Chapter 5 The situation

I briefly think about what the implications of head-butting him in the dick would bring, but stop when something catches my eye. Something dark, strapped to his belt, beneath the flap of his blazer.

Bingo.

"Doch' toy ital'yanskoy svolochi." Unlike with me, the inept Shrek sounds hesitant and weary with his tone. (the daughter of that Italian scum)

I catch a variant of the word Italian in his spiel and suddenly know where all this is stemming from.

I heave an annoyed sigh.

Since the beginning of time, the Italians and Russians of the criminal world have not gotten along. They never formed alliances, always worked against each other in business, with neither of them playing nice.

I didn't involve myself in this drama, but I knew enough to know that things had settled down over the last decade.

And this right here marked the end of the unproblematic era between the two.

But I didn't give a shit, and wanted no part in any of this. Petty crime empires weren't my cup of tea anymore.

"Ona ne." His voice reeks of indifference as he makes a move to turn around, while my gaze is trained on the gun. "Ubey yeye." (She's not. Kill her.)

I'd be a fool not to take the opportunity.

Which is why I do so, swiftly slipping my hands out of the knot and swiping his gun out of its holster. It takes me a mere twenty seconds to jolt up to my feet and have the gun aimed at him.

He's taller than I'd anticipated, which is exactly why the barrel of his own gun is pointed at his chest and not his head.

Clicks sound off around the room, and I glance over to all the men and women now pointing their own guns towards me. Yet the man in the centre of all the attention barely blinks at my sudden display.

No surprise, no alarm, nothing.

It irks me.

"I'm a little offended that your men would think a shitty knot would do in tying up an Ademaro." I offer smugly.

The man turns to me, finally settling his gaze on me, as though he's finally deeming me worthy of an ounce of his attention. But even then, it's voids of any interest.

The lack of reaction to my antics makes me antsy. Never had I been undermined by something as simple as a reaction, or lack thereof.

My fingers tighten around the gun in my hand as I consider how things could escalate. Guns weren't my weapon of choice, nor did I necessarily like using them for personal reasons, but for him, I'd make an exception.

"Who tied the ropes?" The first words of English out of his mouth are smooth, punctuated with ease, and his accent isn't thick; it's merely hinted in a way some might find intriguing.

But I'm focused on the way the phrase comes as a simple demand. One that sounds far too casual and dismissive for my liking.

But that's not what sends my mind into a spiral. It's the way his eyes examine me with indifference, yet he chooses to speak in English, not because he's speaking to me, but because he wants me to hear.

An arrogant man. I hated those.

The man who'd spiked my drink, also known as the inept Shrek, steps forward, his head hung, eyes cast downward. "ya sdelal." (I did)

A beat of silence passes, while the man before me shows no reaction. It's as though he could not function like a normal fucking human.

The question must have been a distraction because in a matter of milliseconds, he snapped my wrist, twisted the gun from my hand into his, and fired one lone bullet, straight into the man's forehead.

His head quite literally explodes. It's a gruesome sight that sends blood splattering onto the people standing around him.

No one bats an eye or even flinches. Not even as the blood of a fellow companion trickles down the sides of their faces, clothes, and onto the dirty floor by their feet.

Nothing. They stand rigid, enslaved to their positions out of pure fear.

It's something I've never seen before, which tells me I'm in over my head. And this realization sparks the one where the gravity of the situation settles on my shoulders, like a dead weight.

Shit.

Whoever these people were, they operated differently. Loyalty and family didn't uphold any value in keeping your life, as they did with the Italians.

This man was a cold-blooded tyrant.

A type so evil he wouldn't bat an eye whilst shooting a man who'd probably stuck by his side and remained loyal to him.

At least the Italians slapped some sappy shit about family to keep everyone in check. This man didn't need to appease the masses to keep people in check.

Interesting.

