Broken Hope

by Nicole Fox

  “They could give you bad news,” she says sharply, her tone in direct opposition to the concern shown by her words. “You shouldn’t drive after news like that. Someone should be there for you.”

  The stone around my heart softens, and I reach across the console to lay my hand over hers. “That is different,” I agree softly. Tears spring to my eyes at the thought that my mother still cares. She still worries for me, still wants to be there for me. However, they dry immediately when she wrenches her hand away and leans into the passenger side door.

  “And it shouldn’t be me,” she snaps. “It should be your husband. Or boyfriend, at least. But you do not have one of those.”

  Her words slithered down my spine like ice water, sending a shiver through me. “No, I don’t.”

  “It should be the father of your child,” she said, pointing again to the sonogram in the cup holder. “He should be the one here to take care of you. Where is he?”

  We’d had this discussion too many times to count in the last month, and it always ended the same way. Me, closed-lipped and burning with shame, my mother marching off to her room and slamming the door.

  I turn onto the gravel driveway that stems from the main road and wraps around the back of our cottage. It is narrow and bumpy, used only by the very few people who ever make their way to our house.

  When I don’t say anything, my mother sighs and shakes her head. As soon as I park our beat-up car behind the house, she throws open the door and marches inside. I know where she is headed—her room. She will hide in there until I go up to the main house to work. Then, she will emerge and go about her day, doing her best to pretend I don’t exist. To avoid me. I can’t live this way anymore. Losing my father was hard enough, but now I’ve lost my mother, too.

  I follow behind her, grabbing her arm just before she can grab the handle. She gasps when I grab her, but I’m too angry to care.

  “Why are you acting this way?” I feel more like the parent in this moment. Like I’m disciplining a stubborn child. “You cannot just avoid me until the pregnancy is over. You do realize that, right? At the end of this, there will be a child. A baby who will need to be taken care of. Are you going to ignore me then, too? Are you going to continue pretending I do not exist until you join Father, wherever he is?”

  “Do not speak to me like that,” she hisses, stepping forward, her nose inches from mine. We are the same height and build, though her body is softer, thicker around the hips and thighs. And her eyes are a deep, dark brown. My blue eyes came from my father. “I am still your mother.”

  “You haven’t been acting like it.” My voice is loud enough that she takes a step backwards, but she isn’t giving up. Not a bit. Her eyes narrow.

  “I’ve been your mother for twenty years, Zoya.” It is the first time she has said my name in a month, and I almost sigh at the relief. Even in her anger, it feels good to hear it. “I have raised you and cared for you in the way I thought was right. I’ve cleaned toilets and scrubbed floors and dishes to make sure you could have a good life.”

  “I do have a good life,” I say, lifting my arms to gesture to our modest, but clean cottage. There is a flower bed in the backyard where my father and I planted herbs and a few vegetables. Flowers bloom from the ground in colorful bouquets on the other side of the door. My parents built something here in this cottage, and I am happy to continue it. I had a happy childhood, and that is all I can hope for my own child.

  My mother shakes her head. “A better life. I wanted you to have a better life than me.”

  My mother had never said so, but my father let slip late one night—after he’d had a bit too much to drink and my mom had gone to bed—that I was an accident. Not unwanted, he’d clarified. But unexpected. He and my mother had only been married a few weeks when they found out. There was no time to be young and aimless and in love. Suddenly, they needed jobs and a house and security. So, they’d come to work for the Levushka family and they’d never looked back. As a child, I thought their life was a fairytale. Love and a warm, cozy cottage, and laughter every night. As I got older, I realized nothing was that picturesque, but still, to hear my mother say she didn’t want the same thing for me—it stung in ways I didn’t expect.

  “I didn’t grow up wanting to be a maid,” she says. “I married your father because he was young and handsome and smart. I thought he would go places. I thought we would go places.”

  “And I ruined that for you?” I ask, bitterness dripping from every word.

  She looks me straight in the eyes and shakes her head. “You did nothing wrong. I gave up, Zoya. I gave up on my dreams and that is what you are doing now.”

  “What dreams?” I ask, throwing my hands up. “What have I ever done except be here with you?”

  She flings her hand over her shoulder, pointing towards the cottage. “Your walls are covered with your dreams. Your father spent a month’s pay buying you a laptop so you could pursue your dreams.”

  I sigh and run a hand down my face. “The graphic designs are…a hobby.”

  “They are your future,” she snaps, pointing at me so forcefully I expect her to jab her finger into my chest. “Working here as a maid is a dead end. Who will care for the baby while you clean toilets, Zoya?”

  I feel my face redden. I haven’t considered all of the details yet. “Just because I don’t have an answer, doesn’t mean—”

  “We can’t afford a sitter. Not on our wages,” she says. “I cannot afford to stay home with the baby while you work. We are only useful to Boris if we are both working. What do you think he’ll say when you have to take days off to stay home with the baby?”

