Sold: A Billionaire Bad Boy Mafia Romance by Natasha Tanner, Molly Thorne Read Free Book Online Page A

me bite my lip as I felt something melting inside me.
    He called me for the first real job about a month into the business. He wanted me to go with him and meet a rich Russian businessman who was in New York temporarily. Apparently, he had made the trip just to sit at one of Ace’s tables and play; but he hadn’t been vetted yet. The amounts he wanted to bet were astronomical, about the size of a small country’s budget. Ace wanted me to hear him talk and pick up clues that he was being deceitful or things he didn’t want to say.
    “Have you ever run into the Bratva, Van?” Ace asked me before telling me about the businessman.
    The Brotherhood, the Russian mob? No, only petty criminals like my brother
, I thought, but I didn’t say it. I just shook my head. Ace thought the man could have ties to the mafia, so he wanted to make sure he had actually come to America to play poker and not, say, kill everyone in the organization.
    The three of us sat around a table in al luxurious hotel room in downtown Manhattan. The rich guy was named Vassily Zhurov and started hitting on me as soon as he saw me, which made Ace Hart visibly annoyed. He said he owned the hotel we were in and dozens of others around the world. He also apparently led a boring life and risking all his money on the green felt was his way to spice it up.
    “Will she be there?” he asked at one point, nodding in my direction.
    “You could just ask
me
, Vassily. I’m right here,” I said. When he turned his head to look at me, his eyes were so hungry that I feared he would try to rape me right there on the table. He was a creepy, slimy old thing, but his eyes were full of a malevolent strength, and an inexhaustible lubricious impulse that would last until the end of his days.
    “Well, will you be there, precious?”
    “I don’t know.”
Fuck you.
    “OK, that’s enough,” Ace snapped, standing up and offering the man his hand. “We’ll think about it. Thanks for your time.”
    Zhurov incorporated slowly, the golden pin and chain in his tie glistening on the sun that came in through the window, and shook Ace’s hand feebly. “Thanks for coming,” he said. “I hope I’ll see you both at the table.”
    Ace and I stood silent as the elevator ran down thirty floors to the street level. I could feel his anger, even smell it: something about manly hormones or a faint sweating, I guess. I had to refrain from putting my arms around him and assuring him that I found the other rich jerk repulsive, and that he, Ace Hart, was the only rich jerk who made me feel all tingly and fuzzy inside.
    Well, Vassily
was
creepy and repulsive, but he was not lying. Or at least, I didn’t think he was. So, when we were in the car and Ace asked me what I thought about letting him play, I said he should.
    “Really?” he asked, and gave me a quick, disappointed look.
    “Yes, really,” I replied. “I don’t like him, but I trust him. He is exactly the nasty thing he claims to be.”
     
    * * *
     
    ACE
    Well, I keep fucking up, it seems. I can’t help it.
    Who could I blame for my stupid decisions? Nobody, only me. I should never have offered Van a job. It was not safe for her or me. How did I know I could trust her? I
felt
I could, but I had been wrong before. And I couldn’t think clearly when she was around. I turned into some kind of horny baby. That day at the hotel, after that sorry old Russian asshole spent half an hour making advances on her, I would have undressed and fucked her right there in the elevator. I wanted to say something, but I couldn’t utter a single word. I was cursing myself for not having punched the guy in the face. Also, I could smell something in her, some kind of magical scent that made her turn into some fairy tale princess as her breathing made her chest go up and down, hypnotizing me.
    She bit her fucking lip at one point, which almost made me lose my mind.
    I knew I shouldn’t keep doing this.
It’s been a whole month since the last