Trapped with the Mob Boss: A Mafia Romance (Petrov Bratva)

by Nicole Fox

  Chapter Twelve

  Yuri

  My father is waiting for me in the parking garage, his black SUV pulled into a handicapped space. Subtle.

  “Where’s the girl?” he asks as soon as I shut the door.

  “Asleep in the room.” I don’t mention that she’s sleeping after several rounds of sex, each more rigorous than the last. “Why couldn’t we do this over the phone?”

  He turns to me, lip pulled up in a snarl. “Can a father not want to see his son?”

  “A father can want that,” I say. “Though, you’ve never been that father before. Are you worried about being tapped?”

  My father has always preferred efficiency over everything else. Why should both parents go to a high-school graduation if one can go and take pictures while the other stays at work and makes the money? Why talk in person when you can send an email? If he needed to see me in person, there’s a reason.

  “I found a note in my office today,” he says, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel. “Security footage doesn’t show anyone coming or going, but the note got there nonetheless.”

  “What did it say? Was it from Bella’s dad?”

  “Senator McNair?” my father asks, one eyebrow raised suspiciously.

  I nod and he shakes his head. “No, and if the note is telling the truth, he won’t be in touch anytime soon.”

  My stomach drops. If something has happened to him, Bella will be devastated. Liar or not, he’s her father. “Is he okay?”

  “He’s fine,” he snaps, looking at me like I might be contagious. “Though I’m not sure why that would be your first question.”

  I run my tongue over my front teeth and shrug. “Because if he’s dead, then I won’t need to be on guard duty anymore.”

  The answer seems to placate my father enough that he drops the subject and continues. “The note was from The Society. I told the senator we would kill his daughter if he did not reach out, and The Society told us to go ahead.”

  “Go ahead with killing her?” I think of Bella, sleeping with her dark hair spread around her when I left. Then I think of someone coming after her, trying to hurt her. Twenty-four hours before, that someone might have been me. But not now. Not ever.

  “She’s useless to them,” he says. “Which means she’s useless to us.”

  “So, why bother with her, then?” I say, hoping the desperation isn’t obvious in my voice. “We’ll just let her go.”

  “The girl is not my priority,” he says, waving me away with a dismissive hand. “My priority is our reputation. The Society is stepping on our toes and interfering in our business. And we can’t stand for it.”

  I wait for him to explain further, but several silent seconds go by, and I assume he’s waiting for me to offer my services in whatever way I can to help the family. Just the way he taught me. “We aren’t going to kill Bella, then?”

  “Dammit, Yuri,” he barks. “Forget about that damned girl.”

  If only it were that easy.

  “Kill her, fuck her, sell her, I don’t care. Just stop talking about the bitch.”

  I want to wrap my hand around his throat and squeeze until I force out an apology. Until he takes back the awful things he just said about her. But I don’t. Because he doesn’t care about her anymore, and when it comes to my father, that’s the best possible thing you can hope for.

  “What do you need me to do?” I ask, stepping into my role as dutiful son and servant now that Bella’s safety is ensured.

  He tilts his head to the side and looks out the windshield. There’s just a concrete wall in front of us, but based on his smile, I would have assumed he was looking out over a beautiful landscape. “I want you to take care of it, Yuri. I want you to remind The Society and anyone else who is paying attention who the Petrovs are.”

  “How?” I know how, but my father likes delivering a dramatic final line, so I set him up for it when I can.

  He turns to me, lips quivering with anger and anticipation. “Kill them. Kill them all.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Bella

  I wake up when the front door shuts, and even though I can feel the lack of him next to me, I swing my arm out across the bed to feel for Yuri.

  “Yuri?” I wrap the sheet around my naked body and sit up. “Is that you?”

  “Yeah.” The single word sounds strained, tired. It’s enough to pull me out of my post-sex haze and force me to get up and get dressed. I pull on my jeans and T-shirt and am scraping my tangled hair back into a ponytail when Yuri walks in. He has his leather jacket on, his car key dangling from the pocket.

