Lydia
The minute I agreed to the deal. A smile started to grow on Zayn's face. "Delightful, shall we discuss the rules?"
Without breaking eye contact, I sat down on my earlier seat. He pulled out a sheet of paper, read through it quickly before looking up at me again. "Don't think you'll leave empty handed, darling. You will be getting 20 percent of the profit."
"And what? You'll get the 80 percent?" I said offended.
"Of course."
"Bullshit, I'll be doing the dirty work. I deserve at least 50 percent."
He laughed. "25."
"50."
"30."
"50."
"40."
"50," I raised my voice.
"Fine," he gave a sly smile. "You are not like the others and I think I like you already, Lydia."
There was something about him saying my name that made me weak to knees. Rolling my eyes at him, I quickly brushed the thoughts away.
"I'm guessing you have no experience in this, or what?" He asked.
"It used to be my daily job, until I quit and started to work as a waitress," I said casually, looking down on my finger nails. "Of course, I don't have experience, you dumbass!"
My sarcastic comments had no effects on him and he quickly brushed it off before continuing. "Judging from what you did to my guy I know you know a little bit," he laughed nodding to the guy behind him. The guy didn't seem to like it that Zayn mentioned the incident. He looked at me with a deadly stare.
"I took a self defense class when I moved out alone downtown," I shrugged. My mother forced to take the class, because she was worried about her youngest daughter. I didn't mind, I found it helpful and a little bit fun.
"That works," he said, then mumbling something I couldn't hear and flipped through the papers in front of him. "Do you know how to use a gun?"
"No." The thought of holding an actual gun scared the crap out of me.
"I guess we'll start here," he said, looking through the papers once again. "Here's the deal. We start training you on Monday. You get tomorrow morning to pack your belongings, call your job and tell them that you aren't coming anymore. We'll deal with your apartment lease."
I shook my head confused. "Where am I going to live?"
"Here," he answered like I had asked the dumbest question in the world. "And when you are ready, I'll send you off to live with Paul's boys."
I didn't like the fact that he was going to send me away like I was a little doll. I had a normal life that I had to give up.
"Do you know Paul and his boys?" I asked. I mentally prayed that Paul and his guys weren't some creepy old men who wore leather jackets, had tattoos of their mums and drank beer all the time. The thought of living in a house with other guys I were unfamiliar with scared me. I had spent most of my recent times alone and I wanted it to keep it that way.
"Used to," he corrected me. "I found out that I was better at doing this shit by myself."
"Great," I muttered. "Tell me about them then..."
"Handsome looking young men," he said. "Not as handsome as me, but you know the drill."
I quickly nodded at his stupid description.
"I guess that's it. I'll let home now and sort out your stuff now."
A wave of relief waved over me. "Finally," I breathed out.
"Lydia?" I looked up meeting his brown eyes. "If you try to escape or find any loophole out of this like calling the police, which by the won't work. I'm going to have to kill you and your sister," he said with a serious dark voice, causing me to get chills all the way down to my spine.
The lump in my throat was back. Even though, he played around a while ago, I saw it in his eyes that he was dead serious.
The drive back was silent. One of the guys that had tied me up was driving me home. I tried to make a decent conversation with him by asking him questions, but he gave a one word answers, making it hard for me to continue. He didn't seem too pleased either when I turned on the radio to help with the awkward silence.
When I got back to my apartment, I laid down on my couch, staring up at ceiling for a long while. Then out of where, I started to cry. So hard that I had to gasp for air. I was terrified, but I was also confused. This night felt like a blur to me, yet I remembered everything so clearly. I was just a 20 year old girl with a shitty job, struggling to make my ends meet. Why did this happen to me?
**
Sunday mornings I usually woke up at 8 AM, grabbed a fruit before running a morning jog around the neighborhood and then took a shower and did some chores that were necessary in the apartment. But today, I slept in. It was getting close to 11 AM and I hadn't done a thing of my usual routine.
My mind was wandering over the scene that happened yesterday. A part in me thought that everything was just a bad dream and I was going to work Monday morning like usual. No, I was going to learn how to use a gun. A fucking gun. This was coming from me, the girl who was scared to play Grand Theft Auto with my cousins till I was 17.
I got together and pulled through, starting with calling my job. My boss seemed sad about me leaving and I wouldn't blame him. Even though, the job was shitty, I had a great working environment with my co-workers.
I was going to start packing, when I realized that I had no idea about what I needed. I couldn't pack my entire apartment. The annoying part was that I couldn't even ask people I know to help me packing without any questions being asked. So I did it myself.
Going through my closet, I brought my two big suitcases and two small suitcases and threw in the stuff that was most necessary for me and then decided to watch movies on Netflix for the rest of the day. Instead of dreading of what was going to happen on Monday.
**
The next day, Zayn drove me out to a shooting alley. Words couldn't even describe about how nervous I was. I wore an all black outfit with a leather jacket paired with black skinny jeans. I had no idea if it was suitable, but I felt powerful in my leather jacket.
"Now let's see what you've got?" He said, handing me a gun, protecting glasses, ear plugs and nodded towards the shooting target.
The cold metal piece felt heavier than it looked as it rested easily in my palms. I placed my hand in front of the trigger, trying to adjust the target. Just as I was about to pull the trigger, he stopped me.
"No, no, no, no!" He repeated over and over again. "You have to pull the safety plug and load the goddamn gun first! Lydia, have you ever watch an action movie?" He sighed.
