Page 94 of Wicked Mafia Sinner

Cristian’s phone buzzes in his breast pocket. He reaches for it and a photograph slips free, spinning through the air before landing on the blanket across my thighs.

A small print. Creased at the edges from being carried too long, the kind of photo a person keeps on their body rather than on a screen.

I pick it up before he can grab it.

It’s of a woman. Dark hair, sharp cheekbones, soft eyes. Her mouth curves in a way that suggests she finds everything amusing, including whoever is holding the camera. She's stunning. The dangerous kind of stunning.

"Who is she?"

Cristian's hand hovers over the photo. His jaw tightens. A dark fire catches in his eyes that wasn't there three seconds ago. The temperature around him shifts the way Rowan's shifts when Nikolai's name comes up. Unresolved. Burning.

"A woman." Which is not an answer.

"I can see that. She's gorgeous." I hold the photo up and study his face over the edge. The fire behind his eyes isn't casual.

He takes the photo from my fingers with a gentleness that contradicts the fire and tucks it back into his breast pocket. Against his chest. Close to the heartbeat. The gesture is automatic. He's done it a thousand times.

"Thank you for letting me meet her." He nods toward Svetlana. He's gone before I can ask another question.

Rowan watches him leave. His arm drapes over my shoulder, his hand resting near Svetlana's head, tracking Cristian's exit with the quiet precision he tracks everything.

"He's in trouble," I say.

"How do you know?"

"Because the woman in that photo is a thief. A belladonna." I adjust Svetlana against my chest, her tiny fist curling around my finger. I hand over the pomegranate and Rowan sits it on the nightstand.

"Raine knows a few and I've met them. I recognize her face."

Rowan is quiet. His thumb traces a slow circle on my shoulder.

"Then God help him," he says. "Because there's no cure for that poison."

I look down at Svetlana. At the pomegranate on the nightstand and the gold wedding bands on our fingers.

Heartache settles in my chest for the man who just walked out the door. "There's always a cure," I say. "You just have to be brave enough to swallow it."

Rowan’s arms tighten around us both. “He’ll have to figure that out on his own. We’ll be here when he needs us.”

“Watching that play out ought to be fun, huh?”

Rowan chuckles softly. “Da.”

Svetlana Meli Volkov sleeps on her mother's chest in the underworld, breathing the air of a kingdom built on darkness and held together by light.

I press my lips to her forehead.

"Welcome home, little sunshine."

Thank you for reading Wicked Mafia Sinner! The sexy and dangerous fun isn’t over! Cristian’s story continues in Wicked Mafia Thief, Book 7 of the Red Letter Syndicate and you can preorder his book here or by visiting the series age on Amazon for the Red Letter Syndicate series.

I stole from the untouchable mafia man, so he stole me.

I thought I was the predator. I had a job to do, a target to hit, and a way out of the life that was suffocating me.

I even carried a Red Letter wish in my pocket, a desperate prayer I never had the courage to drop in the box.

I didn't think anyone would answer.