Risky: A Bad Boy Mafia Romance

by Ava Bloom

  I went through my pre-hit routine. Nutritious meal, a nap, packing the hit bag. Despite everything, I found comfort in the routine. I parked a few blocks away from Josephine’s apartment complex on a side road she never drove down, and I walked. With every step, I began to feel slightly more unmoored from reality. Was this really my life?

  Sadie didn’t charge out of her door the way she had the first night I’d tried to sneak around outside Josephine’s door, which seemed like a good sign. I took a deep breath and was about to reach into my bag for my lockpicking set when something moved out of the corner of my eye. I turned and stared, stunned, at Josephine moving towards me down the hallway.

  She was digging around in her purse. Her arms were loaded down with work supplies and bags, and she wasn’t paying any attention to where she was going. I could have taken her out right there. The interior hallways didn’t have any security cameras. I could have whipped out a gun, pulled the trigger, and been gone before anyone even opened their door. It would have been inside.

  “Josephine.” I’d said her name before I could stop myself. It was like I’d been split into two minds. One was the hitman trying to navigate how to take her out. The other was Lance trying to warn the woman he maybe loved that she was in danger.

  She looked up, blinked, and then smiled, tilting her head to the side in confusion. I knew what she was thinking. She wasn’t supposed to be home for hours. Why was I standing outside her door in all black with a black bag? Why hadn’t I called or texted first?

  She pulled her hand out of her purse, her keys balled up in her fist. “What are you doing here?”

  “I wanted to surprise you, but I didn’t remember until I got here that you were working late tonight,” I said. It was a simple lie and one that was hard to dispute, though I could tell she felt something was off. “Why did you come home early?”

  Her brows pulled together for only a moment before she stepped forward, unlocked the door, and stepped inside, gesturing me to follow her in. “It’s a long story,” she said.

  Her apartment smelled warm like her. Hints of vanilla and cinnamon. Since I’d first been over to her place, she’d cleaned up a bit. The take-out containers had been discarded from the coffee table and there were no longer work files lying everywhere. I wondered what her bedroom looked like. Whether clothes still littered the bed and the floor. Whether the comforter was still thrown to the far corner of the bed the way it had been while we’d had sex. Quickly, I tried to dispel the thought. That wouldn’t be happening again.

  She was dropping all of her things from work on her small dining room table, her back towards me, and I thought that I could walk up behind her and strangle her with a length of chord. She was a petite woman and it wouldn’t take much for me to overpower her. I took a step towards her and she turned around, tears pooling in her eyes.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked, crossing the space between us. I placed a hand on her cheek and used my thumb to wipe away a falling tear.

  “I’m being demoted on the Martinetti case,” she said, rolling her eyes and shaking her head, frustration rolling off her in waves.

  “What? Why? I thought everything was going so well,” I said.

  “Apparently, things are going too well.”

  “You’ll have to explain that to me,” I said. “I didn’t think a lawyer could be too good at their job.”

  “Apparently, I’m drawing a lot of attention. My boss is afraid I’ll be taken out by the mafia or something,” she said, throwing her arms wide.

  My heart stopped. My throat closed. Any chance of speaking flew right out the window.

  “Isn’t that absurd?” she continued. “He is worried that I’m putting together too strong of a case and the Petrov family will come after me. He acts like we are in a mob movie or something. He wants to give me a ‘partner,’ which is a code word for babysitter. They want me to ease back and focus on just the scope of Pauly’s case, but it’s impossible to do that when I have solid proof that Steven Petrov wasn’t some all-American guy. He was a murderer; did you know that? He killed people. By some standards, Pauly did the world a favor by taking a guy like him out.” She paused and took a deep breath. “Assuming, of course, Pauly did commit the murder, which I’m not saying he did.”

  Even in the privacy of her own home, in the midst of an emotional breakdown, Josephine was loyal to her client. She was a good person. Way too good for me. Too good to be killed because some mafia boss was tired of her getting in his way.

  “So now, in addition to trying to convince my witnesses they are safe, I have to convince my boss that I’m not going to be murdered. It’s insane,” she said, throwing her arms up in one final flourish of emotion and then collapsing back onto the couch.

  “It’s not so insane,” I said, slowly turning around.

  “You think I’m being targeted by the Petrov family?” she asked, mouth pulled up into a lopsided quirk.

  My heart was hammering in my chest. This was it for me. Once I told Josephine, I had no idea what my future would hold. There would be no taking it back. But also, if I didn’t tell her, my mom would die, I’d be killed, and Marvin Petrov would just send someone else to take care of her. I took a deep breath.

  “I know you’re being targeted.” My voice was shaky.

  She was still smiling, but I could see the amusement leave her eyes. She sat up on the couch, her elbows resting on her knees. “What are you saying, Lance?”

  “I’m a hitman for the Petrov family. I was sent here to kill you.”

  The words hung in the air for a few heavy seconds and then, Josephine laughed.

  “Oh my God, Lance. You almost had me for a second,” she said, chuckling to herself as she pushed off of the couch and sauntered into the kitchen. “I still haven’t been to the grocery store, but Sadie always keeps frozen pizzas in her freezer and I have a spare key. I could run over and grab one and then pay her back later.”

