Page 32 of Chained By Fate (Dark Billionaires: Vegas #1)
Outside the air hit me with the force of reality—hot, dry, and smelling faintly of exhaust fumes.
There was Sean’s car: a jalopy that looked like it survived an apocalypse or two.
Spotting me, Sean waved energetically from behind the wheel.
Great, just what I needed, enthusiasm from someone who couldn’t keep his life together.
I scurried over and yanked open the passenger door.
Sean turned to greet me with a bruised face that looked like he’d gone ten rounds with Mike Tyson’s ghost since our last encounter at the casino—I knew I hadn’t landed that many punches.
His face was a patchwork of purples and yellows that didn’t quite match his shirt.
“Andy! Man, it’s good to see you!” He reached for a hug.
I cut him off, pushing his arm away. “We’ve got a hulk of a body on our tail,” I said, nodding toward where Bruno stood scanning the crowd like an eagle hunting rabbits. “Hit it.”
Sean didn’t need to be told twice; he revved up that ancient engine like it was a racehorse instead of an asthmatic donkey and we peeled out of there with all the grace of a shopping cart missing a wheel.
I had no idea how I got here—my heart thundering like a drum solo and hiding behind the rusted-out side of Sean’s jalopy while bullets whizzed overhead like it was the Fourth of July and we were the main event.
A few hours ago, I slumped into a sticky booth at Burger Heaven, a far cry from the Michelin-starred extravaganzas I’d gotten used to with Matt.
The place smelled like grease and desperation, and I tried to focus on Sean’s latest scheme while gnawing on a burger that could double as a hockey puck.
Sean’s voice buzzed in my ear, something about clearing my debt with a quick job.
I nodded, chewing mechanically, my mind drifting back to Matt—how his fury would be volcanic when he discovered I was missing.
My stomach churned, and it wasn’t just the downgrade in culinary standards.
As night draped itself over the city, Sean’s beat-up car growled its way to an underground parking lot of an old building that looked like it had seen better days during the Prohibition era. We climbed out of the car, and I followed Sean like a lamb trailing behind a particularly clueless shepherd.
The place smelled of oil and stale urine, and dim fluorescent lights flickered overhead. We made our way to where the meeting was supposed to happen. My every instinct screamed for me to bolt, but loyalty—or stupidity—kept me rooted to Sean’s side.
We entered what looked like an abandoned office space. A group of men milled about, their conversations a blend of English and Spanish. They were clearly from Carlos’ crew—each one exuding danger like cologne.
Sean exchanged words with them in Spanglish that sounded like he’d learned it from a soap opera. I watched from the sidelines, aiming not to look as out of place as a penguin in a desert.
Then he arrived—Carlos himself. Short and stocky, he looked like he could bench-press a small car or maybe just run it over with his thick black mustache. His bald head shone under the harsh lights as he approached us with the confidence of a man who knew he owned everything in sight.
“ Este es Andy,” Sean introduced me with an arm slung over my shoulder that I promptly shrugged off.
Carlos’ gaze landed on me then—a look that made my skin crawl worse than that time I found myself in a nest of ants during a childhood dare gone wrong. There was something in his eyes that didn’t sit right—a predatory gleam that made my stomach flip-flop.
Sean and Carlos launched into rapid Spanish—a conversation as impenetrable to me as Fort Knox. All I caught were occasional words— dinero, acuerdo —things that sounded businesslike and not at all reassuring.
As they spoke, Carlos kept throwing glances my way, sizing me up like I was some prize bull at an auction. And being on the receiving end of that look didn’t do wonders for my self-esteem—or my sense of safety.
The place felt like a scene from a noir film—gritty, shadowy, and steeped in an undercurrent of tension that made my skin prickle.
As Sean and Carlos yammered on, I couldn’t help but notice the centerpiece of this clandestine meeting: a mountain of drugs.
Powdered white gold, enough to send Scarface into early retirement.
Carlos’ goons hauled out duffel bags that could’ve doubled as body bags—and for all I knew, might soon be repurposed as such.
They unzipped them with dramatic flair, revealing enough white powder to make Tony Montana weep with envy.
The stuff glittered under the harsh fluorescents like the world’s deadliest snow globe.
