My father sold me to the Mafia King-Chapter 43/Shadows of Truth

Chapter 43

Robert’s Point of View

We were sitting in the office, a heavy silence enveloping the place. It wasn’t an ordinary silence; it was the silence of two men who couldn’t believe their pride had just been shattered at the hands of an eighteen year old girl.

She had kicked us out with a coldness as if we were merely her servants.

Carlos finally spoke, his voice carrying a tone I had never known in him before:

"Robert... this girl makes me feel alive. And as much as I admire her intelligence, I equally want to cut her head off."

I laughed sarcastically at his contradictory words and said:

"Carlos, don’t tell me this girl has finally managed to play with your mind."

His features changed instantly, and his expression tightened as if I had insulted him:

"No one plays with my mind, Robert... I am Carlos Mendoza. She simply fascinates me with her rebellion and her sharp tongue."

I looked at him seriously and added:

"But she provokes you, Carlos, and she hits you where it hurts with the subject of age every time. You were on the verge of committing a crime back there if I hadn’t intervened at the right time."

I saw him recalling the tape of the confrontation in his mind, then he said, sighing:

"You know I can’t control my nerves, Robert... and I always envy you for your damn coldness."

I leaned back in my luxurious leather chair and said calmly:

"Everyone has different temperaments, but you must learn how to control your fires, my friend."

He replied, tightening his grip on his golden cane:

"Tomorrow, I will come to see her again."

I felt a prick of annoyance, and responded with firm speed:

"No, Carlos... I told you, you must let me break her in alone. You cannot handle her while she is this wild."

His face twisted in mockery, and his eyebrows rose in defiance:

"Are you forbidding me from seeing her, Robert?"

"I’m not forbidding you..."

I said, trying to soften my tone,

"but you know the consequences of entering her room. She will continue to provoke you, and you won’t endure it, and I don’t want things to end in a disaster in my club."

He replied seriously, fixing his gaze into my eyes:

"I will come tomorrow, Robert... and don’t worry, I won’t succumb to her provocations again."

His persistence was fueling my suppressed anger. I don’t want Carlos to get near her, and I cannot trust him alone with her; Carlos is a man who kills to find peace, and he has no problem ending Julie’s life if she scratches his pride once more.

I said in a final attempt to steer him away:

"Are you leaving all those girls who are waiting for a signal from you to have sex, and preferring to enter Julie’s room, who does nothing but insult you?"

He placed his hand on his jaw, a strange glint appearing in his eyes, and said:

"She has something special, Robert... her intelligence, her unexpected responses, and how she rebelled on stage in front of everyone like that... all of this makes me relish watching her. She is a ’challenge’ I haven’t faced in a long time."

I laughed sarcastically as I exhaled my cigar smoke, trying to hide my tension behind my usual mask of coldness:

"My friend Carlos... this girl represents strength only, but from the inside, she is fragile and will break quickly. Just give me a little time."

Carlos looked at me with a piercing gaze, the look of a man who knows me more than I know myself, and said mockingly:

"Is that why you gave her the books, Robert? And is that why I found her that day sitting here in your office? How was she able to reach your private office while she is supposed to be a prisoner in a locked room?"

I felt his words stabbing like needles into my pride; he was trying to make me look like the weakling who succumbed to her demands, the man who lost control over his "property" to the point of granting her the freedom to roam the club.

I replied with forced calmness:

"These are my methods for breaking her, Carlos... I give her what she wants until she relaxes, then I pull the rug out from under her feet."

Carlos smiled with biting sarcasm and leaned forward, saying:

"Admit it, Robert... you have already lost to her."

I didn’t answer, but I felt my jaw muscles clench. Carlos completed his painful strikes:

"Tell me... since when did you care about entering the girls’ rooms here?"

I swallowed his poisoned words, feeling them burning my chest from the inside. Carlos was putting his finger on a wound I wasn’t ready to admit yet.

I looked at him stolidly, and corrected him with a sharp tone:

"I don’t lose, Carlos... but Julie is a special case; no one in this club can put her in her place. Olivia doesn’t have enough control to handle her rebellion, so it was necessary for me to be present myself."

I turned my gaze away from him, and continued with a tone full of dark threat:

"Give me just a little while... and you will see how I will make her unable to utter even a single word in my presence.

I will tame that sharp tongue until it forgets how to voice an objection."

Carlos smiled a final smile that carried all the meanings of doubt, and said in a confident tone:

"Fine... we shall see, my friend."

He left the office, leaving behind air charged with defiance.

I stood behind my massive desk, adjusting my suit jacket and clenching my fists until my knuckles turned white.

I am Robert Cross, the man whose stature has never bowed to a storm, and a young girl who hasn’t tasted the bitterness of life yet cannot be an opponent to me or drag me to the field of defeat.

I walked out of the office with wide strides. I found Olivia in the corridor; I looked at her stolidly and said:

"Olivia, you take over the customers and the girls in the hall entirely... I am in no mood to enter that noise tonight."

She answered with blind obedience:

"Yes, I will do that, Mr. Robert."

I descended the stairs with heavy steps; my mind was boiling. I wasn’t heading to Julie’s room this time; rather, I needed Sarah.

Sarah is my quiet sanctuary, the only room I enter to lay my weapons aside and forget the pressures of the club, the corporate conflicts, and the drug shipments that haunt me like my shadow. I wanted calm; I wanted to regain my sense of control and sovereignty.

I reached her door, opened it with my strong hand, but my body froze in place, and my eyes widened with a shock that paralyzed my movement.

Sarah wasn’t alone... Julie was there.

She was sitting coldly on Sarah’s bed, in her purple pajamas that seemed provocative in their simplicity, and she was eating ravenously from a food plate.

I stood before her, shock paralyzing my logical thinking. How? How was she able to enter this room specifically? Suddenly, the truth hit my head like a lightning bolt: the key.

I gave her that damn key for her room, but is she that sharp-witted to know it’s a "master key" that opens every door in the hallway? This goes beyond intelligence; it is a dangerous cunning.

Sarah was drowning in a sea of tension and confusion, her breath nearly stopping from terror, while Julie... Julie was looking at me with a coldness that provoked every fiber of my being. There was no regret in her eyes; instead, there was that rebellious spark telling me she wasn’t afraid.

I lost my patience completely. I stepped toward her with angry strides, grabbed her arm, and said through clenched teeth:

"Get up... now!"

I expected fear from her, I expected pleading, but she is Julie... the girl who does not submit. She looked at me with eyes burning with anger, and said in a voice as sharp as a blade:

"How many times have I told you not to touch me? Are you an idiot or what?"