Page 40 of Bound to the Crime Lord

I was trying to keep a straight train of thought, but my mind was going at a million miles per minute. Not to mention this headache that just seemed to stick no matter how many drugs I threw at it.

So, instead of speaking, I stepped forward and offered my hand to Andres.

“You look like shit, by the way.” Andres shook my hand. “You should get some sleep.”

I wanted to flip him the bird, but he was right. I felt like my entire body was on fire.

“Still looking better than you, Valdez,” I shot back, but my delivery was not strong enough. “Just so you know, I still think you’re an ass. But thank you for the information on The Triad.”

“Of course. Think of it as payment for your show of mercy to my brother after the incident a few years back.”

Ah yes, there was that one moment when his little brother had nearly started an all-out war between the Spanish and the Mexicans. Had I not stepped in, our families would have been feuding to this very day.

“Debt paid.” I released his hand. “How is your brother?”

“Valerio is… well.” He didn’t sound convincing. “He took my father’s betrayal harder than I did. But it’s to be expected. My brother lives and breathes the Code. It’s in his DNA, and he never strays from its laws. So, when my father did what he did, I knew that he would find it hard. Our papa drilled the Code into us, he told us to honor it and live it. And for him to turn around and spit that very Code back in our faces… It was hard.”

On paper, we were bred to be enemies. We were from two opposing families, and there were times we did indeed look at each other like we were competitors. But there was no one else who better understood what it was like to head a Brotherhood like Andres and Valerio.

From the moment we took our first breath, we inherited enemies, wars, and death. Those were our inheritances, and would be the inheritance of our children to come. It was a dark and twisted circle that would repeat for as long as the Brotherhood stood.

This world was hard, even for devils like ourselves.

Andres left, leaving me in an empty office.

I tried to get through the rest of my workday, but whatever had attacked me in the morning was winning the fight within my body.

I needed to go home.

Between me leaving the office and making my way to the penthouse, I could only remember walking through the door and not making it further than the couch in the living room.

Sweat beaded my forehead and my heart pounded heavily in the middle of my chest. I rarely ever got sick, and of all times for me to be taken down by a microscopic pathogen, it would be the day I learned of my mother’s assassination.

The last thing I remembered before unconsciousness finally pulled me into her cold embrace was that my enemy was far closer to home than I realized.

Chapter Eighteen

Juliette POV

Icouldn’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.

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