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

Chapter 9

Chapter Nine

Juliette POV

T he oath I took after I finished my grueling years of med school was to do no harm. My job was to save lives, not end them. But Manuel Gomez was the first man to ever make me question that very promise I made to humanity.

Yesterday had been nothing short of a lapse of judgment on my part. I had no business wanting that man to kiss me. Now that my sanity had returned to my brain, I wanted his lips nowhere near mine. He was nothing but a leech, who would only drain the life from me on contact.

So why were you pressing your body into his?

My inner voice taunted me, and rightfully so. I had been the one to leave the door wide open for him. I should have pulled away. I should have smacked that stupid, chiseled face of his to kingdom come when he tried to kiss me. But I hadn’t.

I had been weak, and I could not afford to be weak now that he had dragged me into his world like this.

I closed my eyes and willed sleep to find me.

I had moved into Manuel’s luxurious penthouse yesterday. I was not surprised he lived in something so luxe; he was a Drug Lord after all. I could only imagine how much his cocaine and heroin made him.

My stomach churned. I still felt so uneasy about all of this. It was easy to forget when I was in his presence, and I got lost in all of… him . But now that I had been left in this massive room alone, I only had my thoughts to converse with.

I pulled the soft cotton sheets over my head and sighed.

My profession required me to be controlled and calm when faced with chaos and uncertainty. I had mastered that skill even before I had started practicing medicine. My life had been nothing short of a disaster. A druggie mother and an alcoholic father didn’t make for the best home foundation. I had to grow up very quickly. I learned how to make a post-hangover drink by the time I was six, and I learned how to administer Narcan by age seven. My mother had overdosed three times in front of me, and four times I had found her after school. I would always think that every time would be the one that would take her, but she had kept on breathing. She was resilient that way, and I guess that was where I got my will to push forward. No matter how many rocks life threw onto my path, I always found a way to keep moving forward and to keep going.

My phone buzzed on the side table, and I reached for it quickly, thinking that it was my brother. He had only texted me once since he landed, and I wanted to know how everything was going. But to my dismay, it was a text from the man who had been plaguing my mind the past few days.

Damn him.

Manuel: One of my men has been shot. Rodrigo is on his way to get you, be ready .

As if on cue, a knock came at my door. I sat up in my bed and pulled the sheets off my body. I walked over to the door and, sure enough, Rodrigo stood on the other side.

“We need to leave,” was all he said before he turned to walk down the hallway.

I had only met Rodrigo a handful of times. Our first encounter had been the night that changed everything for me. He had protected me and offered me kindness in the face of evil. I had thought that maybe he would be some kind of solace in this darkness. But the man was stoic, unmoving, and quiet. He only ever spoke a few words, and when he did, he made sure that they counted.

I got dressed quickly and grabbed my medical bag that I had placed by my door several times like this. To think that I used to do the exact same thing for when I was heading to the clinic, and now I was doing it to sew up mafia soldiers.

I followed Rodrigo out of the penthouse and into the hallway.

“What’s his condition?”

“Bad.” He pressed the button and we waited for the elevator to make its way to us.

“I need a little more of that. Where has he been shot? How old is he? Is he allergic to any medications? Does he have any medical conditions I should know of? Blood pressure? Diabetes? Anemia?”

Rodrigo didn’t even spare me a glance as we ambled into the elevator. The doors closed in on us, enveloping the space in a tense silence.

“We don’t know any of that information, doctor. What I can tell you is that he is just a kid who was trying to clear his dad’s debt. You need to save him.”

“That is no help at all.”

“I heard what you did for Adrian that night in your clinic. You’re good, and I know you have dealt with much more graphic and horrific cases than the one you’re about to see. You will be able to save him. That’s why the boss brought you on in the first place.”

“He brought me on because he wants to fuck me.” I was not usually one who was so unfiltered, but the truth was the truth. If the little incident in my room had proven one thing, it was that Manuel Gomez wanted in my pants.

I had seen it in his eyes. This was all a game to him that he had every intention of winning; whether that was going to be done fairly or not was a question that was yet to be answered.

The doors opened again to the basement floor, where a car was waiting for us.

“He may want to fuck you, doc. But that still doesn’t negate the fact that you have skills we require.” Rodrigo stepped out and walked to the car.

His words hit me far harder than I had wanted them to. I shook my head, trying to clear the negative thoughts from my mind.

I had a job to do. My complicated relationship with a certain mafia king could wait.