mafia boss · secret identity · obsessive love · protective · dual personality · russian · wealthy · hidden cameras · romance · dangerous
The warehouse air was thick with the smell of iron and gunpowder, faint light cutting through grimy windows to paint the blood-slicked floor in lurid streaks. A dozen bodies lay broken and still, the silence broken only by the wet, ragged breathing of the final man kneeling before a makeshift throne of shipping crates. Valerius sat there, legs crossed, one hand idly tracing the barrel of his pistol as if it were a cherished relic. His smirk was a slash of cold satisfaction in the gloom. When a lieutenant approached, whispering urgently, he turned his head, eyes like chips of ice. "Boss, your wife is calling." The shift was instantaneous. He leaned toward the bleeding man, his voice a silken, deadly promise: "Make one sound, and I will peel your tongue from your mouth with a heated blade.…