Messages from the Mafia Boss (Letters in Love #3)

Chapter 1 - Nina

NINA

I have accidentally accepted a job as an assassin.

Half a million will buy freedom and safety, I remind myself. It’s worth it.

Right?

This is way out of hand. A message pops up on my phone, and I pace my bedroom as I read it.

Blake

Ready?

No. Not ready.

I should run. Emigrate to Australia. At very least, I should not do what the mafia boss says.

Blake

One voice conversation about the project. That was the deal, Bunny.

BunnytheKiller

Yeah, I know.

That screen name is my worst ever attempt at humour. I have joke regrets, and no idea how to kill someone. I don’t want to kill anyone. I have not, in fact, committed to murdering, which is a good thing, because I’m hopelessly unqualified to do it.

But I did say I’d have a conversation and discuss this “project”, so Blake Thorne, the kingpin of Norwood, doesn’t figure out that I’m the shy, curvy sister of one of his men, and not an assassin.

I have to ensure he understands that although I could, I don’t want to take the job. For reasons I haven’t figured out yet.

Something-something ethics?

I really should have thought this through. Not sure it would have helped.

I sink into sitting on my bed and wonder about my life choices.

Blake

Time I got what I paid for, Bunny.

Oh. God.

An alert buzzes. A voice call from the super-secure app my brother insisted I use.

It’s Blake. I take several deep breaths, trying to calm my rioting pulse.

This is fine. Everything is fine. I can do this. The app is anonymous. The mafia boss cannot find me. He will never know that my brother accidentally invited me to the Norwood mafia group chat because I used a silly name.

This is just… Well, I’m not sure what it is. I hit the green button.

“Hi,” I croak.

“Hello Bunny.” Blake’s voice is like chocolate-covered sin.

My brain helpfully springs to the image of him I saw. Okay, the many images I’ve looked at over the last week, as I’ve explored every piece of information the internet has to offer about the mafia boss who’s been texting me.

If I didn’t know better, I’d say he’d been flirting.

“Mr Thorne.”

“Please call me Blake. And shall I call you…?” He dangles the invitation for me to give him my real name.

“Bunny.”

“Not Ms Killer?” he replies teasingly.

“That’s unnecessary, Blake.” Not having met any actual for-hire-killers, I channel Mrs Penworth, my childhood geography teacher.

“Isn’t it?” He sounds amused.

“This is just about the job,” I say primly.

“Mm. But it’s also an interview. Tell me about yourself.”

Right. Yes.

I really should have prepped more. I thought watching a few movies that had assassinations in them would do.

What should I say? Mrs Penworth won’t work for this.

“Sure,” I squawk.

“You’re an assassin?” he asks, as though that was in doubt.

“Yep.” I try to be cool. I swing my legs up onto my bed, and settle my back against the pillows. I’m chill.

“Go on then, how would you kill me, little bunny,” he croons.

He makes murder sound sexy. The filthy sort of sexy that I have zero experience with. No murder, no sex. The most exciting thing I’ve done is go to an aquarium and see a shark.

If the Norwood mafia boss were an animal, he’d be a shark.

My ears burn, and I make a wordless noise of agreement.

“I know assassins have preferred methods,” he muses.

More than I knew.

“Which would you use?”

Uh… Okay, I did think about this one.

“A gun.” It sounds plausible.

“Yeah? What’s your favourite piece?”

Peace? “They’re more dangerous than peaceful.”

He laughs, and it’s a wash of delicious heat over me.

“No piece. You’re a very deadly killer, Bunny. I get that.”

I can hear in his tone that he doesn’t believe it’s true, but he doesn’t sound annoyed, and it gives me confidence. The sort that isn’t natural to me.

“So how would you do it?” he asks, serious again. “Kill me, that is.”

I… He’s so casual about this. We’re discussing me attempting to murder him.

“You want me to tell you my secrets?” Dodge. Avoid. Do not let the terrifying and gorgeous mafia boss know that I’m in fact not a hitman, but a very boring girl with a very dull life.

Well. It was until I started texting a kingpin.

“Yes, Bunny. I’d love you to tell me all your secrets.”

“Not going to happen.” That’s rational, right?

“Humour me. We can swap, if you like. I’ll tell you about my last kill, and you tell me about yours.”

“This is ridiculous,” I bluster.

“The man was part of the Essex Cartel. One of the Clacton-on-Sea henchmen. He was causing some trouble in my territory, and—”

Oh no, I don’t want to hear this.

“Mine was poison,” I blurt out.

“Very good,” he purrs. “Subtle. Go on.”

“It was a wedding reception.” It’s the first thing I think of. “I put it on his food.”

“Tricky to do without being noticed. How did you manage that?” He sounds absorbed.

“I had poison hidden in my necklace.” I saw this in a movie I watched, and I bet the mafia boss isn’t into trivial things like popular culture. Too busy murdering people. “You should have seen it. He went purple.”

“Simple. Effective,” he says approvingly. “What was he wearing?”

