Page 12 of Bound to the Crime Lord

He was diagnosed two years after I took him in, and our worlds were never quite the same after that. Ethan had been extremely athletic, but due to his condition, he had to give up swimming and tennis. He was incredibly gifted in both, and he had talked about wanting to go PRO one day.

I blinked away the tears that threatened to leave my eyes.

No, I had spent the whole day without getting emotional. I couldn’t go home with red eyes. Ethan would see, and then it would affect him. I didn’t want him to see me so… broken.

I took the elevator down to the basement parking. My mind started turning with ideas of how I was going to come up with the money. I had only just taken out a mortgage for the house. Ethan’s trust fund had about 80,000 in it, but I refused to touch it. That was the money that he would get to use for his future.

Make a deal with the devil…

I shook my head, trying to shake off that heinous thought. There was no way in hell that I was going to go back to him. I refused to give him the satisfaction of knowing that he was right.

You will come back. They always do.

That man had some nerve. Who the hell did he think he was? I was not a killer, nor a murderer. I had sworn on oath to do no harm, so why would he ever think that me joining his little murder club would be logical?

The doors of the elevator opened and I stepped out. My mind was so busy cursing out the dumb Drug Lord, I didn’t even notice it until it was too late.

A dark figure came from around one of the pillars and grabbed my arm. He pulled on it hard and tried to move metowards what seemed to be a white van on the other side of the parking area.

My body moved on autopilot, my fight-or-flight response kicking in effectively. I twisted my body and then used the momentum to surge my leg backward and get the guy in the thigh.

Dammit, I missed my desired target.

I managed to break free from his hold, but my bag fell on the floor, my papers flying everywhere.

I didn’t wait to pick up my papers, so instead, I took off running in a random direction. I pushed my legs as fast as they could carry me, hoping that I would find someone to help.

I felt a whooshing sound by my ear, followed by a few pops.

Dread leaked into my system as the adrenaline carried me forward. He had a gun. The man had a gun, and he was shooting at me.

Oh God, oh God.

The only thing I could think about at that moment was my little brother. I needed to stay alive for him. If I died, then he would have no one, and that possible treatment in Switzerland would be too far out of reach for him.

I plowed my feet into the floor harder and picked up my pace. I turned and moved from pillar to pillar trying to avoid the bullets from hitting me. I weaved in and out, trying to make myself a hard target to catch.

The bullets flew past my ears, missing by only a mere millimeters.

“Help!Help!” I screamed at the top of my lungs.

Seemingly out of nowhere, three men in black suits jumped out with guns pointed right at me. They fired and I closed my eyes, waiting for the bullets to pierce my body. But the seconds ticked by and nothing came.

I dared to open my eyes and the three men still stood in front of me with the guns pointed in my direction, but it was only then I realized, they weren’t pointed at me. They were pointed behind me at the man who had been chasing after me.

I looked over my shoulder and saw the assailant lying on the floor with blood pooling out of his body.

“Disfates del cuerpo,” one of the men in front of me said.

Body. He was telling the other two to get rid of the body.

My stomach lurched, my eyes still trained on the dead body behind me. The adrenaline was slowly wearing off, and my body was coming down from the intense burst of energy.

I had been shot at. I had been running away from a man who was shooting at me.

I clutched my stomach, the late lunch I had threatening to make a reappearance. The bile rose from my belly and surged upward. I shut my lips and held back the flow. I tried to keep it down, but as the adrenaline wore off the anxiety and unease filtered in. The world moved, but my body remained in the same place.

Why was the world spinning?

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