Bound to the Crime Lord (Dark Mafia Tales #2)

Chapter 5

Chapter Five

Juliette POV

I walked into the break room with Grace hot on my heels. She had been bugging me about Manuel since he left the ER.

“He is literal sex on legs, J,” she wined. “How can you not think he’s hot?”

“Oh my God, Gracie,” I said, exasperated. “You need to get over this bad boy phase of yours. That man may be beautiful to look at, but he is the devil through and through.”

“Then he can drag me to hell!” She swooned before flopping down onto the couch. She stared up at the ceiling with a wistful gaze in her eyes. “I’ve never met a Frug Lord before.”

I palmed my forehead and shook my head. “You cannot be pining after a man who kills people for a living.”

She nodded her chin to her chest and looked at me. “Allegedly. We don’t know that for sure.”

“Tell me you’re joking.” I reached into my locker and grabbed my bag. “You cannot be swooning for a man who would not hesitate to kill you if you cross him. How low is the bar now when it comes to men?”

“In hell, Juliette. In. Hell.”

Even with my back turned to her, I could see her face. When I turned back around, she had a pout on her lips and her eyes held so much anger it was almost comical.

“I think you should give the nice guys a chance.”

“I gave a nice guy a chance, J. He nearly ruined my life. I mean, he wanted me but he was treating me like a second option? Appalling, if you ask me.”

I rolled my eyes. “How about I find you a nice man in the hospital?”

She scrunched her nose up in disgust. “A doctor? No offense to you, my friend, but I cannot date a doctor. You guys are too… what’s the word I’m looking for, here?”

I crossed my arms over my chest and waited. This was going to be good.

“You know what.” She stood from her seat and smiled at me. “I think I have some charts to look over. You know how these junior nurses are. Okay, love you, bye.”

She bolted out of the break room without looking back. I laughed lowly under my breath and closed my locker.

Grace was a character and a half, but she was also one of the best people I knew. When I matched to Grace Memorial three years ago, she had taken me under her wing. She had befriended me and made the transition here easier. I liked the other doctors, but I never quite clicked with them the way I did with Grace.

I walked out of the break room and said my goodbyes for the night to the staff. Today had been a long day, and thankfully, I wasn’t volunteering at the clinic. I could go home and binge-watch Animal Planet with my little brother.

Oh, Ethan.

My heart always got a little heavier when I thought of him. I only learned about him when he was 14 years old, and I was in my last year of med school. Our mother had left him to the wind while she shot up with her then-boyfriend. When social services called and asked if I wanted to take him in, there hadn’t been an ounce of hesitation in me. He was the only true family I had left, and I wanted to keep him close.

He was diagnosed two years after I took him in, and our worlds were never quite the same after that. Ethan had been extremely athletic, but due to his condition, he had to give up swimming and tennis. He was incredibly gifted in both, and he had talked about wanting to go PRO one day.

I blinked away the tears that threatened to leave my eyes.

No, I had spent the whole day without getting emotional. I couldn’t go home with red eyes. Ethan would see, and then it would affect him. I didn’t want him to see me so… broken.

I took the elevator down to the basement parking. My mind started turning with ideas of how I was going to come up with the money. I had only just taken out a mortgage for the house. Ethan’s trust fund had about 80,000 in it, but I refused to touch it. That was the money that he would get to use for his future.

Make a deal with the devil…

I shook my head, trying to shake off that heinous thought. There was no way in hell that I was going to go back to him. I refused to give him the satisfaction of knowing that he was right.

You will come back. They always do .

That man had some nerve. Who the hell did he think he was? I was not a killer, nor a murderer. I had sworn on oath to do no harm, so why would he ever think that me joining his little murder club would be logical?

The doors of the elevator opened and I stepped out. My mind was so busy cursing out the dumb Drug Lord, I didn’t even notice it until it was too late.

A dark figure came from around one of the pillars and grabbed my arm. He pulled on it hard and tried to move me towards what seemed to be a white van on the other side of the parking area.

My body moved on autopilot, my fight-or-flight response kicking in effectively. I twisted my body and then used the momentum to surge my leg backward and get the guy in the thigh.

Dammit, I missed my desired target.

I managed to break free from his hold, but my bag fell on the floor, my papers flying everywhere.

I didn’t wait to pick up my papers, so instead, I took off running in a random direction. I pushed my legs as fast as they could carry me, hoping that I would find someone to help.

I felt a whooshing sound by my ear, followed by a few pops.

Dread leaked into my system as the adrenaline carried me forward. He had a gun. The man had a gun, and he was shooting at me.

Oh God, oh God .

The only thing I could think about at that moment was my little brother. I needed to stay alive for him. If I died, then he would have no one, and that possible treatment in Switzerland would be too far out of reach for him.

I plowed my feet into the floor harder and picked up my pace. I turned and moved from pillar to pillar trying to avoid the bullets from hitting me. I weaved in and out, trying to make myself a hard target to catch.

The bullets flew past my ears, missing by only a mere millimeters.

“Help! Help! ” I screamed at the top of my lungs.

Seemingly out of nowhere, three men in black suits jumped out with guns pointed right at me. They fired and I closed my eyes, waiting for the bullets to pierce my body. But the seconds ticked by and nothing came.

I dared to open my eyes and the three men still stood in front of me with the guns pointed in my direction, but it was only then I realized, they weren’t pointed at me. They were pointed behind me at the man who had been chasing after me.

I looked over my shoulder and saw the assailant lying on the floor with blood pooling out of his body.

“ Disfates del cuerpo ,” one of the men in front of me said.

Body . He was telling the other two to get rid of the body.

My stomach lurched, my eyes still trained on the dead body behind me. The adrenaline was slowly wearing off, and my body was coming down from the intense burst of energy.

I had been shot at. I had been running away from a man who was shooting at me.

I clutched my stomach, the late lunch I had threatening to make a reappearance. The bile rose from my belly and surged upward. I shut my lips and held back the flow. I tried to keep it down, but as the adrenaline wore off the anxiety and unease filtered in. The world moved, but my body remained in the same place.

Why was the world spinning?

The feeling of numbness in my extremities. Shallow breathing with a rapid heart rate. Dry mouth and induced thirst.

I was in shock. I knew all the symptoms, and I was experiencing every single one of them.

“Juliette.” A voice moved through the thick fog that covered my mind.

Breathe, Juliette. In and out… nice and easy.

“Juliette, I think you may need to…” whoever that voice belonged to, it start fading into the fog.

My vision began to blur in and out of focus.

Oh no, I was going to?—

It was too late. Black covered my vision and my body fell, and all I could do was hope that whoever had saved me from that man was more friend than foe.