Bratva Sinner (A Possessive Mafia Romance)

Jeff grimaced and looked around. “What do you people want?” He was sweating now, getting worried. That was good.

“I don’t care about money, if that’s what you’re thinking. I’m not here to make your life too much harder, if we can avoid it, but I do need your help, Jeff.” I stepped closer. I was a good three inches taller and easily had twenty pounds of muscle on him. “But I am going to need you to cooperate.”

“Cooperate with what, exactly?” He stepped back and ran into the wall.

“I know you’re running money for the Lionettis. They’re using some of your buildings to launder cash, aren’t they?” I was guessing at this point. We had some ideas about how Jeff could be involved with the Lionettis, but we weren’t positive, so I went with the most likely one.

And fortunately, it seemed as though I was right. “It’s not a lot,” he said. “A few thousand per month, nothing huge. I put it on my books, then I hire contractors, pay them the money, and that’s it. The contractors aren’t actually real, it’s another front they run.”

I glanced at Cara. She nodded at me.

“Here’s the deal.” I held up my phone again with the picture on it. “All you have to do is stop washing money for the Lionettis. Stop doing whatever they had you doing, and this picture will disappear.”

His eyes widened. “You’re fucking with me, right?”

“I’m absolutely not fucking with you. All you need to do is stop taking their money. That’s it, and we’ll make sure the photos stay buried.”

“They’ll kill me,” he said softly, eyes wide with fear. “I’m serious, they’ll try to murder me if I stop. I started because of that damn picture, but I’m in way too deep now.”

“That sounds like your problem. Maybe you need to go on a very long business trip for a while. Disappear, get out of town. Whatever you have to do.” I leaned closer to him, close enough to smell the fear coming off him like a stench. “But stop laundering their money.”

“I can’t do that,” he said, his voice small.

“Then I’m going to make sure this picture goes out far and wide.” I shoved my phone back in my pocket. “If you won’t work with me, then I’ll fuck you over to show everyone else that I’m not joking around. You’ll be useful one way or the other.”

I turned to leave. Cara walked with me, leaning against my shoulder.

“Wait,” Jeff said, sounding desperate. “Hold on. There are others?”

I stopped and looked back. “There are others.”

“How many? Any of them like me?”

“All of them are like you.”

“They’re all disgusting assholes,” Cara added.

Jeff grimaced. “All right. Just give me a day to figure it out, okay? The Lionettis won’t bring cash until tomorrow, so I need a day.”

“You have a day.” I gestured at him. “I’m going to check. Believe me, I have people that’ll hear if you fuck them over, and if you don’t, I’ll know. You have a day.” I turned away again and Cara fell into step.

We turned the corner and left Jeff alone in the alley. Cara’s hand found mine and her palm was sweating. She grinned huge and leaned against me, and I threw my arm around her shoulder.

“That was insane,” she said and laughed. She sounded shrill and giddy. “I thought he was going to scream for help.”

“You turned that around. We had a sort of good cop, bad cop thing going on.”

“Yeah, and you were both good and bad. All I did was stand there and call him an asshole.”

“Which was more than enough.” I tightened my hug then let her go. “I’m not sure he’ll listen, but I think he’s spooked.”

“You think the Lionettis are going to hurt him if he stops working for them?”

“Absolutely.” I glanced at her. “Do you care?”

She shook her head once. “No, I really don’t.”

“Good. Then it sounds like you’re in the right business.” I tugged her along behind me. “Come on, we’ve got more people to blackmail.”

She laughed and we hurried back to my car.

14

Cara

Franklin showed up at one of Luke’s clubs two days later. I sat in the back with a book and a Diet Coke sweating on the table. German, Marvin, and Vlad were playing cards and drinking vodka, while Luke sat at the bar, counting money.

It took a little convincing, getting Luke to let me come along with him. He wanted to keep me stashed away at home like a pretty little doll, but I couldn’t stand sitting alone in that house for another second. Luckily, he agreed that being in a room full of his loyal soldiers was probably safer than being home alone in a house that Maher knew about, so he let me tag along and hang out.

The strip club wasn’t my kind of place, but anywhere was fine with me. At least I had a book and the guys could be entertaining.