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

have forgotten to put the prices on this menu,” I say. The sun radiates on half of Elizabeth’s face while it barely reaches my hand.

“Don’t worry about it. I’m paying,” she says, picking up the bar menu.

“People spend too much time telling me to not worry.” I grab my menu as a warm breeze tries to steal it from me. It’d likely cost me all the money in my wallet just to replace it. “I’d find that a lot easier to do if there weren’t people getting blasted drunk and running teenagers over.”

She sets down the menu. “You can’t save everyone.”

“I don’t want to. I just want the people who commit crimes to be punished for those crimes.” I take out my bag and yank on the zipper, ripping some of the material that was already threadbare. “I also want to pay for my lunch.”

“Allison, you did a lot of legwork for this case. You’d be making me feel better by accepting this small token of gratitude. If you feel that obligated about it, you can do some errands for me later.” Elizabeth takes the wallet I put on the table and tosses it back onto my lap. “You’re going to need to find a way to relax before you become a prosecutor or you’ll end up burning out too fast.”

“I’m relaxed.” I slouch into my seat, trying to look the part.

She raises an eyebrow. “The whole time we worked on this case, you didn’t want a single Friday to yourself. There are much worse cases than this—ones where little children are killed—and I wouldn’t blame you if you sat home and drank alone for those. But for these other cases, you need a life outside of it. You can’t let the work consume you because then every case will rip you to shreds.”

“I don’t mind letting it consume me if it means that a victim’s family gets justice.”

Elizabeth takes a deep breath. “Allison—”

“I just want the families to know that I worked as hard as I could on their case.” I sit up again. “I don’t want to be the reason someone like Jeffrey walks free. What’s the point of being a prosecutor if I don’t do that?”

“You have to look at it as a long game.”

We lean away from each other as the waitress returns to pour water for us. Elizabeth orders us some wine. After the waitress checks my driver’s license and leaves, Elizabeth sips from her glass.

“You have one year left as an undergrad. After that, you’ll be a law student. Once your professors know you want to be a prosecutor, they’re going to look down on you if they think you’re too fragile. Bleeding hearts have a small chance of surviving as defense lawyers. But they’ll get slaughtered on our side. Our job is to prosecute. That’s it. How deeply you want to fight for justice is admirable, but you can’t become emotionally invested in every case. Better still if you don’t become invested in any of them. This is a chess game and you need to make it impossible for the defense to move without knocking out their king—the defendant. You need to keep your eye on that goal, not on people’s feelings.”

The wind charges through the area, rattling the patio umbrellas and scattering the menus and cloth napkins. Elizabeth tries to fix her hair, but it seems pointless to me when the wind keeps coming.

“I’m going to be blunt,” I forewarn Elizabeth.

She laughs. “I’m good with that.”

I set my hands on top of my bag. “It sounds like you don’t consider morality and belief in the law to be part of your job.”

“You should fully believe in the law and morality—as long as it helps your case.”

The waitress returns with the wine. Elizabeth asks for more time with the menu. I take a sip of the wine as the waitress walks away.

“Allison, Jeffrey Douglas will drink and drive again, and if we’re lucky, he’ll only hurt someone else, not kill them. I will prosecute him then and with that added DUI on his record, he’ll spend a good chunk of his life in prison. In this job, that has to be good enough for you. Anything else will drive you insane.”

She smiles at me as she fixes a strand of her hair.

“You could be great at this job, Allison. You’ve got the drive, you’ve got the passion, and you’ve got the commitment. But you know what the most important part is?”

“Criminals continuing to commit crimes?”

She laughs. “That is also true. But the second most important part is that you don’t let those criminals live rent-free inside your head. I’ll have forgotten Jeffrey Douglas’ name within the next two weeks.”

“I don’t see myself forgetting anytime soon,” I say. She lifts her wineglass.

“That’s what this is for.” She keeps her glass raised. I pick my glass up and clink it against hers. “Here’s to Jeffrey Douglas’ future demise and to the day we forget his name.”

I drink my wine. I plan to forget him, but I just keep imagining his headlights coming straight toward me or toward someone I love. I imagine that he could be drinking right now—just like me—celebrating his win before he gets behind the wheel. I imagine the alcohol also helps him forget names.

But the name he’s forgetting is Jenny Dressler’s. An innocent girl. Mowed down by a drunken murderer.

If I’m the DA when he enters a courtroom again, I’ll make him remember.

I’ll make it so that he’s saying the name of every person he’s hurt while he’s lying in his prison cot, begging to die.

3

Allison

I imagined that having an EMT as a roommate would come in handy.

If there was an emergency, she could help.

If I was ever lost while driving, I could call her because she’d be familiar with all of the streets.

Best of all, she’d be too tired from her demanding job to care at all about my life.

Yeah right.

“You know I can’t show up alone,” Julia says,