Recklessly His: A Bad Boy Mafia Romance Read online

  Recklessly His: A Bad Boy Mafia Romance

  By Nicole Snow

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Recklessly His: A Bad Boy Mafia Romance

  I: Interview to Die For (Sabrina)

  II: Strings (Anton)

  III: Buckle Under (Sabrina)

  IV: Promises to Keep (Anton)

  V: Captive Trust (Sabrina)

  VI: Spellbound (Anton)

  VII: Twisted Truths (Sabrina)

  VIII: Disconnect (Anton)

  IX: One More Reckoning (Sabrina)

  X: Home Sweet Home (Anton)

  Thanks!

  Content copyright © Nicole Snow. All rights reserved.

  Published in the United States of America.

  First published in February, 2015.

  Disclaimer: The following ebook is a work of fiction. Any resemblance characters in this story may have to real people is only coincidental.

  Description

  LOVE RECKLESSLY. WITHOUT MERCY, WITHOUT SENSE, BUT NEVER WITHOUT HEART...

  SABRINA

  He was supposed to be my big break – not my total breakdown. Interviewing Anton Ivankov, the infamous kingpin, was my chance to outrun my broken past. I came ready, determined, but nothing truly could've prepared me for him.

  Anton wasn't supposed to be so damned handsome. He wasn't supposed to have a heart. And he definitely wasn't supposed to make me a pawn in his prison break.

  Now, he's making me question everything I've ever known, replacing common sense with raw desire. Can I escape before he's done playing wrecking ball – or will this mad need to leap into his bed ruin me forever?

  ANTON

  I never knew looks could blindside a man until I saw her. Sabrina was destined to be my ticket outta this hellhole and a secret weapon in our street war.

  Except I'm not working for family fortune anymore. Every time we touch, it's lightning, dangerous and divine.

  Hurricane Sabrina's blinding me to the mission. Her twisted uncle needs to pay big time, but she's got me so distracted I can barely think. I'll kill for this girl, anything to hear her beg for one dirty, reckless, unforgettable night.

  Good thing I never fail. I'll do whatever it takes to finish this war and end this Romeo and Juliet crap for good. The only happy ending here is making sure her panties, her heart, her everything are mine, and I'm gonna have it all. I always do.

  I: Interview to Die For (Sabrina)

  The interview was totally crazy. Nothing less than straight-jacketed insanity.

  I knew it, and I did it anyway, venturing to the huge prison about an hour north from Chicago.

  I told myself I was ready to do wild things to jump start my career. A girl with an eye for journalism had to do the exceptional to get her name out there. And nothing was crazier than interviewing Anton Ivankov, the infamous Chicago bomber – especially when blood made us natural enemies.

  I'd never met the man in my life, of course. But that didn't change anything.

  We Ligiottis were born into rivalry and danger, the price of enjoying all the wonderful things the underworld has to offer. For us, nobody was bigger and badder than the Ivankovs, latecomers to the Chicago crime scene, vicious Russian bastards who made everything my family did for cash look like a gentle Florentine opera.

  So I'd been told, anyway. I wasn't really privy to what went on behind closed doors and inside dark alleys to make us rich. Uncle Gioulio saved me from getting too close to the family business, a promise he'd sworn to my late parents.

  Honestly, I didn't mind being sheltered. Partaking in the madness, the fear, and the murder didn't appeal to me. Raw, personal history did, and nothing was a bigger coup for me than when the letter showed up last week from Anton Ivankov. It was just a date and a time. Today's, five minutes to three o'clock sharp, plus two crabbed sentences.

  ONE HOUR. NO RECORDERS.

  By some insane miracle, he wanted to talk after more than a year in the slammer. Hell, he wanted to talk to me. I couldn't stop wondering how I'd gotten so lucky. I'd omitted my last name in my request, and he'd taken the bait.

  All he needed to know about me was that I was just another young, hungry girl looking for a story. I wasn't about to fuck it up by spilling the beans about our families being mortal enemies.

  Right place. Right time. Right luck? Well, it was time to find out.