  “Are we going somewhere?”

  He looks down at the floor. “I am.”

  The air feels heavy and it’s crushing down on my chest, making it hard to breathe. Still, I take a shuddery inhale and ask, “What does that mean?”

  “Stay here for twenty-four hours once I leave,” he says without looking up at me. He’s playing with the sleeve of his jacket, and I can’t tell if it’s a nervous habit or his way of looking aloof.

  “Where are you going?” I say, fear turning into anger. “I thought things were ... I thought we were ... ”

  A team. I don’t say it. It sounds juvenile now. Naïve. Why can’t I wrap my head around the fact that this is all a game to Yuri? That I’m a game? He has been toying with my emotions since the moment he grabbed me on the street, and I’ve let him. And why? Because he has a chiseled jaw, a muscled body, and eyes that make me think there’s more to him than I could ever uncover? Who wants that?

  But then he closes the distance between us and clasps my hands in his. He lowers his face to mine, eyes shining. “We are. But I have to take care of something.”

  My heart finally feels like it’s beating again, and my breathing is coming a bit easier. “Then take me with you.”

  He shakes his head and presses a kiss to my temple. “I can’t. It isn’t safe for you. It isn’t safe for me, either.”

  “Then don’t do it.” I squeeze his hand, pleading. “Whatever they want you to do, don’t. We can go somewhere. Just the two of us. Figure it out.”

  He smiles and the sadness in the simple gesture breaks my heart. “I can’t. I have to do this. But you’ll be fine. Stay here for twenty-four hours once I leave, and if I don’t come back by then, go back to your life.”

  “Go back?” I ask, wondering if that’s even possible.

  “Go back to your apartment and your friends and your life. But be careful,” he warns. “The Society might still come for you. We don’t know what they want with your dad or why we haven’t heard from him, so you should look into getting extra security. An alarm system if you don’t already have one. And always carry a weapon.”

  “This is crazy.” I drop his hands and spin away, pacing across the floor. “Why are you risking your life? For what? Loyalty? Damn loyalty.”

  “It’s more than that,” he argues.

  “Then tell me, Yuri. Please,” I beg, walking towards him, fighting the tears that are burning the backs of my eyes. “Explain it to me. Because I don’t understand why we aren’t packing our things and getting the hell out of this city.”

  His head drops, and I know he wants it the same way I do. A simple life. A quieter life. But when he looks up at me again, I see the reservations. “It’s my family. They’re my family, and I have a job to do.”

  “Then take me with you.” I’m surprised to find that I mean it. Honestly. The thought of Yuri walking into danger by himself breaks my heart. I’d rather go down next to him than hear the news secondhand a week from now.

  He shakes his head and pinches the bridge of his nose. “I already talked to my dad, and if there’s absolutely no other option, he’s willing to get you new papers so you can start over. Your dad flaked on us recently, but he has done a lot of work with us over the years, and my father will honor that. His obsession with loyalty isn’t always such a bad thing.”

  “I’m not starting over. Not witho
ut you.”

  “Bella,” he sighs. “You don’t know me. Not really. I’m not going to let you put yourself in danger for me when you—”

  “I do know you,” I say, storming across the room until my chest is heaving against his. I place my palms on his cheeks and draw his face down to mine. “I know you’re a man who constantly denies your own goodness. Who has heard enough people tell you how terrible you are that you believe them.”

  I’m not sure where the words are coming from, but they feel true, so I don’t stop.

  “You’re a man who doesn’t believe you’re worthy of anything good, so you destroy it before it’s taken from you. You will never admit it, but your heart is tender, and you have fought your entire life to protect it and hide it from your family.” I place a hand on his chest and feel the reliable thump in his chest. It beats into me like a war drum, giving me energy and inspiration. “I may not know all the details of your past, but I know you. And I’m not going to let you leave this room without me.”

