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Athena and I met up with Luca in the old corner once again. Rex, however, was absent.

"Rex is posing as one of the guards now," Luca informed us before we could question him. "We took out the ones guarding the doors outside the event. They have metal detectors and confiscated weapons from everyone attending. We should be good."

We all headed in the direction of the little banquet hall where the event was taking place. When we reached the isolated bit of the hotel, Rex stood in different clothes that I assumed were of the guards. We walked right through the metal detectors that flared red. Rex remained outside in the hallway while Athena and I locked our arms with Luca's and entered the room full of abominable humans.

          A man, all decked in black with a matching mask, stood behind a podium between two large columns that led into the main area. He extended his hand, almost robotically, not for a handshake but the gold card that Luca handed.

"Table fourteen. Enjoy," the man said, placing the card among many others.

          In the little hall, the lights were dim with only shades of blue and purple shining above our heads. Despicable humans in tuxedos and masks meandered about. What revolted me the most was the presence of women. Not as many as the men, but quite a few mingled with them. They didn't seem like slaves. They casually conversed with others if the nonchalance in their posture was any indication of that. They were buyers themselves.

          Twenty round, numbered tables littered the area—many already taken by masked men. Hors d'oeuvres lined a long table off to the side with many other delicacies in shiny platters. We made our way toward it. We had to fit in and not allow suspicion by standing in a corner and waiting for Lawrence Kane to make an appearance, especially since I couldn't spot an armless man in the room.

          The food was too fancy and nothing I recognized as I moved along.

          "Baklava?" Luca offered, holding a small piece of dessert pastry in my direction that I immediately recoiled from.

          "Keep that away from me."

          "You don't like Baklava? What the bloody hell is wrong with you?"

          "It has nuts and I'm allergic to nuts."

          "Is that so?" Luca's mouth quirked up in a smirk. "I bet you're not allergic to—"

          "Finish that sentence and I'll kick your nuts right into your mouth," I threatened and walked along the table, looking at anything I'd like to eat, but I didn't trust the food they served either.

          "I gather you must've heard this before," Luca deduced, walking beside me as I scouted the entities in the room. "Leo, I presume?"

          "Which is why you don't get to say it."

          "Why does a man like him get to have you?" Luca lowered his voice over the music and leaned in to say the words to avoid Athena's ears who walked a couple of feet ahead of us. "A striking beauty with a viciously sharp yet delicious tongue."

          "Don't flatter yourself. The only reason you got to taste my delicious tongue was because I thought you were Leo." I nudged him away with my shoulder. "And a man like him? Do tell."

          "A monster," he stated.

          "My monster," I corrected.

          "A murderer."

          "As am I." I shot him a glare. "And as are you. Don't paint yourself out to be any better."

          "But I am," he countered then threw a small delicacy in his mouth. "You're already facing too many obstacles even before you've officially taken the title of his wife or the queen. All queens tend to share a miserable fate. A life with me will be much safer for you."

          "You keep bringing this up over and over again. Why?" I questioned, stopping in my tracks to face him. "What is this obsession of you trying to steal me from Leo?"

          "You're a good woman. You're not like them. I'm trying to save you because I care for you."

          "You owe me no loyalty after only knowing me for a few days, especially when I've been a dolore (pain), as you said. You don't care for me. You're not in lov—"

          "What if I am?" he cut me off.

          The dim lighting made it difficult for me to look at his eyes and find any hint of truth, but deep in my heart I knew it was all a bunch of bullshit.

          "Don't play games with me, Luca. You barely know me. We've been over this before. My mind is made and it belongs to Leo with my heart and soul. Nothing you say or do will ever change that."

He grabbed my wrist as I tried walking away. "Come with me, please. We can leave right now. There's a place you can begin a new life devoid of Leo and his problems."

"His problems are my problems," I affirmed, twisting my hand to escape his hold, but it was to no avail. His grip was relentlessly tight and bruising.

"Why don't you understand I'm trying to save you?" he hissed. "His life of danger isn't for you. His enemies won't spare you."

"Maybe I enjoy the danger," I spat, digging my fingers into his imprisoning hand, but he didn't budge. "I know what his enemies are capable of and I'm still standing. Now, let me go and stop causing a scene, Luca, before I slap the living shit out of you. Take the fucking hint."

"I don't think she's yours to touch," Athena said from behind me, then came into view beside us. "Unless you want to start a bloodbath right away, I suggest you leave her wrist. Now."

Luca immediately let go and looked between us. "Don't say I didn't warn you." He walked away to the end of the table to fill his plate up with delicacies.

"I don't trust him at all," Athena said after I told her what our little conversation was about.

