The Mafia Boss Joked That His Translator Was Still a Virgin and Her Answer Wiped the Smile from His Face

Elena didn't move. Her hands remained flat on the armrests of the leather chair. Her mind, conditioned by four years of translating threats delivered by monsters, shifted instantly into analytical overdrive.

Mason was terrified. His finger was shaking against the trigger guard. Terrified men with guns were the most dangerous creatures alive because they had no strategy—only panic.

“Adrian is in the next room, Mason,” Elena said, her voice eerily calm, smooth as glass. “If you fire that weapon, the sound will bring him through that door. And you know what he will do to you.”

Mason let out a wet, hysterical chuckle. “Adrian is asleep. I slipped a little something into Rossi’s antiseptic batch when he picked it up from the clinic. A mild paralytic. He won't be waking up for another two hours. By then, the Petrovs will have breached the ground floor, and this tower will be under new management.”

Elena’s stomach plummeted. *The antiseptic.* Adrian had kissed her wounds, but he hadn't taken the injection. Yet Rossi had given Adrian a small glass of water in the kitchen while she was resting—

*No.* Adrian hadn't drank the water. She remembered him pouring it out into the sink while Rossi was packing his bag. Adrian Vale trusted no one.

She needed to buy time.

“Why, Mason?” Elena asked, keeping her eyes locked on his. “Adrian made you a wealthy man. You control the entire Great Lakes corridor.”

“A wealthy servant!” Mason spat, stepping further into the study, the gun leveled squarely at her chest. “I take all the risks with the transport unions, and Adrian takes ninety percent of the cut! Anton Petrov offered me forty percent of the entire Midwest distribution if I delivered the encryption keys and your head on a plate. Adrian would burn down the world for you, Elena. Without you, he loses his edge. He becomes predictable.”

“I don't think you understand Adrian at all,” Elena said softly.

“I understand that you’re going to log into that terminal right now,” Mason snarled, gesturing with the barrel toward the monitors, “and transfer the master routing manifests to this flash drive. Do it, or I swear to God I’ll put a bullet through your shoulder and do it myself.”

Elena looked at the keyboard. She could enter a dead-man loop—a script that would wipe the servers clean and trigger the building’s lockdown sirens. But Mason would pull the trigger before the sequence finished.

She reached out slowly, her fingers hovering above the keys.

“Hurry up!” Mason snapped, stepping closer, until he was less than four feet from the desk.

“Mason,” a voice spoke from the shadow of the doorway behind him.

The voice was not loud. It was not angry. It had the terrible, absolute finality of a stone falling into an abyss.

Mason froze. The blood drained from his face until his skin resembled paper.

Adrian stood in the frame of the double doors. He wore only dark trousers, his chest bare, the black serpent tattoo standing out starkly against his pale skin. In his right hand, he held a heavy, customized Kimber .45, held low at his hip.

His eyes were wide open, completely alert, burning with a lethal, demonic intensity.

“A paralytic, Mason?” Adrian murmured, tilting his head slightly. “You’ve worked for me for eight years, and you thought I would consume anything prepared by a doctor whose daughter’s private school tuition is paid by your holding company?”

Mason’s hand shook so violently the gun rattled against his knuckles. He made the fatal mistake of shifting his aim from Elena toward Adrian.

*Bang.*

The shot in the enclosed study was deafening.

Mason screamed, his weapon flying from his grip as Adrian’s bullet shattered his right wrist with terrifying precision. Mason collapsed to his knees, clutching his mangled arm to his chest, blood spraying across the antique Persian rug.

Adrian didn't rush. He walked across the study with slow, deliberate steps, his bare feet making no sound against the wood floor. He reached the desk, stopped beside Elena, and laid his left hand gently on her shoulder. The touch was steady, warm, and entirely reassuring.

“Are you alright, my love?” Adrian asked softly, looking down at her.

The endearment hit the air like a declaration of absolute sovereignty. It was the first time he had ever said it out loud.

“I’m fine,” Elena said, her voice steady, her hand coming up to rest over his.

Adrian turned his attention back down to Mason, who was sobbing on the floor, rocking back and forth in a pool of his own blood.

“Anton Petrov’s convoy is currently entering the underground garage,” Adrian said conversationally, as if discussing the morning weather forecast. “Did you think I didn't know, Mason? Lev has been waiting in the sub-basement with four teams of tactical enforcers since three in the morning. Petrov didn't walk into a takeover. He walked into an abattoir.”

Mason looked up through his tears, his face twisted in agony. “Adrian... please... we were friends... we built this—”

“You brought a gun into a room with the woman who carries my heart,” Adrian whispered, his eyes void of any humanity. “There are no friends here, Mason. There is only treason. And its consequence.”

Adrian raised the Kimber .45.

Elena didn't look away. For four years, she had hidden behind her dictionaries, pretending she was separate from the violence that maintained this throne. But she had made her choice in the blizzard. She had chosen the king.

The shot cracked through the room.