Perhaps he'd done that to scare me, drill through his superiority over me, or get a reaction out of me. I don't give him any of those things as I give an unimpressed sigh. "Well, that was a bit dramatic, don't you think?"

He flips the gun back onto me with too much ease for me to catch his bluff. "Sit down."

The day Celina Ademaro listened to the demands of a man without fighting back was the day hell would freeze over.

I stand tall. "And if I don't?"

From what little I heard, the bratva was a close-knit family operating mainly in Russia.

This man, however, didn't operate under a crime family, where power was distributed, albeit unevenly. This was simply him and his army.

He held all the power.

"Your blood will stain my thousand-dollar suit." My response was in an attempt to anger him, annoy him. But once again, I get no reaction but cold indifference as he finishes his sentence. "And inconvenience my day more than it already has."

I may not have been able to call his bluff, but I sure as fuck was smart enough to know no made man would go through all this trouble just to kill their collateral. "You'll need to try a bit harder." A smug smile graces my lips as I find the upper hand. "I highly doubt-"

My left ear rings, my eardrum threatens to burst, and a burning sensation prickles the entire left side of my face. I'd been shot at enough times to know that he'd not only grazed the shell of my ear with a bullet, but he'd sliced off an inch from a few strains of my hair along with it.

The glare I send him is doused in hatred as my hands shake at my sides and my body threatens to explode. It's in that moment, as I'm staring at his stoic face - void of any emotion, that I vow to kill this man before I die.

He raises his dark brow a fraction of an inch, a move so subtle I wouldn't catch it had I not been so perceptive. "Do I need to repeat myself?"

Despite the ringing in my ear, his voice pushes past it, loud and clear.

"When my father gets word of this, you'll be a dead man." It takes everything in me to bite my tongue and do what he says. "And I'll make sure I get the honor of slitting your throat."

He's unfazed by my threats.

I wanted his head, and I'd do it with my bare hands.

"Tell me your name." He doesn't even have the decency to form it as a question.

"Celina Ademaro." My teeth slam together as I grit out my response.

The man puts his gun away, a clear sign that he doesn't see me as worthy of being a threat, and instead pulls out his phone, before directing all his attention to it.

I sit there seething and plotting every single detail of his gruesome death while he clicks away at his phone.

He doesn't have a gun to my head, and my hands aren't tied, but he's proven that he doesn't need to. He could and would win.

Which is why I'm smart enough to shut up and comply, for now.

"Celina Ademaro doesn't exist." It's only when he slips his phone back into his pocket that he looks back at me.

My hands tighten around the metal of the chair in an attempt to keep my temper at bay. "My father didn't want me tied to his name." I grit, forcing out an explanation. "I took my mother's legal last name."

Despite the situation, it was the truth. Ademaro put a target on my back. This way, I was able to go to school and live a life away from the spotlight.

His tone is dismissive and cold once again. "Prove it."

No room for argument, nor is there any room for understanding.

"My father's ring." I make a show of holding my hand up in front of him. "If you focus your beady little eyes on this," I turn my hand and display the small engraving. "You'd see my last name engraved on it."

The man glances at it, no doubt spotting the Ademaro carved into the gold band. It was the same ring that the other two men who founded the Galanti mafia wore, only they had their last names engraved on their rings.

The man eyes me for a moment, almost in contemplation, before taking a step forward.

I sit, paralyzed as his large hands reach for the collar of my shirt and in one fast motion, he tears it down the middle, leaving me in nothing but my black bra.

Not only does he violate me so easily, but he doesn't look the least bit interested as a chunk of my shirt dangles from his hand.

I try to glare at him, but he moves behind me and so I use my words, "I'll kill you for that-" a hand curls itself around a chunk of my long hair and he pulls my head back before shoving the piece of cloth into my mouth.

And it's only after he's snapped a photo of me, restrained, gagged, and in nothing but my bra, does he slip his phone back into his pocket and look down at me, his stare so naturally unnerving I almost fear for my life.

"You'd die trying."