My brain, unhelpfully providing a running commentary, estimated we were looking at enough nose candy to fund a small country’s GDP. Hundreds of millions, easily. I’d stumbled into the kind of deal that usually only happened in movies—the kind where everyone dies in the end.
While the Reservoir Dogs extras handled the merchandise with the utmost care, Carlos and Sean still chattered away like a pair of hens at a knitting circle. My Spanish is limited to asking where the bathroom is, so I was as lost as a kid in a supermarket.
Sean started loading up his crapped-out car, handling each brick like it was made of gold-plated dynamite. I started sweating through my shirt, the air thick with unspoken tension and whatever cologne that mustachioed pipsqueak bathed in.
The silence shattered with the rumble of engines. An entire convoy of blacked-out SUVs rolled into the lot, doors bursting open to disgorge more hired muscle than I’d ever want at a family barbecue. These guys looked like they could crack walnuts with a piercing glare.
“ Qué demonios ?” Carlos hissed.
The Albanians’ leader, a mountain of a man with a face that looked like it had been carved from granite with a butter knife, bellowed, “What the hell is going on here?”
His gaze landed on Sean, who was frozen mid-loading, looking guiltier than a kid with his hand in the cookie jar—if the cookies were illegal narcotics and the jar was the trunk of his beat-up car.
Carlos, his mustache twitching like an angry caterpillar, shot back, “We thought he was with you!”
The Albanian’s laughter could’ve curdled milk. “We don’t know this pendejo !”
And just like that, the powder keg ignited. Carlos and his crew came at us like we’d insulted their mothers, grandmothers, and their entire ancestral line.
“Get in!” Sean’s voice hit a high note of panic that would’ve been comical if we weren’t about to die.
I didn’t need to be told twice. I dove into the passenger seat, my heart racing faster than a greyhound on a Red Bull binge.
As Sean fumbled with the keys, the car coughed and wheezed like an asthmatic after a marathon.
“Come on, you old heap of junk,” I muttered under my breath.
Then, as if the evening needed more unwelcome guests, more cars screeched into the lot, disgorging an army of men who clearly didn’t come to exchange pleasantries. Great. More people to kill us. Just what we needed.
I squinted through the chaos and spotted William Bosworth.
Of all the people to show up, it had to be him.
His pale-blond hair glinted under the harsh lights, making him look like an avenging angel—or maybe just an annoyed one.
He marched straight to Carlos and the Albanian, their voices rising in a noise of accusations and threats.
Meanwhile, Sean’s old jalopy was doing its best impression of a paperweight. The engine coughed and spluttered but refused to start. Typical. If there was ever a time for this car to play dead, it had to be now.
Sean was cursing the car and smacking the dashboard like it was a stubborn mule refusing to budge. I glanced out the window again to see the conversation on the other side had escalated quickly from heated words to a full-blown shouting match.
The next thing I knew, fists were flying faster than insults at a roast. And then shots rang out, turning the parking lot into an action movie set minus the special effects team. I ducked instinctively as bullets ricocheted off concrete and metal.
I felt my heart leap into my throat as a behemoth of a man wrenched my car door open—locked door be damned—and grabbed me by the collar.
Instinct kicked in; I wasn’t going down without a fight.
I swung wildly, my fists finding flesh, and somehow—I swear it must’ve been adrenaline—I sent the man twice my size crashing to the ground.
I turned back to Sean, ready to make our great escape, but what I saw stole the breath from my lungs. Sean slumped over, his shirt blossoming with crimson as if he’d decided to start an impromptu tie-dye project.
Panic clawed at me as I reached for him, but he just gave me this pained smile that looked more like an apology than anything else. “I’m sorry,” he rasped out. “Run!”
I didn’t have time to argue or process or do anything but react as more men came charging at us like bulls seeing red. Bullets zipped past me close enough to singe hairs as I bolted from the scene.
With each stride away from that metal graveyard of cars and corpses, my chest tightened—not just from exertion but from something far worse. A glance over my shoulder confirmed my worst fears: Sean lay motionless on the ground, drawing what looked like his last breath.
Tears blurred my vision as I sprinted away, each sob tearing through me like a jagged knife. I wanted to stop, to go back for him, but if I did, I’d be joining him on the cold asphalt.
I burst through the stairwell door and stumbled down the steps, the sounds of gunfire and shouting echoing around me like some twisted symphony.