  “Josephine, I’m serious.” I had prepared myself for a lot of reactions, but disbelief had never been one of them.

  She shook her head and smiled again. “I never took you for a prankster. You need to work on your material, though. Claiming to be a hitman is a little far-fetched to be very effective.”

  She was digging in a kitchen drawer and then pulled out Sadie’s key. She preheated the oven as she walked out of the kitchen. “I’ll be right back.”

  I stepped in front of her, blocking her path. “Josephine,” I said, grabbing her shoulders, forcing her to look into my eyes. “I’m not joking.”

  Her mouth pinched into a hard line. “You want me to believe you’re a hitman who came to kill me? If that were true, which it’s not—”

  “But it is,” I interrupted.

  “Which it’s not,” she continued, “then why did you save me from that mugger? Why did we sleep together? Why have we been alone every night for the past four days? Why not kill me then?”

  “Because I didn’t know you were the one being mugged,” I said honestly. “And because I find you incredibly attractive and I like you. And because killing you became harder with every moment we spent together.”

  She looked at me for a few seconds and then shook her head. “This isn’t a funny joke, Lance. It’s weird, and it’s scaring me.”

  I was tired of explaining. I reached into my black bag, pulled out my gun, and held it in the air.

  Then, Josephine screamed.

  11

  Josephine

  I threw myself flat against the wall in the naïve belief that it would save me from being shot. “What do you want?” I asked, fighting back the tears.

  I knew what he wanted. Lance had lied to me. He was working for the Petrov family. He had come to kill me. He and Marvin Petrov wanted me silenced. The other lawyers on the case had been fired by the Martinetti family before they could get themselves into any real trouble, but I’d stuck around. I’d been a force they couldn’t stop, so they had sent someone to take me out.


  “I’m not here to hurt you, Josephine,” he said, laying the gun down on the bar top behind him.

  “Then why did you bring your gun?” I asked.

  His mouth opened and closed, and then he ran a hand through his hair. The day before, that move would have driven me wild. In his pitch-black hair and all black ensemble, he was the bad boy I’d always daydreamed about. As it turned out, he was a bit too much of a bad boy for me.

  “Okay,” Lance said, holding his hands up where I could see them. “I did come here to kill you, but it’s not what you think. I have an explanation.”

  I laughed. It sounded weird even to my own ears, but I couldn’t help it. The moment was too absurd. Did Lance really expect me to care why he had come to kill me? As if, any explanation could excuse the fact that he had been leading me on, so he could end my life.

  He opened his mouth, but the only thing I heard was an ear-splitting shatter and then chaos descended upon us. Lance dove across the room and landed on top of me, pinning me to the ground. I threw all of my weight to the side, rolling out from underneath him. I was up on my knees, ready to run for the door when Lance grabbed hold of me again and dragged me down next to him.

  “Don’t move or you’ll be shot,” he said. Small scrapes covered his face and neck. A drop of blood rolled from one of the cuts at his temple.

  “Do you have my apartment surrounded or something? Is this your plan?” I asked, channeling all my terror into rage. Terror would make me freeze, but rage propelled me forward into action. Rage gave me an outlet.

  “This isn’t me,” he said, lifting himself up slightly to peek over the couch. As soon as his head cleared the top of the couch, I heard a loud bang and then sheetrock dust filled the room. “Shit.”

  “Are you okay?” I asked out of habit, and then I shook my head. “Actually, I don’t care. How do I get out of here?”

  “Unless we can kill whoever is shooting at us, we can’t move.” Then, he slammed his fist against the floor. “I can’t believe Marvin double-crossed me.”

  “Yeah, it must feel terrible to be betrayed,” I said, glaring at him.

  He looked up at me for a second, and I could see the pain in his eyes. Then, it was gone, and he was all business again. He turned around and focused in on the gun on the countertop. “Okay, I saw the guy on your balcony. He probably thinks I have a weapon, which is why he is still out on the balcony. Do you have anything we could use to get the gun down?”

  I looked around and shrugged. Then, I remembered when Michael had sprained his ankle six months back. He’d ordered a plastic dinosaur claw online that he could use to pick up stuff that was just out of his reach, so he wouldn’t have to get up. For weeks after his ankle healed, he continued using it. I hadn’t seen it since he moved out, but he’d packed in a hurry and I knew there was a very real chance he had forgotten it. I swept my arm in a large arc under the couch and pulled out the T-Rex children’s toy.

  “Will this work?” I asked, handing it to him.

  “It’s better than nothing,” he said, making a few practice clicks with the handle. “Once I lunge for the gun, he’ll know we don’t have a weapon and charge in here. Be prepared to fight.”

  Lance counted to three, and with each beat, my breathing became more ragged. This was real. Half an hour before, I’d been worried about my job. Now, I was worried about my life.

  “Three!” Lance lunged across the small opening between the couch and the bar top, dinosaur mouth extended and open. The plastic claws clamped around the handle of the gun just as shots began ringing out. I held my hands over my ears, waiting for one of the bullets to fly through the couch and kill me. The hitman seemed to be aiming for Lance, though. So, for reasons I didn’t understand, we were both under attack.

