ZHARA
Sat on the window seal, I stared at the tall buildings as my knife twisted simultaneously in between my fingers.
The sun was setting by now, and I had been in the room for almost three hours, bored enough that I could read the bible that was in the drawer.
Okay...maybe not that bored.
After Flynn had dropped me at the door, he said he had to go do some things and then he would come back to hang out with me. I had danced around the room a bit, singing a few songs to myself and pulling out the air guitar. I tried searching the room a bit more for some weapons, then remembered I had my actual weapons and started aiming them at random things for no reason. Then I took off my shoes and painted my toenails and then gave myself a manicure, feeling very neat and fancy as I overly-used my hands. I tried braiding my hair in millions of different ways and only ending up ripping a few strands of my hair out.
Now, I just missed my family.
More like Koven, who I was worried about how he was right now, knowing that he thought I was dead.
Holy shit, I'm dead to most of the world now...
Fun.
I stared down at the constant passing cars, wishing I could be going full throttle down one of those streets right now.
"You're quite small for an assassin," I snapped my head over to the door, my knife gripped in my hand as I look for the source of the voice.
Inan Riccardo stood next to my door, which was wide-open, by the way, and was staring at me smugly as he took in my position.
"I'm just flexible," I grumbled, turning away from him in hopes he'd walk out, but when the footsteps sounded closer, I groaned inwardly.
"What do you want?" I asked, finding the plain gas station below me very interesting.
"What makes you think I want something?" he speculates, and I now sense him by the bathroom as his footsteps halt.
"Why would you be talking to me just because you want to?" I snap, finally turning my head to look at him. The guy who kind of fucked up my life a little stood there, looking serious as I asked my question.
"Maybe I do, why do you care?" he smirks, causing me to mumble a curse under my breath as my patience runs thin. I knew he was just screwing with me at this point, so I continued spinning my knife and just pretended like he wasn't there.
After about five minutes, I actually thought he might have left, but then he spoke again.
"You like to read?" he questions, and I turn my head to see him picking up a few books I threw in the duffel bag last minute. He was leaned against the wall next to the bathroom door, a safe distance away.
"Yes...even sociopaths like reading," I mutter, watching him flip through one of them.
"I would know," he says, looking up at me. I can't help but let a grin line my lips at his words, weirdly finding something relatable about him.
"You know, I should really hate all of you," I say, causing his brows to furrow, "we're basically in a blood feud, yet somehow I can talk to you without feeling like committing treason."
"I could say the same about you," he replies, nodding in understanding. He seemed like the type of guy to speak in riddles, and something about that made me want to punch him a few times.
"Your father put a bad reputation on your family," Inan clarified, dropping the book back into the bag. I nodded understandingly, knowing that my father was extensively prideful in some of the things he did.
I knew of things my father had done to the Armani family and their allies, but I was never allowed to find out, probably because I would realize how bad of a person my father actually was. But then again, their family took away things from me, too.
"Did Alphonzo really go to the extent I have heard to make everyone here hate him?" I ask, kind of hating how stupid I sound. His head tilted and his brows furrowed again, causing my question to sound even dumber.
"You don't know?" he asks genuinely, sorta freaking me out.
"All I was told is that my father was being really cocky and got too ahead of himself with business and shit went down, but I was never told of what his actions actually caused," I admit, moving my legs to dangle off the edge to show that I was showing some sort of interest. He studied me for a bit, probably to check if I was lying, and then stepped forward so he could sit down in the chair near the window. I tossed the knife I was holding on the bed just to show him that I wasn't trying to bait him into anything.
"About three and a half years ago, Alphonzo...Alphonzo got his hands on one of the well-respected and honored females of the Armani bloodline, and..." he cleared his throat, only leading me further into my disgust as my eyes widen.
"I'm just gonna give it to you straight up," he shook his head at himself, "He raped her, then slit her throat ear to ear and sent the body with every mark of evidence back to us. It sent everything to Hell."
My heart dropped, and my soul quivered as the words settled in.
