Brawler's Baby: An MMA Mob Romance (Mob City Book 1) by Holly Hart Page A

voice rang out. "So good of you to join me in my humble home. Don't be upset with my boys – they did as they were told. You will too, soon enough."
    Now that I couldn't hear the shuffling of my guard’s boots dragging against the rough floor, I couldn't help but notice that the room – it had to be a basement, judging by the gloom and bone-chilling cold – was creepily quiet. There wasn’t even a hint of street noise, or even the normal creaks and groans which formed the familiar, comforting soundtrack to most old houses. It was the kind of place, I thought, that men went to die.
    I blinked a couple of times, allowing my eyes to acclimate to the basement's lack of light. The foreboding scene in front of me slowly came into focus, but as I waited for it to clarify, I spent the time cracking my neck and stretching it out. I was sore as hell, half because getting tied up and thrown in the back of a moving truck is never a comfortable way to travel, even at the best of times; and half because I figured that if I'd been brought here to die, then one thing was for sure: I was going to put up one hell of a fight.
    Mikhail Antonov, unsurprisingly, came into focus in front of me. I'd known that the fat, dumpy Russian gangster was behind this from the moment his half-witted henchmen had turned up at my door – well, my neighbor’s door – to pick me up. One thing was for sure, though – I hadn't expected Maya to be standing next to him. Shit, I was just impressed she’d made it back at all.
    Just my luck, I finally find my dream girl the day a mobster decides he wants to off me…
    Whether he'd intended it or not, her presence threw me off my game. I'd spent two years searching for the girl, and when that failed, another two years drinking to forget her – so her turning up out of the blue like this was still more than a little confusing – and a little more than I could handle. Just because we'd fucked didn't mean we'd actually resolved anything.
    I still had dozens of questions racing around my brain, like: " since when was her dad a Russian mobster," " why did she lie to me about her name? "
    The blood drained from my cheeks, and for a few seconds I was grateful that the lack of lighting in the dim, gloomy basement meant that the mobster was highly unlikely to notice my reaction to his daughter's presence. Whatever Antonov's plan here was, I was pretty sure that I needed to avoid giving him any more bargaining chips – and fast.
    I knew Antonov, or more precisely, men like him. I'd grown up on the streets, surrounded by petty gangsters and mob muscle, and they all had one thing in common – they preyed on weakness. Like sharks sensing blood in the water, they not only smelled uncertainty from a mile off – they took advantage of it.
    "Mike!" I grinned, going on the offensive. "Buddy! You don't call, you don't text – and then, out of the blue, you send two thugs to pay me a visit. What's that about?"
    I kept my gaze fixed on Mikhail's eyes as I needled him, but secretly I was paying almost as much attention to Maya's response. Her eyes darted around wildly, as though she was deathly afraid that she was being watched, and when I started to mock her father, her mouth formed an ‘O’ of shocked surprise – almost fear.
    My mind was roiling, and I wasn’t even close to making sense of what it all meant. Why was she in here? Was Maya on her father's side? No – that didn't make sense, not in the slightest. There was no way Maya could have faked her reaction when we'd been startled by the banging earlier on – not unless she'd suddenly become an Oscar-winning actress. I could still smell the scent of pure, unadulterated fear on her, and if she could fake that, then, hell, I was in a whole lot more trouble than even I could handle.
    "Don't call me Mike." He grunted, gruffly, as if outraged by my rudeness. I almost choked laughing – I could hardly believe that he , of all people, could possibly think that I was the