Page 67 of Possessive Mafia Bodyguard

I’ll go to the docks because she asked me to and because I know how important it is to her to find her sister, but there’s something else I need to do first.

At the intersection, I indicate left and head in the opposite direction of the port.

This time, when I arrive at the women’s refuge, I park up on the curbside, secure my bike, and knock on the front door.

Gianna isn’t surprised to see me. “At least you didn’t try to scare our residents half to death this time.”

She opens the door wide, leads me through to the kitchen and fills two mugs with coffee. “Cream and sugar?” She has already added both to her drink.

“Please.” I arrived needing caffeine and sugar in my veins, but the room is calming, as though whale music is playing at a subaudible frequency, and all who enter get the same relaxation treatment.

We sit at the small pine table, and Gianna opens the conversation while I sip my coffee.

“I won’t ask you where she is, but you’re here about Tamara again, aren’t you?”

I smile. “Is that one of your regular services, mind reading?”

“Nothing that sinister. You came here asking about Tamara before she walked out of her home with nothing, and now you’re wearing the kind of expression I see a lot on our residents. Fear mingled with guilt over burdening someone else with your problems.”

“Wow. You’re good.”

“Thank you.” Her smile lights up her face, and I picture the two little girls I saw with Leonid Ivanov at the golf resort poolside. Happy is the word that springs to mind. “Aren’t we all just here giving it our best shot with whatever skills we have?”

I like this woman.

“She’s sick.” No point dancing around the reason why I’m here. “I don’t mean she’s dying, I mean, she keeps being sick. It started the morning after she came to my apartment, and she thinks I don’t know that it keeps happening. I’ve asked her to see a doctor, but she insists she doesn’t need to because she’s fine.”

The words spill out and I don’t even care that I’ve told Leonid Ivanov’s wife that his enforcer is staying with me. I get the sense that she’s on my side.

She’s on our side.

Gianna watches me from behind her mug that she holds awkwardly with the handle facing me and her fingers wrapped around the warmth.

“Sounds like Tamara. She and her sister have spent their whole lives proving that they’re worthy of being here. The only time I’ve ever known Tamara to drop her guard is when Ivana almost died in Russia last Christmas.”

I swallow hard. “I didn’t know that.”

Ivana is the most important person in Tamara’s life, and she didn’t tell me that she almost died. The trust that I’d convinced myself I was starting to build between us shrivels and turns to dust with this revelation.

“The surgeons said that Ivana is unlikely to regain the fitness levels she had before her injuries. Which feels like a death sentence… to them both. Ivana is battling to prove her worthiness to Leonid because being an enforcer is all she knows. I’ve offered her work here at the refuge in the hope that it will take her mind off her recovery, but she doesn’t want to be here, and I accept that. This is my dream, not hers.”

“And Tamara?”

“Tamara is in denial. She believes that she can carry her sister, and Leonid will never notice that she’s doing the work of two enforcers rather than one.”

“Until she burns out.” My coffee is cooling too quickly, and it feels like glue in my throat, blocking my airways. “Why didn’t they discuss their fears with Leonid?”

Suddenly, I feel like a sardine trying to gatecrash a meeting of sharks when I know absolutely zero about what’s really going on. I’ve been so blinded by my feelings for Tamara that I painted this image of myself in my own head of Prince Charming riding in on his glorious white steed to rescue the beautiful princess from the evil villain.

What part of that belongs in the real fucking world?

“Did Tamara tell you how they came to live with Leonid?”

“Aye. She told me they’d been trafficked from Russia, and he rescued them from a shipping container.” I clench my fists and my jaw so tightly I could crack bone.

“He already saved them once. They’ll spend the rest of their lives trying to repay him and telling themselves they’ll never do enough. They’ll never be enough. In their eyes, Ivana’s injuries mean they’re letting him down.”

The anger building inside me is all directed at Leonid. He is the only one who could change this mindset, and yet he allowed Tamara to walk out of his life without a single weapon knowing that his enemies would automatically use her to reach him.