She Confronted Him in Bunny Slippers... Now The Mafia Boss Is Obsessed

The penthouse did not look like a lair for a mob boss.

It looked like an fortress designed by a minimalist artist who hated sunlight.

Thick floor-to-ceiling windows lined the north wall, offering an unobstructed view of the city skyline, but heavy gray velvet curtains were pulled tight, casting the massive open-concept room in cool, shadow-draped tones. The furniture was sleek black leather and brushed steel. In the center of the room stood a massive mahogany desk covered in encrypted monitors, tactical maps, and glass tumblers half-filled with amber liquor.

Gabriel Severin handed me a crystal glass filled with warm, amber tea.

"Drink," he commanded softly, leaning against the edge of his desk with his arms crossed over his chest. The black ink on his throat stretched slightly as he moved—I could see the sharp outline of a raven's wing spreading across his collarbone beneath his sweater.

I took the glass with both hands, using the heat to thaw my frozen fingers. I sat on the edge of a massive leather sofa, feeling microscopic inside his world.

"You're a mob boss," I said flatly, stating it not as a question, but as an undeniable fact.

"The police call me an enterprise director," Gabriel replied, a faint, humorless twist touching the corner of his lips. "The Morettis call me an obstacle. You can call me Gabriel."

"Why?" I demanded, setting the glass on the glass coffee table with a loud clack. "Why would a man who controls half the docks in this city spend millions of dollars buying an apartment building just to sit above my head and pretend to pace at night?"

"I wasn't pretending," Gabriel said calmly. "I don't sleep well."

"That doesn't answer my question!"

Gabriel stood up from the desk. He walked slowly toward me, his heavy steps making no sound against the thick Persian rug beneath the coffee table. He stopped right at the edge of the couch, towering over me with that suffocating, inescapable presence.

"Six months ago, your father attempted to sell a stolen fifteenth-century Byzantine icon to Marco Moretti," Gabriel explained, his voice low and rhythmic. "The icon was a brilliant forgery. Perfect brushstrokes, authentic age-cracking, historical pigment composition. Marco paid nine hundred thousand dollars for it before his in-house appraiser realized it was painted six months ago on old oak paneling."

I froze.

My father was a mediocre painter, but he was a genius restorer. But he didn't have the technical patience to forge a Byzantine icon.

I had restored an authentic Byzantine icon at Rossi Gallery seven months ago. My father had visited my studio twice that month, taking detailed photos of my pigment mixes and chemical aging solvents under the pretense of being proud of my work.

He hadn't just left me with his debts. He had used my technical skill to scam the most ruthless crime family in the state.

"Oh God," I choked out, pressing my palms against my face. "He used my notes..."

"Yes," Gabriel said softly. "Moretti discovered the origin of the forgery two months ago. He realized Julian Vance didn't have the hand for that level of precision. But his daughter did."

I looked up through my fingers, my heart pounding in my throat. "So Moretti thinks I was his accomplice."

"Moretti knows you're his leverage," Gabriel corrected. "He doesn't care if you painted it or not. He wants his money back, plus interest, and he wants the head of the woman whose hand made him look like a fool in front of his captains."

"And where do you fit into this, Gabriel?" I asked, my voice rising with desperate anger. "Are you holding me for ransom too? Is that why you're keeping me here? To trade me to Moretti when the price is right?"

Gabriel leaned down, placing both hands flat on the armrests of the sofa, trapping me between his broad shoulders.

His face was inches from mine. Up close, I could see tiny golden specks in his dark eyes, and the faint, pale line of an old knife scar running along his jawline. The scent of woodsmoke, rain, and expensive tobacco radiated from his skin.

"If I wanted to sell you to Moretti, Elena," he whispered, his dark voice brushing against my cheek like velvet, "I would have let his men drag you into that van this morning."

"Then why save me?" I breathed, refusing to look away from his intense, unblinking gaze.

"Because three years ago, when my younger brother was dying in a hospital in Milan, your father took three hundred thousand dollars of my money under the promise of acquiring an unreleased experimental treatment from a Swiss lab," Gabriel said, his expression turning cold as ice. "Julian took the money and vanished. My brother died two weeks later."

I gasped, a cold knot of horror tightening in my gut. "Gabriel... I'm so sorry..."

"I promised myself I would destroy every piece of Julian Vance's legacy," Gabriel continued, his voice dropping into an octave of absolute, terrifying promise. "I tracked him for two years. I found his bank accounts, his safehouses, his contacts. And then I found you."

He leaned closer, his dark eyes burning into mine.

"I came to this city to use you as bait to draw your father out of hiding," Gabriel whispered, his thumb reaching out to gently touch the faint smear of dark cerulean oil paint still lingering on my jaw. "I bought this building to trap you. I paced above your head every night trying to decide whether to break you or use you."

My breath hitched in my chest. "And what did you decide?"

Gabriel’s thumb moved slowly across my skin, tracing the line of my jaw down to my collarbone, his touch surprisingly soft for a man whose hands were built for violence.

"Then you walked into my foyer at three in the morning," Gabriel murmured, a dangerous, dark light flickering in his eyes. "Wearing pink bunny slippers, holding a broom handle, throwing my own money back into my face without a single trace of fear."

He pulled his hand back, straightening to his full height.

"I realized then that destroying Julian Vance's daughter would be a waste of perfection," Gabriel declared smoothly, turning back toward his desk. "You are no longer bait, Elena. You are under my personal protection. Which means as long as you are in this penthouse, no one touches you. Not Moretti. Not your father. No one."

"And if I want to leave?" I demanded, standing up from the couch.