Used by the Russian Mafia Boss: A Bad Boy Mafia Romance Read Online Free PDF Page A

there.”
    “Yes. I realize that.” Her eyes finally cleared enough for her to recognize the other man in the photo. The one that was not Dimitri. “You are Anatoli. Correct?”
    “Yes.” He accompanied his one word answer with a penetrating gaze from his dark eyes that made her feel like a bug about to be squashed.
    She cocked her head to one side, wondering exactly how deep this man’s animosity ran and whether it encompassed her whole family, or just her father. “You’re the one who advised your brother that I would be of better use in pieces on my father’s doorstep, correct?”
    “Yes.” His lip twitched. Amusement perhaps?
    She swallowed. Her mouth suddenly felt dry. “It wouldn’t matter to him, you know. If I was dead, you would just take the guesswork out of what use I could be.”
    “Excuse me?” He took a step closer. “You’re trying to tell me that your father wouldn’t care if someone killed you?”
    “Not really. I’m more trouble than I’m worth to him. I’m a girl. Surely you can grasp that.” She intentionally turned around, giving him her back and showing him she wasn’t afraid even though her shoulders twitched with nervousness. She picked up the photo again. “What is your sister’s name?”
    “Katya.”
    “Katya,” Toni repeated. “She’s very pretty. I cannot imagine what she saw in my father.”
    Anatoli snorted. “I’ve asked her that question many times.”
    “And the answer?”
    “She simply says I would never understand.”
    “Someday I’d like to talk to her,” Toni murmured. “She must have had a reason.”
    “What does it matter?” Anatoli demanded.
    “If you knew the reason, you might better understand what it was my father got out of the liaison.” Toni shrugged. “Then you would really know how to hurt him.”
     
    DIMITRI WATCHED HIS brother and Toni from the shadows in the hallway. He considered Toni’s suggestion and wondered why they had never pursued that particular possibility before. Perhaps Katya was able to throw them off the topic by simply telling them that it was too painful to recall her reasoning, or that it no longer mattered. Neither Dimitri nor Anatoli were particularly fond of hurting her feelings. Maybe they’d been too soft with her up till now.
    “Why don’t you really know how to hurt him?” Anatoli asked Toni, his voice deadly quiet. “He is your father. Dimitri seems convinced that you can help us gain our revenge against him. What use are you if you don’t even know what he wants or what would motivate him.”
    Dimitri thought to intervene. He didn’t want Anatoli hurting Toni just because he was angry at her father. But Toni apparently had it under control. “I just told you how to find the answer to your question. Would you have ever figured that out on your own? Maybe. But most likely not. So I’ve already helped you. Who is to say it won’t happen again. And as to what motivates my father? Of course I can answer that.”
    The way she held herself was almost regal, even now when Dimitri could readily sense that she was nervous. He couldn’t help but be impressed by the presence of mind she seemed to maintain at all times. She was so much more composed than he would have anticipated from someone who was obviously in her early twenties.
    Dimitri stepped into the room. There was no sense hiding in the hallway anymore. “What is it that motivates your father?” he asked quietly.
    She turned to face him, her expression inscrutable. “My father is like a tiny animal that puffs out its feathers to try and look twice its size. He’s not a particularly strong man, or even much of a leader. But he will be more brutal than necessary just to prove his masculinity. He will fling money around to show he’s wealthy. He is insecure and desperate to prove to anyone and everyone that he is the biggest bully on the playground.
    “That’s a highly exploitable weakness,” Dimitri mused. “So what you’re saying is that