  A warden named Charlie walked me down a narrow row of lean, brutal men in their cages. Their rough eyes leered at me from the shadows. I suppressed a shudder, tried to tell myself it was about what I'd expected. It wasn't unusual for men who'd been locked up for a few months to eye any woman the same way a starving man gazes at a piece of prime rib, right?

  Damn, if only there was an easier route to the visiting room. But it was an old prison, as Charlie explained, and there was no choice but to lead me through the small section where they kept their overflow creeps, felons, and killers.

  “Right here, Miss Ligiotti,” he said, pulling open a heavy steel door. “You've got an hour. Mind if I ask whose balls you busted to make him talk to you?”

  I smiled and shook my head. “Call me Sabrina. No balls were harmed making this happen, I can assure you. I just got lucky.”

  “I'll say! All right, I'll let the chef keep her recipe a secret.” Charlie's wrinkles doubled as he beamed me a smile and a wink. “Good luck. Try not to rile him up too much – don't want to ship his ass back to solitary. He's only been out a week.”

  Charlie closed the door behind me, and I was alone, taking the middle cubicle with the low, worn wood beneath the glass. Perfect spot for my notepad and the crappy marker clenched in my hands, the only things I'd been allowed to bring inside.

  I'd read up on prison regulations before the interview, but I still didn't get it. The cameras were on us the entire time, so I couldn't smuggle anything in even if I wanted to. Besides, this glass between us looked thick, like something you'd see holding a gorilla at a zoo.

  Bulletproof. It had to be. And if it could stop gunshots, then surely it could absorb the blows from a man's fists?

  The door behind the glass squeaked open on the opposite side. When I saw Anton for the first time, I wasn't so sure about the barrier between us anymore.

  I wasn't sure about anything.

  Imagine a tiger walking on two legs, suppressing its instinct to rip apart the first tender flesh it finds, if only for a moment. That was him. He moved like he owned the place, instead of being its captive.

  I doubted the neon orange jumpsuit he wore even came in a bigger size. And there was a lot stuffed into it – so damned much.

  The fabric over his torso stretched like it was about to bust at the seams each time he stepped towards me, the tree trunks he had for arms clasped in front of him, held together by flimsy looking chains. It was the only skin he had exposed besides his face. I couldn't begin to make out the jungle of dark, evil looking ink plastered on those granite muscles.

  It rolled up into his sleeves in hypnotic waves, serpents forever bound to his skin. His shoulders were broad, making him a man sized battering ram. Damn if I didn't slide my hand forward and press against the glass, checking to make sure it didn't budge.

  Nothing. If this mountain of a man went manic, maybe I'd be safe.

  Maybe.

  Then there was his face. Short brown hair topped a powerful, angular jaw, a face made for taking a big bite out of the world and spitting it out however he wanted. He'd done that with human lives, I reminded myself, the whole reason he was here.

  He didn't have the eyes of a killer. The gems in his head were the clearest baby blue eyes I'd ever seen. For a man who'd rigged up expl
osives that killed twenty people, I'd expected them to be glazed with death, glassy and mad.

  The burning blue fire around his pupils surprised me, melted me in my seat. It flickered with a conscious, eager energy that was almost as scary as the intensity rippling through the rest of his face. The fire held me, forced me to recognize its strange beauty, calling me to look and marvel. I barely caught a glimpse of the faded scar going up his right cheek that completed the ensemble before I forced myself to look down.

  Gazing at him too long was like staring into the sun.

  Jesus. What happened? Was I seriously getting hot and bothered by this sick demon who'd rip me limb from limb if he knew who I was?

  I didn't understand the illusion in my brain, and it scared me. When I looked up, he was close, and I forced myself to see him for what he was: a giant, a killer, more dangerous than a tiger – now separated by only inches of glass.

  The identical chair on his side was small for me, but it looked like a child's seat when he plopped down in it. I swore I heard the legs groaning, ready to bust apart under the heavy, livid muscle piled on it.

