Filed to story: Bring It On My Mafia Life Novel (Rhea & Lukas)
Daniel asked once more,” What is going on?” This time, one could sense the threat beneath his voice and the soldier would be as good as dead if he lied to him again.
The soldier was a wise man or maybe he was that scared of Daniel because he confessed the truth this time.
“I think one of our men might have sexually assaulted one of the cleaners,”
Oh no, Lukas’s heart skipped a beat when he heard that report. It couldn’t be… no, that can’t… He was going to kill that bastard!
He Was Deeply Humiliated
Rhea always knew that Mimi could act, but she never saw the full extent of her friend’s acting prowess until now.
Mimi was shaking terribly while Grace did her best to console her. Her eyes were red and swollen with tears while her lips trembled.
No, Mimi’s acting was so real and touching that Rhea wondered if she was still acting because she too was getting affected by it and tears slipped down her face unknowingly.
Rhea surprisingly didn’t find it hard to get in the element because whether she liked it or not, she had to prove to the others that she was affected by her friend’s “misfortune”.
The room was now filled to the brim with soldiers who tried hard to stop Fred and his partner from murdering Sébastien. It was chaos everywhere and Rhea had to admit, it was invigorating, the bastard finally got what he deserved.
Sébastien had a bruised and bloody face because their male partners had done a number on him before the soldiers could come to the rescue. With that carefully thought plan, all Rhea did was arouse the protective instinct of men towards women.
And she wasn’t scared of being caught because men would always be the guilty partner in this scenario – as unfair as it sounds. Neither was there evidence to suggest otherwise. If anything, they were the ones with substantial evidence to prove Sébastien guilty. That was what she intended to do, because it was their only ticket out of here – and her revenge as well.
But what Rhea never expected to see in the next minute was a sudden path being created and Lukas stepped forth in all his sexy – and furious – glory. Okay, what was going on here? He wasn’t supposed to be here? Did the dinner location get shifted or something.
Lukas could have seen her if he looked harder but he didn’t and she had a feeling that he avoided looking at her on purpose as if he didn’t want to implicate her or something.
…..
Instead, his heated gaze was fixed on the crying Mimi, and for good reasons, because in the next minutes, Rhea’s jaw almost dropped to the ground when she sighted Daniel.
Did she know Daniel? Of course, she knew Daniel because Lukas had shown them – she and Mimi – many pictures of him, if not hundreds of them in case they encountered him – although that wasn’t supposed to happen. Lukas had strongly assured them that they would not get go meet his father. But then, if they, unfortunately, do meet him, there was a plan B.
Never look him in the eyes with fear.
Fear was next to recognition.
One can only fear what they recognize and recognize what they fear.
And what she feared finally happened.
How was she going to look at Daniel without fear when she’s already heard of his reputation? Rhea saw that same concern in Mimi’s eyes when their gaze connected.
But unlike Mimi who took refuge with her acting skills, Rhea merely shrank into the crowd. Call it survival instinct, but she had a feeling that the man shouldn’t see her, or maybe she was just scared to face him. Because even stronger animals know when a predator steps into the jungle, and they all do one thing.
Run.
“What is going on here?” Daniel’s voice boomed with authority when he asked that question and the place fell into a chilling silence except for Mimi’s quiet sob.
One of the soldiers stepped out to answer, “They claim that captain Sébastien assaulted one of their -“
Before the soldier could even finish, Mimi cried out with a pained voice, “You say I claim?! You think I’m lying?! Does this look like I’m lying?!” She turned the side of her cheek where a bruise had already formed from when Sébastien struck her.
“She’s lying!” Sébastien objected even in his injured state, his lips were busted and must hurt while he spoke, “She wanted it! She was the one who seduced me!” He cried out, but the doubts on people’s faces – including his fellow soldiers – told him he was fighting a losing battle.
“I wanted it!” Mimi bellowed, looking frantic. She beat her chest angrily, “You’re trying to say that I asked to be ? Is that it? And you all just stand there and probably are about to defend him, huh? Why don’t you ask yourself, if it had been your sister in my shoes, what would you do? Would you blame her for seducing a man all because she’s not physically stronger to defend herself or defend her honor?”
By the time Mimi was done with her speech, the atmosphere in the room had changed and none of the men was comfortable with the sensitive subject anymore.
Not to mention that Lukas added salt to the injury by turning to his father and saying aloud to everyone’s hearing in sheer mockery, “I guess this is how you train your men? To innocent women? How admirable.”
Daniel’s features hardened and his hands clenched by the sides. It was obvious that his men would get it from him after this was over.
But that was not all, Miriam came out to announce boldly to Daniel, standing in front of him, “If you’re the boss, then I here to complain of how your men have been getting in the way of our work for a while now. This incident might have brought their sins to the limelight and castigated one of them, however, we suffered physical, psychological, and emotional abuse from a lot of them. So I plead you just don’t make one of them a scapegoat, punish the whole lots of them for their crimes, and for those who watched, yet did nothing while they abused us. ” She demanded.
By now, Daniel was wallowing in shame. As much as they were gangsters and they could do whatever they wanted, these were outsiders and also people he employed their services. His men were supposed to be on their best behavior yet they let the power get to their heads.
Matters like this were sensitive and could easily explode, drawing unnecessary attention to him. Not to mention that it was all happening in front of his son. To say he was ashamed was an understatement. He was deeply humiliated.
[Bonus chapter]An Evil Fortress
“I have heard all of your requests and you are assured that this case would not be waved aside as nothing. I would conduct a proper investigation and would punish them for their crimes severely. Also, you would be compensated heavily for your loss and maltreatment in the hands of my poorly trained men,” Daniel promised them and It left a sour taste in his mouth admitting that his men were ‘poorly trained’.
But he had no choice but to do it to appease their anger. As lithe as women were, they waged the greatest war with devastating damages and he was not ready to suffer the fury of a woman scorned. Not to mention that Lukas was watching him and like a hawk, he was ready to point out his flaw. The competition between father and son was quite intense and none of them wanted to lose.
“You better do,” Fred warned and then reached for Mimi, pulling her into his arms protectively. Right now, he had no care whether she was an attractive woman that he could hit on, what mattered was that she needed his support, their support.
“Come on, let’s get out of here,”
At once, Rhea came out of her hiding place, making sure to use the other’s body as a shield to prevent Dahlia from seeing her. They walked past Daniel and his people and she didn’t even dare to look at the side, Rhea kept her eyes straight till they were out of the room.
Thank God.
Meanwhile, Clara had enough of waiting. She had no idea what was going on up there and both men stopped her from joining them. She didn’t want to disobey their order or be seen as a gossip, but she was tired of waiting and so she stood up to head there.
However, when she cut into the corner of the passageway, Clara bumped into a bunch of cleaners judging from their uniform, and one of them, in particular, knocked into her.
“Sorry,” The woman said and moved on and Clara didn’t think much about it because she was in a hurry to go see Lukas and her father-in-law. However, she suddenly halted in her steps, having remembered something.
…..
That face….
She had seen that face before, wasn’t that….
At once, Clara turned around and went after the cleaners.
“Excuse me? Excuse me?!” She shouted after them and they had no choice but to stop in the end. They all turned at once and stared at the young lady waving after them.