Sold: A Billionaire Bad Boy Mafia Romance Read Online Free PDF Page A

doorstep, and soon I found myself inside a luxurious but minimalist living room, breathing a scent of citrus and flowers.
    I stood there for a while, waiting for something to happen, admiring the austere lines that shaped up the room. A raised section of the floor with a short grey wall separated it from the rest of the house, making up for the absence of doors. A big couch rested against a glass wall; behind it, an artificial waterfall rained down continuously over a tiny rocky landscape.
    There was another sound besides the muffled song of the water. A faint, metallic, continuous clacking. I wandered around, trying to locate the source of the sound, and crossed the raised section of the floor to go in search for it. I went through a corridor opening to an interior garden; then went up some stairs. The sound was louder and louder, and I could now identify what it was: gym equipment. Ace Hart was working out.
    When I got to the second floor and located the big glass cage that housed the gym, I saw him immediately. There was no way I could have missed him among the dozens of training machines of all sizes and shapes. He was lifting himself up in the power rack, with his back turned to me. I don’t know for how long I stood there speechless, hypnotized by the regular motion of his muscular body, pulling itself up again and again.
    “Hello,” I said when I found my voice again. It came out weakly, and I almost drooled.
    He let himself go of the bar and landed on the floor with a soft thump. He turned to me feigning surprise. His naked torso was completely covered in sweat.
    “Oh, hi,” he said, grabbing his towel to wipe his face. “It’s good you’re here.”
    “I’m glad that you think so,” I said, regaining my composure. “Why am I here exactly?”
    “Because you’re Russian,” he lied. Maybe. “I could use your help. I pay well.”
    “So, if I get it right, you recruit your personnel by meeting young women by chance in a pub, breaking into their apartments and waiting for them to come to you? What a streamlined hiring process.”
    “Oh, don’t be like that. I don’t know about young women. I’m seeing
you
right there,” he fired back.
    “Hey! I’m thirty-two,” I protested, crossing my arms. “How old are you? Fifty?”
    “Try thirty-nine,” he said, crossing his massive arms in front of his chest, mocking my gesture. “You walked out on me the other night. I just wanted to know you better. For starters.” He turned around and walked through the gym. I followed him to the chest press, and watched him load the thing with what looked like too much weight for any human being. He sat down on the machine and started pushing the handles. His muscles moved back and forth like pistons in a mechanism for some kind of huge ship or something like that.
    “Well, I’m here now,” I said. “What do you want to know?”
    “Why did you come to the States?”
    I considered lying, but, for some reason, I decided to tell him the truth. Maybe because there was an aura of honesty to him, even when he lied. He may be enigmatic, he may be brutal, but behind his piercing blue eyes I perceived a transparent soul.
    That, or I was just being stupid as usual, and giving bad boys much more credit than they deserved.
    “I was sold.”
    The words came out easily, which surprised me. It was hard for me to talk about this. But now, to him, I felt I could talk without shame. Perhaps because I already knew one of his secrets, having broken into his game of cards and blood.
    “Sold?” he repeated, arching his brow, but he kept doing repetitions. “Who sold you?”
    “I sold myself, I think. I came here as a mail-order bride. Have you ever met one?”
    “Never,” he said. “How fascinating. And where is your American husband? Jack said you live alone in that tiny apartment.”
    “Easy, mister big house. I never got married in the end. It happens, I guess.”
    He rolled his eyes. “I don’t think it happens to