~~~
{THIRD PERSON}
When Zhara didn't react to the mutilated body, Inan thought she had a stone stomach, but when he told her about what her father did, she ran to the bathroom faster than he could take back what he told her.
He didn't regret telling her the truth, she deserved to know why everyone hated her, but he felt bad for causing her sickness.
He pushed open the bathroom door slightly and saw her sitting against the wall, her necklace clutched in her hand and her eyes watering due to her sudden burning in the throat.
Zhara trembled as she realized the cause of her mother's death, only making it worse than she could've imagined. If her father had done...that to the woman, then she didn't want to hear what they might have done to her mother.
She pushed herself up and flushed the toilet, not caring that Inan was watching her. He had already seen her break once, might as well add another to the list. She washed her mouth out with water from the sink and washed her hands, which were still shaking in disgust. She turned towards Inan, who honestly had no idea what to do in this situation, and hung her head low as she approached him.
He knew now that she wasn't just a weapon, because a weapon wouldn't have grabbed his hands and squeezed them while tracing on the outside of his scarred hands, then pressed them to her forehead as she slightly genuflected towards him, and mumbled something along the lines of 'a resting soul' as she did.
He was taken aback at first by her actions, but then shook her hand and helped her back into the room in silence.
"I knew he was terrible, but..." she shook her head as she sat down on the bed, "Fuck," she mumbled, rubbing her hands on her aching temple.
It was like feeling the pain of her mother's death all over again, except now she was feeling the grief for two people.
"And to think he would touch my mother with those hands," she mumbled, mostly to herself, but Inan heard it.
"I'll cut them off if I get the chance," she added, standing up and starting to pace around the room. Her bare feet were silent against the soft rug she walked on, and Inan sat in the chair again and watched her.
She was muttering curses and insults that he had never heard before, and that was surprising for someone like Inan.
"You shouldn't feel like you owe everyone in this place now," Inan said, but how was that supposed to convince her.
"Like hell I don't! I owe everyone on your damn side!" she said, a little louder than he wished.
Unfortunately, the man that was rounding the corridor at the end of the hallway wasn't one that could ignore shouting. Zion stopped walking and noticed that the girl's door was open, and he listened to what she was saying.
"I'm so fucking stupid," she said, running a frantic hand through her hair.
"Zha-"
She went on and on, her words getting quieter to herself but louder to the man who was walking toward her room.
"I won't even be able to look any of them in the eye again," she said, closing her eyes as she passed the mirror. Inan, again, had no idea what to do in this situation. She was freaking out, and the best thing for her was just to let her figure it out on her own, but the towering figure watching her through the doorway didn't let that plan play out.
Her hands pulled at her hair and she tried to look over at Inan, but she was right, she couldn't even look him in the eye.
"Zhara, will you stop it?" he asks, standing up as he notices Zion leaning on the doorway near the hinges.
She stopped and turned to look at him, but then saw where he was looking, and curiosity got the best of her, so she wanted to see what he was staring at. She turned and stared straight into the eyes of Zion Armani, her heart shattering and stomach twisting as his grey eyes dig into her soul. She ran back into the bathroom before either of them could question her, and Inan rubbed a hand over his face as he winced at the noise of her coughing.
Zion raised an eyebrow at Inan and he shook his head at the curious man, nodding his head toward the door as he walked towards him.
"She didn't know about Rosalina," Inan said, making sure to keep his voice down. Zion visibly tensed at the name and turned towards Inan as they walked down the hallway.
"She freaked out and literally got sick because of it, she really had no knowledge of what happened," Inan explained.
Zion realized that the entire time she had been accepting the way they were treating her, acting as if she deserved it. They thought she knew and was just acting like she didn't care, but she really wasn't ever told, and that added another mistake to Zion's list. He couldn't believe that she had just taken everything for the past three years with no knowledge of why she deserved it, and then he remembered Alphonzo Di Maggio is her father. That man hid her from the truth and made her think she was terrible just as it is, made her think she deserved everything just because she was who she was.
"Shit," Zion cursed, realizing how bad this may look to others who knew she didn't know.
