Chapter 43
Robert’s Point of View
We were sitting in the office, a heavy silence enveloping the place. It wasn’t an ordinary silence; it was the silence of two n who couldn’t believe their pride had just been shattered at the hands of an eighteen year old girl.
She had kicked us out with a coldness as if we were rely her servants.
Carlos finally spoke, his voice carrying a tone I had never known in him before:
"Robert... this girl makes feel alive. And as much as I admire her intelligence, I equally want to cut her head off."
I laughed sarcastically at his contradictory words and said:
"Carlos, don’t tell this girl has finally managed to play with your mind."
His features changed instantly, and his expression tightened as if I had insulted him:
"No one plays with my mind, Robert... I am Carlos ndoza. She simply fascinates with her rebellion and her sharp tongue."
I looked at him seriously and added:
"But she provokes you, Carlos, and she hits you where it hurts with the subject of age every ti. You were on the verge of committing a cri back there if I hadn’t intervened at the right ti."
I saw him recalling the tape of the confrontation in his mind, then he said, sighing:
"You know I can’t control my nerves, Robert... and I always envy you for your damn coldness."
I leaned back in my luxurious leather chair and said calmly:
"Everyone has different temperants, but you must learn how to control your fires, my friend."
He replied, tightening his grip on his golden cane:
"Tomorrow, I will co to see her again."
I felt a prick of annoyance, and responded with firm speed:
"No, Carlos... I told you, you must let break her in alone. You cannot handle her while she is this wild."
His face twisted in mockery, and his eyebrows rose in defiance:
"Are you forbidding from seeing her, Robert?"
"I’m not forbidding you..."
I said, trying to soften my tone,
"but you know the consequences of entering her room. She will continue to provoke you, and you won’t endure it, and I don’t want things to end in a disaster in my club."
He replied seriously, fixing his gaze into my eyes:
"I will co tomorrow, Robert... and don’t worry, I won’t succumb to her provocations again."
His persistence was fueling my suppressed anger. I don’t want Carlos to get near her, and I cannot trust him alone with her; Carlos is a man who kills to find peace, and he has no problem ending Julie’s life if she scratches his pride once more.
I said in a final attempt to steer him away:
"Are you leaving all those girls who are waiting for a signal from you to have sex, and preferring to enter Julie’s room, who does nothing but insult you?"
He placed his hand on his jaw, a strange glint appearing in his eyes, and said:
"She has sothing special, Robert... her intelligence, her unexpected responses, and how she rebelled on stage in front of everyone like that... all of this makes relish watching her. She is a ’challenge’ I haven’t faced in a long ti."
I laughed sarcastically as I exhaled my cigar smoke, trying to hide my tension behind my usual mask of coldness:
"My friend Carlos... this girl represents strength only, but from the inside, she is fragile and will break quickly. Just give a little ti."
Carlos looked at with a piercing gaze, the look of a man who knows more than I know myself, and said mockingly:
"Is that why you gave her the books, Robert? And is that why I found her that day sitting here in your office? How was she able to reach your private office while she is supposed to be a prisoner in a locked room?"
I felt his words stabbing like needles into my pride; he was trying to make look like the weakling who succumbed to her demands, the man who lost control over his "property" to the point of granting her the freedom to roam the club.
I replied with forced calmness:
"These are my thods for breaking her, Carlos... I give her what she wants until she relaxes, then I pull the rug out from under her feet."
Carlos smiled with biting sarcasm and leaned forward, saying:
"Admit it, Robert... you have already lost to her."
I didn’t answer, but I felt my jaw muscles clench. Carlos completed his painful strikes:
"Tell ... since when did you care about entering the girls’ rooms here?"
I swallowed his poisoned words, feeling them burning my chest from the inside. Carlos was putting his finger on a wound I wasn’t ready to admit yet.
I looked at him stolidly, and corrected him with a sharp tone:
"I don’t lose, Carlos... but Julie is a special case; no one in this club can put her in her place. Olivia doesn’t have enough control to handle her rebellion, so it was necessary for to be present myself."
I turned my gaze away from him, and continued with a tone full of dark threat:
"Give just a little while... and you will see how I will make her unable to utter even a single word in my presence.
I will ta that sharp tongue until it forgets how to voice an objection."
Carlos smiled a final smile that carried all the anings of doubt, and said in a confident tone:
"Fine... we shall see, my friend."
He left the office, leaving behind air charged with defiance.
I stood behind my massive desk, adjusting my suit jacket and clenching my fists until my knuckles turned white.
I am Robert Cross, the man whose stature has never bowed to a storm, and a young girl who hasn’t tasted the bitterness of life yet cannot be an opponent to or drag to the field of defeat.
I walked out of the office with wide strides. I found Olivia in the corridor; I looked at her stolidly and said:
"Olivia, you take over the custors and the girls in the hall entirely... I am in no mood to enter that noise tonight."
She answered with blind obedience:
"Yes, I will do that, Mr. Robert."
I descended the stairs with heavy steps; my mind was boiling. I wasn’t heading to Julie’s room this ti; rather, I needed Sarah.
Sarah is my quiet sanctuary, the only room I enter to lay my weapons aside and forget the pressures of the club, the corporate conflicts, and the drug shipnts that haunt like my shadow. I wanted calm; I wanted to regain my sense of control and sovereignty.
I reached her door, opened it with my strong hand, but my body froze in place, and my eyes widened with a shock that paralyzed my movent.
Sarah wasn’t alone... Julie was there.
She was sitting coldly on Sarah’s bed, in her purple pajamas that seed provocative in their simplicity, and she was eating ravenously from a food plate.
I stood before her, shock paralyzing my logical thinking. How? How was she able to enter this room specifically? Suddenly, the truth hit my head like a lightning bolt: the key.
I gave her that damn key for her room, but is she that sharp-witted to know it’s a "master key" that opens every door in the hallway? This goes beyond intelligence; it is a dangerous cunning.
Sarah was drowning in a sea of tension and confusion, her breath nearly stopping from terror, while Julie... Julie was looking at with a coldness that provoked every fiber of my being. There was no regret in her eyes; instead, there was that rebellious spark telling she wasn’t afraid.
I lost my patience completely. I stepped toward her with angry strides, grabbed her arm, and said through clenched teeth:
"Get up... now!"
I expected fear from her, I expected pleading, but she is Julie... the girl who does not submit. She looked at with eyes burning with anger, and said in a voice as sharp as a blade:
"How many tis have I told you not to touch ? Are you an idiot or what?"
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