tied up in a straitjacket.
I’m still in the same dress I was wearing earlier today. Wait, was it today? Or two days ago? My mouth is dry and my stomach is rumbling, and with no windows, I can’t say what time of day it is. Could I have been unconscious for more than a day?
I feel the rising tide of anxiety in the back of my throat. I swallow and refocus. I have to stay calm. It’s the only way I’m getting out of this alive.
I take stock of myself. The men who grabbed me on the street didn’t hurt me. They didn’t take my clothes off or beat me. I take it as a good sign that, whatever it is they actually want, it doesn’t seem to involve violence.
For now.
Slowly, I peel myself off the floor and stumble to the door. The doorknob is locked so tight it doesn’t even jiggle.
“Hey!” My throat is raw and dry, and the word comes out as barely more than a rasp. I cough and try again. “Hello?”
My voice echoes down what looks like a long hallway, and when no one answers, I begin to panic. Am I alone? Will I be left to die? Does anyone know I’m here?
I’m wearing a silver bracelet given to me by my father for Christmas. It has my name stamped on a silver plate in cursive, and I spin the plate around so it’s on the inside of my wrist and use it to bang against the metal door. The sound echoes off the walls and makes my ears ring, but it’s better than screaming. I’d rather scratch my bracelet than lose my voice.
Almost immediately, I hear pounding footsteps growing louder, but I keep banging.
Maybe the person coming is a rescuer. Someone who will be horrified to see a woman being kept in a room.
“I’m in here,” I say, a dry cough breaking up the words.
When I stretch on my tiptoes to look through the small opening in the door, brown eyes are already looking back at me. I rasp out a scream and stumble backwards, tripping over my feet and falling on my ass.
The door opens slowly, and I scramble back against the far wall, tucking my legs in front of me to try and make myself as small as possible. Whoever is on the other side of the door, I know they aren’t here to help me.
Bright white light fills the room, and I realize the overhead light has been turned on. I blink against the burning in my eyes, and the figure in front of me begins to take shape. Blue jeans, muscular legs, white T-shirt with a fitted brown leather jacket over top, and then a square jaw. The square jaw. It seems silly to remember a feature like that, but I’d know it anywhere. Give me a line-up, and I’d pick him out of it based solely on that jaw.
It clenches, and I look up and realize the man is smiling. It sends a shiver down my spine.
“If you don’t want to be tied up and gagged, I suggest you be a good little hostage a
nd keep it down.” His voice is as deep as I remember, and I swear I can feel it rumbling through the floor.
“Hostage?” I croak. I sound like a frog, and I know I shouldn’t care what this man thinks of me, but I do.
He steps backwards through the open door—if my legs didn’t feel like jelly, I might try for an escape—grabs something off the floor, and returns with a bottle of water and a gas station sandwich wrapped in plastic. He tosses both at me. Instead of catching them, I deflect them and then have to crawl across the floor like an animal to grab greedily at the water. After downing half the bottle, I wipe my mouth and lean back against the cold concrete wall.
The man crosses his arms, the collar of his shirt shifting enough for me to catch a bite of black ink sneaking over his shoulder and towards his neck. Tattoos. “Yes, hostage. If you haven’t noticed, this isn’t a five-star resort. No cabanas, no towels folded into different animals, and no open bar.”
“There’s room service,” I say, holding up the bottle. Joking during times of extreme stress have always been my coping mechanism, but as soon as the words are out of my mouth, I regret them.
The square jaw hardens.
In one bound, the man crosses the room towards me and bends down close enough so I can feel his hot breath on my face. I turn my head and flatten against the wall, but I can’t help but look at him. He’s beautiful.
I’m reminded of a church sermon I heard as a kid. The pastor explained that the devil was once one of the highest angels. He was beautiful, but evil existed inside of him, and he was cast out of heaven. This man might as well be the devil. The beautiful, sinful devil.
I’m already looking at him, but he grabs my chin and turns my face to his. When he leans forward, I think he might kiss me, but he stops an inch away. His fingers squeeze my face until I worry my bones will shatter.
“You will be here until your father pays your ransom,” he says slowly, his brown eyes scanning my face robotically, looking for any signs of weakness. “If you want to enjoy your stay, I suggest you obey commands and keep it down. You won’t like it if I have to force you.”