Chapter 324:

Jake’s POV

I pulled the wooden chair with absolute, cold detachment and threw my body into it with utter carelessness, sitting with Mike at one of the tables close to the hotel stage that was bustling with lights. Mike turned to me, a sarcastic smile plastered on his face, overflowing with amusement as he rubbed his palms together with excitement, then said in a mocking tone: "I paid for your ticket myself so you could sit here and watch Julie’s enchanting singing performance tonight... so you better thank me, buddy."

I rested my solid back backward with deliberate coldness, raised my palm slowly to adjust the collar of my black shirt, and turned my lips in a grimace of complaint and tightness, saying with detachment: "I only came here to rest after the exhaustion of travel and the length of the road; I truly have no need to listen to the wailing voice of that annoying, sharp-tongued girl."

Mike knitted his eyebrows in extreme surprise and wonder at my words, tilting his torso forward toward the table while shaking his head in amazement and concern, saying: "What the hell is wrong with you, Jake? You only met her yesterday for mere seconds, and you’re already saying she’s annoying?"

At that critical moment, a mocking, mysterious smile sketched upon my lips, overflowing with dark, deep-seated secrets that no one knew about. Mike truly knew nothing about the mafia worlds, nor about the nature of our past work Steve and I when we used to work hand in hand with "Munshiz." It had never crossed his mind that I had previously met this so-called Julie face-to-face once in New York before. I waved my hand in the air with indifference and belittlement, saying with detachment and harshness: "There is truly no need for me to know her for a long time to conclude that she is a girl who brings headaches and ruin with her actions."

Mike shook his head in total despair and disappointment at my stubbornness, tapping the tips of his fingers on the wood of the table, saying with a sigh: "You are truly a crazy man who never changes, Jake."

Suddenly, in the blink of an eye, a complete silence and calm prevailed throughout the entire hall, and the whispers of the audience were cut off as Julie ascended the wooden stage with her balanced steps where she was to sing. Instantly and without hesitation, Mike turned his entire body toward the platform, his eyes widening in total astonishment. He began staring at her with captivated features, infatuated like a madman, without even blinking his eyelids a sight that aroused my fury.

I tilted my head toward his ear with cunning and malice, nudging him violently with my elbow in his arm, saying with mockery and biting sarcasm to wake him from her spell: "What is wrong with you, frozen like this, Mike? Did that witch cast a magical spell and charlatanry upon your mind the moment she appeared?"

He waved his hand with a convulsion and vexation without lifting his staring eyes from her for a single second, and ground out from between his teeth in a low, threatening voice: "Shut up completely now, Jake... and let me listen in peace."

I directed the looks of my cold, belittling eyes, filled with contempt, toward her as she stood before the microphone in her long blue dress, her long brown hair cascading softly and carefully surrounding her shoulders. Yet and what a strange, ultimate wonder she did not look beautiful or glamorous at all in my eyes due to the excess of my hatred for her; rather, I saw her as a very ordinary girl, even utterly hideous in my eyes! My strong jaw tensed and I ground my teeth with vexation and suppressed hatred raging in my chest, while saying inside myself with black malice: "Ah... damn you, cursed Stewart... why didn’t you sell her to that cursed club and rid yourself, and rid us too, from seeing her ugly face that is full of problems?!"

For I hated her blindly, with a deep-seated hatred that flowed through my veins like the passage of blood, ever since that black day when she dared with all insolence and spoke to Steve in that insulting, harsh, and arrogant manner that wounded his pride in the past... that foolish, tyrannical whore!

Suddenly, and without prior warning, the lights dimmed completely and the members of the musical band stirred in the background of the dark stage.

Then, the melodies of sad and deep Western music began to echo through the aspects and permeate the souls. Julie opened her lips very slowly, and began to sing with a torrential, deep, and dazzling emotion that shook the entity and the walls of the entire place:

"I came in like a wrecking ball"

With the pronunciation and exit of that first sentence and sweet melody from her mouth, my entire body stiffened in a sudden and shocking manner over the wooden seat as if a violent electric current had shocked my limbs.

