-ARES SEIDON >
I've never killed before.
There were multiple opportunities for me to murder, but I never took the bait. Who the fuck was I to take a life. To take away the chance a person can get to repent, or possibly change. That is what I stand for.
Or. . . What I stood for anyway.
But what happened last week changed my view on it. Hearing her pleas to live, when he never had the right to take her life from her in the first place, it drove me fucking crazy. I failed her. I was supposed to protect her. Never have I failed to do my job. This had to be the most important job given to me.
And I fucked it up. The mere thought sends my chest into fucking feral rage. That is the sole reason I've been in the gym all day, lifting heavy weights till I physically couldn't and was n the verge of passing out. Boxing the punching bag until I completely destroyed it.
"Ares,"
My back tenses. I don't turn around.
"The principessa is safe with the capo. And the men haven't found any other associates of the dead man. The capo is barely keeping it together,"
That fucking makes two of us.
"He wants to talk to you," I turn around, watching him shift his weight from one foot to the other. Nervous. "Right now." He says, turning to leave. I roll my eyes, take the gloves off, and grabbing my bag, walking straight to the shower room.
>>>
I stood in his study, my face contorted in humiliating anger, hands buried in my pockets while the Don had a fixated glare on me. His mismatched colored eyes were dark and dangerous. I might not walk out of here alive, and honestly, I wouldn't mind.
I've humiliated myself to the point of no return.
His jet black pistol appears out of nowhere as he pulled out the gun in a split second, aiming it at me, and not even a second later, a single gunshot echoes throughout his office.
I expect myself to be on the floor, bleeding out. But I'm still standing, I wonder if he missed but that was close to impossible. The stinging pain radiating throughout my ear solidified my thoughts. Of course, he wouldn't miss. He's the one who taught me how to use the many firearms imaginable.
The man raised me.
Since my parents were too busy making bank in Greece, they left me with Sicily's greatest sinner. "You walk in here, hands in your pockets, without looking at me in the eyes and facing your fucking mistake like a fucking man." I take my hands out of my pockets, intertwining them, and meeting his gaze.
"You've never failed me, Ares. You never disappointed me. Looks like you got cocky. Too comfortable, you slipped your grip." It becomes difficult to keep eye contact. He's right. I lost a bit of my touch. Before I could say a word, the door opens. Revealing the person that I haven't seen this past week. The person that I couldn't face.
Her soft features appear as she peeks inside the room, her slick curly hair in a messy bun. While she stands barefoot with a black hoodie-dress reaching below her knees. "Ares?"
Her eyes widen as she takes a step inside the office. I look away, shame eating me alive as the handprint on her throat was still partially visible. "Your ear." She gasps walking toward me with a concerned expression etched onto her features.
I expected anger. Rage and betrayal in her gaze and demeanor but no. The brat makes me feel worse by being worried about me.
Before she reaches me, I slowly drop to my knees in front of her.
She stops in her tracks. "What are you doing?" She asks, her voice laced with concern. I don't respond. "He's been beating himself up because of the incident."
A fraction of my eyes widen.
He knew.
Of course, he knew.
Xavier was something close to my parent while my actual parents chose capital over me. Even when we lived together, they never had the time to talk to me or teach me what I needed to know today. As long as I had what I needed, they couldn't care less.
"Hey, you saved me, remember? That's what matters at the end of the day." She walks closer to me, her small hands gently inspecting the wound on my ear. Angel then suddenly shoots her father a glare.
"Did you do this?"
Xavier's hard exterior always seems to crack open when she's around. His daughter. I can tell he loves her endlessly. His daughter. His real kid.
"Yes." He nonchalantly says. "A little punishment for failing his job for the first time." He growls, making me unable to meet their gazes. "He still saved me, dad." She counters. "Where were you when I called?"
"Neonata. . . That wasn't my number. You should've called my original number."
She scoffs. "Are you saying it was my fault!?" She exclaims, teary-eyed. He doesn't reply. A hurt expression crossed her soft features before her gaze blazed in anger.
She pulls me up by my blazer's flap, dragging me with her down some halls and into a room. "This is kidnapping." The Don isn't done with me, and she somehow saved me from death without much struggle.
"Sit." She ignores me, closing the door and disappearing into her bathroom.
I don't do as she says.
I take the time to look around at the minimalistic spacious room. There was a large number of books on a white shelf in a corner with a fuzzy matt under a black beanbag.
A little reading corner.
There was something rectangular shaped on the matt that looked like a tiny tablet–no it had buttons on the sides. Wait. . . Is that a Nintendo—
"I wonder where I put it?" I hear her voice laced in wonder as she searched for something. I decide to not touch the tiny console.
So reading and gaming.
One other thing catches my eye on her vanity table.
It was a collar. I unconsciously take the object, reading the name. "Rhaegar?" I mumble curiously.
"That was my dog's collar." I turn around, watching her search through the first aid kit. I dropped the collar. "I thought I told you to sit down." She scolds without facing me.
"I don't take orders from little Italian girls," I say, burying my hands in my pockets as my eyes lazily follow her every movement.
She pauses and faces me, deadpanned. "How am I supposed to treat your wound if you're oh so high in the sky?"
She really is that short. Yet this tiny person possesses more rage in her than me when needed.
I narrow my gaze. "You're just going to have to wish you could fly."
