Unprotected with the Mob Boss: A Dark Mafia Romance (Alekseiev Bratva)

by Fox, Nicole

  She looks up at me suddenly. Her eyes are cold and her jaw is rigid, but there’s an emotion that’s less steady underneath her anger. “You don’t get to threaten me into marrying you, fuck me, and then talk about getting killed. Don’t drag me into your life and then tell me that you’re going to die and leave me stranded.”

  I stare at her. In her own way, she’s right. I’m the tide, pulling her into the darkest parts of the ocean and telling her she may need to swim on her own soon. It’s cruel, but it’s also necessary. Part of the territory.

  “Ilya will help you,” I tell her. “You just need to—”

  Her laugh cuts me off. She starts pulling bobby pins out of her hair. Her hair comes out slowly, then all at once. She shakes her head, letting the pieces fall where they may.

  “You are impossible,” she says. “I can follow instructions. You think that I’m worried about living in your mansion and burning your office down?”

  “That’s what you were talking about.”

  She pushes off the firepit, her knees hitting against my abdomen as she slides down. Her body pushes against mine as she turns, walking back toward the ocean. She stops where her feet sink into the wet sand. The waves wash over her feet. I follow her, trying to see what she sees, but we’re staring at two different perspectives.

  When I put my hand on her back, I feel her take a deep breath and let it out slowly. I kiss her cheek, her neck, the curve of her neck, and her shoulder. She leans against me, her body melting. I wrap my arms around her waist. Her thumbs hook around my hands.

  When she spins around, her elbow hits against my chest. She takes a quick step back, the ocean waves crashing higher up on her legs now.

  “I’m going back in,” she says. “To be clear, that means I’m done with this conversation.”

  As she goes over to her shoes, puts them on, and then starts to walk back toward the glow of the Tide & Shore, I see a lone person walking away from the hotel. For a second I think it’s her father, following us at last, but he’s not dressed up like the other guests. He’s wearing a white button-up shirt and dark pants, but they’re stiffer than most dress clothes and they’re nowhere near the price tag of anyone else’s attire here.

  My gun is in my car. I couldn’t be certain if there was going to be a metal detector and I couldn’t risk someone at the gala noticing it when I was in a room full of police officers.

  The dark metal in his hand is barely visible in the shadow cast by his body. My hands are clenched. I’ll end him slowly, just like the Colosimos kill people, so the next man they send after me will do it knowing the consequences.

  My blood is racing, boiling. The fight is in my veins, ready to erupt. Ready to make this would-be killer suffer.

  But the man isn’t Italian. His arms swing casually and he doesn’t notice Ally until she’s about twelve feet away from him. His eyes trace her body up and down. As she passes by him, he turns to check out her ass. The light hits the metal in his hand.

  He isn’t carrying a gun or a knife. It’s a lighter.

  He turns back around and sees me. He takes a quick step back as his face turns bright red.

  “I’m sorry, mate,” he says. “I didn’t mean to, uh, stare. I’m just, uh, I’m just here to start the fire before everyone comes out.”

  He stops walking when we’re less than three feet away from each other. His knees are slightly bent, his eyes shooting back toward the hotel—a prey animal prepared to escape. With all the simmering tension under my skin, it would be so fucking enjoyable to send this man running with his tail between his legs, flexing my power, and not dwelling on the fact that Ally seems immune to my authority.

  But instead, I let him sidle past me, hurrying up his steps until he’s at the firepit. I consider going to the parking lot and getting my Glock, but I know it’d be an irrational choice. If the Colosimos sent someone here, it would be a suicide mission or, worse, a mission that would get them caught and interrogated by the police. The last thing the Colosimos want is police attention.

  The hotel employee lights the firepit, standing by it as the flames grasp the bottom of the sticks, growing as the wind passes by and feeds it.

  I take my cigarettes out from the interior pocket in my jacket. I walk up to the firepit and pop out a cigarette. I light it using the small, flickering flames.

