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

of his desk. “This has gone too far. I have allowed The Society too much room to grow. They have become cocky and dangerous and it’s high time we plucked them out, root and stem.”

“Do you still want me to go alone?” I ask. Yesterday, I was willing to make that sacrifice, but now there is a kernel of doubt where there was once only blind loyalty. I hear Bella’s voice in my head. You know, there are other solutions to saving your family than sacrificing yourself. You don’t have to die to prove your loyalty.

My father thinks for a moment and then shakes his head. “No, I’m afraid we’re beyond that. It’s time for the Petrov family to declare where we all stand and finish this fight once and for all.”

“I thought they were a secret society,” Bella says. “You can’t exactly walk up and kick their door down if you don’t know where it is.”

I would have warned Bella to stay quiet, but she has a point. I look at my father and shrug.

“I just recently received information about where their headquarters may be located,” he says. “It’s still a guess, but an educated one.”

“How many men are going?” I ask.

“All of them.” My father walks to the closet in the corner of his office, unlocks his gun safe, and straps a weapon to his waist. “I sent out the call as soon as you arrived. They’ll be here in ten minutes.”

I turn to Bella, no longer caring what my father thinks is going on between the two of us. “Take the car and get out of here.”

“No,” she says, reaching out and grabbing my hand. “I’m staying with you.”

I take a deep breath and close my eyes for a moment, trying to keep myself centered. If I’m going to walk into another fight within the hour, I need to conserve my energy. “I’ll come find you when it’s over. It isn’t like yesterday. I’ll come back.”

“You might not,” she argues. “You could die.”

“So could you,” I spit back.

“Enough,” my father groans, throwing up his hands in annoyance. “The girl could be useful.”

“How?” Bella and I ask at the same time. She shoots me a dirty look, and I almost laugh. Almost.

“I still have unfinished business with her father,” he says, moving across the room and opening the door. “And she could be just what we need to convince him that it’s safe to come with us.”

Bella glances at me and then stares at my father, brows pinched. “And is it safe for him to come with you?”

My father grins at her, showing off each of his teeth. “Of course it is.”

Whether she’s convinced or not, I can’t tell, but Bella nods once and then stands up to follow him out of the office.

As soon as my dad steps into the hallway, I grab her arm and try to pull her back to convince her not to go, but she slips out of my grip and rushes into the hallway before I can say anything. So, I follow after her, having no idea what awaits us.

Chapter Twenty

Yuri

The Society’s headquarters looks like an old dentist’s office from the outside, and when we step through the front door, it’s confirmed. There’s a semicircle receptionist’s desk along the back wall, moth-eaten chairs in the waiting room, and a diagram of a human tooth hanging above an empty watercooler.

“Not quite what I expected,” Bella says from behind me.

“You don’t stay secret by having an obvious hideout,” my father says. He’s standing in the doorway, looking out at the parking lot nervously.

“Is everyone else coming?” I ask.

He nods. “The plan is for them to show up a bit later as reinforcements. We can go ahead.”

Bella snaps her attention to me. “By ourselves?”

My father glares at her, annoyed at being questioned. “Yuri took out five gunmen by himself yesterday while protecting you. Do you still doubt his abilities?”

Bella looks up at me, eyes pleading. I shake my head. “If you think we can take them alone, then I trust you.”

My father claps a hand on my shoulder. “My son.”

We walk through the lobby and down a long hallway, past exam rooms with dentist chairs, until we reach a door to the basement.

“Another basement hideout?” Bella groans quietly in my ear.

I squeeze her fingers in a silent promise that everything will be okay. She clutches my hand the entire way down the stairs.

I keep expecting my father to stop and peer down hallways for any signs of danger, but he seems confident that we’re alone. And since he has never led me astray, I follow him blindly.

The basement hallway is shorter than the one upstairs, and when my father pushes the metal door inwards, we’re met with darkness. He ushers me inside, and I stumble in blindly, Bella’s hand clammy and nervous in mine. When the lights turn on—fluorescents humming and flickering to life—I’m too busy blinking against the sudden brightness to notice the movement around the edge of the room. Bella sees it, though.

“Yuri.” My name comes out strangled, and I instantly move to protect her from whatever we have stepped into. But it doesn’t matter. We’re already surrounded.

Large men are standing against all four walls, weapons drawn on us. Clearly, they’ve been expecting us.

“It’s a trap,” I say dumbly, trying to push Bella back into the hallway. But there’s already a man standing there, his gun pushing us towards the center of the room where one of my father’s men is tied to a chair.

“Andrey?” It’s a question because the man’s face is swollen and bloodied beyond recognition. I only recognize the short ring finger on his right hand where he lost his fingerprint to a dog.

I look around the room at the circle of men—each with a Society pin on their shirt—standing still and patient as if waiting for orders. But from who?

“What in the hell is going on?” I ask no one in particular, spinning around to look at each face