The breaths tensed and froze in my chest with a hidden dread. Damn her! Her voice was enchanting, warm, and terribly deep in a manner that could never be described with words or lines... a velvety voice that pierced violently and harshly through all the walls of my solid defenses, and sent a sharp, cold, and terrifying shiver that traveled very slowly down my spine and inside my limbs and my entire senses, to shake me and convulse my steadfastness from the inside with a brutal force I never expected from a woman! Especially since she was Julie...

I tried hard to banish that strange feeling that invaded my body. I gripped the edge of the table with force until my knuckles turned white, and ground my teeth with nervousness to regain my coldness; I did not want, under any circumstance, to like the voice of this cursed woman.

I turned my gaze away from her with a grimace, and crossed my arms over my chest with stiffness while watching the guests and tourists around me. They were all sitting with their bodies leaning toward the stage, their eyes suspended upon her, as if her voice had plundered their minds too. I turned with a swift glance toward Mike beside me, and found him still transfixed with his sight toward her, his features completely relaxed and his mouth agape under the impact of shock and admiration.

Julie moved over the wooden stage with slow, measured steps, her body moving with a slight harmony with the sad melody. She repeated the pronunciation of the song’s lyrics with a strong voice, faltering with a bitter emotion that flowed from her throat to madness:

"I never hit so hard in love"

"All I wanted was to break your walls"

With every tone that exited her mouth, I felt a slight spasm in the muscles of my back; for her voice possessed a strange, poignant rasp that struck violently, as if she were not merely singing words, but rather bleeding a real and dark story before us.

My tightness intensified, and I moved my foot with tension beneath the table; for I loathed my mind’s acknowledgment of any excellence belonging to her.

I tilted my torso slightly backward to distance myself from the clamor of the music, and focused my burning gazes on her face. Her eyes were closed tightly, and her hand was gripping the microphone stand with a noticeable trembling, as if she were fighting demons inside her head while she sang:

"All you ever did was wreck me"

"Yeah, you, you wreck me"

My chest constricted in a manner I did not understand, and my features fell to become more harsh to conceal this physical confusion that her voice had caused me. I drew a glass of water with a swift, dry motion and gulped it down entirely in a single draught to cleanse my throat of that stagnation that had afflicted me, while Julie remained dominating the entire hall, her voice echoing in the corners like a sweet, inescapable curse.

I exhaled my breaths with tightness, and moved my head with annoyance; I was trying by all means to find a single flaw in her performance to mock it, but her voice was rising in its pitches with a terrifying steadfastness, holding onto the melody with a professionalism that choked my mockery.

Julie retreated with her head a little from the microphone and took a deep, violent breath that made her chest rise forcefully beneath the fabric of her blue dress. Then she surged with her voice with all the stormy sorrow she possessed, chanting the main segment again:

"I came in like a wrecking ball"

"Yeah, I just closed my eyes and swung"

At this moment, I saw her free palm rising slowly in the air, moving with intense emotion with the words, her eyes still tightly closed as if she were separating from the surrounding world and living in her own private nightmare. This scene, with that raspy tone that touches hearts violently, made the entire hall drown in a solemn silence, so that not a single tourist dared even to move his glass.

I looked at Mike and found he had leaned with his torso forward completely, placed his palms on the table, and interlocked his fingers forcefully, his eyes gleaming with emotion and astonishment. I struck the table lightly with my fist to provoke him, and said in a low, mocking tone to break this cursed spell: "It seems you are going to cry because of her, Mike."

But he did not even turn to me; rather, he moved his hand with nervousness to push me away from his field, whispering without awareness: "Shut up, Jake... shut up and just listen."

I returned with my eyes to her, and ground my teeth with force until my jaw pained me.

Damn her, and damn her voice! How could that hideous girl, the foolish whore who dared to insult Steve, possess a throat with this power? The words were exiting her as if they were projectiles striking the hotel walls, and every sentence she uttered was sending a new wave of that cursed shiver into my limbs, provoking every cell in my body to force me to acknowledge that her voice is second to none... a voice that possesses the ability to destroy all defenses indeed, like a real wrecking ball.