Page 66 of Bound to Him

“Very true, very true.” Antonio nodded. “I hope you’ve brought us the product.”

“Of course.” He looked to his left, where two of his men each stepped forward with black bags and put them on the table, zipping them open before stepping away again.

“Vinnie,” Antonio said, still watching Christian.

Vinnie and his crewman checked the contents of the bags and cut one of the packs open to test the white powder.

“So, Christian, have you brought anything else for me?” Antonio asked.

He smiled. “If you are happy with the product, Don Antonio, then I’d like to propose this agreement.”

Another of his men stepped forward and pulled a pack of papers from his jacket; he intended to hand it to Antonio, but I stopped him and took them myself. Christian watched me with curiosity in his eyes.

After handing Antonio the document, I repositioned myself behind him. He started to page through, scanning all the small print. It didn’t really matter, since we weren’t planning on letting Christian leave this building. Not alive anyway. We just needed to pick our moment.

“It’s good, Boss,” Vinnie said.

“And what of the agreement?” Christian asked. “Do you have any questions or clauses to add?”

Antonio took another few seconds to read before he lifted his eyes. “A few.”

Then he stood up and dropped the papers onto the table. Sliding his hands into his pockets, he approached Christian.

“First question, what is it that you have on the commissioner?”

Christian’s face faltered. “Ah, I’m not sure what you’re getting at—”

“I don’t need to know… I’m just curious.” Antonio stood right in front of him with a straight face.

“The commissioner has nothing to do with this,” Christian said, looking uncomfortable, and reached into his jacket. Antonio nodded, turned around, and walked back over to us, slowly.

“What about the girls?” he asked, still not facing him.

“What girls?” Christian spat out impatiently.

“The ones you’ve drugged, raped, and sold.” Antonio stopped, back at his chair.

Christian’s eyes widened, and he looked at me in confusion before pulling out his gun. In quick succession, all 10 of his men pulled out guns and pointed them at us. We didn’t flinch.

“What the fuck is going on here?” Christian asked angrily. “I could kill you all right now! Don’t fuck with me!”

“You might have some trouble doing that,” Antonio said, finally turning back around and facing Christian, who laughed.

“I don’t think so—”

His laughing commentary stopped in its tracks when 20 of our men appeared from the shadows, a mixture of Morettis and Romanos. Tony stepped out from behind the oil drum beside me, his gun pointed at Christian whose eyes darted around the place, seeing the men positioned high up at the top level and even behind his own men. Finally, his eyes stopped on mine. I smiled.

“You fucking traitor!” he shouted and pointed his gun at me. “You lied to me!”

Immediately, he opened up fire. Searing pain spread through my arm as I was hit, and I dropped to the ground for cover. Tony let off his shot at Christian, dropping him while gunfire rained throughout the place and men began falling.

“Fuck!” I shouted; everything was happening so fast. I looked to the side and saw Vinnie pulling Antonio to cover. As fast as I could, I used my good arm, pulled my gun out, and aimed—I shot the man aiming at Antonio, dropped him, looked left and saw a man running toward me. Before I could aim, he was taken out by a bullet to the temple, coming from the left-hand side. Looking left, I saw Tony with his hand out to me.

“Come!”

Scrambling for cover, I leopard crawled toward him, and he pulled me by my coat until I was behind the oil drum with him.

“You shot?” he asked me, looking around the drum and ducking back in when a bullet ricocheted past him.

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