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

Chapter 18

Chapter Eighteen

Juliette POV

I couldn’t duck and dodge him forever. I knew that eventually I would see him again, but I wanted to prolong that moment for as long as possible.

What happened last week was a slip. It wasn’t meant to happen. I had so much pent-up emotion, and it had nowhere else to go.

So, I’d fucked him.

“Oh God,” I groaned as I walked into the elevator. I leaned my head against the glass wall and looked up at the ceiling. The light bounced off of the crystals in the chandelier, adding to the elegance and wealth the building exuded.

If you had told me a month ago that I would be living in one of Chicago’s most illustrious buildings and sharing a bed with the mafia king, I would have called you crazy.

But that was what my life was.

I didn’t know how I had gone from my ordinary and regular life as a doctor just trying to make a true difference in the world, to now being fully embedded in the nitty-gritty world of the mafia.

All I needed to do was keep it in my damn pants. It was easy, simple, but I had failed dismally. I should have kept my distance. I should have never allowed myself to falter like that.

The doors to the elevator opened and I stepped into the large hallway.

Here goes .

I dragged my feet towards the penthouse hoping that I wouldn’t run into the last man I wanted to see. I had no idea what his schedule was like today. I didn’t know what his day-to-day looked like. The mafia didn’t have a schedule that they followed, I had to guess, did it?

9 AM: Execute my enemies.

11 AM: Brunch with my dealers.

It was truly comical when I thought about it.

I came to a halt in front of the door and waited. I stared at the hardwood door dreading opening it and finding him inside.

Manuel was rarely home early. I usually heard him trudging his way to his room in the wee hours of the morning. I was sure I was safe, but then again you never knew when it came to that man.

I walked into the house and headed toward the kitchen, but I stopped when I noticed a large figure lying down on the couch. Upon closer inspection, I noticed who it was.

My entire body seized at the sight of him. This was the first time I had seen him since we had sex. To think I had managed to dodge him this entire week only to just stumble upon him by complete chance.

Manuel stirred on the couch and then he grumbled something inaudible, but I caught my name at the end. For a split second, I thought he was awake and that he’d seen me.

I closed my eyes, wishing that I could turn myself invisible. I peeled one eye open and looked down at his sleeping form. He had rolled over, and I could see his face fully now, but it was only then that I noticed how pale he looked.

Was he sick?

“Manuel?” I dropped my bags onto the floor and rushed to the front of the couch. His chest rose and fell a little too labored for my liking.

“Manuel?” I pressed the back of my hand on his forehead. “My God, you’re burning up.”

His eyes fluttered open, barely. “ Amor ?”

The croak in his voice told me all I needed to know.

“You’re sick, Manuel.” I took his wrist in my hand and started counting his heartbeats.

“You’ve been… avoiding me.”

“Sh.” Eighty-eight, eighty-nine… ninety . “Okay, your heart rate is a little high right now. I need you to sit up for me.”

My mind was moving on auto-pilot.

I was almost certain that he was dealing with the common cold, but for some reason, I was second-guessing myself.

“Manuel, up.” I tried to heave him up into a sitting position, but his body was so massive that I barely lifted him off the leather of the couch. “Come on, help me.”

He groaned, his eyebrows pulling together in a frown. “Sleep…”

“I need to listen to your chest, so I know if it’s clear or not.” I heaved him up again, and this time he sat up.

I walked back to my bag and pulled out my stethoscope. I got to work, examining him and making sure he was okay. I even went as far as to check his oxygen saturation. But by the time I was done, Manuel was a little more aware and his eyes were fully open. I did my best to avoid eye contact, but it was hard seeing as I was looking over his face.

“You won’t look at me.” His words filled the thick of the silence. “You've been avoiding me.”

“No, I haven’t,” I said, a little too quickly for my liking. I cleared my throat and tried to summon up as much courage as possible. “I mean, I’ve just been busy, that’s all. I took up a few extra shifts.”

“To avoid me.”

“No.” I used my fingertips to feel around his throat for any swelling. “I wanted to take a few extra shifts.”

“So that you could avoid me.” He wasn't going to let up on this issue. “We fucked, amor . That changes a few things, I understand, but that doesn’t mean that you need to completely ice me out.”

“We shouldn’t have done that,” I muttered under my breath. “It was a mistake.”

“It wasn’t for me, and I have a feeling that it wasn’t for you either.”

His voice softened like he was speaking to a frightened creature.

“You have a cold.” I reached for my bag and pulled out some paracetamol. “Take these for your fever. I’ll go and make you some food in the kitchen.”

Before he could protest, I got up and headed to the kitchen. I all but sprinted away, to put much-needed distance between the two of us.

I got to work on the chicken soup, and all the while my mind was plagued with thoughts of Manuel.

The problem wasn’t that we’d had sex. Sex could be just sex if you allowed it to be. The real issue was that I felt weird in my chest when I was around him.

Before, it had been nothing more than a fantasy, something that had no way of manifesting into reality. But now? The lines had been crossed, and the complicated feelings had emerged.

I knew myself well, and my heart tended to lead a lot of my life. I could not be as reckless as I had been before. I needed to proceed with caution when it came to him.

I took about an hour to make him his soup before I walked back to the living room area. He sat on the couch, watching some old-school romance film.

When I walked around the couch, his neck moved in my direction. His eyes moved from the tray in my hand to my face and then back again.

“It’s chicken soup. You need something warm to help dislodge any mucus.”

He was silent for a moment, simply observing me. His face looked a little better, but he was still a little too pale.

“Come here, amor .” He opened his arm out to me.

“You need to eat.”

“Come here,” he said again, but this time with a little more conviction in his tone. “ Please .”

In all the time I had known this man, I had never heard him say the word please.

I put the tray down and made my way over to him. I took my place beside him and allowed him to pull me toward his chest.

The logic inside my head told me to pull away and keep some space between us. But my internal mind was in a frenzy.

“Please,” he uttered the foreign word on his lips. “Just for now.”

I would be lying if I said me laying on his chest didn’t feel right.

It felt so good, like I was meant to be there. I didn’t want to get up. We fit like a perfect puzzle piece.

Woah, I was getting ahead of myself. We didn’t need to revisit that night. It was a mistake that would be left in the past from this moment on.

I closed my eyes and willed my body into relaxation, but it didn’t take much effort on my part. For the first time since I met Manuel, I didn’t feel on edge or like I needed to keep my guard up. I was at peace, and that was far more dangerous than viewing him as a threat.

I was swimming in uncharted waters, and I needed to find a way to stay afloat.