𝐏𝐎𝐈𝐒𝐎𝐍 | 𝟏𝟖+

𝐗𝐗𝐈𝐕 | 𝐌𝐈𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐊𝐄𝐒 & 𝐏𝐔𝐍𝐈𝐒𝐇𝐌𝐄𝐍𝐓

"I licked it, so it's mine"

❦

ROWAN STARKOV
IN THE PAST
My hands were scarred from murder, drenched in the blood of the wrong victim, and shaking with slight fear. I had killed my assigned victim, the problem was, is that I had to kill someone who was supposed to stay alive in order to kill the person they needed dead. Valentine wasn't going to be happy about this. I knew what the consequences of this mistake would lead up to.

Only weeks ago, I had given myself to Gianna while she gave herself to me in that gym. After that, we snuck around as we always did and claimed each other even more. Just yesterday she made me promise her to come back unharmed. I hated seeing the sadness in her eyes when she tended to my aid after her father tortured me. We never talk about it, and a part of me wants to believe she doesn't know who hurts me, but the other part knows she is a smart woman who knows exactly what her father is capable of.

The men who came with me for this mission stood behind me in shock. All I could do was stand there and look down at the people who are no longer recognizable. This is what I'm capable of? I asked myself. This is what Valentine trained me to do? I tore them apart with my bare hands, no gun, no blade, no weapons, just myself. Shame is what I felt, disgust is where I drowned, guilt is what I stomached.

I'm a monster

A monster who Is going to go back home and be stripped and chained and caged and tortured until they throw me into the love of my life's arms. How can someone like Gianna love a monster like me? What does she see in my eyes? What does she trust in these hands that just ripped a person to shreds? My mother loved my father with her heart while she loved me with her soul. My father has spilled blood but only by gunfire and yet she still loved him the same. I wonder if she saw me right now if she would still love me the same?

See me the same

The red I once saw only minutes ago had faded from my vision. My breathing felt caged, I could even feel my heart pounding against my sternum. It was adrenalin, a different kind of ecstasy when you walk into danger and war. A hand touched my tensed shoulder, snapping me out of my haze. Slowly, I turn my head to the side to catch glimpse of the blond-headed boy at my side. Declan gave me a worried look; he knew exactly what would happen after this. And he could do nothing about it. No one could convince one of the most powerful men in Russia to not torture his troubled assassin.

No words were spoken when we walked out of the building and into the SUVs. I kept my gaze on the outside world that bypassed as we headed back. My father's best friend and a woman who I had considered family had told me about her days in confinement as a child. Octavia was taken from her family by her real father who kept her in a place called the OA, the Organization of Assassins. They used her in a lab and injected things into her, when they took her out, she began missions and when she failed, they caged her in a dark room. I have no idea if they tortured her but she told me that a man who I had met named Silas taught her to think about a hummingbird to distract her from the pain.