"You are asking the girl whose favorite movie is Love Actually," I replied sarcastically.
"And no, I haven't watched any I can remember," I added.
"Whatever, load the fucking gun," he muttered, trying to hide that he was annoyed at how much of an amateur I was.
I did just as he told me and loaded the gun. Getting into position, I pulled the trigger. The loud bang was still ringing in my ears and I saw that I had hit the target board in the shoulder.
"That's actually great for an amateur," he said, sounding genuinely impressed. "But your shoulders are to tense, try to loosen up. Let me show you."
He placed his arms around me. I felt his breath tickle on my neck, causing my knees to feel a little weak. "Try to loosen up now," he whispered into my ear.
I pulled the trigger one more, watching as I hit the board's target perfectly.
He let go of me. "Good job, Lyd. Try alone now."
I did the same thing again, luckily I hit the target. This was the thing I had dreaded the most and I succeeded. An overwhelming feeling of relief washed over me, thinking that it might be okay.
Zayn and I spent the whole day training me to learn to control the gun and use it under pressure. After a few hours it got tiring and I wanted to give up, but Zayn yelled at me every time I complained so I had to continue. When he finally was satisfied with my work, we called it a day.
Zayn glanced over at me before starting the car engine. It didn't take long before I noticed his eyes on me. "What?"
"You did good today," he said.
I didn't answer because I was waiting for a snarly remark afterwards.
"Lydia, I'm serious."
My eyes widened in shock, when I found out he was actually being serious. "Oh, thanks. I guess."
He chuckled, pulling out a cigarette from a pack. He put the cigarette between his teeth and lit it. "Want one?" He asked, holding out the pack in front of me.
I politely declined. Smoking wasn't my thing. I didn't know why, I didn't mind people smoking. There are bad consequences for smoking, but I hated to be the party pooper so I never mentioned it. Everyone in the family smoked. Even Sky started at an early age, when I caught her and her friend smoking on the roof. But then again I had always the odd one in the family, always standing out from them, strangely I didn't feel pressured to smoke. Even though Sky tried to put a cigarette in my mouth when I turned 18.
He lit the cigarette and blew out smoke through the car window, starting the engine. Turning on the radio, he turned up the volume as he heard it was an Arctic Monkeys song that was played. He looked over at me one more time, before driving out. It felt like I was in an Arctic Monkeys music video and I was totally fine with it.
**
I thought that the self defense class was hard, but God I was wrong. The class was like the baby to what Zayn had prepared for me. It was the hardest thing I had dealt with. I am a person who can exaggerate a lot, but I wasn't kidding. My muscles were sore, I had bruises covering my entire body and I couldn't even move without a sharp pain shooting through my entire body. This wasn't like any other P.E. class. It felt like I was preparing myself for the Olympics Games for illegal work.
Despite the pain, I had learnt a lot in the past few months. I was stronger, I was focusing better and my reflexes had improved. Zayn had also learnt me on how to properly stab a person with a knife. But the thought of stabbing a piece of sharp metal into human flesh, creeped me out. I had learnt so much that it had gotten to that point if a guy tried to attack me, I could easily knock him out unconscious.
"Great lesson today!" Coach Porter said to me. He was my coach who Zayn had hired for me for the past months. He was the reason why I was the strong person I was now.
I had just learnt a new move, where I grab the attackers arm, twist it and throw the body causing the attacker to flip and land on their back and I had just tried it on Zayn. He was laying on the ground, shocked and knocked out of breath.
"Woah," he coughed.
"Oh shit, are you okay?" I asked, holding my hand out to help him. I didn't mean to hurt him, he was the one insisted that I should show him what I had learnt.
He grabbed my hand and stood up. "Um, yeah. Of course," he said, shrugging it off like it was nothing and quickly fixed his hair.
He talked to the coach while I was sitting on the bench drinking water. They said their goodbyes and the coach exited the training room. He ran over to me. "Meet me in the meeting room in half an hour!" He said and walked out of the room.
I walked up to my bathroom, stripping of my clothes and stepped into the shower. As the water ran down my body I couldn't help but notice the amount of bruises on my tan skin, I was exhausted and tired. How could I survive another day? With a sigh, I washed by body and hair before getting out of the shower, putting on a fresh pair of underwear and a huge t-shirt that I always slept in.
"You could have at least tried," Zayn scoffed, when he saw my outfit.
"You know what? It's been a long day and I'm tired," I yawned. "Frankly, I couldn't give a fuck about your opinion." Without another word, I sat down on the chair next to him.
"Oh, feisty," he smirked at me. The word feisty brought back memories from the first day I met him. I couldn't believe that it was months ago.
"Zayn, what is you want to talk about to me about?" I groaned.
"This is it," he said.
My brows furrowed in confusion. "This is what? That you are Michael Jackson in disguise?"
He couldn't help but laugh at my comment. "No Lydia," he still laughed.
"Tell me then," I demanded. I didn't know what was happening. It was probably because I was too tired to pay attention.
"Lydia, it's time for you to join Paul's team," he said with a serious voice.
A lump in my throat started to grow, my heart beat started to beat faster and my palms were getting sweaty. Damn, it's happening for real now, I thought to myself, swallowing the lump in throat.
A/N: new characters in the next chapter yay
AND lol omfg louis is gonna be a dad