Banished By His Mafia Heir

4

NINA

The evening is unusually warm, but I still feel cold all over as I step out of the restaurant. My father grabs my arm and hastily ushers me toward the car, asking me questions along the way, but I can’t focus on his words. I open the passenger door and sit down. My legs are trembling. Looks like the adrenaline ran out and I’m feeling the aftereffects.

I’ve never been as scared as the moment I entered that restaurant, wondering if they had changed their minds and decided to kill us. Staying composed and cool in front of that shark of a man required tremendous self-control. I almost slipped a few times. But, if he thought, even for a moment, that I couldn’t play his game, my father and I were as good as dead. The wheelchair didn’t fool me, I knew who I was facing the moment our gazes met—a stone-cold killer.

Roman Petrov. I assumed he was some elderly guy with a beer belly and receding hairline. Why would he be blackmailing a woman into marriage otherwise? I couldn’t have been more wrong.

During our conversation, I tried my best to keep my eyes fixated on his, but I still managed to steal a few glances elsewhere. The man is incredibly handsome. That was evident even in the scarce light. I couldn’t pinpoint his height, with him in a sitting position and me standing, but our heads were at the same level. He surely had more than a foot on me. It’s not a nice thing to say, but I was relieved he was in a wheelchair. Being near tall men is a serious problem for me, and the idea of being stuck together with one for six months sent me into a shitstorm of panic.

“Nina!” my father yells. “Are you even hearing me? What the hell happened inside? I tried to go in but the goons wouldn’t let me.”

I take a deep breath and, watching the cars pass us on the driveway, start giving him the short version of the deal I made with the head of the Russian underworld. I share only the basics of the marriage agreement. The less he knows, the better.

“No word about any of this to Mom,” I say when we arrive in front of the house, “and make sure you act as if you never met Petrov on Saturday. He said if anything goes wrong, the deal is off.”

“What do you mean?”

“It means that if anyone, Mom included, suspects I’m not crazy in love with that son of a b***h, we’re dead.”