"Neither do I."

We went and sat down at table fourteen, facing the little stage at the front of the room. Athena discreetly scouted for Kane's guards who carried assault rifles. There were a few who walked around stiffly, eyeing every guest.

"Something's wrong," Athena muttered next to me. "They're on high alert."

"I think they'd naturally be that way with powerful politicians and gangsters in the same room."

"Their weapons are confiscated and they're all previous clients. Sure, the auction was a disaster, but there's something else."

Before I could question her thoughts, a door in the corner opened and out walked a man. Lawrence Kane.

Despite the mask, I knew it was the bastard. His metallic hand reflected the lights from under the sleeve of his suit jacket. He shouldn't have gotten a prosthetic this soon after having his arm cut off at the elbow only days prior, but did I care? Absolutely not. He was in pain without a doubt and I relished the thought. If I got lucky tonight, I'd chop off his other arm.

          The music was shut down and everyone found their seats. I looked around and found Luca still standing by the table of hors d'oeuvres, not making a move to settle down like the rest. He was too busy eating by himself.

          "Welcome," Kane greeted everyone through a mic on the stage. "Due to some unforeseen circumstances, the auction was bungled, of course, for which I do apologize. We've all conducted business for years now, and you know there has never been any problem before. I've always delivered the best of the best. Tight cunts that you deflower or take back to your employers."

Some people laughed which soured the taste in my mouth. Everyone in this room was a monster who enjoyed violating bodies of girls, some too young. Anger surged violently within me, but it'd be foolish to attack now. Athena shared my sentiments. Her fingers strangled the clutch, her jaw tightening with rage. I wanted the chance to kill every single one of them, and hopefully, I'll get to bathe in their blood tonight.

"Our arrangements are always foolproof, but someone leaked the location to Mr. Leo Bonferroni himself. A shame, indeed. But we have the culprit. Would you like to meet her?"

Shouts of excitement and anger erupted in the room. A second later, a naked older woman was dragged onto the stage in a horrid condition. Mid-fifties, I guessed. My chest tightened.

          "Meet Mehjabin Begum, also known as the infamous Mustafa Reis of Istanbul," Lawrence announced proudly. "Should we have her entertain us or should we just end her?"

          Some shouted entertain and the others yelled end. Nausea crippled my stomach. Even Athena's jaw twitched. I couldn't sit back and have that woman get raped before my very eyes. She had led Leo to me in that auction where I saw him for a brief moment before we were ripped apart again. The least I could do was save what little of her dignity was left.

Athena gripped my hand when she noticed me move to get up.

"Traitors should be killed, not used as entertainment," Athena voiced her opinion over the others, adopting another accent. "Besides, I doubt she'll be able to entertain us at all."

Many laughed at Athena's words that were meant to amuse them, but they were actually said to save the woman from a terrible fate.

          "Death is mercy," I muttered.

          "Indeed," Athena agreed.

          "The verdict is in then," Lawrence announced, pulling out a gun and shooting the woman in the head whose naked body plopped forward on the stage.

          Lawrence rambled on about his business, its privacy, and the fate of anyone who dared to violate it like Mehjabin Begum. She had led Leo to me and now she paid the price with a bullet in her head. And god knows what they did before they brought her out.

          "I'm sure you've all heard little whispers of what happened to Dimo Yardanov."

          Oh, fuck! He knows.

          "He was visited by a veshtitsa, a witch," he informed the crowd.

          "He knows," Athena said, trying to open her clutch for the gun, but we both stilled when something hard pressed against the backs of our heads. Guns.

          A man snatched the clutch from Athena's grasp and handed the gun from it to another one. I held my hands up, showing them I had no weapons. They wouldn't know otherwise unless they frisked me.

          "As I was saying, the veshtitsa visited him and rose the samodiva, a temptress who danced and bathed in their blood." Lawrence stepped off the stage and made his way around tables toward us. "Or might I introduce them to you as the Bonferroni whores who dragged the mad Yardanov from his castle and crippled him themselves."

          "I don't think you learned your lesson the last time." Athena smiled with a tilt in her head. "Maybe I need to chop off your other arm too or perhaps your cock this time to really drive the message home."

          Lawrence laughed, looking at the other guests who sat stiffly and mildly scared. "Feisty, aren't they? I'm not even angry about the arm chop. You're thrilling, darling. A temptress, indeed. And a witch,"—he turned his head to me—"absolutely."