  I smoke through three cigarettes as the employee chatters about the chemistry of fireworks and how his job is part of his long-term plan to become the CEO of a Fortune 500 company. I try to be patient through the various nervous speeches, but he doesn’t seem to mind my lack of contribution to the conversation.

  As I throw my cigarette carton into the fire, noise starts up behind me.

  The donors and law enforcement stream out of the hotel. They remind me of angry townsfolk, but instead of pitchforks and torches, they cling to their purses and cell phones. They’re smiling, but underneath the pretense, there’s a tribalistic, anger-fueled self-righteousness. If the police get lucky and charge me for my crimes, they’ll point their fingers and scream for my head, but I slipped into business so easily because I needed the same traits in a legitimate business as a crime syndicate. Keep your knife behind your back until it’s needed and be willing to destroy before you’re destroyed. There is no compassion, only profit.

  Ally is on the left edge of the crowd. She’s talking to a man with blond hair and enough hair gel to fill an oil tanker.

  Jealousy isn’t an emotion I experience. It’s based in fear and I am not a man who scares easily. Everything I’ve ever wanted, I’ve taken.

  But after that employee’s reaction to her and seeing her gaze straight at this man like anything he’s saying could be vaguely important, I know I need to play my part better. Someone who has been dating Ally for the last six months wouldn’t let these men keep looking at her and monopolizing her attention.

  He’d want her so immensely, he’d take her for his own.

  I walk up to her. The blond stops talking but Ally barely notices until I’ve wrapped my arm under her arms and slipped my arm under her knees, scooping her up. One of her shoes flips off as she yelps, grabbing onto the front of my shirt.

  “What—” she starts.

  “Sorry,” I say, cutting her off to talk to the man. “I need to build a castle with my girlfriend.”

  I stride back to the beach with Ally in my arms. She glares at me.

  “What the hell was that?” she asks. “Is this your version of flirting?”

  I drop her feet in the sand. She stumbles. I grab her arm, but she lets herself drop onto the sand. Her fingers wrap around my wrist as she smiles and yanks me down with her.

  I collide into her, my hand slamming near her hip and our mouths close enough that I can smell the alcohol on her breath. My lips press against hers, forcing her lips open. The vigilant part of my mind can hear the crowd rumbling with disgust and intrigue over us, but as her hands slip under my waistband—where the Glock would have been if I’d taken it with me—nothing matters but the warmth under me.

  I pull back, caressing the side of her face. As I look straight at her, all I can think is how badly I want her to surrender herself to me and how badly I want to surrender myself to her.

  I settle down beside her as the crowd surrounds the firepit. She keeps an arm behind me while I keep my hand on her thigh. She jumps at the sound of a bang. My body tenses, my pulse taking off like a rocket, but as I see the hotel employee with an opened bottle of champagne, the bubbles flowing out onto his hand, and Ally rests her head on my chest, my pulse slows and all of the memories of guns dim from my mind. I wrap my arm around her waist as glasses of champagne are handed out.

  The older man who announced that dinner was going to be served—Police Commissioner Keith Holman, appointed by Mayor Coleman nearly two years ago, a husband and father of three children, and who occasionally makes surreptitious nighttime visits to the apartment of patrol officer Karen Brost—raises his champagne glass. Everyone follow
s suit.

  “Here is a toast to all of our brothers in blue and to all of you who spend your hard-earned money to ensure the safety of this city.” His words are a bit soft at the edges and his eyes are glazed. My research into him never mentioned alcoholism, but it’s easier to hide than most people think. “Here’s to a future where all of our children are safe, where our officers are safe, and where we can live our lives without fear. Let’s raise our glasses to a better future and for everyone who contributes to that.”

  Several people holler and clap. Everyone raises their glass higher in celebration before clinking their glasses against everyone’s glasses beside them. Since Ally and I are the only ones on the ground, we clink our glasses with each other. She puts her hand on my arm before I can take a sip and gives me a quick kiss.

