Unprotected with the Mob Boss: A Dark Mafia Romance (Alekseiev Bratva) by Fox, Nicole (classic books for 12 year olds .TXT) 📗

I lean against my car. “You told Julia you’d be right back.”

“I did,” she agrees.

“You don’t think it would sell the story better if you came back to my place?”

“It might,” she says. “But I’d also lose my status as a highly moral person if I went home with you.”

I narrow my eyes. “You’re not a virgin.”

“No.” She smirks at me. “Or yes. You might never know.”

A challenge if I ever heard one.

“You should come closer,” I say. “In case Julia is watching.”

She steps closer to me. I grab her hips, pulling her taut against me. I kiss the edge of her lips, just barely feeling the minty tang of the lip balm she put on a few minutes earlier. She leans into my kiss at first, but takes a quick step back as I pull away.

“We were very lucky,” she says. “I thought she was going to figure everything out.”

“It has nothing to do with luck. Just good bullshitting skills.” As I turn to go toward my car door, I hear something boom like thunder.

I whip around, looking at Allison. She’s staring at the sky, expecting to see an incoming storm, but that wasn’t thunder. My hand is already on my Glock, hidden in my IWB holster. By the time I turn around and pull it out, I only see empty crosshairs in the sight.

There’s a flicker of movement in my periphery. A stocky man is running away from me, the glint of a gun in his hand.

I raise my Glock. As soon as he’s in my sight, I pull the trigger.

I should have been more patient, aimed slightly more to the left, because it only hits him in the shoulder. His body lurches forward, slamming into the asphalt.

I turn, checking on Allison. She’s crouching near the hood of my car.

“You all right?” I call out. She shakes her head. I walk over to her. She flinches away from me as I kneel down next to her. I scowl. “Are you okay or not?”

“You’ve had that gun on you this whole time,” she says.

“Yes.”

“And you just shot that man.”

“Correct. Were you hurt at all?”

She shakes her head. Her eyes focus on something past the car. I turn.

The man is getting back on his feet. As I raise my gun, he takes off running again. The man is stocky but surprisingly fast. He gets onto a motorcycle and pulls away. I raise my gun again, then lower it. Julia could be watching through the window.

“Get in the car,” I order Allison, putting my Glock back in its holster. By the time I’ve turned on the car and slammed the door shut, she’s put on her seat belt. Her seat must have glass on it, but she doesn’t complain. I speed out of the parking spot, the car fishtailing as I tear after the motorcycle.

I pass two cars. The bike turns down a more desolate section of town—I used to pass through it when I was a teenager running wild around the city. I pass a sedan and make the turn. The bike and my car are the only ones on this road. It’s one of those neighborhoods where nobody ever hears anything and nobody ever sees anything.

I gain on him, little by little, until we’re close.

When I’m near enough, I ram my foot against the gas pedal, yanking the wheel to the left. As I’m parallel with the bike, I jerk the wheel back to the right. The man instinctively veers away from me. Too hard, though, too sharp. The bike can’t handle it.

My tires screech in protest of my aggressive driving, but it’s lost amidst the reverberating storm of noise as the bike crashes. We drift to a squealing stop and I shift the car into park. In the distance, I see the torn-up grass and a motorcycle lying about twelve feet away from a man. He isn’t moving.

I open my door and pull my gun out as I walk over to the man. His pants are soaked with blood and there’s a growing puddle of blood on his right arm.

“Look at you,” I remark, keeping my gun down for now. “If you didn’t see tonight ending this way, you should have done your research.”

Black hair, dark eyes, olive skin tone, a prominent but narrow nose—predominantly Italian.

The Colosimo Mafia. Cowardly shits.

That’s all I need to know.

I raise the gun.

Allison nearly collides straight into me. She stops herself, steadying her balance with her hands on my left arm.

“Don’t,” she says. “Don’t kill him. Please, Lev, don’t.”

“He tried to kill me and he could have killed you,” I try to shake off her hands, but they grip my arm tightly. “That’s more than enough reason for me to pay him back with better aim.”

“Lev, please, I—you know, I understand better than most. And it didn’t make me feel any better. Just put the gun down. I can call my dad. I can explain what happened.”

I shake my head, turning toward her. “You think if you call your father, he’s going to just clean this up with a nice little bow and I won’t pay the price for being here?”

“I don’t—I didn’t mean he’d clean it up. But he’d understand. You were caught up in the moment. He tried to kill us. I—”

Her face changes, the tension slipping away as her eyes widen and her eyebrows shoot up. In my periphery, there’s a glint of silver.

I turn, my Glock raised.

I shoot three times. The man’s gun clatters to the pavement.

I turn back to Allison. Her hand is over her heart, but she’s fine. Outwardly, at least.

Heaving a sigh, I walk over to the man to check him over. There’s no wallet or anything. The fact that he came after me is a bad sign. It likely means the Colosimo Mafia has already repaired itself from the death of the don and is fully intent on retaliating.

I glance back at Allison. The shock must be wearing off