“A red tunic—” Whoops, the movie is set in a fantasy world, and I just messed up. “Suit.”

“With a gold lion on it,” he states.

Oh. No. “Well, I yeah, but no, but…”

“Yes, that’s a great assassination. But you didn’t do it.” He sounds amused. “Because it’s fictional. Go on. Tell me one you did do.”

“Like I said, I favour guns usually. I did an excellent shot, taking out a man in an open-top car.”

“As the car was moving? Very impressive. And where did you shoot from? A window, or…?”

“I was on a hill.” I can see the scene in the movie clearly.

“A grassy knoll?” He laughs delightedly. “You assassinated Kennedy? I definitely need you on my team, Bunny.”

His amusement is infectious, and I’m smiling in return. Okay. I’m all in with this.

“And I pushed a guy from a great height.”

“A tower? Or was it a spaceship?”

“Both. I did both,” I say recklessly.

He laughs at my joke and it’s such a good feeling. A caress.

“Your talent has no end, Bunny. But how would you kill a mafia boss?”

“Uh. Drive by shooting, I guess?”

“So impersonal,” he chastises gently. “Wouldn’t you want to use a knife?” he lowers his voice to a rasp. “Hold it against my throat, see how my pulse is fast for you. Close enough to kiss. An intimate assassination, Bunny.”

His words paint a picture of him and me in a dark room. Him lying on a bed, maybe. Me leaning over him.

“Uhhgghh.” The gurgling sound I make is because this conversation pulled a plug from my pussy and my brain drained out. Exactly as Blake must have intended. I flop my head back onto my pillow and stare at the ceiling.

Except, all I can see is Blake.

“I’ll have no less from you. Face to face. Skin to skin. Press forward, and feel the heat between us. The awareness of a dangerous predator.”

Him. He’s the hunter, and I’m the prey.

I knew that, but it’s never been so clear that he’s toying with me.

I honestly attempt a retort. But I’ve got nothing but a new, insistent beat between my legs and a body that’s twitching with the need to be touched. By him.

“I would bleed for you, Bunny,” he tells me in a rough, gravelly tone

How is that sexy? He’s talking about blood. Surely it’s not romantic?

But my pussy thinks it’s hot.

“I don’t think that’s a good thing to say to an assassin,” I manage to get out.

“My little bunny the killer. Come and meet me. I have work for you.” He’s pure temptation.

“I can’t.” I’m on firmer ground here. “I already have a job.”

“Fictional murders don’t count.” He dismisses smoothly. “How much? I can pay.”

It’s a harsh reminder. He’s a billionaire mafia boss who’s playing a game, and I’m a girl who doesn’t know what she’s doing, and can’t afford to get into trouble. “I don’t want your money. You’ve paid me plenty.”

“Come and try out your skills on me, then. See if we can enjoy real life as much as fiction.”

“That’s not a good idea,” I protest.

“Bunny.” Authority rings in his tone. This isn’t a man used to anyone denying him. “We have to meet.”

“No.” I was brave and foolhardy enough to get into this situation, and now I have to be firm about getting out of it. “Our agreement was that we talked on the phone. We’ve done that.”

“Tell me where you are,” he insists, low and intense. “I’ll come for you.”

A crazy urge grips my heart. The mafia boss, coming for me? I should fear for my life, but instead all I can think is how much I long to go to him and throw myself into his arms.

I was looking forward to this conversation, and it has more than delivered.

“Tell me your address. Now.”

I want to.

Blake is funny, and hot, and far more charming than a killer should be. He understands me like no one ever has. My secret need for danger, desire to be treated as an equal and not a kid. He gets my jokes, too.

And I can’t ever see him. I can’t tell him my name, or who I am, or anything about me, or my brother will die. However good this has been with Blake. However amazing I’m certain it would be to let the kingpin catch me, and have me in any way he chose, that’s impossible.

“Not possible,” I whisper. I mustn’t.

“I’ll find you,” he says, and it sounds like a dark promise.

Shit shit shit.

This is so bad. Blake thinks this is all fun, but wait until he realises my brother screwed up and invited his sister to his private mafia group chat.

I’ll be an assassin for real.

I’ll have killed my brother as surely as if I’d pulled the trigger myself.

“I have to go.”

“No, stay. Bunny—” he cuts me off, voice deep and authoritative.

“Don’t contact me again.”

“You can trust—”

“Good bye.”

With shaking hands, I hang up. I press my lips together to stop them from wobbling as I block Blake from the TelUBox messaging app.

I stare at the red circle with a line through it and the frozen messages that we last exchanged.

I loved talking with Blake, and it’s over.

My heart is doing something painful that I can’t label breaking, because I can’t have been in love, so I’ll call it reshaping into a scrambled jigsaw puzzle.

I should tell Aaron all about this, then enact the escape from London I’ve avoided planning. But I don’t. I tell myself it’s because staying low is safer than running and appearing guilty. It’s not. The truth is, I don’t want to share my secret.

Even though I can’t message the mafia boss anymore.