Trapped with the Mob Boss: A Mafia Romance (Petrov Bratva) by Nicole Fox (best book recommendations txt) 📗

father to reach out to them, smooth everything over with his charm and a winning smile, and then I would be released.

Now, I realize that isn’t going to happen.

“Are you okay?” Yuri is in the doorway again. He’s leaning against the frame, the sleeves of his gray T-shirt stretched tight over his biceps. With his mouth turned down in a frown and his brows drawn together, he looks pouty and broody like a male model. Yet it does little to cheer me.

“No,” I say. My voice is hoarse, and I cough to clear my dry throat.

Suddenly, Yuri spins around and reappears a second later with a bottle of water from the minibar. He hands it to me, and I clearly don’t hide my surprise well, because as soon as I take it, Yuri shoves his hands in his pockets and spins away from me.

Being friendly has never been part of our arrangement, so if Yuri is being nice to me, it must mean I’m in bad shape.

“Is there anything I can do?” he asks.

He might as well have slapped me. I jerk my head up, eyes wide. “What do you mean?”

“I mean,” he stutters, kicking the toe of his boot into the carpet. “I just meant that ... I’m sorry. About your dad.”

I feel like he’s a tiger who has been defanged and declawed. I’m scared of him, but I also want to reach out and wrap my arms around his neck. Or my legs around his waist. I lower my face so he won’t see my smirk. If I’m able to think about sex, then that means the shock is wearing off. Thanks to Yuri.

“Thank you.” I slide down to the end of the bed and set my feet on the floor. “It sucks to know your dad is a criminal.”

Yuri hums. “I don’t think it’s too bad.”

Without warning, I burst into laughter. Full on, head thrown back, cackling laughter. When I get myself together, Yuri is looking at me like I just stripped naked and rubbed myself in butter.

“Sorry,” I say, though I’m not sure why. “I guess I forgot who I was talking to. You were being nice, so I must have gotten confused.”

Yuri opens his mouth to say something, but then his phone starts to ring. He pulls it out and frowns. “It’s my dad.”

I stand up. My legs feel wobbly, but I want to hear this. Maybe it’s about my dad, about me. Since coming to the hotel room, it has felt like we’ve been secluded on another planet. I’m desperate for some outside information. But when I cross the room to stand next to Yuri, he holds the phone to his ear and backs away from me.

“Hello?” He moves into the living room, and I follow, arms crossed, hoping to glean something—anything from the conversation.

When Yuri sees me standing behind him, he lowers his voice and switches to Russian.

I suddenly regret every minute I wasted in Spanish classes in college. Perhaps if my father had told me more about his business dealings, I would have studied Russian. As it is, I can’t understand a word Yuri is saying, and it’s clear that is what he intended. The only thing I can gather is that he sounds tense, though that could just be the Russian language. It isn’t exactly a romantic sound.

When he hangs up, I trail after him like a lost puppy. “What did he say?”

Yuri pockets his phone and shakes his head. “Nothing.”

“Didn’t sound like nothing.”

“Well, it was,” he snaps, moving to the minibar and grabbing a drink. We’ve probably spent over fifty dollars just on water bottles and liquor, but Yuri doesn’t seem bothered by the high price tag as he tosses back whatever it is, grits his teeth, and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand.

With my father outed as a criminal, I don’t have anyone else to depend on. In this situation, it’s just me and Yuri. I need him to know he can trust me. I need him to know I’m not going to run off or betray him. Not now that things have changed so drastically. I cross the room and lay a hand on his shoulder.

Yuri flinches like I’ve burned him, stumbling into the bar and knocking off a glass cup full of paper umbrellas. The glass shatters on the floor, and I reach down to pick it up. Yuri stays unmoving in front of me.

“Sorry,” I say.

“Why are you sorry?” He sounds angry, and I assume it’s from the conversation with his dad and breaking the glass.

I set a handful of the largest glass shards on the bar next to his elbow. “For scaring you.”

“You didn’t scare me.” He steps over the rest of the glass debris and walks into the bedroom. He paces in front of the bed like a wild animal.

“What is going on?” I ask, taking another step towards him. “Did your dad say something to upset you?”

When he looks up at me, his eyes are dark and distant. They look the way they did when I was being kept in the basement. He looks crazed. “It was a private conversation.”

I twist my lips nervously to the side of my mouth. I want to be there for him, but I’m not sure how. “You can trust me. Now that I know my dad has been lying to me, you’re the only person I can trust. We’re in this together, Yuri.”

He spins on me, closing the distance between us in half a second, and hurls me back onto the bed by my arm. I scrambled back onto the bed, trying to sit up and understand what is going on, but then Yuri is on top of me, his weight pinning me to the mattress. I’m too scared to fight or argue. I just lie beneath him, adrenaline pumping through my veins and making my arms and legs shake.

“We aren’t in anything together,” he hisses, pinning my arms down to the mattress so