Angel breaks out with a wide smile. "You have no sense of humor." She says, head tilted. "Then why are you smiling." I grumble, being dragged toward the bed.
She pushes me down and starts to treat the wound. "It's just a scratch, it doesn't need any medical attention." I groan, gently pushing her hand away from my ear.
Angel huffs a laugh. "My father shot a hole into the edge of your helix." She says, amused while I roll my eyes, poking my tongue against my cheek. "Yeah, a scratch."
She thinks this wound is much? Wait till she finds out about the many scars I have on my body.
She giggles, the sound strangely satisfying to hear. "You're crazy." She continues to treat the wound, finishing up with the bandage and leaning down while cupping my cheek, suddenly placing a kiss on the bandage. I almost flinch, glaring up at her. "What the fuck was that?"
I wasn't necessarily angry. More caught dumbfounded.
"Strange. My dog loved it when I kissed his bandaged wounds." She pulls back with a frown. Did this fifteen-year-old Brat just call me a dog?
"Do you want to die?"
She smiles, walking past me and packing up the medical supplies. The way she's smiling at me as if she didn't almost die a couple days ago, pisses me off. "You're weird," I mumble, watching her freeze and slowly look up at me. "Huh?" She sits down next to me.
"You have the brightest smile on your face as if you weren't just assaulted a few days ago."
She purses her lips, looking up at the ceiling. "I'm really. . . used to it." Her eyes narrow. It's like she remembered something.
My brows shot together as her words sunk in. "Elaborate." I'm intrigued yet slightly pissed off.
"Well, I grew up in a foster home in Puerto Rico. I wasn't really someone people were fond of." She chuckles as if that shit was funny. "They found unnecessary reasons to put their hands on me. It got a bit intense, and when I got old enough to know my rights I started to fight. I got protective of myself."
"How old?" I ask, slightly narrowing my eyes. She meets my eyes with a taunting gaze. "10 years." I suppress a scoff. "Anyways. I fought a lot. That's how I found peace." I snort. "By beating people up?"
I should've guessed it. No wonder she packs so many punches. She's had to defend herself all her life.
"No, you moron." She lightly shoves my shoulder. "People got tired of getting their noses and jaws all broken. I fought bullies before they could bully me. Making sure I taught them a lesson before they could mess with me. So they steered clear. Avoiding me as much as they could."
No shit. She did a number on Tabatha and her friends before they could do their little tradition to mess with the new kids at school. I've never been so entertained. Tabatha can't even look in Angel's direction when we're at school. She knows Angel sees passed the special treatment her mother gives her and is not afraid to let Tabatha know that she can get touched.
"I'm a smart kid, so I got myself a scholarship to get educated at an elite school. Full of little girls that think they own the world or boys that think everything is a competition."
She sees what I see, interesting. I suddenly notice how much we're alike.
"I knew I could get an opportunity to escape my foster house, so I worked hard and got straight A's, comforted by the thought of freedom from that place."
I watch as Angel brings her knees up and hugs them. Her eyes glint happily as she spoke, staring up into nothing. "I wanted to go to Harvard. Get a degree and make a living in California."
Angel meets my eyes and gives me a small smile. "There's no need for all that. I have a dad now. My real father. That feels so unreal to say." She cringes, excitement purely conveyed onto her soft features.
The more she speaks the more I understand her. The more I want to hear what she has to say. As I keep looking at her mismatched green and hazel colored eyes, I suddenly fear looking too deep into them. She is no threat. She's just forced to self-protect.
"I'm sorry." I find myself apologizing again, feeling something more than humiliation.
Guilt.
"I'm not weak. I didn't die." She nonchalantly shrugs. "I know, but still. I- it won't happen again, I promise." The words leave my lips, and I'm not surprised. At first, I was pissed off cause I've never failed a job, but now that I know a bit about her, I'm raving mad at myself for failing her.
"Training starts tomorrow," I announce, standing and burying my hands in my pockets while I look down at her. Her eyes are huge as they gaze back up at me, a look of excitement on her features. I suppress the urge to play with a strand of her curly hair, my gaze softening as she smiles at me.
"Okay."
-TAYUYANNA >
I walk around the house with my gamer headphones on, taking a bite of a big green apple.
The front door opens and I brush it off knowing it was Father or Ares. I walk passed the kitchen and into the hallway leading into the entrance of the house.
My heart floats up my throat.
"Who—who are you?" I ask, inching back when a man stood an arms length away from me.
He had deep hazel eyes. His black hair gelled back elegantly while he wore a perfect fitted suit.
"That fucker actually has a kid." He murmurs, crouching down and grasping my chin. "You're practically identical."
I wrench my chin out of his grasp. "I—I asked you a question." I fail at sounding brave. And he looks like that was amusing to him.
"I'm your father's cousin, Adonis." He introduced, tilting his head as he saw my skeptism. "Don't worry kid, I won't hurt you,"
"I just wanted to see you for myself. To see if you were real and not a whisper in the wind."
I frown. "I am real." I said. Security wouldn't let in a killer. Maybe he is telling the truth.
"So you are. May I get your name?" He politely asks with a small warm smile on his soft boyish features. "I'm Tatuyanna."
"Tatuyanna." He nods. "Nice to meet you, darling. We'll have more time to speak in future, but for now I'll take my leave." He gives me a wink. "Tell my dear cousin I said 'hi'." He says before he turns around and leaves.
Weird.
Dad's family is really filled with bozos.
~~~
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