Married to the Mafia Boss

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Nebesa was a strip club my family owned.

It had a very unusual theme; I’d made sure of that when I’d restructured it two years ago to increase sales. Classiness was its ongoing theme, and between the Greek-style short columns decorating outside, the high pastel walls, and the prime flowered garden wrapping around the place, elegance was what it represented.

It pulled the clients with the highest profiles year-round. Even though it wasn’t a prostitution ring, I knew very well that the girls working there made serious cash every night doing…extracurricular activities.

The elegantly seductive ambiance enticed millionaires, CEOs, celebrities, and people with the fattest wallets to pay ten times the actual amount for a glass of beer.

I loved all my family’s establishments, but Nebesa had a particular place in my heart. It was the first project I’d overseen for my family completely on my own. Every decision I’d taken, I hadn’t consulted my father about it, and it had turned into one of our biggest successes.

Now, Nebesa was a ruined, burned building sending fat billows of smoke into the sky, surrounded by police officers and firefighters that were starting to clear out. There were also people that couldn’t mind their damned business loitering and talking.

Three ambulances were parked around, and the paramedics were attending to the injured. There wasn’t a lot of them, and I hoped to all the saints and angels that there was a better reason for it than what kept stubbornly popping into my head.

I was staggering towards the building, my mind overflowing with things I needed to do.

I had to find out if anybody had died, how the fire had started, the extent of damage, and what the insurance company would be doing about this.

Hannah made her way towards me, stopping short so she didn’t get too close.

“Miss Petrenko,” she called, and it took me a minute to realize that she was calling me. “Are you alright?”

She was a model slim redhead, a mother to two boys, and one of the top girls at the club. There were a lot of regulars that came just to see her.

“Hannah,” I breathed, “what happened here? Where is everybody?”

“We were preparing to open for the evening, so people were still coming in. Plus, we’d been booked for a private event, so not all the girls needed to come. There weren’t many of us here, thank God, and we all got out in time.”

The relief that flooded my lungs was instant.

I looked around at the destruction-my very first project to prove myself to my father…gone.

“How did this happen?”

Hannah gave me a wary look that made me instantly suspicious. “Well, I think Carlos told the police we didn’t know, but it was them.”

“Who?”

“The Trievs. They showed up and started up shit even though Carlos told them we weren’t opening for the public.” As she talked, I looked around. Carlos wasn’t here. “The goons cornered Carlos, and then the rest went backstage. I was at the bar, but I heard the girls scream and run out. They were screaming about a bomb, so everybody ran out with them. Then, the explosion happened.”

I was picking at the back of my lower lip with my teeth, getting more agitated as I listened.

They were already a problem, thinking they could pull crap on my family, but now they’d just made it personal.

But Hannah didn’t look like she was done.

“Mel didn’t come out.”

“What? You just said nobody got hurt in the fire?!”

Hannah shriveled back at my tone, eyes wide, shaking her head. “No-not the fire. She didn’t run out with everybody else. They took her with them.”

My teeth clamped down on my lip, hard. The metallic taste of blood made me realize and let it go.

I nodded to myself and took a deep breath so I could speak calmly. “Ok, thank you Hannah. Do you know where Carlos is?”

“He left in an ambulance. The Triev guys did a number on him, and a few of the guys had to help him out.”

Mel was another of the top girls in the club. A petite frame and a sweet, angelic face. She had a lovely singing voice.

In my house, I sat at the bar, without the lights on, thinking. About the strip club, about Mel, about the Trievs.

It was as if they were determined to get under everybody’s skin.

My dad called, and in less than an hour, I was walking into his office, stopping in my tracks because of his expression.

“Something about the Triev?” I asked, casting a suspicious eye on the package sitting on top of the coffee table. The news about the club was still cooking inside me. I hadn’t told him yet. I thought I could keep it until tomorrow when the wound wouldn’t be as fresh.

My father nodded, the death stare on his face rigid as he gestured for the package. “There’s a note too,” he pointed at a folded birthday card lying on the edge of his desk. “This is getting out of hand now. They’ve become too aggressive.”

I didn’t flinch when I got closer to investigate the package.

Blood, bone, sinews. Beautifully platinum blonde hair matted, ratty, and stained with blood and shards of bones.

It was Mel.

In the card was a warning.

No, it was a threat.

“I’ll have this disposed of,” I said solemnly, kissing my father on the side of his temple and reaching for the office phone.

This was the very last straw.