  His lips part to argue, but I stretch onto my tiptoes and press a kiss to them. I feel him hesitate for only a second before his arms are around my waist, and he’s arching me into him, getting rid of any space between us. I know I should be tired of him by now, tired of this, but I’m not. I don’t think it’s possible. Warmth spreads through my midsection, settling low between my legs, and I’m circling my hips into him when I hear the dampened metallic click in the hallway, followed by a thud.

  Yuri must hear it too because he stiffens and then holds me at arm’s length.

  “What was—” I start, but then it happens again and Yuri is spinning around, lunging for the bag he left by the bedroom door.

  By the time he stands up, the doors have already been blown in.

  The noise seems to come from everywhere, rattling the floors and the wall and the ceiling. The sound waves seem to rattle through my legs, and I feel like I’m going to fall over. But then Yuri’s arm is around my waist, and he’s dragging me to the ground.

  My knees smack against the floor, but I can’t feel the pain because this is a dream. Or a nightmare, rather. It isn’t real.

  “Bella.”

  Yuri’s voice draws me out of my own head. I look at him, and his eyes are wide and wild, his face pale, mouth drawn in a stern line. He’s dragging me across the floor, and I realize I need to help him. I get to all fours and crawl behind the minibar, Yuri just behind me, as metallic bombs ring throughout the room.

  We’re being shot at.

  “Get down!” he yells, pushing on the back of my head as he stands up.

  I want to drag him back down to the floor with me and curl into a ball, but I can’t. Physically because he’s much too strong for me. And logically, we would both die. Fighting back is our only chance. I just wish I had a weapon to fight with. Or knowledge of who we’re fighting against.

  Is this The Society Yuri has been talking about? If so, why are they here to kill us?

  Shots ring out from much closer, and I realize after screaming that it’s Yuri’s gun. He’s firing off shot after shot, ducking down next to me only to reload before standing up and taking aim again. It sounds like there are twenty men on the other side of the bar, but I actually have no idea. Which is almost nice because it means I don’t have any idea what our chances of survival are.

  Yuri ducks down to reload, and I open the bar and grab a glass water bottle. I smash the thick base on the floor and it shatters open, spraying water and glass everywhere.

  “No, don’t,” Yuri says, shaking his head without looking at me. “Stay hidden. I’ll take care of this.”

  Before I can argue, he’s up again and shooting. I want to jump in and help, but it does sound like there are fewer shots being returned. And even if I did stand up, I would be bringing a glass bottle to a gunfight. Not exactly my brightest idea.

  Yuri fires off a shot, and I hear a thud and then nothing. The silence that fills the room is eerie and unnatural. I listen for movement on the other side of the room—groaning, shuffling feet, the metallic shifting of bullets sliding into place, ready to be fired—but there’s nothing.

  “Did you—”

  Yuri puts his finger to his lips and crouches down beside me. He leans forward until his mouth is against my ear, and whispers so quietly I have to strain to hear him. “There are more. We have to go.”

  I don’t know if he means more men in the room or elsewhere in the hotel, but I nod, too afraid to speak, and let Yuri pull me to my feet. We stay bent at the waist until Yuri looks around the end of the minibar and stands up, silently letting me know the room is clear.

  There’s blood everywhere. Bodies, too, but I force myself to focus on the blood. It’s splattered up the wall and across the ceiling, but mostly it’s puddled on the floor. Stains spread in the carpet, and I know the hotel will have to rip up the carpet to get rid of it all. There’s so much it might even be leaking into the room below us.

  I wonder what those people thought was going on. We haven’t heard a whisper from any other room since checking into the hotel, so it’s well insulated. But insulated enough to drown out a gun fight? I half expect police to storm the room, guns blazing, before we can leave, but there’s nothing but the eerie silence and the metallic tang of fresh blood.

  Yuri bends down to grab a duffel against the wall—blood is speckled across the strap even though the bag was around the corner from the gunfight—and then slowly turns the door handle with his left hand, his right clutching the gun he used to kill the intruders.

  The hallway is clear, and despite the noise and chaos, there doesn’t seem to be anyone around. Yuri grabs my hand and pulls me behind him down the hallway, the duffel banging against his thigh. I realize I didn’t grab anything for myself, but then realize there wasn’t much to grab. The only clothes I had were the ones Yuri bought for me, and I haven’t seen my purse or my phone since he grabbed me off the street.

