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

Chapter 25

Chapter Twenty-Five

Juliette POV

“ Y ou’re pouting again,” Hilda smirked at me as I handed her the patient chart. “The man has been gone for two days.”

“First of all, I’m not pouting.” I was most certainly pouting. I had been pouting for the past two days since Manuel hopped on his jet and went to Mexico. “Second, I’m allowed to miss my boyfriend. It’s not a crime, now, is it?”

I knew that this was what he had to do for himself and his father. But I hated that he was going alone.

He is not alone , my brain tried to reason with me, but I was too needy right now to think logically.

I pulled my hair into a tight ponytail, trying to busy my hands so I wasn’t just standing doing nothing. “I just didn’t realize how accustomed to his presence I had become.”

I slept in his bed the other night and it felt extremely cold without him. I had even dug my way into his closet and pulled out one of his large hoodies so I could sleep in it.

Was I being weird?

“Can I just say in all my years of knowing you I have never seen you interested in a man of any sort? Who knew it would take a Mafia kingpin to melt away the hard exterior around your heart.” She winked at me and handed the chart to one of the nurses milling around the clinic.

“Shut up,” I glared at her mockingly. “It’s not even that big of a deal.”

“Not a big deal?” She gawked at me. “You literally just called him your boyfriend. You, Juliette Ballard, are dating Manuel Gomez. The Chicago mafia king who has politicians and criminals alike putty in his hands. The man is known to fuck women like dogs, not caress them and profess sweet nothings. This is a huge deal.”

I blushed. “Well, when you put it like that.”

If I was being quite honest, I still didn’t know how I ended up here. I had been adamant that I would not fall in love with this man. I had told myself to only view him as the devil himself. But somewhere between the near-death experiences and the gentleness he handled me with, I had fallen for him.

There were no warning signs or cautionary indicators. One minute I was on solid ground, and the next, I was falling into the great abyss that was Manuel Gomez.

“He makes you happy.” Hilda stared at me knowingly. “You glow from within now.”

“What do you mean?”

She lifted her shoulders and shrugged. “I mean exactly that. You didn’t have this light that you carry now, before. You had this heaviness in your heart due to all the issues with your brother and you having to place him first. But ever since that man walked into your life, you seem so light, like you aren’t carrying the weight of the world on your shoulders anymore. Not that much, at least. As funny as it may sound, the mafia boss gave you a sense of peace for the first time in your life.”

I digested her words for a moment. The longer I mused over them, the more I realized just how true they were.

It was ironic, really, that a man who had brought about so much chaos and unrest in many people’s lives, particularly the authorities, was a source of stability for me .

We shouldn’t have worked out. I should have been repulsed by everything he stood for. We were too different, too far apart due to our opposing views, yet here I was, falling deeper in love with the guy by the day.

Life had a funny way of twisting and winding your fate unexpectedly.

“For all he is painted out to be by the world, he is a good man. Far better than most men who pretend to wear white cloaks and stand for justice.”

“You know him well?”

Hilda shook her head. “Only through the fact that he is currently paying for Aiden’s tuition fees at NYU. When he went to go and ask to get out of the Brotherhood, Manuel didn’t even bat an eyelash. He told Aiden to apply where he wanted and he would help him kickstart his new life.”

I was stunned into silence. I had no idea that he was capable of such selflessness. Yes, he had helped Ethan, but there had been the trade-off. I was to supply my services to his organization, and he would pay for my brother’s treatments in return. The more I learned about this man, the less 'devilish’ he seemed to me. In fact, I would argue that he was more human than some of the advocates who cosplayed as good people.

If you had told me six months ago that I would be looking at the Chicago kingpin in a whole new light, I would have laughed in your face. But one thing that being with Manuel had taught me was that not everything was black and white; some things were in fact grey. Grey didn't necessarily mean bad but was sometimes necessary.

“He’s a good one, Juliette.” Hilda gave me this motherly look that told me there was obviously more. “But as good as he is, he does live in a dangerous world. He has far more enemies than you can count, and death follows him at every corner. That will need to be something you come to terms with.”

I hummed my agreement. These were all things that I had considered when I first allowed myself to fall into this with him. I wasn’t na?ve.

He was a good man to me, but it did not mean that he was an upstanding member of society. I didn’t care, though. I didn’t care what he was to everyone else. I only cared what he was to me.

I didn’t know what that said about me.

I had colored inside the lines for all my life. I didn’t want to end up like my parents, and I made sure that I stuck to the straight and narrow. But since falling into this new world that I had been introduced to, I had never felt more alive. I had never felt more like a woman. I was no longer this stiff-lipped doctor who had to dote on her little brother. Manuel allowed me to take the backseat and just breathe while he took care of everything for me.

If choosing ease and adventure was stupid, then insanity was where I would reside.

My shift ended at 11 PM, and I was tired from the constant ups and downs I had to do. I checked my phone for the hundredth time that day, waiting for Manuel to respond to my last text. Last I had heard, he was going to see his uncle in his hometown village.

I knew that he was deep in investigation mode, but I was feeling needy, and not having him close to me made me feel antsy.

As I neared my car, I paused when I realized I had not been met by Leo at the door. That was odd.

One of the conditions that Manuel had set before he left was that I was to have 24/7 security. But somehow my security had managed to vanish.

Instant panic filled my body. This was eerily reminiscent of that very first night, when I had been at the mercy of those of The Triad.

I turned to head back into the clinic, but I rammed into a talk dark figure. His arm came around me and his hand went over my mouth to stifle my screams.

I thrashed around in his hold, trying to break free, but the man was double my height and twice my size.

Adrenaline filled my bones, inducing the bravery within me even though the panic had already cemented itself in my bones. I had to break free from this hold.

The man lifted me off my feet and started to drag me away.

I couldn’t allow him to take me to another location, because that was where they were likely going to kill me. I needed to fight as hard as I could or die trying.

All I could think of at that moment was my little brother and Manuel. I needed to survive for them. I needed to stay safe for them. I had made a promise to Manuel that when he came back, I would be right here waiting for him in one piece. I had yet to ever break a promise, and I wasn’t about to start now.

I bit down on the guy's hand and luckily it was enough for him to loosen his hold and for me to break free.

As soon as my feet hit the ground, I took off running. But instead of heading to the clinic, which would have put Hilda and everyone else in there in danger, I bolted down the street.

“Get her!” the guy called out from behind me, but I didn’t dare look back.

I pumped my legs faster, trying to gain as much speed as possible. I was relying on being able to somehow find someone able to help me to?—

“Oh my God.” I smacked right into a hard chest. For a second, I thought it was one of the men that were after me, but when I looked up, I locked eyes with Leo. “Leo! Thank goodness it’s you. There are men after me, and they…”

My voice trailed off when I noticed the hard look on his face. He was staring at me with the kind of malice that would usually be targeted at an enemy. But I wasn’t his enemy… at least that was what I had believed.

“Leo?”

“I’m sorry you had to go get caught up in all of this.” He stepped forward with a syringe in his hand. “This is likely going to hurt.”

I tried to pull away from him, but it was too late.

He plunged the needle in the hallow between my shoulder and neck, injecting whatever liquid he had inside the syringe.

Within seconds, I felt the effects of whatever had been forced into me. My legs gave out from under me as I slammed into his hard chest. Leo held me in his arms, staring at me with a conflicted gaze in his eyes.

“W… why?” I muttered under my breath. The weight of my eyelids increased with each passing second, no matter how hard I fought to keep consciousness.

Leo looked me dead in the eye when he uttered the words. “Diego would like to see you.”

And then everything went black for me.