  Once Lance had the gun, he pulled himself back behind the couch, readied the gun, and stood up.

  I screamed before I even realized why. Lance was throwing himself in the line of fire to try and stop the gunman. He was going to be shot dead in front of my face, and then I would be killed. It would be a horrible way to die.

  Like a character in a video game, Lance side-stepped a bullet that blew a hole in the sheetrock behind him, aimed the gun, and pulled the trigger. His muscles rippled with the force of the kickback, but everything else about him was steady and sure. It was clear he had no issues pulling a trigger, and the thought sent shivers down my back.

  Then, he knelt down next to me. “Come on, Josephine. We have to go.”

  I bolted up and leaned back against the wall. I was about to tell him to get out of my apartment, that I wasn’t going anywhere with him ever. But then, I looked towards the balcony. The glass had been blown out by the bullets, nothing left but angry shards in the frame. But that wasn’t what stopped me cold. It was the sight of the man in black, dressed similarly to Lance. He was lying face down over the threshold to the balcony, his body lying half in my apartment and half out. Blood was pooling on the floor around his head, and the back of his head was nothing but an angry mess of blood and flesh and brain. I turned towards the wall, burying my face in my shoulder. I felt like I was going to be sick.

  “He was going to kill us,” Lance said, reaching towards me slowly like I was a frightened animal. “I didn’t have a choice.”

  “What about all the other people you’ve killed? Was it self-defense? Did you have a choice?” I snapped, the tears I’d been fighting starting to roll down my cheeks.

  “No, I didn’t,” he said. His lip quivered, and I hated that I didn’t know whether I could trust him or not. “But we have to get out of here before Marvin figures out he’s dead. There will be more.”

  “How do I know I can trust you?” I asked, feeling practically torn in half with indecision.

  “You don’t,” he said. “But if you stay here, you’ll be dead within the hour.”

  I took a shaky breath, finally confident my lunch wouldn’t be making a reappearance and nodded. “What do we need to do.”

  Lance grabbed my hand and moved towards the door. “We need to run.”

  12

  Lance

  Apparently, my arrangement with Marvin Petrov was finished. He’d sent someone to take me out, and there was no missing the meaning of that message. My only thought was for my mom. If my employment with the Petrov family had reached its end, she was no longer protected. As Josephine and I jogged the few blocks between her complex and my car, I pulled out my phone.

  “Why can't we take my car?” she asked.

  “Because I handed over all the information I had on you. Your address, phone number, license plate number, schedule. They'll be looking for your car.”

  I dialed my mom's number. Even though it had been over a month since I'd talked to her, I still had it memorized.

  “Don't they have all that information on you, too?”

  “Yeah, they do,” I said while the line rang. “But my car is meant to blend in. If we want to get out of the city, it's our best bet.”

  “Do we want to get out of the city?”

  “If we stay here, we’ll die,” I said.

  The call went to voicemail and I hung up, shoving the phone in my pocket.

  “Who are you calling? Is now really the time for phone calls?” Josephine asked. “We are running for our lives after a man tried to kill us, and you are on the phone. Great. I can’t believe you got me into this mess.”

  I came to a hard stop on the sidewalk and grabbed Josephine’s arm, turning her so she faced me. “You can be angry at me all you want. I lied to you about who I was and why I was with you. But you can’t say I got you into this. If I hadn’t been around, Marvin Petrov would have sent another hitman to take you out. So, you should consider yourself lucky I got the assignment. And, if you must know, I’m calling my mom.”

  “Does your mom know you’re a hitman?” she asked, not responding to anything else I’d said.

  I shook my head. “Nobody knows. Except for you and the Petrov’s.”

 
; I started walking again. We had a small window of time—at least half an hour before the news of the commotion at the complex made its way back to the Petrov family. Once that happened, they would have every available goon out looking for us. Evening traffic would be thick heading out of town, so we needed to get going.

  “Why were you calling her?” she asked.

  I sighed. “It was part of what I was trying to tell you earlier. Marvin Petrov threatened her. If I didn’t work as a hitman, they’d kill her.”

  “Why did they choose you?” Josephine asked. Some of the anger had faded from her voice, replaced by genuine concern and curiosity.

  “My dad wracked up some debts with the Petrov’s. When they realized he couldn’t pay it, he skipped town, never to be heard of again, and the debts fell to us to pay. Well, we couldn’t afford it. Mom was barely making enough to keep the lights on at the house. So, I moved to Houston and began working for them.”

  “There had to have been another choice,” she said, chewing on her bottom lip.

  “You’ve been working the Pauly Martinetti case. You know how difficult it is to try these mafia families. And half of the police force seems to be in their back pockets. I didn’t know who I could trust, and I didn’t want to make a mistake and put my mom at risk,” I said. It felt good to tell someone the truth, but I could see on her face she was still appalled by me. By my lifestyle and the things I’d done. I was appalled with myself half the time, too. “If it makes you feel any better, the people I took out were almost always drug dealers and gambling husbands who beat their wives. They weren’t nice people.”