Page 15 of Cardinal

Guess Juliet had more of a fire in her than I credited her for.

Time to feed it and turn it into a raging wildfire.

Chapter 8

Luciano

Leaving Juliet in the car proved harder than I expected.

I knew she'd be safe, but seeing her tiny form behind the tinted window of my car caused a wave of worry to wash over me as I ascended the stairs to the front door of the gaudy mansion.

Whipping my head back, I took one last look at Juliet before turning my full attention back to the front doors and kicking the heavy, intricately decorated wood in. The poor workers who were nearby jumped at the sudden crash that echoed throughout the foyer. "Arnold and Ana! Your pathetic asses better be here as you agreed, or we're going to have major problems!" I shouted into the place, hoping the small threat would be enough to pull them out of their pathetic hiding holes.

The head of a balding man darted out from around a corner. "M-mister Ag—" The shaky voice of a fearful man barely dented the thick air.

Scowling, I raised my deepened voice, "Did I say you could speak up? I only demanded you show yourself, not run your stupid mouth. Where is your wife?" She was nowhere in sight from a quick sweep of my eyes. "The agreement was for both of you to be present." The fewer questions and pushback from them, the better, and what better way to ensure their cooperation than a healthy dose of fear. "Here is what's going to happen. You and your wife are going to take my men and me into your stupid home office where business will be discussed. Then, you are going to ensure that everyone makes themselves scarce. If I catch a glimpse of someone, I will shoot them on the spot." Now, that last part wasn't an empty threat, and they should know better, given my reputation. "Understood?"

Arnold's head bobbed rapidly in response before he scampered away up the staircase with me right on his tail. In the background, I could hear the others scattering like rats for a few seconds before dead silence filled the place, and our footfalls against the marble floor filled its place when we resumed our trip to the office. Once inside, I made myself right at home behind the desk, even taking some extra effort to kick my feet up onto the flat surface after I leaned back in the chair.

"I'm not going to waste any more time here than I should because I have much more important matters to attend to, so do me a favor and sign the papers that my men are going to hand to you without any arguments. After the papers are signed, I will give you ten million along with a set of instructions." Oh yeah, this was highly illegal, but we were gonna make it legal in our fucked up little underground mafia world.

"But wha—"

Juliet's father—Arnold—quickly shut his mouth with a pointed glare from me. "Sign. No questions, no looking, just sign your name on those lines as if your life depends on it because it does." It'd be a lot easier to twist their arms once they essentially sign their life away to me.

Minutes passed, and the sounds of papers shuffling around and pens scribbling across the fibrous surface scratched the air. Once the lawyer gave me the okay after looking over the papers—I had to make it look somewhat legal to scare her parents some more—I threw the case of money onto the desk and opened it to reveal stacks upon stacks of bundled bills. "From now on, if anyone asks, Juliet was promised to me at a young age because of poor decisions on your part at a casino establishment of mine. The deal between us was that you sold your daughter to save your own hide, and we are to wed in the year after she turns eighteen. You were shitty people and never kept me in the loop about her growing up, and now she's in my safe hands after all these years. Deviate from that story or try to say anything else, and you'll be less fortunate than the rats that scour the city's sewers. Everything you ever owned or touched, anything with your name tied to it, will be fully transferred to me before I smear your name to all of the world."

The fury on the Chau's faces made me crack a twisted smile as I continued after holding up a hand to stop their outburst. "Oh, and if you try to say anything, those papers you just signed will say otherwise. Maybe you should have fought more to read what you were signing your life away to." As if I would've let them; I just wanted to rub it into their faces. "The ten million should be sufficient enough to keep you quiet, and if you try to extort me for anything more, then I'll just pull the papers out and proceed to ruin you for ten lifetimes."

"Y-you can't do this! We've done nothing to you! And you tricked us! Coerced us into signing!" Ana practically wailed in an unpleasantly cracked voice. "There's no way it'll hold! What does Juliet even have to do with any of this? She's not our problem anymore, so talk it out with that brothel owner!"

"Oh? Do you have any proof that you were coerced? All my men here who witnessed this would say otherwise." I remarked snidely with a cocky smirk, running my hand across my jaw and holding it there to hide the crazed grin that spread underneath. "And you may have done nothing to me, but you defiled and wronged Juliet as much as the bastards you sold her to for your stupid debt. She is mine now. Therefore, any slight against her is one against me. You fucked up, and my attention came to you the moment I found Juliet battered in the street after she was raped by scum who deserve worse things than death."

