Married to the Mafia Boss

Ivan

I wake up earlier than usual and find Tori asleep, curled in a ball next to me. I don’t know what time they came home, but it must have been late. I get up, freshen up, and get dressed. As I’m trimming my beard to keep it neat, I think about how hot Tori looked last night. I won’t lie; I had a restless night thinking about all the horny men who were probably making eyes at her the whole night. I certainly would have.

I walk out of the bedroom and toward the dining room, where my coffee will be waiting. As I pour some into a mug, I hear the elevator open and see Leonid step out. I fill another mug and take it to him. “What are you doing here so early,” I say, handing him the coffee and leading him to my office.

“We have a problem,” Leonid says seriously. “Your wife got out of line last night.”

I sigh loudly, sitting my coffee down and turning to Leonid with impatience. “What now, Leonid? It’s no secret you hate her.”

“Last night at La Club, your wife let a guy harass Anastasia, groping and grabbing her.” He looks at me seriously, and I frown.

“Once the girls wake up, I’ll talk to them about this,” I say.

“You expect that Italian to tell you the truth? I have witnesses,” Leonid says.

I shake my head and am about to say something when I hear the creak of Anastasia’s door.

“Ana?” I call, getting up and walking out of the office with Leonid in tow.

My daughter looks a bit rough, and I know she partied hard. She yawns. “Morning.”

“Is it true some guy was harassing you at La Club?” I ask, straight to the point.

She rubs her eyes and nods. “Yeah, there was this really fat ugly balding guy who kept coming onto me, and when I pulled away, he groped my ass and pulled me to him.”

I can feel my blood boiling, but then Anastasia continues, “Then Tori came to get me, and he pushed her. So she slapped the shit out of him. It was actually hilarious. Then Luigi showed up and had the guy banned. So we carried on partying. It was a really fun night.”

Behind me, my bedroom door opens, and Tori steps out, looking tired but happy, and I turn to her. “You protected Ana last night? You put yourself in danger for her?”

Tori blushes. “Sorry.”

“Why are you apologizing?” I try not to smile too broadly in front of Leonid in case he thinks I’m soft. “Thank you, Tori. Thank you for taking care of Ana.”

Anastasia smiles. “Morning, Tori.”

“Morning Ana, let’s get some food,” Tori says, walking past us.

“Ana,” I stop her, “where were Aleks and our guards?”

Anastasia blushes, and I look at her pointedly, so she explains, “I asked them to stay out. Luigi had guards inside for us. I just didn’t want there to be a situation.”

I nod and turn to Leonid. “You should tell your sources to get their facts straight as much as I appreciate you keeping an eye on things. We only need facts.”

Leonid bows his head in submission. “My apologies. Perhaps we are lucky to have Mrs. Volkov in the family.”

I smirk. “That’s more like it. Are you joining us for breakfast?”

“No, I have affairs to attend to. I just wanted to sort this out.”

He gives me a dark smile and then leaves, so I join the girls for a nice, rather greasy breakfast.

After breakfast, Anastasia leaves to have her nails done, and Tori accompanies me to the office. We both sit in silence, working on our documents. I enjoy the comfortable silence between us as two hard-working individuals.Published by Nôv'elD/rama.Org.

After a few hours of working, I hear her make a noise, and I glance up. “Everything okay?”

“I have another report here, but I don’t think it belongs to this situation. It’s about some buildings you want to buy,” she says, swinging her chair to look at me.

“I was going over it thinking it was one of mine, and I see some discrepancies,” she says. “Can I show you?”

“You don’t have to worry about those,” I say. “Those are actually for me from Evgeni and Leonid.” I hold my hand out, and she hesitates. “Yeah, but you’re losing a lot of money paying bribes you don’t have to pay. Like, there are legal loopholes that you can exploit here and save yourself some cash.”

I knit my eyebrows together and tilt my head. “Really? Can you show me?”

She wheels her chair over and opens the folder, setting it down between us. She takes her pen and points to a paragraph. “Technically speaking, you don’t have to rezone here. This area is already zoned as industrial. Whoever told you this wasn’t zoned that way is an idiot. It’s such an unnecessary step. You can literally just move your business in and start operating.”

She points to another paragraph and explains how I can set up a legit-looking company here that I can then pass money through without it being noticed. I watch her in fascination. She is so intelligent and clearly knows what she is talking about. I try to listen intently, but she amazes me, so eventually, I stop her. “Redo this report with your suggestions, and give it to me to look over. Make your suggestions in red, and I’m going to see what idiot is making these suggestions and costing me money.”

“I hope no one is going to get hurt on my account,” Tori says anxiously. “I mean, I know that’s what families like ours do, but it’s probably just that they didn’t know any better.”

“Don’t you worry about that,” I say with a smile, reaching for her hand and squeezing it. “You’re doing great things for the family, and I’m pleased about it. You’re proving everyone wrong, especially Leonid, that you can’t be trusted. I knew you could.”

I raise her hand to my lips and kiss her fingers gently.

“There’s also a bunch of inspections you can bypass if you divide the units into smaller units,” she says shyly. “But I’ll make a note of it on the document. This one will take me a day, so I’ll do it now and get it to you by tonight.”

“Your family really lucked out,” I say suddenly, surprising even myself. “You’re by far one of the most intelligent people I’ve met, and you could have really boosted your family if they’d let you.”

“Try telling them that,” she laughs. “My family doesn’t exactly think I stand out. As the youngest of my cousins, I’m generally protected and kept in the dark about things.”

I shake my head. “They’re idiots, Tori. I mean that.”

She gives me a dazzling smile, and I can see she isn’t used to this kind of praise. That smile, though. I will praise her all the time if that’s what I get to see. Making her happy makes me happy in a way I haven’t felt in a long time, and even though there’s a pang of nagging guilt about Mila, I feel like my deceased wife would have loved Tori.