  "I have a feeling you're gonna be very angry when we paint this room red with the blood of your men and your filthy clients." I smiled and batted my lashes at the man. I turned in my chair and counted off the men with guns. "These two behind me will go first and the other two behind my partner here will go next." I stuck my head out and noticed two more by the entrance. "The last two by the door will be saved for last." I looked toward the stage once again. "Oh, wait. I almost forgot about the four by the stage. My sincere apologies."

          In my ploy to make sizable yet true threats, I had given Athena an idea of the location and amount of armed muscle in the room, and by the looks of it, she took the hint.

          "Ah, my feisty little kitten," Lawrence chuckled. "Take them away and don't hurt them. They're very important ladies."

          "Of course!" The excitement in my voice amused many around me. "I hope you have handcuffs because I do enjoy the feel of them around my wrists."

          Lawrence laughed as I discreetly inched my dress up for the gun strapped to my dress. "Anything for my favorite kitten."

          "Wonderful!"

          In a split second, I flipped the table over as I stood up and pulled my gun out to shoot the two guards behind me before they could do any harm. Panic casted its dark blanket over Lawrence's despicable clients who started hiding under the tables. Athena eliminated the men on her side using their own assault rifles while I tried to conceal my body behind the corpse of the man I just killed from the onslaught of bullets that zoomed past me.

"Don't shoot them, you fucking pricks!" I heard Lawrence's voice bellow. "Capture them alive."

"And that's going to be your biggest mistake," I declared.

I dropped the flaccid body and turned to shoot Lawrence in his leg. He yelped, tumbling over a table. As I pressed my finger down on the trigger again, it clicked emptily. Fuck! I had wasted my bullets on the idiots behind me.

Sidestepping the table, I went to pounce on Lawrence when I was jerked back and forced to the floor. Pain inflamed my shoulders and coccyx area. Before I could process anything else, a man was on top of me, pinning my wrists above my head and holding my legs down with his.

I offered him a smile. "You think you got me?"

"I think I do," he smiled back.

"There's a knife strapped to my ankle. Take it out before I use it on you."

He raised a confused brow then held my wrists together with one hand while the other one slowly travelled down my leg until he finally felt the knife.

"What's your game?" he wondered, bringing the knife between us.

"You played right into it."

          I quickly yanked my arm out of his hold and shoved his hand upward to stab the knife into his neck. His hold on my other hand slackened, allowing me to finally take control and rip his neck apart with a quick slice of the knife. I squeezed my eyes and mouth shut as blood poured down onto my face and chest until I pushed the body off.

Gasping out of the blood, I sat up and wiped what I could from my lids to look around after I threw my mask away. The unarmed guards of the clients joined the fight against us. As ordered by Lawrence, they didn't try to shoot us with the guns from the dead men, but they did use those steel weapons to their advantage to smack us with brutal blows. Due to the blood, the knife kept slipping from my grip, so I tried to wipe as much as I could on the table cloth. No one paid attention to me. They were all busy trying to take Athena down who kept them occupied with fists and kicks, but not for long.

I ripped a slit into my dress to allow better maneuvering. Fighting in an evening gown wasn't the best of options, but yielding was out of question, too. We wouldn't leave until we had Kane or the information he possessed.

Sneaking up behind one of the armed men, I sliced through the area behind his knees and forced him to buckle which offered me the perfect position to slit his throat. The others finally noticed me and hurdled in my direction like a pack of wildebeests. I picked the assault rifle and began shooting at them.

Roars of pain and screams of fear buzzed in my ears like music. Every sound dictated a story of excruciating crime of passion, blood, and deserving death.

          Many scattered as I aided Athena by shooting the men behind her.

          "Get Kane!" Athena shouted over the chaos around us. "I'll handle these bastards and find you."

          When I turned around, I noticed no signs of Lawrence. He must've slipped out when I was having blood sprayed on me. I switched to another assault rifle with a loaded magazine and went out the door where Lawrence had come from.

          A brightly lit hallway stretched out before me. The faint smell of new paint wafted up my nostrils, but it was readily drowned out by the stench of blood that drenched me entirely. I followed the droplets of blood on the floor that possibly belonged to Lawrence who probably limped out of here with his goons.

          As I turned down the hall, I finally saw the lot who began firing at me. I quickly retreated and hid myself behind the wall. Well, they weren't making the mistake of holding back this time. Once the gunfire ceased, I stuck my head out to see the hallway empty.

          Sounds of distant gunfire began blaring from different directions, but none of it mattered. Lawrence wasn't going to get away this time. I inched down the hall, keeping an eye out to make sure no one surprised me with a bullet to my head or a knife to my throat.

          On the last room next to the elevator, I heard voices tickle my ears which made me stop beside the door. They wouldn't be stupid enough to keep the door unlocked, so I didn't attempt to open it. Also, I didn't have the enormous brawn to kick down a door.

