Chapter 208 - 0208: You Better Not Try Anything Funny, Bambina

Chapter 208: Chapter 0208: You Better Not Try Anything Funny, Bambina

Jaxx’s Point Of View

"What?!"

The word tore out of my chest, sharp, raw, and entirely uncontrolled, echoing violently off the high ceilings and glass walls of the subterranean conference room.

Behind me, the silence turned deafening. I felt the sudden, collective freeze of seven clan leaders staring at my back in absolute shock. I had never raised my voice in an operational meeting in five years. I had never lost my composure in front of the Syndicate hierarchy. Ever.

Somewhere in the back of my mind, a cold, rational voice warned me that I was handing these men a weapon they might someday use against me... proof that the untouchable Jaxx Moretti could, in fact, be touched.

I didn’t turn around. I didn’t care. The wood, the clans, the Albanians, the Russians... it all felt instantly, completely insignificant compared to the sudden, icy panic rising in my gut.

"What club, Roman?" I demanded, my voice a furious, low-frequency vibration.

Roman’s tone remained infuriatingly calm on the line. "A moment, boss. Let me pull up the live visual link from the street unit."

"I don’t have a fucking moment!" I snapped, my breath coming fast, my jaw clenched so tight my teeth ached. "Where is she?"

Five seconds passed. Six. Seven. Each second felt like a blade dragged slowly across my nerves. I stared out at the dark courtyard, my reflection staring back at me... a man who had spent his entire life controlling every variable, every human, every bullet in his territory, suddenly completely stripped of control by a four-letter name.

Roman exhaled slowly into the mic. "Onyx."

The name hit my brain like a physical strike.

Onyx.

It was a high-end, three-story meat market downtown. A place flooded with bright lights, heavy bass, overpriced tequila, and hundreds of rich, entitled executive bastards and trust-fund parasites looking for an easy mark. A place where the dark corners were too loose, the security was bought off by local fixers, and the noise was loud enough to drown out a scream.

And she was inside.

Elena.

My Bambina. The woman who had spent the last three weeks trying to put a hundred miles of cold silence between us, the woman who thought she could escape the storm surrounding her life by locking herself in her corporate work, was currently standing in the middle of a crowded, dark, liquor-soaked club downtown. Three weeks of her silence had nearly broken something in me that I didn’t know could still break, and now the thought of her surrounded by strangers in the dark made that fragile, fractured thing threaten to shatter completely.

My chest tightened until I couldn’t pull a full lungful of air. "What the hell do you think you’re doing, Bambina?" I muttered under my breath, my voice a dangerous, desperate growl that barely carried across the glass.

Roman’s sharp voice cut back through the phone speaker, cutting right through my spiral. "I thought you said you didn’t want to hear anything about her movements, boss. You specifically said, and I quote, ’She wants space, Roman, so give her space. I won’t chase her like a dog.’"

"Shut up," I growled, my fingers turning white against the phone.

"I’m just reminding you of your own orders, Jaxx," Roman said, his tone softening slightly into something real, something grounded. "You told me to keep the team two blocks back at all times so she wouldn’t spot us. You said if she wanted to go out and have a drink, we weren’t supposed to interfere unless a real threat showed up."

"That was before I knew she was at Onyx!" I snarled, turning on my heel to face the conference room. My eyes were wild, dark, and lethal, sweeping over the seven clan leaders who were watching me with wide, completely stunned expressions. "That was before I knew she was sitting in a dark room surrounded by pathetic, slimy bastards who think they can lay a hand on her!"

"Jaxx, listen to me," Roman said firmly. "My guys are outside the building. We have two undercover operatives inside on the upper tier. She’s fine. She’s just having a drink with her friend at the bar. Nobody has touched her."

"Not yet," I snapped, my heart hammering against my ribs like a caged beast. "I know how those places work. I know the kind of scum that hangs around those VIP counters."

"You told yourself you’d let her breathe, boss," Roman pressed, pushing the boundary as far as any man alive dared to push it with me. "If you show up there looking like a walking war crime, you’re going to blow up whatever progress you’ve made. She’s trying to feel normal for one night."

"I don’t care about normal!" I roared, my voice bouncing off the heavy mahogany table. "I care about keeping her breathing! She doesn’t get to run around in the open while Graham is still floating around with his high-priced lawyers and his back-alley contacts! She doesn’t get to play single girl in a crowded bar while I’m burning down half the city to keep her safe!"