  That shudder I'd suppressed earlier was back. I barely caught myself before I started shaking in front of him, gripping the little notepad until my knuckles were white. He turned his head slowly, a sly smile pulling at his lips, motioning for the phone next to him.

  Of course. There was an identical one on my side.

  I ripped the old phone off its receiver and pressed it to my ear, watching as he did the same, slower and more fluidly than me. When Anton's face was level with mine again, that smile was bigger, but it revealed nothing.

  I held my breath, waiting for his first word.

  “You're Sabrina?” He asked, so much like a king talking down to his subject.

  The whole world ended in the thud of my heart. I took a long, jagged, ice cold breath. Hearing my name on his lips brought a sick pleasure humming to my skull, like he'd just whispered some dirty, private secret in rich, smoky baritone.

  Jesus, girl. You're losing your shit. Screw your head on and remember why you're here.

  Don't blow this. It's your lucky day.

  It was hard to obey the voice in my head. But I met his eyes and forced my lips to work.

  “Yes. Thank you, sir. Thanks for agreeing to talk to me today.”

  “Sir? Nobody's called me that since I was a kid, playing assistant manager at my father's club.” He smiled, this time wider, baring several square white teeth. “You've gotta be fucking with me. Come on. Get on my level. You wanna interview me, or sit there worshiping my dick all day?”

  If I'd been drinking something, I would've spat it out. Bastard. He had my attention.

  I stood a little taller, hid the red blood raging to my cheeks, and nodded.

  “Then cut the shit, Sabrina. Call me Anton and let's get this fucking show on the road. You're here to find out why I blew Club Duce to kingdom come, right?”

  “Only if you're ready to tell me,” I said, trying to keep the calmest voice I could.

  Good luck. The last couple words ended in a tremor. It didn't help that his eyes stayed on me every damned second, heating my skin like he had x-ray vision, a super villain power to match his evilly long gaze. His eyes started where my middle met the little table and went up, stopping at my face.

  He was inspecting me – every inch of me – right through my clothes. Fuck.

  Yep. My skin was on fire, roasting in his baby blue beams.

  “All right. I'll talk. Let's make this quick, clean, and easy.”

  Shit. If I thought I was going to keep my breathing steady, I'd just lost my last chance. I held my breath, reached for my marker, and pressed it to the paper, waiting.

  “It was a simple job. We were gonna decapitate the Ligiottis in one strike, finish this little war going on between their fucked up family and mine. Gioulio and his boys were gonna be there. Our intel was always good, never failed us before – until that night. The old bastard decided to host a big dinner party for his biggest, best clients. We ended up with a buncha dead businessmen, a couple fucks on the city council and the school board, some Naperville high rollers. No Italians, though – unless you count the bartender, who was supposedly a distant cousin or something.”

  Distant was right. I heard about Raphael getting killed in the attack, but Uncle Gioulio wouldn't let me attend his funeral. Too dangerous, he said, and why did I want to waste my day on a second cousin I'd only met three times at reunions anyway?

  That was before Anton was singled out on the security footage, backing the explosive into the club's loading dock. The danger faded everyday after he was arrested, and soon my Uncle wasn't handing out constant warnings. If only he knew I'd gone right into the tiger's den.

  “So, you slipped up?” I asked, tapping the marker on my notepad. Wasn't much good for writing anyway, and I was too glued to his rough face to remember to move it.

  “Yep. Me and my brothers fucked up bad. Worst mistake we ever made, short of giving the go ahead plastered after our last bash. We were drunk and naked. Took turns on every one of those bitches just flown in from Europe. I fucked them deep, Sabrina. Took my time railing 'em, feeling my balls bouncing on their asses, gave 'em a hello and welcome to America they'll never forget. Damned good thing too, considering where I'm at now. Last hot piece of pussy I might ever have.”

  I blinked. The fire his eyes kindled on my skin became an inferno. I shook my head, wondering what the hell just happened.

  He's talking about sex. Fucking. Trying to throw you off.

  “Um, you want to say that again?”

