Page 1 of Debt to the Mafia King
Chapter One
Leah
Cheap smells, cheap goods, even the flickering lights felt cheap. And they gave me a god damn headache every single night.
Perched on the edge of the stool, I rested my elbows on the counter and looked around. Everything was restocked, and there wasn’t one customer in the entire place. There hadn’t been for the last hour. Which wasn’t so surprising because it was 4:00 a.m., and we weren’t exactly on a main route through town.
Of course, there had been one customer.
Nervously, I plucked at a loose thread in the knee of my jeans. They were basically falling apart, held together by pure willpower. I did not have the money for new clothes. Not even well-worn new clothes.
The man who had come in earlier, though? The one with the dark hair streaked like salt and pepper grey at the temples had been so beautifully dressed that I had no doubt his underwear cost more than every single item of clothing I owned.
He had been rich, not flashy rich. He wasn’t trying to show off when his perfectly tailored cashmere jacket sleeve had lifted to show off the watch that probably cost six digits. He had just been rich.
Old money rich.
The string came loose, and I played with it absently, rolling it between my fingers. It wasn’t his obvious wealth that was still bothering me. It wasn’t even that he clearly was in the wrong part of town and didn’t belong.
He was dangerous.
The moment I had seen him staring at me from the driver’s side of his sleek European car, a wave of apprehension had rippled through me. And that apprehension had just grown when he had swung his huge frame out of the car and pushed his way into the little shop attached to the gas station I was currently working in.
Up close, he had been even more daunting. Not his handsome face, that was exquisitely beautiful, but his air, his mannerisms.
His entire self had been so self-assured. He walked, and people followed him with their eyes. I wouldn’t be surprised if they bowed. I’d be even less surprised if he expected them too.
“These.” His whisky coloured eyes had raked over me and forced my heart to speed up as he slid the cereal bar over the worn countertop towards me. I reached for it, my hand shaking. He reached for it at the same time, and our fingertips brushed.
A jolt of shocking electricity zapped through me, and I yanked my arm back.
“Printsessa.”
My eyes darted up to find him smiling down at me like the cat that got the cream. Frowning, I rang up the single item and forced myself to smile.
Dangerous.
I had to remember that.
Even the way he called me princess sounded like a threat. It wasn’t the sweet endearment from an older man. And he sure was that. No, this man wasn’t someone’s sweet grandpa. This was a man in the prime of his life. Maybe forty, maybe a little older, but if he was older, then he looked great for his age, and handsomein a way that felt hard. Pretty, beautiful even, but in a way that was so masculine that it was impossible to ignore.
“That will be—” I stuttered and let my eyes travel up to his face again.
God, he was tall as well, well over six feet, and his shoulders under his expensive wool coat were broad.
“No one else here?” Completely ignoring my half-asked question, he leaned over the counter and invaded my personal space.
His scent enveloped me, some expensive cologne and under that something completely masculine. I clenched my thighs together.
There wasn’t a lot of room to maneuver behind the cash register, but I tried to anyway. Leaning back so far that the stool threatened to topple backwards. Reaching out, he caught my wrist and righted me. “Careful now, Printsessa.” He said in a thick accent that instantly made the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end.
“If you get hurt here, then there’s no one around to help you.”
I jumped to my feet, yanking my arm out of his grasp. “I’m not a princess,” I snapped, and the corners of his mouth twitched upwards into a smile.
“And I sure as hell don’t need protecting. I’m not a damsel in distress. Now that will be—”
The smile on his gorgeous, angular face dropped, his lips curved downwards. “Not a princess,” he mocked. “Got it, and it’s noted that you know a little Russian,” he said something else in a language I didn’t understand.