If she couldn't take her revenge, I'd do it for her. Her parents would forever look over their shoulders as long as I lived; they would never know a moment of peace starting now. "I know there are shitty parents in this damned world, but you manipulated her and lulled her into a false sense of twisted affection, then wronged her. You're supposed to be her parents. You are supposed to care and cherish her like the most precious thing in the world, yet you did none of that and took it a step further by discarding her like trash. If I hadn't given her my word that I wouldn't dispose of you, then you'd be dying in a pool of your own blood by now."

I didn't think I'd get so riled up about this, at least not to this extent. Sure, I knew I'd feel some anger toward her parents for how they utterly wronged her. But seeing their stupid, terrified faces mere feet from me struck a different chord in me. It pissed me off how they weren't worried one bit for Juliet, not even a simple 'how is she doing' or anything remotely about her well-being.

Yeah, I barely knew her for two whole days, but I was never wrong about people. If—for some odd reason—I was, her being a total bitch of a brat still wouldn't be a remotely acceptable excuse for what her parents did to her. Nothing shy of maybe her being some deplorable abuser herself—and even then, it was a huge maybe—would possibly warrant such a thing from her parents.

"Are you really so fucked up that you don't even care for your own flesh and blood?" I wanted to know what went on in their empty heads because I honestly didn't fully grasp it. Well, more like I didn't want to understand and accept it. I've heard stories and knew things like this happened, but Juliet was the first case for me where it was right there in my face. Juliet was the physical proof of the aftermath I've held, touched, and connected to.

Nervously, Arnold chuckled as he stood up warily and held his hands out to calm his wife down while smiling at me with such a sickly, sweet, but fake smile that made me want to rip his mouth off his face. "She knew what was expected of her. She was only of use to us as a commodity." His lips twitched as he struggled to maintain himself. "Listen, I don't know what she's told you, but she knew what her life was to be growing up. We're not the bad guys here. She's just played you." Chuckling nervously, he rubbed his hands together. "I apologize for my wife's outburst. She's been very distressed about Juliet's disappearance, and you know how women are and how they tend to overreact without thinking." The liar couldn't keep his eyes on me as his words flew out of his mouth.

Clicking my tongue out of annoyance and anger, I pulled my gun out and slammed it on the table with a clenched jaw. "I don't like liars or rats, both of whom you are right now. Not only do you not give a damn about your own daughter, but you dare call Lady Heral a liar? And you dare lie straight to my face despite the dirt I have on you and try to manipulate me?" Slowly, I drummed my fingers on the desk as I spoke angrily. "You must really have a death wish. Lady Heral has already told me everything before I bought Juliet from her to save her from the hell you put her in."

"Then why are you bothering us? Why the lie you are forcing us to sell?" Arnold snapped back with a little too much gusto for my liking.

Slamming my hand down on the desk, I stood and picked up my gun to hold it menacingly in front of me. "It's not a lie. It is what is going to happen. I have my reasons, and you don't need to know it. Just muse my whims." Unloading the lie for them would possibly give them ammunition against me, so like hell, I'd explain myself to them. Besides, I had different plans, and explaining it all to them was an unneeded headache.

"What about after you marry Juliet? She is still our daughter, so we will be—"

I had a good guess as to where she headed with her words, and it ground my gears the wrong way. "Juliet will be an Agosti. After we leave here today, your ties with her are severed and buried, and vice versa. You two will have nothing to do with each other. There will be no joined family, no in-laws, none of that bull crap. Our business with each other is done the moment I leave that door, and don't even think about contacting me or her for anything unless it's to grovel for your actions. And before you try anything, I suggest you read the copies of the papers you just signed. I wouldn't want you and anyone related to you in name to lose everything." Lowering my gun, I kept my finger on the trigger just in case as I made my way to the door.

"That's it? You're just buying us off and cutting Juliet out of our lives like that? What kind of monster are you to do that to a family?" The audacity of this woman. Never before have I ever wanted to physically lay my hands on a woman until now. It'd be so easy to lash my hand out and catch her face, but fortunately for her, my parents raised me better than that.

"Unlike you, I am doing what is best for Juliet," I remarked with an arrogant smirk before throwing the door open. "Don't expect a wedding invitation." I chuckled before exiting the room and slamming the door shut.

Taking a deep breath, I ran a hand down my face before looking at one of my men by the door. "Make sure they don't leave this room until Juliet and I are off the premises. If they even so much as stick the tip of their finger under the door crack, cut it off." Or smash the digit to pieces to make them suffer, but I didn't want my men and I to spend any more time in this damned place than we needed to. "If anyone else tries to peek their head in on Juliet while she is here, make sure they're locked back up in a room but do not harm them. The only ones who can be harmed are the Chau's, understood?"

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