The Mafioso’s Virgin (Corsini Crime Family #1)

1. Polina

Polina

Ten days ago

I've learned to smile through pain.

It takes practice. I breathe from the top of my lungs, shallow and slow, and keep my shoulders loose so no one catches me bracing against the pull of it. A rib on my left side is either bruised or cracked. I don't need a doctor to tell me. I've had both before.

A waiter drifts past with a tray of champagne.

The sparkling lights in the ballroom drive an agonizing spike straight through my left eye, where Papa’s fist landed two nights ago.

The bruise is practically invisible now. Thank god for good concealer.

"Polina."

The voice comes from my right and I turn too fast. My rib flares—a searing white-hot poker.

"I thought that was you." Mirella Volkov, wife of the Pakhan, smiles like she’s truly glad to see me. "You look gorgeous. As always."

I slot my plastic smile into place. "So do you. That dress is magnificent.”

"Thank you." She tips her head. Her gaze drops from my eyes to my cheekbone, lingers, then lifts again. "Are you here with your father?"

“Yes, of course.” It’s not as though he’d allow me the freedom to attend a function on my own, I think ruefully. “He’s somewhere out there." I wave to the crowd on the dance floor. "You know how he is. He loves to socialize.”

She laughs, but the laugh doesn't reach her eyes, and there's a faint furrow between her brows now as she studies my face. My cheek.

Oh, god!

The concealer. It must have thinned. Did I brush against something? Am I sweating? I don’t know. I’m in so much pain, I just feel hot all over. I angle my face away from her.

"Polina, are you all right?”

"Would you excuse me?" My voice sounds too high-pitched and overly chipper, like a chirpy bird. “I’ve been trying to get to the ladies' room, but I keep running into friends.” It’s a lie. I have no friends.

She says something gracious, but I turn before I hear it.

My rib screams so bad I nearly black out. Stars dance before my eyes as I thread through the crowd. The floor tilts, and I have to pause to let it settle before continuing.

The ladies' room is blessedly empty. I grip the marble sink, and there it is. Under my left eye, a shadow is surfacing through forty dollars of department-store camouflage.

And Mirella saw it. Mirella, who may question. Who may wonder.

I try to remember the lies I’ve already told—I ran into a doorway, tripped on a stair, a book I was reaching for fell from the top shelf…

I’ll have to think of a new one.

I open the clutch and take out the concealer I never leave the house without. Sponge. Dab. Press. Blend. My hands shake as I continue the routine. Build the layer. Set it. Powder it flat.

Two more hours. That's all. Smile through two more hours, ride home in silence, and if the vodka is generous tonight, Papa will forget I exist until morning.

I lift my chin and walk out, only to startle the moment I step into the hallway.

Papa is there.

Right there. Three feet away in his black tuxedo, wearing the face he keeps for rooms with witnesses.

My mouth runs dry.

"Polina." His voice is soft, almost gentle, and that frightens me more than anything. Because he is not a gentle man. Ever.

He closes his hand around my arm, just above the elbow. The same place. Always the same place. His fingers press into the bruise already there. When he feels me flinch, his fingers dig in tighter.

"Come with me," he says.

He doesn't take me through the ballroom. He walks me along the edge of it, past the tall drapes, past a waiter balancing a tray of fancy canapés, through a door, and into a service corridor. His hand never leaves my arm.

"Papa—"

"Quiet."

The corridor bends. A door waits at the end with a red exit sign glowing above it. The air smells different—cooler, dirtier, threaded through with the scent of exhaust.

My rattled mind tries to make sense of this. He’s dragging me where no one from the party will see or hear us.

Surely he won’t punish me here, will he?

He pushes the door open as I mentally brace for more blows to my already aching body.

Two men wait in the alley, their faces slightly shadowed.

They’re not wearing tuxedos and cufflinks like the men inside. One of them is smoking. The ember of his cigarette flares as he takes a pull from it. The other is thicker through the shoulders, and the way he eyes me makes the hair on the back of my neck stand on end.

Behind them, a black cargo van idles with the back doors wide open.

I don't understand what’s happening, but I know it’s not good. Not for me.

Then my father hands me off.

Literally.

He lifts the arm he’s been painfully squeezing and physically passes it into the hand of the smoker, who catches me by the wrist.

My skin crawls. I want to scream, to twist loose, to run—but there’s no way I’d out-maneuver three men, not even if I weren’t injured.

Papa looks down at his phone, taps the screen a few times, studies it for a moment, then nods. “Nice doing business with you, gentlemen.”

Business?

It’s then that the real fear hits—a terror more chilling than I have ever known— because I now understand what’s happening

The number on that screen is my price. My father has sold me.

"Papa." The plea emerges as a hoarse whisper. "Please—"

He looks at me. And for half a heartbeat, something shifts behind his eyes, and I am so starved—so pathetically, bottomlessly starved—that a small, stupid ember of hope lights in me.

Papa’s mouth barely moves. "You're worth more to me this way."

A hand clamps down over my mouth, clammy and stinking of smoke.

Papa is already turning back toward the door, straightening his cuffs.

Transaction complete.