Zion was well aware of his sins, but taking advantage of her now because she thought she was in debt to them was just morally wrong.
~~~
Zhara pushed herself off the bathroom floor in hopes Inan and Zion had left her room. If she could barely stand straight while being in their presence, she wasn't going to be able to let this go anytime soon until she got her revenge.
Sure, the Armani's and Di Maggio's always hated each other, but that is no excuse, nothing was an excuse for what her father did. She couldn't even imagine it, but somehow she knew it was true.
"Zhara?" she heard the voice of Flynn and immediately flushed the toilet, pretending that she didn't just throw up her lunch...twice. She washed her hands as she felt the presence outside the door.
"Just a sec!" she called out from the bathroom, trying to fix her face to look as normal as possible in the mirror.
She wondered if it would be hard to speak to Flynn...it seemed as if he had already been hurt enough by her father.
She opened the door to the bathroom and stepped out to see Flynn leaning in the doorway that Zion once was, but she shoved that thought down.
"You good?" he asks, obviously sensing something a little off.
"Yep," she gives him a small smile and walks over to the bed, picking up the knife and sliding it into the hook she had clipped on her skirt.
Flynn narrowed his eyes at the side of her head as she adjusted her skirt, but remembered what he came here for.
"Zion and the others are in a meeting, and I was told to stay here and watch over you," he said, already knowing her response, "I know you don't need a babysitter, but they still can't fully trust you around here, so I was going to take you to the training room."
Her lips closed after he had practically predicted what she was going to say and felt content with the plan to go and check out a room she would most likely be using a lot.
"Give me a few minutes to change, I'll be back," she said, walking into her closet and closing the door behind her.
She shuffled through the clothes and wished she had memorized where everything was earlier. Opening a drawer, she found a pair of black joggers and threw them on the floor, saving them for later. She reached for a shirt that she could work out in, a ripped up cropped white tee.
She quickly changed and started braiding her hair as she exited the closet, searching for her sneakers somewhere in the room where she had dumped her bag out.
Flynn held her shoes out to her and she gave him a nod in gratitude as she finished her braid, plopping down on the chair.
After tying her shoes, she excitedly stood up and was eager to see what their training room looked like.
Zhara would use punching a bag of sand as a way of clearing her mind, and obviously it didn't really work due to all the shit that was still in her brain. It was something she enjoyed, though. She wondered if she would be allowed to spar with one of those men...preferably Isaiah Conte, the assassin who got under her skin very easily.
She followed Flynn out to the main living area, which was occupied by a few people she recognized from lunch, and then past the kitchen and towards a new hallway.
The hallway was way more open and wide, a lot of windows and balconies showing off the outside view. There was a soundproofed door to the right, which she assumed was a shooting range, and a swimming pool to the left she could see from where they stood.
Zhara tried not to feel betrayed when she realized how long Flynn has been living here, and the number of things he knew that she didn't.
Flynn opened the door towards the end of the hallway, revealing a very large room. There was a sectioned area for a mat laying out on the floor and an entire corner for boxing, On the other side, many types of machines and weights stood positioned. The entire left and far wall were made of glass, the soft glow of the sunset casting itself upon the room.
She didn't realize she was smiling until Flynn had chuckled at her reaction.
He started walking towards the punching bags hanging from the ceiling, and Zhara almost jumped in apprehension as he tossed her wrapping tape for her knuckles. She quickly took off her shoes and sat down on the wooden floor, oddly, and started wrapping her fists to prevent breakage.
As she stood in front of the punching bag Flynn was keeping a hold on, the memories of their training days together came back to her. She almost smiled at them, feeling a sense of deja vu when he gave her a nod. She kicked first, something she always did on the bag, and then resorted to a few hits with her right and left hands, then a jab with the elbow for good measure.
Her pants for air became more prominent after about ten minutes, the levels of her exhaustion still weighing her down.
She imagined her father's face when she would throw hard punches to the higher part of the bag, wanting to make it into a reality in all ways possible.
~~~
The wind was strong for the autumn evening, but the men didn't shiver.
