Page 21 of The Bratva's Nanny
“McAllister, something is awfully wrong somewhere. The CCTV’s messed up. The bloody cameras aren’t working,” he stated in a thick British accent. He looked up, observed the ceiling, and wrinkled his nose. “Bloody suspicious, if you ask me. Frank was in here two days ago to reinstall those on the sixth floor.”
He exchanged more words with his colleague on the other end of the line, and I tried to focus on my Q&A recital, but my mind wouldn’t move past the sketchy activity going on. It might not have been related, but I recalled seeing some shady-looking men in dark suits and hard faces walking into the hotel in a coordinated lineup, heading toward the collider.
I shook my head.
“It's none of your business, Maria. You’re here for an interview,” I reminded myself. My father’s debt wouldn’t pay itself by thinking about CCTV footage or scary men.
I retook my seat.
A moment later, I grew thirsty. They’d called in the ninth applicant, and I was next. The water cooler was nearby; I’d passed it on my way into the waiting area and studied the number of steps it took to get there and return.
Didn’t want to be late when number nine left the room.
I spotted the water cooler down the hallway and hurried toward it, past the pale yellow walls, golden ceiling lights, ceiling-to-floor red velvet drapes, and a certain door. I was so close to a cup when I heard a muffled scream.
It was a man, and it sounded deep, like the agony came from the depths of his soul.
The sudden thirst for water was gone, and awakened in its place was a wild curiosity to locate the man. As I later found out, rather unfortunately, he wasn’t far away.
I retraced my steps, walking backward from the cooler until I got to that certain door.
It was ajar, wide enough for me to see a bloodied head and body tied to a chair, jerking and struggling to free himself from the ropes.
My heart dropped to my stomach at the same moment when a fist belonging to a man hidden from my view behind the door flew toward the bloodied man’s jaw.
A sickening crunch filled the air, and red-tinged saliva flew from his mouth. My broccoli breakfast didn’t sit well, and it suddenly churned in my stomach at the sight.
The man gurgled, even cried, and screamed again. The agony in it was shrill and sharper than piercing arrows. It sank into the recesses of my soul.
“Please! Please, Boss…. I’m fucking sorry, okay? I swear, it’s never going to happen again.”
“Of course, it’s never going to happen again. I’m going to make sure of it myself,” came a voice from behind the door. Baritone, husky, and smooth, like a raging king, laboring to keep the storm hidden with a cloak of calm.
Then, a man I hadn’t seen before walked out of the darkness and into the open.
Just a glimpse of him snatched my breath away. He was as scary as he was enchanting, which made me remember a made-up ten-out-of-ten hero from a fantasy novel. Only this hero was clearly the villain. And if looks could burn, the bloodied man would have become ashes seconds ago.
“Boss, look, I swear I’m never going to cross you again. I didn’t know. I swear, I didn’t know.”
The monster smiled, the curve of his lips the shape of a predator’s snarl. “You didn’t know…” he repeated slowly, wearing the look of someone combing through details in his mind.
He was dressed in a dark suit with a glinting silver Rolex fitted on his wrist, a complimentary silver gun in his firm grasp. His thumb hovered over the trigger, and I gulped.
There’s no way he’s going to shoot the man.
“You betrayed me, Cian,” he growled, his eyes darkening as the seconds went by. “And you know what happens to fucking betrayers.”
He’s only trying to scare him. That has to be it.
I wanted to drag my eyes away, turn around, and leave when the bloodied man continued begging for his life, asking for mercy and forgiveness and everything he could mention if it could just get the monster with blue eyes to spare his life.
“Last words, Cian.”
“Boss—”
A quiet whoosh went through the air, so silent I almost missed it. Not until I watched the bloodied man’s head slowly loll backward, a hole on his forehead and blood spilling out, did I realize.
He shot him.