All Chapters of Mafia Tech Bro: Chapter 41 - Chapter 50

TANISHA Roman leaned back slightly. He looked at me in that same unnerving way he had months ago at the luncheon, not like a man admiring a view, like someone studying a pattern, deciding where the seams were. His face gave nothing away. He didn’t smile, neither did he frown, only attention was prominent. I fought the urge to fold my arms, to shield myself from that quiet scrutiny.Then he said calmly, “You’re beautiful.”My shoulders jerked back, my chin lifting in pure disbelief.“I’m—” I stopped, stared at him. “Excuse me?”His face remained infuriatingly neutral, no sign of embarrassment or amusement. It was impossible to read to this man.“I’m beautiful,” I repeated flatly. “That’s why?”A corner of his mouth lifted, not quite a smile. More like an acknowledgment of the absurdity, not a denial of it.“No,” he said. “That’s not why. That’s how.”I became even more confused.He leaned forward again, forearms resting lightly on the table. The movement was controlled. Everything abo

CHRISTOF The agreement had been simple. Tanisha was to show up, that was it. Whatever happened after she arrived, what was said, how long it lasted, whether Roman liked her wine choice or found her conversation tolerable, none of it concerned me. Roman had made that clear without needing to spell it out, and I’d accepted it because the shipment was the only thing that mattered. The deal would move forward regardless of whether the date crashed and burned or stretched into dessert.And yet.Roman’s message had been infuriating in its brevity. “Plans have been set in motion.” I got the message at midnight. He didn’t elaborate. There was no mention of the date I’d secured for him.That should have been enough. It should have satisfied me. Instead, I spent the rest of the night restless in my own house, moving from room to room like I was waiting for something to confront me. Pepa was asleep by the time I got to bed. I laid there for a long while, staring at the ceiling, annoyed at mysel

TANISHALet’s get this straight. I wasn’t bothered at all, in fact I couldn’t care less that Roman hadn’t called or texted since the…incident. Calling it a date felt dishonest when I’d been strong-armed into attending. It had been over a week.After that brief, polite exchange after I’d gotten home, “thank you, I enjoyed your company, apologies again for the method.” There had been nothing. Which was fine, more than fine. I wasn’t waiting, I wasn’t checking my phone. I definitely wasn’t replaying the way he listened when I spoke, or the way he laughed softly at my stories.That would be ridiculous, wouldn’t it? I had work, a job. A fragile truce with a billionaire tyrant. Plenty to occupy my mind. And, It had even been orchestrated, negotiated, weaponized. The fact that it had also been the most enjoyable evening I had experienced in years, possibly ever, was an unfortunate coincidence I refused to dwell on.If I were forced, mind you, forced, to rank the dates I’d been on in my life,

CHRISTOFShe told me she was taking a cab, because she had “some things” to transport. I could have let it go, let her go. That was the rational thing to do. I didn’t need an end-of-day briefing. There was nothing urgent that couldn’t wait until morning. I wasn’t exactly entitled to her time beyond work hours, and lately I’d been very aware of how thin that line had become.Yet I heard myself say no. I couldn’t explain why. I wasn’t trying to control her decision, not entirely. I’d exercised enough of that with Tanisha to recognize when it was driving my decisions, and this felt different. Almost reflexive, like reaching out to steady something that wasn’t actually falling.Then she rolled her eyes at me, Just a small, precise gesture, like punctuation at the end of a sentence. I found it amusing. That alone should have bothered me. Her new personality now pushed back, not in the usual subtle ways. Now, if she disagrees or is displeased, she either vocalizes it, or she’d employ the us

CHRISTOFRoman doesn’t hover. He doesn’t pry, he doesn’t ask unnecessary questions. He opens doors and walks away before you thank him. If he grants access to international waters, he does it because a deal was made, not necessarily because he needs to know what sails through.To him, power is a handshake, information, a bribe, and the old-world grease that keeps the wheels of the Mediterranean turning. In my world, it’s preparation.“The Adriatic is a bathtub, Christof," he’d told me, two days ago. "Too many ears. Too many American 'advisors' teaching the locals how to use sonar. If you want to move your... packages... you need the lane to stay open, I can do that.”The “lane” was a specific set of naval coordinates and a three-hour window where the radar at the Prevlaka station would undergo “scheduled maintenance.”I didn’t explain my logistics. He didn’t ask, that’s why we work. I didn’t buy submarines, I bought ‘Environmental Data Buoys.’ That’s what the customs forms in the Adr