Chapter 6: The Lion's Den

"What do you think you are doing?" Haunter entered the room with a black look on his face. He had only just left for some minutes and this girl was already here, causing trouble as usual. 

Sage turned to look at him then folded her arms under her breast. "I was looking for you until I found that!" She pointed at Valerie. "Sleeping comfortably in your bed" she reported.

"So?" Came the next statement from Haunter which made sage to chuckle and scoff at the same time.

"She's Martin's slave but she was sleeping in your bed. What exactly do you think you are doing?" She questioned him.

"And who do you think you are to question me?" Haunter knitted his brows at her and she scoffed, looking astonished.

"I feel sorry for you if you're suddenly interested in her, wait till our capo m de la mafia finds out" she gave him a simpering smile before finding her way out of the room.

Haunter rolled his eyes and faced Valerie who was now looking at the floor. "You don't have to bother about that trouble marker, all she does is go around, looking for trouble or any means to just start a fight" he rolled his eyes.

"It's okay, thank you for letting me sleep here. I should go outside" Valerie nodded and began heading to the door when she felt Haunter's grip on her forearm.

She looked at his hands and he took it off immediately.

"I will tell a maid to look for a room for you" he said while bringing out his phone. After making some calls there was a knock on the door.

"Come in" he instructed and the door opened, showing off an old woman. To Valerie she was looking a bit younger than the one that had her cleaned up.

"This is the newest slave Valerie, I want you to give her a room" he ordered.

The woman looked at Valerie and wondered what a slave was looking for in the underboss room but she only rolled her eyes inwardly. Women will always be women, giving out their bodies to men for favors and luckily she was a sexy one if not the underboss wouldn't be interested in her.

"Come with me then" she tried her best to be polite and Valerie followed her.

They kept walking till they got to another unit of the place. In this unit, there were several doors, the woman got to a door and faced Valerie. "This will be your new room, try not to go into where doesn't concern you and you should remember that you're just a slave, boss Martin won't waste any second if he wants to kill you and underboss can't do anything about it" she said with a kind of deep look. She didn't even try to hide the fact that she doesn't like Valerie.

Before Valerie could blink, the woman already left. Valerie rolled her eyes a bit and knocked on the door and it opened revealing another girl who had a tough look on her face, dressed in black like she was ready to fight some war and was loudly chewing on a gumball.

"And what can I do for you?" She looked at Valerie from head to toes.

Seems like everyone here is nothing but rude; Valerie scoffed inwardly before replying to her. "This is my new room" After saying that,  the door was wide open, welcoming her in.

"I'm Lucia by the way and I know you. You are the new slave Martin allowed here, your brother committed suicide" The girl introduced herself as Lucia and as she talked, she went back to her bed to take something.

Valerie didn't reply, she was standing in one place, unsure of what to do, should she remain standing or should she sit and if flying was an option maybe she would fly. 

Lucia turned back to look at her, she admired Valerie from head to toe and her mind came to agree that she was not just very beautiful but smoking sexy as well. If her brother wasn't a traitor in this clan then maybe the don would have given her something better than a slave.

"I feel so sorry for you, if you were brought in here as a gang then maybe life would be a little easy for you but you weren't. Instead Don chose you to serve him and Don is very ruthless, I really hope you make it out alive" Lucia shook her head and picked the gun that was on the table. She began fixing some bullets then turned back to look at Valerie again.

"I still didn't get your name cheek" she raised one of her brows up.

"Valerie Lopez".

"Ahhh.. sexy name just like you, anyways make yourself at home I'll be leaving on some mission" she showed Valerie her gun.

Valerie nodded and Lucia scrolled past her, leaving the room and once again Valerie was alone. She sat on the bed and began thinking about her sister and mother. "I miss them," she said to herself.

    Somewhere in Italy, the view was focused on a giant office building designed with some expensive glass serving as the door. Some footsteps sounding against a marble floor were heard and the door automatically went open for a woman dressed in a peach colored knee length expensive gown hugging her small waist with a pair of silver heels. She had expensive sunglasses covering her eyes and her expensive silver handbag matching her silver heels.

The sound of a car automatically opening after being controlled by its remote echoed around the parking lot and the Pininfarina Battista opposite her went open, she stepped in then began driving but the car suddenly stopped moving.

She moved the wheel severally but nothing happened then she stepped down from the car, taking off her sunglasses. Almost immediately a Bugatti La Voiture Noire stopped just in front of her. The front seat opened and a masculine pair of a well polished shoe stepped down, the footstep of the person moved closer to her and stopped just in front of her.

The view was sent up to his face and it was none other than Martin. He wore a dark blue blazer with a creamy coloured undershirt which was well buttoned and supported with a well knotted tie. Sunglasses were visible on his face but he took it off the moment his head tilted to her side.

"Hello miss, is everything already?" His voice sounded calm. He didn't look as cold and ruthless as he used to look in the BT cartel, he still looked cold but it was well maintained, giving this CEO vibe.

The lady was a bit stunned by the handsome look of this man. She could swear on her mother's grave that her heart unexpectedly skipped a beat.

"You are?" She managed to compose herself as she asked for an intro of him.

A low smirk appeared on his face and he stretched his hands for a handshake. "Antonio Ferrari, the CEO of Phoenix Enterprise" he replied to her and she smiled a little, accepting his hand shake.

"Caprielia Deloitte" she said and a grim full of hatred flashed through Martin's eyes for a second but he masked it all up with a smile, the one that says you have just walked into the lion's den.

    Few more days passed making it a complete week and some days that Valerie had been here and Martin hadn't showed up. She doesn't follow Lucia to go for missions so she joins the maids in cleaning up the clan as instructed and also spends some time with Haunter even if it's just 30 minutes. She enjoys his company more than anyone because he talks and treats her like the human she is.

"These are everything you'd need to clean up a young master's room. Remember don't touch or look at anything that does not concern you" the strict maid that helped her clean up some days ago instructed.

This would be the first time she's allowing someone who was not herself to clean up Martin's room.

"I get it ma'am" Valerie nodded.

"Good, I don't want to hear other stories later now, get out of my sight!"

Valerie could only just walked away while rolling her eyes inwardly. She got to his room and the nervousness to open the door despite knowing he wasn't around came in. It was like he left some of his dark aura around the door before leaving to wherever he went to but she shook her head and opened the room.

It looked exactly like the last time she remembered. The armchair was in its position where it was facing the transparent glass window that gave access for one to see the dark and starless sky and there was a new pack of cigarettes on the arm of the chair.

Valerie scoffed. "Takes smoking as his daily thing, I hope he really dies early" then she began cleaning up as asked to do, she made sure to touch the whole place and lastly was a small table.

The room was already so neat but she wondered why she kept cleaning it, not like it would make any difference. She began dusting the table and didn't notice a small photo frame standing on top. It consists of a picture of a man, woman and a small boy all smiling in the picture. She accidentally hit that frame and it staggered, Valerie tried to catch it but she failed and could only just watch the frame collapse on the ground made of strong marble.

"Oh no!"