  Anton threw his big head back and laughed, fixing his gemstone eyes on me when he came back down. “What? You think all this fucking and killing makes me a bad man, don't you? I'm waiting. You gonna call me on my shit, or just lay down and take it like those Latvian whores?”

  Bastard! He was testing me after all, making me sort the truth from fiction. And, so far, I'd been too frozen in his bad boy good looks to be anything more than a toy.

  I bit my tongue, pumped my hips to get myself an inch closer to the glass. “Tell me about your regrets, Anton. You killed twenty people, many of them highly respected in their community...”

  “Regrets are for civvy fucks, Sabrina. Not outlaws. When Ivankovs go to war, they don't regret shit. You think my grandpa regretted cutting German throats out at Stalingrad? He personally killed a hundred men defending his country, his family. You can check the records if you think I'm bullshitting, though record keeping in the motherland has always been shit, and I never learned the language.”

  I didn't answer. The smile was gone, and now he looked truly serious. His fists hit the table on his side, rocking the wood between us, deafeningly loud with the steel chain slapping wood.

  I jumped. I gasped. The second I caught myself, I wanted to hate him for making me crack, but I was too busy fighting the dizzy tingle pure adrenaline pumped into my blood.

  He was too good at this. The very second I'd tried to take back a little control, he'd ripped it away from me, and now the ball was in his court again.

  “You're a shit interviewer, Sabrina. Look at you,” he said quietly, almost a whisper, voice filled with disgust. “I've got this whole fucking thing by the balls. I'm asking the questions. I'm steering you like a bitch on a leash. When I got your note asking for this shit, I thought I'd get a young, plucky, hot little thing who's hungry for my story. I was ready. Instead, I've got some chick who can barely talk because she's too fucking busy trying to put out the fire in her pussy.”

  Asshole! It was my turn to curl fists.

  Criminal or not, Ivankov or not, nobody talked to me that way. There was more truth in his words than I wanted to acknowledge, sure – plenty to leave me ashamed for the next ten years – but there was no way I was walking out of here after letting him walk all over me.

  “You're an animal, Anton. That's why you're in this cage. I'm a professional. I'm a free woman. I don't think
you're ready to tell me any story at all today. This is all just a big joke to you. Guess I can't blame you – prison gets boring, right?” I slapped my notepad shut and stood, pushing in the chair.

  His eyes widened. He looked...surprised, as if he couldn't believe I was the one ending this crap instead of letting him screw with me a second longer.

  “You gotta be shitting me, babe. You're giving up now? Just when I was ready to get to the good stuff?”

  “Start talking,” I hissed into the phone.

  The metal felt like it was scalding hot against my ear. But it was just my own blood, heated to boiling point, all the fear and nasty heat he sparked beneath my skin.

  “Okay. I'm not as hard as my gramps. I'll tell you that much. Prison's rough. You're right – it's boring as all fuck. My old man brought us over here when we were just kids. Guess me and my brothers have been in the US of A too long to be as cold as our Siberian forefathers. You wanna hear about my regrets? Just one.” He held up a pointer finger.

  I waited. Fighting off another round of shaking knees, I slid back into my seat, pressing the phone so tight to my ear I thought I'd leave a permanent imprint there.

  “I'm listening. What is it?”

  “I regret ever responding to that fucking note in the pretty pink envelope. You're young and beautiful, Sabrina. You ought to be writing about fashion and eccentric artists. Shit, maybe slipping on some pretty lingerie and posing for the magazines for some side cash. Not spending a bright autumn day chasing down monsters in this fucking place. Go home.”

  I stopped, stared, and felt my nostrils flare. Before I could say anything, he slammed his phone into the wall and shuffled up. He never looked back once as he walked to the door, slow and steady, moving like a stuffed orange tiger who'd just had a good meal.

  You can guess who. Ugh.

  He never looked back, not even when I smashed my phone down and ran a trembling hand across my face. I had to fight every urge to pick the phone up and begin smashing it to bits against the wall.

  This asshole frustrated me in all the wrong ways – mentally, physically, sexually. Admitting that last one made me want to try to break through that glass slab myself so I could follow and strangle him.