Reporting from the underworld

chapter seven

Alejandro's POV

“Is it too late to go back on this?” I thought to myself as the lie wasn't looking feasible.

I had come so far and I wasn't going to turn back now. “Why don't we go inside?”

My eyes were fixated on Miguel. I could read cynicism in each step as he approached the door.

I watched him exhale as he walked through the door. Maybe he expected some sort of ambush and rightfully so. With the short period of time we've spent together, We've been ambushed more than three times. I did not expect anything less from the Mafia Prince.

“So about the office?” Juan continued as he followed us closely.

My brain went numb for a brief moment.This was one thing about me lying. They roll off my tongue without restraints like water under a bridge, the problem is, it requires a lot of work just to get it right and I needed to work harder if I wanted them to add up.

My eyes strayed to catch Miguel's dreamy eyes, they looked like they would kill me soon if I didn't proffer a solution quickly.

“That's what I get for helping” I thought

“The office is—”

Miguel stepped in front of me, his hands pushing me softly behind him, “None of your business Juan. Like you said, I am awfully tired and I barely got out of hell's gate”

I took a breath of relief but I got more than I bargained for.

His musky scent was like a drug and it had my blood pumping.

The scent wasn't some polished cologne, it was a chaotic, jarring mix of everything the accident left behind, laced with his own desperate heat.

First, it was the weirdly pleasant tang of cold sweat and fresh blood, sharp and intense, immediately overridden by the thick, choking smell of burnt oil and scorching rubber clinging to his expensive leather jacket.

Then, deeper, beneath the wreckage and the adrenaline, was the true him: a dark, animal anchor of smoke, expensive worn leather, and that specific, heavy musk he always carries, the one that makes me think of old bourbon and midnight meetings.

It was raw, dangerous, and utterly necessary. It was the smell of a man who I had just cheated death with.

I buried my face in his back , inhaling the fear and the fierce, possessive relief.

“Hmm” Juan hummed, “whatever you want to do in your free time is entirely up to you. Clean up yourself, Father would need a report of the task assigned to you. You have twenty minutes”

He turned and walked away, his heels clicking rhythmically on the marble tiles.

I stood in that position,my head still buried in Miguel's scent, so long that it felt like forever.

“What do you think you are doing?”Miguel asked as he jerked away.

“What?” I asked with the intention of feigning ignorance at first but on second thought I realised that I did not know what he was asking for.”

The soft buzzing of the electric bulbs in the hallway filled the air and Miguel took his bloody time to respond.

I, on the other hand, took the time to really study him. Not once in my life did I ever think I would look at the face of a man who captured me for some weird reason and go”wow!”

I had survived this long, thanks to the distraction of the attempted murder, but my luck might just run out if he figured out what goes on in my head when I look at him.

“Are you trying to get us both in trouble?” He asked.

Something about his tune brought me out of the fantasy I wallowed in. like what the f**k? “Ummm,hello?I was trying to get us out of trouble.”

“An office? Really?"Miguel growled, taking a step towards me.

I took a step towards him too. I wasn't going to let his domineering height and build intimidate me "As opposed to telling him how you were almost murdered by your assigned driver and how the journalist you were supposed to get rid of figured it out and told you about it?”

I barely got the last word out my mouth when he rushed to me and covered my mouth with his hands.

“Ugh!” I moaned as I melted in his embrace. I had always been a stickler for personal space but I didn't mind a little bit of sweat.

He took me by surprise and now I was back to square one. Yearning.

“Now I am certain that you're out to get us both into trouble. What is wrong with you? Do you have a problem with keeping your lips sealed ?”

I managed to get my mouth free, “I am a journalist, do the maths!”

I felt his grip tighten around my lips as he looked me in the eye. This time, only one word could describe them. Danger.

He replied with his chest heaving slowly “I am the Mafia, do the maths!”

The s****l tension vanished just as it appeared and he released my hands with a forceful jerk that I almost tumbled to the floor.

“Get ready,father might request your presence at the dinner table and I don't want him to be kept waiting if he does want you”

I stood still,heart in my throat as I watched him walk down the hall towards the stairs that led to his room.

I looked around to see if there was anyone around who might have witnessed this embarrassing moment but there was no one in sight.

I could hear his slow calculated climb up the stairs towards and could hear them stopping.

“What now?” I thought to myself as he walked down the stairs.

I waited patiently,it was a long excruciating wait, but I did it anyway. There was nothing left to do.

I caught sight of his lush dark hair poking from the bend that led to the stairs down the hall first before his Beady eyes that threatened to be my obsession and death. “Are you coming along or?”

I tried to contain the fluttering that filled my stomach but I couldn't help grinning. Thank God that he didn't wait long enough to see me smiling like a child.

I followed him closely behind as I took the time to look around and observe and one thing caught attention.

His wing of the house was the only place in the entire mansion that seemed to have life.

Various art pieces hung around the wall each being separated either by a sculpture or some expensive looking vase.

“Never knew you as someone who was into the arts”I muttered under my breath.

“There's a whole lot you don't know about me.” He said without stopping or looking at me, “and don't touch that!”he warned.

I froze in the middle of touching the jade vase.

I looked up to find him walking into his room with the door wild open. I waited. Wondering when he was going to show me to my room.

“What if you were to stay here with him?” I heard myself thinking

“No!”I countered the naughty voice in my head. That won't work.

There's no way we would sleep together in the same room.

Perhaps he needed to slip into something comfortable before showing me my room.

But I was dead wrong.

“Come inside!” He commanded