  “I don’t regret it,” she whispers. She drinks her champagne before I can ask her what she means. As we set our glasses down, there’s a whistling sound before the first firework goes off. Bright blue fills the skyline. Several more whistling echoes follow as fireworks start going off in quick succession. Red, white, and blue are common color bursts, but occasionally they throw in orange, green, or turquoise.

  Ally moves closer to me, her arms wrapped around my waist. I scan the crowd, but I don’t see her parents. I bow my head against her hair and kiss near her ear. She turns, looking up at me, a genuine smile bursting on her face.

  “You’re an amazing woman,” I tell her. “And I will carry you when you’re too drunk to walk to the car.”

  She laughs. “Ah of course, you’d use my own words against me.”

  “It doesn’t mean two people in love wouldn’t also be fucking constantly.”

  “You might be right,” she says, tapping her finger against my nose. I pretend to bite at her finger. She giggles. “Because I’ve wanted to be under you all night.”

  She leans back, lying down on the sand. Her eyes are closed, her chest rising and falling with every breath.

  I slip my hand into my pocket. I pull out the small wooden box, a sun and a brown bear carved into it. I flick it open and take out the ring. According to the lapidary, it’s a princess-cut engagement ring. All I know is that the price tag would convince anybody that I’m highly invested in this relationship.

  As I take her hand, a smile curves onto her lips but she doesn’t open her eyes. I slide the ring onto her finger. Her eyes open and she sits up.

  “I thought we were going to wait until morning to do this,” she says, staring at the ring.

  “I changed my mind,” I say. “I wanted all these other men to know you’re claimed, so there’s no confusion later.”

  “Other men?” she asks.

  “Your father. The other policemen. The blond fucker I kidnapped you from,” I say.

  She smiles before kissing me, soft and filled with promise. “You’re cute when you’re jealous.”

  “I’m not jealous,” I say. “I just think other people should know what’s mine.”

  “Jealous,” she repeats, laughing.

  I kiss her, harsh enough that she falls onto her back. When she reaches for me, the ring scrapes against my skin, but the sting only makes me want her more.

  * * *

  In the parking lot, Ally is drunk as hell and I’ve called Ilya to pick us up. Under normal circumstances, I’d drive and be fully capable, but I know it’s something Ally can’t handle since the crash.

  She abruptly steps away from me. She reaches back like she didn’t realize what she’d done. Her fingertips brush against my arm.

  “It’s my parents. I’m gonna say goodbye.”

  I grab her arm before she can leave. She gives me a questioning look. I take her hand, slide off her ring, and pocket it.

  “I don’t think you want to have a brawl in the middle of the parking lot. You can tell them later,” I say. She gazes at me, that defiant look complementing her face. She reaches toward my breast pocket like she’s going to take the ring back out. Instead, she dives forward, kissing my cheek.

  She walks across the parking lot and greets her father, her hand touching his arm in a reassuring gesture. I can’t see his face, but his body relaxes after five or six seconds. Her mother, on the sidelines, catches me watching. I straighten up as she starts walking over. I force a smile as she stops, turning, so we’re both facing her husband and her daughter.

  “You’ll have to excuse my husband,” she says. “She’s our only child.”

  “I understand,” I say.

  “And it was very surprising to find out that she’s been secretly dating someone.”

  “You’re both very important to her,” I say. “We just weren’t certain how we felt about each other until a couple of months ago. By then, she didn’t want to hurt you and we let it go on without clearing the air. I apologize for that.”

  “I see,” her mother says. “And what happened a couple of months ago?”

  I watch Ally and her father hug. When they pull apart, she has a huge smile on her face. She nearly stumbles in her heels as she takes a step back, but she’s nearly bouncing now as she talks, her hands moving with her words.

  “It’s hard to explain,” I say. “I just saw her and … I knew that if she left me, I’d just be going through the motions for the rest of my life. I hadn’t realized it before her, but I’ve spent my life putting a checkmark next to every one of my accomplishments and believing that material success was happiness. I don’t know anymore. I might want more.”

