Imprisoned

13 | together

"This is Viviana, I've hired her as an assassin to help us take care of the Russians," Lorenzo explained, he looked at me and smiled tauntingly. Son of a bitch. I clenched my jaw as I stood in front of fifteen men, fifteen of his men.

Faint laughter broke out into the crowd and I rolled my eyes. They looked in between each other as they chuckled, some with a look of disapproval as their noses scrunched in disgust.

A man cleared his throat loudly and raised his hand, "Lorenzo you can't be serious."

"Does it look like I'm joking?" Lorenzo scoffed.

"No sir. It's just that... she's a woman." He said with a shrug. Others around him smiled and chuckled at his remark.

Lorenzo opened his mouth to speak, but before he could say anything I raised my hand to his shoulder, signalling for him to remain silent.

"What makes you think I am any less capable of helping due to me being a woman?" I spat out the word woman, using the same tone of repugnance as the man before me.

I folded my hands in my chest, waiting for his response. The man looked me up and down before answering, "Come on sweetheart, I think we all know that a woman cannot contibute to a million dollar business."

A smile grew on my face as I stared at the man who was sitting on the left of the large conference table.

"Take a look at where you are. Take a look at where I am," I taunted, "Are you able to spot the difference?"

He shrugged cockily as he looked around the room, unaware of where this was heading, "One of us is standing and the other is sitting."

"Wrong. One of us is valued, one of us has a purpose, one of us makes significant contributions to this organization. The other is nothing more than a foot soldier that could be replaced within seconds," my smile faded slowly, "Why don't you guess who's who."

The man gulped and slouched in his chair. A look of shame and embarrassment replaced his arrogant facial expressions. 

"She asked you a question. Answer." Lorenzo spoke quietly but sternly from next to me. Small gasps were heard from the other men in the room as all eyes were on him.

His face began to turn red along with his neck, he grew more uncombable by the second. "You're the person with value... and... and I can be replaced within seconds," he grumbled.

I nodded my head once and faced Lorenzo for him to continue. He stood there staring at me with a microscopic smile growing from the corner of his mouth, the smile quickly vanished along with the amusement that clouded his green eyes.

"Back to the issue at hand," he licked his lips and took a small pause before continuing, "Inside sources have recently informed me that the Russians plan on interfering with a shipment of narcotics that will be arriving to us later tonight."

I listened carefully to his words.

"We can't afford to lose that cargo, therefore, all of you will be posted at different locations to guard the warehouse. I will give you all the details once we are ready to leave. According to intel, the infiltration will take place at 6pm. It's currently..." He twisted his wrist and looked at his silver watch, "...3:53pm, stay alert for updates. You are dismissed."

The men in the room nodded their heads as they slowly began to exit the room. Two men stood up from their chairs at the same time as they spoke in Italian.

"Non posso credere che l'abbia lasciata parlare con te in quel modo," said a young man.

[ translation: I can't believe he let her talk to you like that ]