Taken by the Off-Limits Boss

He took me to send my father a message. Now I work his club floor, and his eyes never leave me.

Emilio Russo put his hand flat on the counter and watched my laugh die.

My father’s enemy. The Russo family’s fist — they call him the Bull.

He’s thirty-five. I’m twenty-five.

I should hate him.

But he stops in the hall when I talk my sick mother down at midnight.

Bedtime stories in Italian for his little girl, blood drying on his knuckles.

He goes still, every time I hum without meaning to.

I watched him break a man’s hand for grabbing my wrist. The satisfaction scared me.

That’s when I stopped hating him. That’s when I fall.

Then a file arrives as a gift.

A date six years ago. An order carried out. His signature.

My brother left to pick me up from work and never came home.

Now I know who took him.

If I walk away, my mother loses the only thing keeping her alive.

Kidnapped · enemies to lovers · boss/employee · forced proximity · Italian mafia · HEA guaranteed