Total pages in book: 67
Estimated words: 65054 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 325(@200wpm)___ 260(@250wpm)___ 217(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 65054 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 325(@200wpm)___ 260(@250wpm)___ 217(@300wpm)
Now I work for the Mafia.
I was supposed to interview for an entry-level office job…
To help pay off my father’s debts.
Instead, I walked straight into Dominic Vieri.
Billionaire. Older. Powerful.
The kind of man who walks into a room…
...and owns every inch of it.
He never interviewed me.
He hired me.
Now he looks at me like he already owns me.
The job came with one unwritten rule.
Don't fall for your boss.
I broke it anyway.
One reckless night changed everything.
Now I've become the one thing his enemies can use to destroy him.
Dominic's solution?
Move me into his penthouse.
Post guards outside my door.
And makes one thing perfectly clear.
Nobody touches what's his.
The only problem?
Once Dominic discovers I’m carrying his child…
He’ll never let me go.
This is a full-length, standalone age-gap mafia romance packed with danger, possessive heat, and a guaranteed HEA. No cliffhanger
*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************
1
SOFIA
The woman at the security desk looks at my shoes before she looks at my face, and she doesn’t seem particularly impressed. I pretend not to notice. They’re clean. That should count for something, right?
They’re also a knockoff designer brand I scored on clearance. The left one pinches the side of my foot something awful, but fashion is pain, right? They match the navy slacks and cream blouse I picked out for my interview, so I breathe through it.
I desperately need this job. So, I don’t mind the way the security guard is side-eyeing me. It’ll be worth it later when she’s scanning my employee badge.
“Sofia Bellini,” I tell her as I step up to the desk. “I have a nine-thirty interview with the hospitality division.”
She checks her screen. I keep my shoulders straight and my hands still, even though I want to grab the edge of the desk for balance. After a few excruciating seconds, she prints a badge and slides it across.
“Twenty-sixth floor,” she says in a bored voice.
“Thank you!” I squeak out.
She nods once, already looking past me to the next person waiting to get in.
The lobby is so large I’d call it cavernous. It’s bigger than the cathedral I grew up attending in Queens, and for years I thought that was the biggest building in the world. Dad didn’t take us into Manhattan much. This place has marble floors, brass trim, and floor-to-ceiling windows. It feels wrong to scuff it in my knockoffs.
Vieri Holdings isn’t my usual scene. It’s a far cry from my Queens apartment, where the water pressure is pitiful, and my father’s repair shop with the cracked front window.
This place screams luxury and old money. There are floral arrangements taller than children going through puberty here. They probably cost more than my rent, too.
I head for the elevators and try not to tally the price of everything I see. It’s an unfortunate force of habit. My phone buzzes in my pocket just as the doors open, and I pull it out to read the message.
Good luck, sweetheart. Everything here is fine.
It’s from my dad, and I know for a fact that everything is not fine. The garage is not fine. It hasn’t been fine in a long time. His health isn’t fine either. His blood pressure is a constant headache to his doctor. His debt is not fine. It’s the main reason I made the trek on the subway this morning.
I wish it worked that way. I wish just saying things were fine would make them so.
I step inside the elevator with a woman in a pinstriped suit who’s barking into her phone like there’s no one else in the cramped space. Two men follow her in. One smells like expensive cologne. At least $500 an ounce, if I had to guess.
The woman presses thirty-two. One of the men presses forty. I press twenty-six. At least, I think I do.
My phone buzzes before the doors close.
Dad: Don’t worry about me today. Focus on you.
It would be a lot easier to focus on me if he’d stop texting. I don’t mean to feel as annoyed as I do, but my nerves are complicating everything else. I take a deep breath and type out a response.
Me: Love you. I’ll call after.
By the time I look up, the doors are open, so I step out, thinking it must be my floor. Only, too late, I realize the woman in the pinstriped suit is still yelling into her phone two feet ahead of me. The doors close behind me before I can get back in and try for the right floor.
“Of course,” I mutter.
I jab the down button and wait impatiently. This stupid little mistake is going to make me late to my interview. I turn my phone off just to make sure I don’t make another dumb error.
Somewhere down the hall, a woman yells, “No, no, no, that is not the revised deck.”
A man answers, “It was in the folder.”
“The wrong folder, Bruce.”
“I didn’t name the folders.”
“You don’t need to name them to read a date.”
I pretend not to hear them since it’s doing nothing to calm my nerves. Instead, I clutch my own folder containing my resume tighter to my chest and tap my foot impatiently at the world’s slowest elevator.
Then someone rounds the corner too fast. A hard shoulder slams into mine and I nearly fall to the floor. My folder wasn’t so lucky though and slips dramatically from my hand. Pages from my résumé scatter across the floor. A stack of black presentation folders hits the marble at the same time, and now there’s a huge mess. Why, God, why? This is the last thing I need right now.
Then I look up. The man who ran into me is tall, broad, and ridiculously attractive. Like, I’d probably forget my own name if he asked attractive. He’s wearing a dark, expensive suit. I’m guessing at least $5,000, not counting the shirt or cufflinks. His dark hair is graying a little at the temples, though it’s more silver than gray. He’s scowling even though he’s the one who ran into me, and that just irritates me further.