          As if my silent prayers had been answered, Athena strutted down the hallway toward me, discarding her mask. Sprinkles of blood lined her jaw, some droplets dripping from her blonde strands. She carried a matching gun to mine.

          "You look worse than me. Did you take a dip in a tub of blood?" Athena remarked, lowering her voice significantly.

          "That'd be easier than this," I retorted.

          "Is Kane in there?" she asked, standing on the other side of the door.

          "I'm guessing."

          "You do realize he set us up, right?" she stated. I knew it wasn't Lawrence she was referring to.

          Luca had set us up. Once it all went down, my mind didn't go to him, but I knew he had set us up for failure. Lawrence could've never known about our presence unless informed beforehand. And the only person who could do that was Luca, which is why he disappeared the moment hell broke loose.

          "I don't care who he is anymore. I'm going to hunt him down and rip his limbs apart," Athena seethed.

          "And I'll help you."

          I couldn't deny that a part deep within me hoped he was good and harbored no ill-will toward Leo or had any part in the predicament I was in, but I was proven wrong by his actions. If I got my hands on him before Athena, I was going to gut him myself. He left us to get captured again and serve as slaves to the next highest bidder. The worse innocence would be tainted in association with the name of the man who was in cahoots with Lawrence Kane all along.

          "Let's get Kane first," she said then banged her hand against the door. "I know you're in there."

          She pounded her fist once again before retreating quickly as if she knew bullets were going to rip through the door. She faked a scream and slapped her palms against the floor to make it seem as though her body had thudded on the ground.

          Watching her fake all that was almost comical, but I restrained a laugh from erupting.

          Other than the distant gunfire, silence hung above us. I believed the other gunfire was the clients turning on each other or Kane's men. I hoped they'd eliminate themselves.

          We waited with bated breath for several moments until the door finally opened to let out a gullible idiot. We immediately shot him down and invaded the room, shooting every single bastard in there until five crippled bodies laid by our feet, none of which belonged to Lawrence.

          What the fuck?

          I scouted the bodies while Athena looked in the bathroom and closet, but nothing came of it. Lawrence wasn't here.

          "Fuck," I muttered. "They tricked me. He isn't here."

          Suddenly, a hand covered my mouth while another gripped the gun I held. My heart lurched into a state of panic. Athena jerked around and pointed her gun at my captor, but she didn't take a shot. The anger in her gaze dissipated rapidly and was replaced by something I didn't recognize. She gulped instead.

          When I looked at the foreign hand holding my gun, Athena reaction made sense. There was only one man I knew whose skin was inked with such detail on every surface. It was Eros, Athena's husband.

          "Go find Leo," Eros whispered in my ear and removed his hands from me.

          As I looked back at him, his gaze was fiercely fixed on Athena as hers was glued to him. They had a lot of catching up to do and I wasn't going to remain in the middle of it, so I walked out and closed the door behind me.

          A smile immediately forced its way onto my face and tears danced before my vision at the thought of Leo being so close. Every problem that I had began fading into the background so effortlessly that it almost scared me. Nothing mattered anymore. Not even Kane.

          My heart screamed for Leo as it thudded painfully against my ribs, yearning to be pressed close to him, nuzzled in his protective arms. Although grabbing Kane would answer some of the questions regarding the traitor and Luca, my soul and body had different plans to be reunited with the love of my life altogether.

          I didn't know how the fuck I was going to fight when my body began reeling with excitement. A voice inside me even wanted to squeal, but I refrained. The adrenaline rush of pure exhilaration had my hands shaking out of control. Gosh, I was so fucked.

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Yay or nay?

I know it was shorter compared to the others, but I just wanted to get this over with cuz I'm hitting a block right now 😓 But I hope Athena will liven me up!

And now, let the reunions begin!

Why do you think Luca kept telling Arie to leave with him?

Do you think Luca is in love with Arie?

Do you think Luca actually set the girls up and told Kane about them?

If yes to the above question, why do you think he betrayed them?

If no, who do you think tipped Lawrence off about the girls?

It's finally time!!! The next chapter is going to be Athena's!!!!! I'm soooooooo excited. I've missed writing through my baby's POV.

Are you guys ready for some exclusive Athena and Eros?

What do you think their chapter will contain?

Thoughts on Leo?

Or Arie?

Luca?

Further comments and questions are always welcome ❤️

HIT ME WITH THE THEORIES!

Come join the fun and the family on Instagram @alleira_elleon.

Be kind to one another and yourself.

Stay safe and much love to everyone ❤️
~Reet