"So what are your orders?" Roman asked quietly, the levity completely gone from his voice now. "Do you want me to send my guys in to pull her out?"

"No," I said, my voice dropping into a whip-crack of absolute, terrifying finality. "Don’t you dare lay a hand on her. I’m on my way."

Roman hesitated for half a second. "Boss... the meeting. The Sicilian transport agreement..."

"Nothing is more important than her," I snarled into the mic, my words sharp enough to draw blood. "Nothing. Keep your eyes on her until I get there. If anyone so much as breathes on her space before I walk through those doors, kill them."

"Understood," Roman said softly.

I ended the call before he could utter another word, shoving the phone into my tailored jacket pocket.

The conference room was dead silent. Domenico, Carlo, Marco, and the four other leaders sat frozen, staring at me as if I had suddenly transformed into a stranger. In a way, I had. The cold, calculating leader of The Moretti Syndicate... the man who never let personal emotions touch operational decisions, had just completely shattered his own protocol for a woman.

I could see the questions forming behind their eyes, questions none of them would ever dare voice aloud, and for the first time in years I found myself not caring what conclusions they drew.

I walked back to the head of the table. I didn’t sit down. I rested my palms flat on the dark wood, leaning over the table, my dark eyes boring into Domenico, then Carlo, then Marco.

"This meeting is adjourned," I said, my voice flat, icy, and entirely non-negotiable.

No one argued. No one offered a single word of dissent.

They knew better. They could see the sheer, unbridled violence vibrating beneath my skin, the raw, volatile power that was barely contained inside my suit.

Domenico stood up first, his chair scraping softly against the hardwood floor. He bowed his head low, his voice careful and deeply respectful. "Boss," he said, his eyes fixed on the table. "Everything alright?"

I stared at him, my expression a wall of black stone.

"Everything will be handled," I said quietly. "Carlo, clear the ports tonight as planned. Marco, finalize the Albanian terms tomorrow morning. If anyone fails to deliver their numbers because of this postponement, I will deal with you personally."

"Understood, boss," all seven men said in unison, standing up instantly, their heads bowed as I turned on my heel.

I didn’t wait for them to gather their files. I strode out of the high-security conference room, my long, powerful strides carrying me down the stone hallway, my heavy shoes echoing against the walls like a countdown timer. Every step felt like a small betrayal of the empire I had spent years building, and yet every step also felt like the only thing in the world that made sense.

The heavy iron security doors hissed open as I approached the private subterranean garage. The night air inside the garage was cool, damp, and smelled of high-octane fuel and tire rubber. My black matte sedan sat parked in the center bay, gleaming under the harsh overhead fluorescent lights.

I didn’t open the door for myself smoothly like I usually did. I yanked it open, threw myself into the custom leather driver’s seat, and slammed the heavy door shut.

I shoved the keyless ignition button. The twin-turbo V8 engine roared to life with a violent, guttural scream that rattled the concrete walls of the garage. I threw the car into reverse, slammed my foot onto the gas, and sent the tires screeching against the polished concrete floor, leaving thick black streaks of burning rubber behind as I spun the wheel and launched the car up the security ramp.

The heavy steel gate hadn’t even finished retracting fully before I cleared the exit, the chassis scraping slightly against the rising metal as I burst out into the cool night air.

Onyx was across town. Twelve miles through heavy downtown traffic, red lights, and crowded intersections.

Too far.

Too fucking long.

I gripped the leather-wrapped steering wheel until my knuckles turned stark white, my jaw locked so tight my molars creaked. I slammed the pedal to the floor, the needle on the speedometer sweeping past sixty, eighty, ninety miles an hour as I wove through the late-night city traffic like a missile. Cars honked furiously, red tail lights blurred past my windows, and streetlights flashed across my face in a rhythmic, blinding pattern, but I didn’t see any of it.

All I saw was her.

What the hell was she thinking?

Going to a club? Alone? After everything, she thought she could just waltz into a place like Onyx and pretend like the world wasn’t a fucking minefield?

My grip on the wheel tightened until the leather creaked under the sheer force of my hands.

She thought she was free. She thought she could hide from me behind her pride, her independence, and her cold, corporate walls. She thought she could go out and let some random stranger buy her a drink while I spent my nights staring at security feeds just to make sure she was still breathing.

She was mine.

She had been mine the moment she let me touch her, the moment she looked into my eyes and saw the monster hiding beneath the suit, and I’d be damned if I let her forget it for a single second.

"You better not try anything funny, Bambina."