Conquered by the Mafia Boss

“You lied to me.”

He approaches me close enough to hiss in my ear. “If I didn’t, you would have headed for that fucking place and gotten yourself killed.”

“You killed Julien and he was just a kid. Barely younger than me-”

“That kid was the part of the crew that bashed Michael’s fucking brain in. My soldier captured him, and we killed him. An eye for an eye.”

The fucking indifference.

“So they hurt one of you, and you react by killing one of them and setting his body on fire?”

“Yes,” he says, deadpan.

He looks like nothing in the world could possibly be wrong with that. The elevator pings and he exits first. I trail after him as he unlocks the door.

“I have a question for you: how fucked up are you?”

I’m marrying a fucking monster.

He grabs my arm with a frustrated sigh and yanks me inside the apartment, slamming the door shut. Then he locks the door and I stumble backward, startled from the noise.

“I’m not a monster, Maya.”

“You strapped him to that car-and you burned him.”

That pretty much makes you one.

“He was already dead.”

“What the fuck is wrong with you?”

He pins me against the wall with his eyes, which are shrouded in the darkness of his apartment. “There’s nothing wrong with a man trying to defend his family.”

“What family?”

“You, goddamn it!”

My back hits the wall sharply as he starts forward, grabbing my shoulders. The emotion twisting his face stuns me into silence.

“I’ll do anything-kill anyone to keep my family safe.”

“That kid-”Nôvel/Dr(a)ma.Org - Content owner.

“-was a fucking degenerate, just like the rest of them. He knew what he was signing up for. What, I’m supposed to roll over and let them fuck me in the ass?”

Tears build up behind my eyes, and I don’t know why. I know he’s right. There are all these feelings burgeoning inside me, and I don’t know where they’re coming from. Maybe it’s just that I’m having a fucking baby with this man-this beast of a man who can’t even tell me anything real about himself.

“My dad told me things.”

His hands slide up my shoulders, disappearing around my neck. “I’m sure he did.”

The dismissive tone makes me fire back.

“He said you killed your father to become boss!”

I expect him to pull back in disgust.

I expect him to deny it.

A smile staggers across his face.

“Yeah, I did.”

Oh God.

“And I’d do it again, and again-and again. That miserable prick had it coming.”

“Oh my God.”

He cups my face, but I worm away from him, backing into the pitch-black living room. He won’t let me go. Swift hands wind around my waist and pull me closer, right up against his chest where I can feel his heart beating.

“Don’t look at me like that.”

“I don’t know how to look at you anymore. You’re not the man I thought you were.”

“I’m the same man you met in that bar, hon. I’m just-more.”

My hands are pinned against his chest, and I can barely draw in breath. Soft eyes look down at me.

“You won’t tell me anything about yourself.”

“That’s not true.”

“You killed your own father to get ahead. Why?”

His body leaves my side as a shadow descends over him like a shroud. “That’s not exactly what happened.”

Johnny walks away from me, looking back as though he expects me to follow, and I do. I follow him all the way into his study, where he walks behind his desk and opens a drawer, fishing out a dusty picture frame. He blows air over the glass and hands it to me.

“That’s me and my dad.”

An older, balding man with vague good looks throws an arm around a small boy with dark hair and eyes. The same eyes staring at me right now.

“I told you he was in the life with me. He groomed me, you know? Raised me in the mob so that one day I could take his position after he retired.”

“Did you get along?”

He smiles. “Yeah. I worshipped my dad. To me, he was a goddamn hero.”