- Lawrence Monroe -
"You are just as useless as that sister of yours" I so badly wanted to talk back, or even spit at the pristine shoes that paced back and forth in front of my eyes. He was the one that was useless. "You know, after all the siblings of yours that I have stolen for fun, none of them have been as useless as you"
Of course, how could I forget that he had made sure I was conscious when my older brothers Leo, Gio and Lijah were stolen and brought here. He wasn't happy when his youngest twins sacrificed their lives for the Monroe siblings.
They don't know that they are the ones that will rise against him in a few years' time. They didn't die that day, rather escaping with my brothers.
My brothers.
I hope they remember me like Georgia did. But maybe they don't. Maybe they think they are better off without me, hence why they haven't saved me yet like they did for Georgia.
But sadly, I know Georgia's story without even speaking to her about it. She wasn't the one that got the chance to tell me, rather he told me all about it. From how he couldn't get his hands on her to how she had been treated.
Maybe she could save me.
If I could escape again, I will try and get her to find my location so that my brothers can save me. All I need to do is let someone know so that they can get my brothers onto finding me. Hopefully Alessandro and Ace can save me.
I remember them the most and if someone asked me about them, I would speak of them fondly. I don't really remember Axel or Elijah much, as they were normally at school, along with Gio, who I always remember getting pushed off somewhere. Leo used to play with us before he was pushed off with Gio.
I always remember our family never being together, even our parents. It was so bad that even when our cousins or extended family came over, we still were never all there, unless we had been threatened or we had to take a photo for the photo wall.
I wonder if they left my photos up there. I was just a mere baby when this man said that he saved me, only to torture me. When I came of age, I became his killing machine, as his twins had left before they could be used any longer.
His eldest son is trying to get me out, along with everyone else here, but nothing is succeeding. His other daughter died at his own hands, which breaks my heart.
But what if my heart was already broken before anyone got the chance to break it?
"Are you even listening to me, shithead?" he questioned. That same name that meant nothing to me. He didn't know my real name, or so it felt like that. He always called me a shithead or fucktard. He loved swearing. "Yes" I added a nod to confirm.
"You are to kill her" he showed me a photo. He showed me a photo of my own sister with her best friend. It looked like a photo from a few years ago, but it was still creepy that he had all these photos.
Luckily for me though, he wasn't pointing at my sister. But that didn't make this mission any easier. I was killing someone that was close to my sister, and that would ruin me.
"Of course, Sir" politeness was the key with him. He hated rudeness. If you were rude, he instantly killed you with a knife, leaving you there to bleed out. He craved power and pain, especially on the Italian Mafia.
I was surprised that he hadn't killed me already, but I was his prized possession. He would kill me off when I knew too much, or I wasn't needed.
He had been the one to train me to be the best of the best. To be the killing machine that everyone fears in the underworld.
It was hilarious how some 30- to 40-year-old men were scared shitless of me, and I was only 15. I didn't even know when my birthday was, only ageing up every new year.
I was taken when I was 2, or so I was told. I don't know why someone Russian man would take a innocent 2-year-old from a family that loved him. I don't care though.
"You better have this done by the end of the month" and with that, he left me in this room that he wanted me to call my bedroom in a house that used to be a home.
He had killed the family that used to live here.
But that was besides the fact. He usually gave me a week to kill someone or capture them, so a month was the longest I had been given in years. Something was wrong with this mission.
He never gave me this long.
And if he did, it was for more than one person or if I was still in training. Maybe he has just gone insane or something. I wouldn't put that past anyone.
He was a ludicrous man that wanted nothing more than to be the Government. To be able to kill anyone that disobeyed him. He wanted the world in his own two hands.
He would cause the world into a total havoc, making it assimilated.
Time to save someone that was so dear to my sister.
How wrong I was thinking that she was so dear to my sister, rather destructing my sister over the years.
---
"I just can't kill her" I spoke so softly; I didn't expect anyone else at the table to hear me. "He wants you to kill her, so it breaks you. He doesn't care if you don't want to. No one ever knows why he has to kill these innocent people anyways" the boy I had grown fond of, spoke from beside me.
Ares Creed: the boy I had trusted the most. He was stolen from his family at a young age, losing all hope that he would be found just like I had. We basically knew each other inside out, having been trained together since we arrived.
It was currently dinner time. The 'maids' here chose what to give us, occasionally filling our food with poison so our master can see if we make it past his constant tests. Ares and I were some of the only people that had read through these tests and hadn't eaten the food.
We had never been to the medical bay for food poisoning, not like that should be anything we should be proud of.
"Lawrence, Ares. You are needed in the master's office" a maid came to inform us. The two of us glanced at us, nothing more than a bored look crossing our faces, as we lazily pushed the chairs back.
Hearing the scrape of chairs, all eyes were on us as we exited the dining hall, or in other words, the poison room. It always smelt of chemicals for some odd reason.
"Losers!" one of the older boys called out, but neither of us paid no mine. One day or another we may have to kill him off for just doing something as simple as stepping on the wrong stone.
Funnily enough, Ares and I were the two most 'loyal' and feared people at this assassination.
I just hope my sorrelina isn't scared of me when she finds out who I have been forced to become.
"You asked of us, sir?" Ares used the greeting that had been implemented in our brains since we could talk. We had to call him sir or master, even if it made me shiver in disgust. He was just a creepy old man who wanted nothing but bloodshed to cover this world.
