The Crushed Rose

HER

3 months later

Vincenzo Romano:

"May I come in, sir?" Jamal's voice snapped me out of my thoughts.

"Come in" my stern voice replied although the last thing I wanted was company, which is pretty normal as I despise all kinds of living things.

Jamal walks in. He is my eldest and most trusted employee. He is almost in his fifties. Jamal has been serving our family since my mother's time. I admire Jamal. He is a no-bullshit kind of person. He does not waste time in flattering me. A trait that I very much like about him. I hate kiss asses. 

"My niece recently broke out of jail. I was hoping you could recruit her." He jumped straight to the point. He said it as if it was no big deal, which is understandable. He has been serving my family for as long as I can remember. Death, blood, screams of pure agony are a few things you get used to when you are in that position.

"Why did she go to jail?" I asked overlooking the fact that she escaped. 

"She killed 2 police officers" Jamal replied  "She is waiting outside if you wish to see her."

"You brought her into the headquarters without my permission?" I asked, my voice calm. But Jamal knows me enough to catch the spark of anger lying within my words. I have strict instructions about letting others into or grounds.

"No sir, she broke in. She had nowhere else to go. I apologize on her behalf." He muttered lowering his head.

"She did what?" This time my voice clearly expressed my surprise. A girl broke in through the high-security walls I have put up around my headquarters. My mansion has ten times the security of a jail. I have highly trained men present at each entrance and millions of euros worth of alarm systems. Even an ant can't enter the mansion without my knowledge. And this random girl with two mere kills just walked right in?

"Bring her in" I growled. Jamal opened the door and signaled with his head for the girl waiting outside to come in. 

A girl. No. A woman walked in. She was wearing black pants and shirt on which hugged every dip and curve of her body. She looked like those badass female assassins from action movies. She had the body of a fucking goddess. It was evident she trained regularly. She did not have muscles but her body was built like she could take on at least four full grown men without a problem.

Her thick black hair fell over her face. I watched as she raised her hand and brushed the hair from away face and tucked it behind her ears. 

Fuck. She has a face of a fucking goddess too. Eyes that swirled with danger. Full, lush lips. A cute little nose. She had the beauty that every celebrity would pay millions of dollars for and still would not get. She looked like she just fell from heaven. Or walked up from hell. 

Wait. Why the fuck am I thinking about how pretty she is? I blamed that on the lack of sleep I've had.

She walked in and stood in front of my desk. There was something about the way she carried herself. It oozed danger. She looked like she would kill a person just for breathing the wrong air.  It oozed 'I own this fucking place' when it is me who owns the fucking place. I somehow liked that and disliked that at the same time.

"You broke into my mansion?" I asked calmly.

"They would not let me in" she replied calmly.

"How did you break in?" I questioned.

"Beat up the guards. They were bozos anyway. Can't believe they tried to touch me." she muttered the last part to herself.

"You walked in and beat up my guards?" the anger seeped into my voice. If it had been anyone else they would have already gotten to their knees just hearing the lethal edge to my voice. But she simply nodded. I looked at Jamal to leave us alone. He went away offering a quick bow. He looked scared for his niece. He should be.

I am soon going to have to talk to my guards about this. If she could alone take down their highly trained asses, then they should die anyway.

"Explain why you went to jail?" I questioned her letting the matter go. For now.

"I was fighting a group of seven bitches when they tried harassing me. When the two officers got there, instead of helping me, they joined the fucking party. So I killed all of them. Then I chopped off the officers' dicks and mailed them to the police station. They arrested me for the murder of the two policemen by forging evidence but they could not prove that I killed the 7 other men." She said that with so much calmness like it was the weather report. Honestly I was almost impressed. Almost. "Then I broke out of jail killing more men." She finished.

She definitely had fight in her. But aggression without skills is nothing.

"What's your name?" I stood up while opening a drawer at my desk.

"Rose Grace" came her reply. 

Grabbing a knife from the drawer I walked up and stood in front of her. She maintained eye contact. I noticed her flexing her fists in case she needed to swing. 

Instead of hurting her which she definitely expected, I handed her the knife.

"Thirty seconds. You need to draw blood." she looked at the knife as if it would come alive and eat her. For the first time fear flashed through her eyes even if it was for a fraction of second. Her eyes, the looked vaguely familiar. 

But before I could think where I saw them before, she adjusted her face and snatched the knife from my grip. 

Rose flew into action. She moved with calculated moves but too bad for her, I have twenty fucking years of vigorous training. I could fight her with my eyes closed. Within twenty seconds, I had her pinned, her back flush against my front with both her hands locked in my grip. A smile creeped it's way up to my face. Just as I thought, all fight, no skills.

Just as I was getting ready to snap her neck, she reared her head into my face and in that momentary second of distraction she wretched out of my grip with the speed of lightning and whipped around slashing my bicep. I felt the warm blood wetting my shirt.

"Twenty nine, thirty" she counted off with a smirk gracing her lips.

I wiped at my nose noticing it was bleeding too.

Now I was impressed.

"Welcome to the Romano mafia, Rose grace." I said. I might have underestimated her. She was light on her feet and she moved with the speed of light. Instead of trying to stabbing anything she can, she tries to predict her opponent's moves while disguising her own intentions. Rose is already better than all the men in my mafia combined. With a little bit more training, she can become fucking unbeatable. "Go outside and wait."

She turned around and walked away. I liked her.

The question now is, where did she learn to fight like that?

I called Jake. Holding the phone to my ear, I spoke, "Give me all the information you can about Rose Grace."