Page 5 of Oops Baby for the Mafia Boss

“Yes, sir.” I shove the pile of notebooks to the side. “The spreadsheet is in your inbox.”

But even so, he comes up behind me and looks over my shoulder. I know he’s not looking at my work. He’s trying to look down my top.

“Fine,” he says eventually.

I give a silent sigh of relief as he moves away.

Despite my creepy line manager, there are actually three good things about my job, it seems. Being independent, listening to audiobooks in the morning, and the chance of seeing the Russian mafia Bratva boss himself. Markov Lunacharski.

2

MARKOV

When I was five, I learned about dinosaurs. They were the most exciting thing I’d ever seen, those long-dead, scaly, winged beasts.

When I was twelve, I discovered guns. Powerful. They spoke words I couldn’t, and I grew in confidence. When I point a gun at someone, they tell me what I need to hear.

And since I was a teenager, Mortlake has been my life. Even before I took over as Pakhan—the leader of a Russian Bratva faction—Mortlake was my obsession. I learned how to navigate the world—or at least London.

Dinosaurs. Guns. Mortlake.

And now a slip of a girl, who looks nothing like a dinosaur or a gun, has efficiently captured all my attention.

It’s constant.

She might have fallen at my feet, but she brought me to my knees. From the first moment I looked around the door yesterday morning and glimpsed her, I’ve thought of nothing else. I was restlessly walking through the Mortlake headquarters as I often do at odd times of day when no one is in, and her audiobook caught my attention. Then there she was.

She’s the prettiest girl I’ve ever seen, but that’s not what makes her special.

I canseeher. She’s not a confusing black box to be forced open with a gun like every other person in the world. Each thought she had about the audiobook went across her face, as though she were a book herself.

And for the first time, Iwantedsomeone. Interest in the opposite sex passed me by, until her.

Is this how life is for other men? They feel? They yearn? They burn for a woman?

Allthefuckingtime?

It’s exhausting.

It’s exhilarating. She’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me.

I used to think it was pathetic that most of the London Mafia Syndicate wasted time on their wives, rather than focusing on their mafias. Now, I’m honestly impressed they manage to get so much done.

In short, I haven’t been this excited about anything since dinosaurs. And I didn’t want to fuck dinosaurs.

Emily Smith. I found her name, and it suits her. Beautiful in its simplicity.

Yesterday, I bought and read everyGame of Thorns and Dragonsbook published, right to the cliffhanger at the end of book three that I reached around dawn.

Jumping ahead with reading makes me feel slightly guilty, as though I’m cheating on Emily.

Obviously, that’s insane. She doesn’t know that listening to audiobooks together is how we’re going to develop our relationship and fall in love.

Assuming that’s possible. I’m a mafia boss, socially awkward, prone to killing people, and as talkative as an average desk lamp.It’s not as though I give a shit about societal niceties, but she’s not broken like me, so it might bother her.

Yes, I’m rich. I keep myself in shape.

But she’s also my employee, and I’m old enough to be her father. She can’t be over twenty-two, and I’m forty-one, and the other day I noticed a grey hair at my temple.