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

So, sitting in the room with Bella and my father feels like cracking open a Christmas gift I’ve been staring at and longing for all month. I’m excited, yet nervous she will not live up to my expectations. But so far, she’s exceeded them.

My father claps his hands again and breaks me out of my thoughts, the sound echoing around the room. “Since you now understand the nature of your stay here, this is your opportunity to tell us what you know freely.”

“I don’t know anything,” she says stiffly, her chin raised.

He smiles, head tilted to the side. “Now, I know that is a lie.”

She raises an eyebrow, her pink lips puckered. “Then apparently you don’t know anything either. Because I’m telling the truth.”

She’s sharp. And while my father may love a pretty face, he hates a sharp tongue. His smile turns deadly. “You may be able to hide behind your pretty face for most people, but I’m not most people. Tell me why your father is not responding to me.”

“I don’t even know who you are or how you know him,” she snaps. “How in the hell would I know why he isn’t returning your calls? Have you tried sending him flowers?”

He tucks a hand under his jacket and places it on his hip. “Do not test me, girl. I’m offering again to let you freely tell me any information you have about your father. I will not make the same offer a third time.”

Bella raises an eyebrow and looks at me. It’s the first time our eyes have met since stepping into the room, and I feel stripped bare. Her blue eyes are wide with fright, but also steely determination. She’s not going to go down easily. “I’ve heard a similar phrase before. Did you two read the same kidnapper’s handbook?”

Before the sentence is even fully out of her mouth, my father lunges across the narrow space between them and presses a blade to her neck. Bella gasps.

“I’ve killed another woman with this same blade,” he whispers, swiping it down across her neck. I see her flesh bending around the press of the metal, but it doesn’t break skin. Not yet. “She denied me information I wanted. She refused to tell me what I wanted to know, so I ripped out her throat. Do you know how long it takes to die from a slit throat?”

Bella swallows, her throat bobbing against the blade.

“It depends on how deeply you cut,” he continues, twisting his head to look at her neck like he’s looking for a good point of entry. “And where. An artery will be half a minute, if that. But if I make shallow cuts, each one moving deeper and deeper. It could take minutes. Ten. Fifteen. You could begin to bleed out and go weak before I pierce your windpipe. At least, that is what happened to the last woman who dared keep her mouth shut when I ordered her to open it.”

I can’t tell if I’m imagining things or not, but it looks like Bella’s eyes dart to me. For help? Surely not. She can’t expect me to save her. Not after what I did to her in the room. Though, if I felt her excitement for me, surely she felt mine for her. But that was a natural response to a beautiful woman. It doesn’t mean I care for her. And she knows that.

Except, she looks at me again, and this time my father follows her gaze. He studies me for a second and then stands up, arm extended. When I don’t move, he steps forward and presses the knife into my hand. “Yuri has killed people, too. It takes a lot of strength to slit a throat, doesn’t it?”

I take the knife and nod, not looking at Bella.

“I’m getting older. Weaker,” he says. “But Yuri is young and strong. He has the strength to make your death quick. And the stomach to make it slow. Your choice, Bella, dear.”

She looks up at me and then back at my father. “You’re going to kill me?”

He smiles that same warm, fake smile. It’s sweet enough to rot teeth. “Only if you don’t cooperate. Remember what I said about respect? About following our rules? Follow the rules, and you’ll walk out of here. Break them, and—” he nods for me to move closer to her, so I do. Barely.

I don’t press the blade to her neck. I just squeeze it in my hand, my knuckles going white around the handle. I’ll do it. I’ll kill her. But after watching her for weeks, I feel closer to her than most of my victims. It would be difficult to watch her die, though I would do it. If I needed to.

Bella looks at me, at the knife in my hand, and her skin goes pale. She blinks and looks down at the floor. “I don’t know anything. Maybe I’ve seen something strange here or there, but my father has always sought to keep me out of his private business.”

The same way he sought to keep her away from our attention. He wanted Bella to be safe. The less she knew, the better. Except for now, of course, when knowledge could save her life.

“Tell me,” my father says, kneeling down in front of her. He places a hand on Bella’s knee, and she recoils from his touch.

“He met with strange men,” she says, the words spilling out like molasses, sluggish and stubborn. She doesn’t want to tell my father anything, but she thinks I’ll kill her if she doesn’t. Apparently, I’ve done my job well. “No one I’ve ever seen before. I was waiting outside his office, and after the men left, my father seemed upset. He met with them a few times, at least.”

“Did you ever meet them?” my father asks, eyes focused. He’s in fact-finding mode now.

She shakes her head. “He usually introduces me to his colleagues, but never these men. He seemed upset that