  “He will understand,” I say, regretting opening this floodgate. “Babies get sick.”

  “And maids get fired.” She hurls the words at me like a slap, and I pinch my lips together. “You may call him Boris, but he is not your friend, Zoya. He is not your friend or your family, and as soon as we are no longer useful, he will find new employees.”

  Tears sting the back of my eyes. This is the most I’ve talked to my mother in a month, and all she can do is tell me the many ways I’m failing. I imagined she would come around eventually and offer to help me. Instead, she is simply pointing out the many different ways I am alone. The many different reasons I can’t count on anyone. Not even her.

  I push past her and into the house before she can see me cry.

  “You can’t run away from this, Zoya.”

  I let out a harsh, biting laugh. “You would know all about running away, wouldn’t you? You’ve done an awful lot of that the last few weeks.”

  Before she can say anything else, I walk into my room and slam the door shut.

  The pictures on my walls flutter in the breeze from the door closing. There are pen and pencil drawings hanging above the little desk in the corner of my room, but as the pictures begin to expand outward and take up more space, they turn to color—paints and markers—and eventually, computer animations.

  Before I had my own computer, I spent as many free hours as I could find at the library. I used the software on the computers there, paying thirty-one rubles to print out what I made, and tacked my artwork up on my walls. I started by copying pictures I found in magazines or characters from television, but as time went on, I began to create my own. Aliens with purple skin and golden hair invading Earth, turtle-like creatures flying through space and playing soccer with the planets, and flowers as tall as trees casting shade over silver lakes filled with glimmering fish.

  They were the imaginings of a child. Nothing anyone would care about. No one besides me, that is. Or my mom.

  Regardless of what my mom thinks, my art is for me and me alone. Putting it out into the world—hoping for anyone else to care—is only asking for heartbreak. And life has enough of that already. No need to pile on.

  I slip out of my flats and into a pair of cloth sneakers, pull my long brown hair into a heavy ponytail, and walk out of the cottage and towards the main house
without looking to see where my mom is. I have to focus on my real life. On what matters: scrubbing Boris Levushka’s toilets until they sparkle.

  KNOCKED UP BY THE MOB BOSS is available now!

  Click here to get it now.

  Also by Nicole Fox

  Click any of the covers below to go straight to the book page!

  Knocked Up by the Mob Boss: A Mafia Romance (Levushka Bratva)

  They’re coming to take her baby. They’ll have to kill me first.

  She’s an innocent maid.

  I’m a ruthless Bratva boss.

  She says she wants nothing to do with me.

  But in my world, when I want something, I take it.

  And I want her.

  The problem is, Zoya is hiding a terrible secret:

  A baby in her womb that was never meant to be.

  And I’m not the only one who knows.

  Our enemies are coming.

  To hurt her.

  To ruin me.

  What they don’t know is this:

  I’ve found what I want in this world.

  And they’ll have to kill me to take it.

  Sold to the Mob Boss: A Mafia Romance (Lavrin Bratva)

  An innocent girl like her… sold to a beast like me.

  Nikita

  As the boss of the Bratva, I live my life by a code: Always stay in control.

  But I broke my own rule on the night I bought Annie.

  She was so delicate and desperate up on that stage.

  I’d pay any price it took to own her.

  She says she can’t be bought.

  But she doesn’t know how this game is played.

  In my world, everything has its price.

  And like it or not, she’s mine now – my property, my possession.

  I’ll claim her. I’ll break her. And I’ll protect her until the end…

  Even if it costs me everything.

  Stolen by the Mob Boss: A Mafia Romance (Luchok Bratva)

  A mob boss killed her family. Now, he’s sent me to finish the job.

  Lucy is an innocent girl – orphaned by a terrible tragedy.

  Then she sees me kill a man in cold blood.

  I can’t let a witness roam free.

  But I can’t bring myself to kill something so innocent and beautiful.

  She wants revenge on the mob boss who stole her family.

  I can help her… under one condition:

  As long as she’s here, I’m going to make her MINE.

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

  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 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?

  Vin: A Mafia Romance

  I’m caught between a mob boss and a madman.

  I was drowning in debt with no way to get out.

  All I had left was my body…

  Until Vin took that from me, too.

  He offered me protection from my abusive ex.

  And saying no to Vin was never an option.

  Now, I’m at the mercy of a mob boss.

  A vicious killer, with a kiss as filthy as his reputation.

  Nights in his bed are spent stripping bare, bending at the waist, and doing EXACTLY as I’m told.

  And days by his side are spent seeing a criminal underworld I never knew existed.

  For a moment, I thought this was my life now:

  Existing only for the mobster’s pleasure.

  But then my ex came back to finish the job he started, and I remembered:

  This nightmare is far from over.

  Mailing List

  Sign up to my mailing list!

  New subscribers receive a FREE steamy bad boy romance novel.

  Click the link below to join.

  http://bit.ly/NicoleFoxMailingList