Live For It

|8|

Everyone's eyes snapped over to him as he pulled the phone out and answered the call, his heart racing as he awaited the words he hoped for. 

"Yes?" Koven mumbled, his hands trembling. 

"Mr. Di Maggio?" the muffled voice on the other end asked. 

"This is he," Koven impatiently gripped the phone. 

"We just finished searching the club," the voice said. 

"And?" Koven felt sick.

"Sir, we found a body outside."

Koven would need to buy a new phone.

~~~

ZHARA

As Xavier pulled me up the stairs and out of the weird cell room, I couldn't help but memorize everything around me. I'm pretty sure we were still in the hotel because I would've woken up if I was being moved in a car. The hall was dark as we walked through, and I couldn't hear anyone following us. There were a few doors in the hallway all leading back to the one at the dead end, the one we came out of. 

We stopped and turned into an open corridor that led to an area with 2 elevators on either side, confirming my suspicion of still being in the hotel. 

I don't know how I didn't notice that they owned Jade Crown, their labels weren't really anywhere in sight. I heard that some of them lived in a penthouse that was at the very top of the hotel, and I wouldn't be surprised if that's true. 

The Armani's are known for their ability to cover their business up with other businesses, and I guess their hotels were just one of them. 

We had few others, mostly based around Di Maggio Enterprises, but we had few little businesses here and there that were good to cover up cartels or stock hotspots. 

Xavier waited after he pushed one of the elevator buttons and I stood there awkwardly, not knowing what to do in this situation. He had literally just seen me snap, so I wouldn't doubt it if they were all judging me. 

But I honestly didn't care. 

The elevator dinged and the doors opened swiftly. The smell of vanilla came back to me as we stepped inside, calming my nerves just a bit. 

His grip on my arm was starting to ache, but I didn't open my mouth. I sighed out of my nose when the doors shut after we were inside, the same design of the other elevators being in these as well. Mirrors lined the walls, and I only peaked at my reflection, not wanting to see how bad I looked right now. 

I felt the pull of going upwards as there was small noise surrounding us, and I really wanted to look up to see what floor we were on, or to at least see how many floors there were. 

My curiosity got the best of me as my head tilted up to read the buttons on the side of the elevator walls, and I got a glimpse of what I looked like. I cringed at the state my face was in, and the state my thigh was. I looked like a got ran over a few times. I could actually see right now, which hurt my eyes a bit, but I took in the man who stood beside me. Luckily, he didn't catch me looking at him as I memorized his face in the light. He looked cocky as hell, which only made me even angrier. Slicked back brown hair, slightly messy, that stupid careless look, mischief-filled blue eyes...Asshole. 

We were passing over floor twenty-one when I looked at the numbers on the screen. The buttons went all the way up to sixty-seven, so I knew this was going to be way longer than I wanted.