Bratva Sinner (A Possessive Mafia Romance)

I sighed and pulled on the blue pair. Cleaning a restaurant bathroom wasn’t exactly something I wanted to do, but I was willing to get my hands dirty if it meant finding that dossier.

Marie disappeared into a stall. Cara winked at me and started on the sinks with a spray bottle and a brush.

I grabbed a spray bottle, an extra rag, and went into the last stall.

“You clean a lot of bathrooms around here?” I asked as I sprayed and started cleaning. Fortunately, the toilet wasn’t all that bad.

“Lots of places,” she said. “Bars, restaurants, whatever. I do some houses. Why, you got a house? You need someone to clean it?”

“No, nothing like that. You ever do the bathrooms at the Daly Drinker?”

“Sure,” she said and the toilet flushed. “That place is no good, you know what I mean?”

“No, I don’t know.”

“I mean, it’s real dump. Not nice people go there. I don’t mind cleaning though so long as I do it before it opens.”

I smiled to myself. “Sounds about right. The Daly’s not exactly a classy establishment.”

“Dump,” she repeated. “Toilets always dirty, filthy, I don’t know why. I clean it every day, still filthy. Some places, I clean them, they get used, they still look fine the next day. I clean them again, they stay clean, you know? But the Daly, everything filthy. I don’t like that place.”

“We’re looking for something, Marie,” I said and flushed the toilet. It was clean enough. I stepped out and glanced at Cara who was rubbing down the sinks while watching out of the corner of her eye.

Marie was still bent over her toilet. “What, you lost a wallet? I don’t take money. I give anything I find to the owners, so you’ve got to ask them.”

“It’s just an important folder, that’s all. I think you might’ve found it in the ceiling.”

She stopped scrubbing for a few long seconds, staring down at the floor, then started scrubbing again. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

I looked at Cara. She mouthed, lying.

“Are you sure about that?” I pressed. “Whatever you found is very dangerous, Marie. I don’t know if you looked inside, but that folder belongs to very, very bad people. If you think the Daly’s no good, the Lionettis are much worse.”

She stopped scrubbing again when I mentioned the Lionettis. “I still don’t know what you’re talking about.”

I took a calming breath and slowly let it out. “If you were to find it, what would you want in exchange?”

That got her attention. She stood up and stretched her back then gave me a shrewd look.

“I have a grandson,” she said, cocking her head. “Nice boy, real outgoing, likes that stupid videogame with the blocks? Minecraft? Anyway, he’s a good-looking kid but he’s got horrible teeth. Really just awful teeth. He needs braces and some surgery and all this crap, but we can’t afford it all, you know, dentists are so expensive, all of them cost too much. But maybe you give me the money I need, and I can find that folder for you. The one with all the pictures in it.”

Cara sucked in a sharp breath. The one with all the pictures. I didn’t say what was inside.

Marie had it, no doubt in my mind.

“How much?” I asked.

“Three thousand.” She stared at me, not smiling. “Dentists, you know?”

“I can pay that,” I said slowly. “But I want it right now. Drop what you’re doing and let’s go this second.”

She laughed. “You got three grand in cash on you?”

“In the car I do.”

“Seriously?” Cara asked.

I glanced at her and shrugged. “I like to be prepared.”

Marie looked skeptical. “Show me the money then we can go.”

I was running out of patience. This woman was smart, that was obvious, and she knew what she had—but she was playing a game that she didn’t fully understand. I stepped toward her and stared down into her eyes.

“I’m being nice, Marie,” I said, trying to keep the anger from my tone and doing at terrible job of it. “The fact that I haven’t broken your teeth yet or dragged you outside by your hair means I’m one of the halfway decent guys in this piece-of-shit situation, but if you test me, I won’t hesitate to do what I have to do.”

She stared at me in alarm. I glanced over at Cara who glared back with narrowed eyes. She wouldn’t like me threatening some innocent lady that just wanted dental surgery for her grandson, but I wasn’t about to sit around playing games with this woman. We had too much at stake.

“All right, fine,” she said, stripping off her gloves. “Let’s get going then.”

“Going where?” I asked.

“My house.” She walked over to the bucket and threw the gloves down. “I’ve got the file in my house. You bring money, I’ll give you the file, that’s it.”