  Suddenly, Yuri stops, and I crash into the hard muscle of his back. I cry out in surprise, and Yuri spins around, claps a hand over my mouth, and spins us into an alcove along the hallway. There’s a large potted tree and a storage closet, and Yuri throws open the closet and shoves me inside. When he pulls the door shut, it’s pitch black.

  “More men,” he explains in as few quiet words as possible.

  I feel in the darkness until my hand wraps around his elbow. His hand rests over mine, warm and comforting, while we wait. It feels like an eternity, though it’s no more than a minute or two, before the footsteps in the hallway become louder, and we hear them move past the alcove. When they disappear again, I risk speaking.

  “Why aren’t the police coming?”

  “The Society owns everyone,” he whispers. “Probably paid off security at the hotel.”

  “So, we’re on our own?”

  Yuri doesn’t answer, but I know that we are as he pushes open the door and checks both ways to be sure the hallway is clear. We move past the elevator and go for the stairwell. I have no training, but I know the stairs are the right choice because if anyone is coming up or down the stairs, we can duck out on any floor to escape. But we don’t have to. We make it to the first floor without running into anyone.

  Before we open the door, Yuri wraps a hand around my arm and pulls me close so our chests are almost pressed together. “I don’t know who will be on the other side of this door. The lobby might be overrun with them.”

  “Guess we should open the door and find out,” I whisper back.

  Just as the words leave my mouth, Yuri bends down and crushes his lips across mine. The kiss is hungry and desperate, and it has a sense of finality to it that makes me want to cry. But I fight back tears, run a finger across his square jaw, and break away.

  For one moment, he looks dreamy and untethered, lost in the kiss. But he quickly recovers, gives my waist one final squeeze, and pushes through the door to the lobby.

  Everything looks completely normal, just as it has every day before, a
nd I do my best not to look suspicious. I keep my head forward, only my eyes scanning the periphery of my vision. Yuri stays close to my side, but keeps his hands free in case he needs to fight or defend us.

  The woman behind the front desk smiles absently at us before returning her gaze to her desk and whatever work she has there, and the doormen each shift into position, ready to open the glass doors for us. The hotel seems to be running like usual, as if the shootout a few floors up never happened.

  I feel Yuri relax next to me the closer we get to the doors, and it isn’t until the doors are pulled wide and a rush of warm air from outside blows my hair back that I shake my head and see a shadow over my shoulder. I turn around and see one man dressed in all black following twenty feet behind us. Then, splitting off from the first as though a replicating shadow, a second man in black appears.

  “Yuri,” I whimper, reaching out to grab his hand. “There are two men behind us.”

  “They’re following us?” he asks without turning around.

  I hum a yes.

  “Don’t worry.” The words sound measured and even, but I get the sense Yuri is trying to comfort himself as well.

  I don’t turn around again until we’re standing in front of the hotel near the valet desk. The men are closer now, both of them locked on us like hunting dogs.

  “What are we going to do?” I whisper.

  No one is manning the valet desk, and even if they were, we don’t exactly have time to wait.

  Yuri doesn’t answer and looks around, and I can tell he’s thinking. Then, a black car pulls up in front of the desk. The man inside strains to fix his graying hair in the rearview mirror before turning the car off and stepping out. He has on freshly shined leather shoes and a navy-blue suit, and Yuri drops my hand before he looks up at us.

  “May I take your car today, sir?” he says, his accent softer than I’ve ever heard it, head dipped low.

  The man doesn’t even glance in Yuri’s direction as he drops the keys to his car in Yuri’s hand and then brushes past him to get inside. Instantly, Yuri runs away to the driver’s side of the car and waves for me to follow. I glance back to see the two men in black moving faster across the lobby now, nearing the doors, hands reaching inside jackets for what I can only assume are weapons. So I run for the passenger door, reaching it just as Yuri unlocks the car.