Mia Regina (#1)

Chapter 26: Guns out

The conference room was constricting on me as I leaned back into the black leathered rolling chair, glaring at the woman sitting across from Leo. The lights from the ceiling downed upon her, portraying her like an angel but her voice shoved needles through my eardrums, making them bleed as she talked to Leo about god knows what because I was too busy killing her in different ways in my mind.

          My blood continued to flare slowly, filling up the steam in the pot that was about to blow any moment to hit her square in the jaw. The temptation to pick up one of the other eleven unoccupied chairs in the room and swing it at this bitch for what she did to my brother was reaching for the sky. She prevented eye contact with me after she dropped the bomb and now she's sitting here like everything is right in the world.

My sick plots were interrupted by the man that walked in through the door on the far right corner of the room. "Sorry for the delay. I was getting the papers ready," said the bald man with a red file pressed between his beer belly and left arm. He pivoted around Arabelle's side and took the head seat on the left end of the table. My eyes fall on the Arabelle's bodyguard that stood against the wall right behind her with his hands knotted in front of his crotch.

"You better be," Leo snarled at the bald man. "You'll be in the grave for wasting my time. So you better speak up and tell me where Astor is?"

"Leo, please!" Arabelle calmly raised her brows at him, shooting him a warning glare.

Leo rolled his eyes and turned his attention back to the gray suited man. "Well, speak up already."

"Okay," the man opened up the file and slid two sets of documents our way and one Arabelle's. "Mr. Aguillard will not make it in today, so I'll be discussing the clauses with you and add some if you want." Well, this is just brilliant. We came all the way here to meet his pesky little ass-kisser?

"Is this a bloody joke?" Leo's hand flung and hit the large rectangular mahogany table with rage, vibrating my hands that laid on top. "We came to talk to him, not his fucking pets. I could have sent my men to do the deal as well."

"Mr. Bonferroni, please just listen to the deal and we'll talk. If you agree then the boss will come in."

Leo turned his furious gaze into Arabelle's direction who looked completely dumbfounded and just as shocked as us. "Did you know about this?" His voice ripped through the room with seething anger compelling me to jump a little in my seat.

"Do you really think I would do this? I'm the one who's trying to get you lads on good terms. I wouldn't have let him bail out at the last minute." She retorted with the same tone then looked at the bald man who had sweat beads rolling down the side of his scalp in what looked like fear. "Terrence, you better tell me what the bloody hell is going on and quickly, yeah?"

"Mrs. Aguillard," he spoke up immediately, wiping his sweat with a handkerchief, "your husband believed that you could do his bidding for him." He nervously glanced at Leo whose face was red in rage, his fingers digging holes in the arm of the chair ready to pounce on this imbecile. Placing my left hand on his right one, I give it a gentle squeeze in efforts to settle my nerves and calm him down as well, which worked as he let out a puff of air through his flared nostrils and his stiffened shoulders unwind making me release a breath in relief. I remove my hand and clasp it with my other one when Leo's right one wanders over and entangles it with mine as his thumb lovingly caresses the back of it, forcing a small smile to linger on my face.

"You better start barking," Leo turned back and growled as he grabbed the papers with his free hand and passed one to me, keeping one for himself. The man began reciting everything off the paper in the most monotonous manner as I stared at the white smart board behind that man that had "Aguillard" displayed on it through the projector that hugged the ceiling. Scrunching my nose in disgust at that name, I shut my eyes for a brief moment and let out a shaky breath.