Isaiah checked his waistband, feeling the heavy metal of two guns in their correct position. Liam checked his watch, seeing they had about a minute to spare. Xavier pressed himself further into the corner of the alleyway, aching to get his hands on a traitor. Zion Armani leaned against the brick wall, facing the metal back door of the run-down club.
Hands in pockets, he watched as the door slowly creaked open, sliding over the rough concrete threshold. The older, raggedy man poked his head out, but before he could get one dirty shoe-clad foot onto the pavement of the dark alleyway, Xavier had him by the collar against the brick wall.
The man immediately knew who it was that accompanied him in this alley, and he was terrified, to say the least.
"Please, I don't have any money on me," the man pleads, grasping onto the leather sleeve covering the arm keeping him to the wall.
Playing dumb? Zion held back a scoff.
Xavier stared into the frightened man's eyes, the dilated pupils blending into the brown irises. They flickered over Xavier's shoulder, staring straight at the man to whom he was in grave debt.
Isaiah was aching to get his hands on the man, strangle, gut, slit, whatever he needed to do to get the information. Liam bit down on his smile as he observed the man try and wriggle his way out of Xavier's grasp.
Zion pushed himself off the wall and strode over to the man, who soon gave up his fight to get out of the hold. Sighing through his nose, Zion flicked his head toward Xavier, notifying him to let go. Xavier complied and shoved the guy in the middle of the circle formed by the powerful men, who were practically the predators stalking their prey. He balanced himself and looked up at all the murderers surrounding him, and knew he wasn't getting out without damage.
"Surprise, is it?" Zion boasted, smirking as the man started surrendering already.
"Mr. Armani, I swear, I will get th-" Isaiah didn't hesitate when Zion gave him the signal, a quick punch to the right side of the face. Next, he hoped for the nose.
Zion clicked his tongue quietly as the man rubbed his face, blood trickling from a brow. Isaiah shook out his hand, popping a knuckle that was most likely going to bruise. He didn't particularly care in this situation, though.
"You said that two weeks ago, Logan. You know I don't like to wait," Zion taunted, waiting for the chance to see the pathetic excuse of a thief dead.
"I know I did, Sir, I promise you'll get my money by-"
Zion signaled again, the sound of a bone crunching under Isaiah's fist as it collided with the man's nose. A painful cry erupted from the man as he cupped his bleeding nose.
"Your money? The only thing you own is the right I grant you to live," Zion seethed, obviously offended that the man would think such a thing. He quickly realized the mistake he made and wiped the blood off of his face, frightened of the Italian beasts in front of him.
The man hung his head, either in shame or in fear, but it didn't really matter or affect what his fate would be.
Isaiah held the gun to the side of the man's head, pressing it deep into his temple hauntingly. The man quickly recognized the click of the safety, his eyes widened and his head snapped up.
"Where's my money, Logan?" Zion asked slowly, drawing out his anger and leaning down to bring more adrenaline into both the man and himself.
"I-It's in the office, my office," the man quickly forces out, pointing a trembling finger in the direction of the door he came through.
Zion nodded to Xavier, sending him to go check and see if he is being honest. Xavier hurried over the threshold and into the building that he somehow knew the layout of, and started towards the man's office.
Knowing Zion would want this as efficient as possible, they have guests coming later, he swung open the familiar door and started his search.
Opening all drawers, cabinets, and creaky floorboards, the only things he could find were porn flash drives and laminated restaurant menus. Xavier cursed under his breath as he took one last deep look around the place, realizing the man lied. Xavier prayed for his soul when Zion found out the man was just wasting his time.
Zion watched impatiently as Xavier came back out empty-handed after a while, fists clenching as he realized he had been lied to.
No one lies to any of the Armani's.
One look at the beaten man's face, and Zion snapped.
Grabbing the gun out of Isaiah's hand, Zion cocked it and shot the man straight between the eyes. Isaiah was quite disappointed, to say the least, as the body thumped to the floor without any fancy wounds.
The ride home was painfully silent.