Page 81 of The Mafia Enforcer's Temptation

But the kicker here is I’m married to the heir.

If we move in the right way, it’ll be ours. We know how to do it without upsetting the apple cart.

And Ava… I look at her, fingers clenched tight together in her lap, her face a blank canvas, posture straight, and I bet anyone else looking would see cool, calm, and strong. They’d never see through to the nervous little center of her.

Looks like Ava found a way to survive my hands, after all.

Because we’re going to take the bratva but keep her as figurehead. She can be a prisoner or work with us. It’ll be up to her.

But the rule of the second-in-command ends. Those who want to fight will meet their ends at Murphy hands, and those who are smart enough to choose the winning side and loyalty to the Volkov name will survive.

It’s that easy.

And fucking difficult as hell.

Because while the regular players won’t do anything to upset their business with the Volkovs—and they don’t give a fuck who’s in charge, just that they reap the rewards of those routes—there are the matters of Hank and the Lev group.

And they may be one and the same.

Not even Torin could come up with anything on someone named Hank or Henry Kelly. Not a Hank or Henry Kelly with a scar, or a Hank or Henry Kelly we might be interested in. The ones he found lived nowhere near New York. One ran a bank in the middle of Fuck All, USA, and the other’s a mechanic in Jersey who doesn’t fit the profile.

Of course, Kelly and Hank or Henry might not be his name.

The Lev group is real, but no one’s heard of Lev Grant. And besides, they’re doing their own thing, running with some of the cartels. They seem to be made up of the rejects of the other crime families and groups in New York.

No idea why some of them were at the Romanov mansion. But maybe they hired themselves out.

I don’t know.

And not knowing pisses me off.

“Drink your coffee, sweet thing, and I’ll take you shopping for real after this. You need clothes.”

Ava snaps to life at that. “I’m not going to be your dress-up doll.”

“And here I thought I’d fuck you senseless in the dressing room.” Actually, now that I say that…

But Ava’s likely to knife me if I try. It wouldn’t stop me, but I’m not in the mood to bleed. And right now I think I prefer a very private fashion show and strip tease at home in our room.

Our?

No, mine.

She’s just temporary.

The marriage might go on, but her in my bed won’t be for more than the year.

The thought of other men touching her strikes me like I’ve just touched a downed powerline, and I almost crush the delicate porcelain cup in my hand.

I don’t want other men looking at her, let alone touching her.

Maybe I’ll just find her a room in the basement, give her Torin’s space when he and Harry finally move everything into their own floors in the other brownstone.

She can fucking come out when I need her to, and no more.

I’m vaguely aware of how absolutely unreasonable my thoughts are, but I don’t stop them from tumbling around in my mind.

“I can dress myself.”