  Her mother nods. “You love her. She brings something into your life. From the way I’ve seen her look at you, I think you do the same for her and that’s all you can ask from a partner.”

  When I called Sophie to help Ally get ready, she broached the topic of relationships. She talked about how marriages work because both people get what they need out of it. She said there’s compromise, but the relationship doesn’t survive on compromise like a contract does—it survives on two people who want to give what the other person needs. I dealt with her lecture because I didn’t want her to back out of helping Ally, but if I hadn’t needed her help, I would have told her that my marriage with Ally was a contract.

  And now Ally’s mother is saying nearly the same thing as Sophie. But she also thinks I love Ally, so this whole discussion is comprised of fables.

  “So, your relationship is like that with your husband?” I ask.

  “Oh yes. He can be boneheaded and sometimes he says the first thing that pops into his head. But sometimes that’s a good thing.” She smiles. “Just be good to Ally.”

  “Because her father will kill me if I’m not. I know,” I say.

  She shakes her head. “No, you should be good to Ally because she is fair. If you’re good to her, she’ll be good to you.”

  Ally’s father is waving her mother over. She holds out her hand. I shake it.

  “It was nice to meet you, Lev,” she says. “Hopefully, we’ll see each other again soon.”

  “Yes, we will,” I say. As she walks toward her husband, he raises his arm and she tucks right in underneath it. The chief is a thorn in my side, but his love for his wife is undeniable. His relationship is more genuine than anything I’ve ever had.

  My parents used to be like that—the couple that everyone wanted to be part of. Or, at least, they were like that until my father started gaining power and all the dominoes fell.

  Ally skips over to me. She opens up her arms and I let her collide straight into me. I wrap my arms around her. When we kiss, I try not to think about power—the kind that corrupts, the kind that other people have over you, and the kind that detonates when it’s in the center of two people who refuse to surrender it.

  14

  Allison

  As Lev and I kiss, he cradles my head. It’s easy to forget everything he told me earlier when his body heat anchors me to this spot in the parking lot. We’re both drunk and I love it because the rest of the world has become blurred and time becomes inconsequential.

  My
shoulder jabs against the ring in his pocket. He pulls it back out. I hold my hand out. Instead of sliding the ring on again, he takes my hand, flips it over, and sets the ring on my palm.

  I slide it on. It’s twisted—a ring that costs more than a year of my rent from a man that only wants to marry me because of my father—but with the way that I’ve felt about Lev lately, it also feels like a memento for something that will inevitably go up in flames.

  He tilts my chin up. I close my eyes as he kisses me again. It’s all pretend, but it’s nice to live in a fantasy. It’s nice to believe that Cinderella could inherit the prince, the wealth, and the kingdom without anyone suffering, without knowing it’s all about perception, and without having to worry that once the wedding bells stop chiming, the prince might transform into a beast.

  Through the chatter of everyone saying goodbye, my father’s voice rises above them. He almost sounds like the rest of the drunks shouting, but there’s an angry edge to it, crashing through the rest of the voices like a judge’s gavel.

  “He’s a goddamn thug. I can’t believe you’d fall for his lies, too. He’s making a fool out of both of you,” he says, his voice getting louder as he approaches. “I just can’t let it go.”

  My father’s face is a deep shade of red as he storms up to Lev and me. I step in front of Lev, but Lev puts his hand on my arm, pushing me aside and moving up to meet my father’s anger. I stumble but grab Lev’s shirt to catch myself. My father’s eyes follow my arm to Lev’s shirt. I let my hand drop. He glares at Lev, his anger pulsing out of him.

  “I don’t know what bullshit you told my wife,” my father snarls. “But you’re going to regret trying to mess with my family.”

  Deputy Chief Ronald Rauch hurries over to the three of us. He puts his hand on my father’s shoulder.

  “Pete, this isn’t the time or place,” he says. “We all get personal about our families, but you need to take a breath. Just go home. We’ve all had a bit to drink and we don’t want to make any mistakes.”