"Yes. You two are to go on an earlier mission" he paused for effect. He always did this to us, to build up some sort of suspense. "You need to bring me this family. Specifically, the little boy. No negotiations" he handed us a piece of paper with information written on it.
I saw Ares staring at the paper, like he was frozen in time. "Will do, sir. Do we have a limit?" I questioned. This was about the only thing we could ask, or we were deemed as 'not loyal, ungrateful' and so on.
What would happen if I decided I didn't want this anymore and actually killed him for all the times I have killed people for him without my own choice.
"By the end of the week. Don't think I forgot about your other missions either" of course he had to remind me of the girl I would have to kill by the end of the month.
This was just the bare minimum he asked of us in a month, let alone a week. "Anything for you sir" the automated response left my mouth as I made it look like I was taking the paper out of Ares's hand, but I was somewhat comforting him.
"Better" he gruffly spoke, before re-lighting his cigarette. That was the cue. 'Get out of my office, idiots' is what he meant. But he couldn't do that. We had to respect him as a don.
The don of the opposing mafia to my family.
"Who is it?" I question, finally looking at the paper. I recoiled at the last name. Creed.
Master wanted Ares to bring his own family here, even if they died on the way here. And I was supposed to be the one that helped him with this. Finger cross they weren't his immediate family, as I didn't see the two people that Ares had described to me a few years back.
I only knew of two brothers, not like seven. But this was no time for humour of any sorts. This was someone's family on the line.
I was going to be at fault for another family murder.
"I can't do it. You'll have to do it" I had never seen Ares, the 17-year-old boy I had grown fond of, look so broken, on the brink of bawling his eyes out.
He had never seen me cry and I had never seen him. It was just how we were wired. We were supposed to be feared not cry-babies.
But here we were, killing people who were close to the ones we loved, even though they may not know we even exist. "I can't do it either" I muttered, not wanting to be the one that killed someone I had been the best of friends with family.
They didn't deserve this and neither did we.
We never asked to be brought into this life. We didn't ask to be captured. We didn't do what our families did to this mafia. We were just mere babies with bright futures, that turned dark the day we were taken.
"Then we can't stay here. He wants this done by the end of the week and he will butcher us. He doesn't care if we are the best of the best, he would make someone else do it while he killed us. We can't not do it" Ares practically cried out.
I placed my finger over his lips, checking the hallway, before pulling us down another one, towards the sleeping quarters. I made sure to check that no one was around as I dragged an almost sobbing Ares to the room we shared.
A room was all it would ever be.
It was just two blankets, two bags with whatever we had collected over the years, and a few strewn clothes. The stone-cold walls didn't emit any heat, rather emitting freezing chills around the room no matter the season or time.
We get what we deserve; nothing more, nothing less. But what did we even deserve? Surely it wasn't this life.
"We have to run away from here. Get far away from here and find our families. You've seen your eldest brother, and I've seen my sister. Maybe the two of them can help us" I was more than ready to leave this darn place.
I would be damned to stay here for another year.
"But he will find us. You know that as do I. He has his creepy way of finding out where we are, even if we disguise ourselves or go into hiding. We've seen them die trying" Ares exclaimed.
We both knew who he was hinting at.
The other two boys that made up our core four. We were supposed to escape with them, but got held back, while we had to watch them die.
-Flashback-
"Come on, we have to go now" Adonis pushed my tiny, 7-year-old body in between his and Lorenzo's. Adonis and Lorenzo: two tins who were left to fend for themselves. The two of them were significantly older than Ares and me, I mean who was I kidding, Ares was older than me as well.
I was the youngest one who had been brought here for years now. Everyone they brought here now was over the age of 10, while I had only just turned 7 a few days ago.
But that was beside the point.
Adonis, Lorenzo, Ares, and I were tying to escape. It was currently midnight, the comical time to escape. Any assassin would know that this is the perfect time to leave anything behind that they don't want to be found.
"HEY!" Master's voice boomed from a nearby chamber. He wasn't behind us, but he was near. Maybe he knew that we were trying to leave. I just wanted to be where I belonged.
Suddenly, hands wrapped around my neck, and I was ripped from the gentle grasps on my wrists. "Not so fast, little boys" a taunting voice spoke, making me try to see who it was that was holding me, but I guessed who it was from the way that I wasn't near his feet.
Master. No one knew his real name, but that didn't matter. We were all terrified of him and just wanted to go. No one asked to be here with him, he was the one that wanted us to be stuck here with him.
He was like a man that couldn't be moved.
"Let us go!" I heard Ares scream, but I was too deep into my own panic that he would hurt me once again, that I didn't notice that Adonis and Lorenzo were held at gun point or that a knife wasn't too far from my own neck and heart.
'We are going to die. We are going to die' I chanted to myself. There was no way that we could get out of this predicament alive. We were done for.
"I know these two rug rats wouldn't have been smart enough to figure out how to escape, so I think it is you two who deserve to die" and before I knew it, two gunshots went off.
If only I had opened my eyes that had closed without me noticing, I would have seen that only Adonis got injured, and Lorenzo managed to escape, both injured.
-End of Flashback-
"This time, we can actually go through with it. Say we are going on a mission or something, but we just have to get out of here, and never come back" I eagerly bounced on my toes. This was the most excited I had been in years.
I wasn't even sure that it was possible for me to get excited or even smile anymore. That little boy had been killed when he was brought here.
I didn't have a normal childhood, and for some reason, I'm okay with that.
I wish I wasn't okay with it. I didn't know how wrong I was thinking that it was okay to not have a normal childhood.
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