Phonophobia [RE-WRITTEN & EDITED] 📗

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Payne

"Wow, that's nice of you to show up an hour late to an emergency meeting." Andrea scowls as I enter the conference room in my house.

I throw her a look hoping that she gets the message that I'm not in the mood to deal with her fucking nagging.

"Now that he's here we can brief over–" Alexander starts to say but Andrea intercepts.

"Where were you? What took you so long?" She asks and, on the seat next to her I see Vera roll her eyes.

I take my seat and let out a long breath as I run a hand through my hair. I looked around the room to see if everyone was present and my eyes settled on Alexander.

"Has Bychkov been located?" I ask him and he shakes his head.

"Not yet but we–"

"Who were you seeing before you got here, Christian don't fucking ignore me." Andrea cuts him off again.

I placed my elbows on the glass table before me and put my chin on my intertwined knuckles as I spoke to her.

"Are you okay?" I ask calmly and she looks at me from the other end of the table like I'm not communicating in English. "I need a response when I fucking talk to you. I asked if you are fucking okay!"

When my tone rises, the guys at the table look away, and Andrea looks at me with slightly wide eyes.

"Y-yes, why do you ask?"

"Wrong answer," I tell her I take out my gun from my waistband and drop it on the table. She slowly takes her hands off the table as she inhales sharply. "The answer I need from you is a no. Because you must be out of your mind to talk to me like you matter. Are you asking me questions? You? Since when the fuck did you even start calling my phone – who the fuck gave her my new phone number?" I ask and they all tense around the table until someone next to Vera slowly raises their hand.

"She said she had something important to discuss with you and it couldn't wait." Theodore sheepishly explains and I resist the urge to pick up my gun and shoot his nose.

I sigh and turn my gaze back to Andrea.

"You don't have the right to question me who I meet or where I came from. You don't even have the right to call me when I'm coming for anything only for the exception of giving me useful information, the only use you have for us is giving us useful information from Flavio. Flavio is the only reason you're here and don't forget that. I don't work for you, I work with you because of him, and once Castillo Bychkov is out of our hitlist you will also forget about ever being in this house or I swear to every fuck on the planet I will kill you without even trying." I warn and she nods stiffly before clearing her throat and taking her eyes off me.

The room remains quiet for a tense minute until Alexander breaks the silence.

"As I was trying to say before I kept getting cut off, rudely, we have found Bychkov's latest shipment hideout, it's in a warehouse in the outskirts of New York towards the east. According to the information we've acquired, he'll be there in three days' time to check them out and it's the only chance we have now at an ambush." Xander fills us in. "So, we're going to have to share troupes and the order of attack very soon in order to keep up with training."

I nod at his words, running a hand down my jaw.

"Flavio says we have to keep damages at a minimum so I suggest that we don't send many of our men there. At least, 14 or 16 will do." Andrea says and everyone turns to look at her.