One Night Assassin

|CHAPTER 8~ Push through the pain|

|CHAPTER 8~ Push through the pain|

True to his word, Adriano has not said more than five words to me in this last week of being at his place. In which, I have done nothing but read books on my phone to kill time. Now I wouldn't say I've done nothing in this past week. I've had to make two phone calls in which case that has changed my life even more than it already has been. The first one was to resign from my current job at the cafe, but according to Adriano, I'll be making plenty of money on this mission, so I should definitely suitable enough when coming to income. 

But the second one, was something I was dreading since the day I first agreed to start this mission.

Calling Veronica.

The conversation started off as you could expect it would, her frantically answering the phone while bursting into a hysterical, hyperventilating fit right there on the phone. Eventually, I ended up not telling her the truth about–well anything. I didn't want to give away any of the information for this mission, so I ended up just saying I was now staying with an old friend of my dad's. Which if you look at it, isn't a total lie. Skipping past the part of the argumentative conversation, she ended up actually understanding and wishing me the best, but I still had to visit her from time to time.

But today is the day, today is the day I start my training. And since I didn't get to start it earlier in the week; due to the fact they didn't want to overkill my mind, they decided that Sunday would be the best day to start.

I'm already dressed in the workout clothes I was ordered to wear by Adriano, but like I said before, he won't say more than two words to me a day. 

I thought the whole 'never talking to each other' thing would actually give me a sense of serenity, but it got annoying after thousandth time of intentionally being ignored.

"Luna, come on! I'm leaving and you have two seconds to get in the car before I leave you behind." I hear Adriano's voice yell out sternly from the living room, making me snap out of my book filled daze and get up from the bed. Swiftly, I leave my phone on the charger and put on my shoes before making it out of the door with nothing but a hair tie in hand.

Since I don't have any of my clothes or essentials, I decided I was going to ask Adriano if we could visit my old house–well, ex's old house to get some of the last of the stuff I have there. This past week, I have been wearing nothing but clothes that Adriano gave me, but the strange thing about it was, they were women's clothing, and every time I asked about how he has them, he would do as he always does and ignore me before walking out. 

Something tells me this man has some skeletons in his closet.

"Why did it take you so long to get in here?" Adriano ask in a bitter tone before crossing his arms across his broad chest, that was now even more obvious through his tight black shirt. Ignoring the fact there was an intimidating yet hot man in front of my eyes, I remember who this man really is and copy his stance.

"So now you're talking to me? What happened to the silent treatment?" Crossing my arms even tighter against my chest to hide the fact I was probably shaking in fear at what he might say back. Fear that what he says might be worse than what he said to me last time, maybe even fear that he will reveal another deep secret of my fathers that I wish to never of heard. Nevertheless, he just lets out a long breath before running his hand through his hair in frustration.

"Just get in the damn car, Luna." And at that, I mutter a quiet 'whatever', before obliging and huffing all the way out to the car in the driveway.

Pulling up at a large building that says SSOJ on the top of it, Adriano swiftly jumps out before going to the passenger side of the car, opening my door and tugging me by my arm out of the car. 

"Hey, asshole. What was that for?" I ask as he continues to tug me towards the entrance of the building by my arm. And at that, I still get no response out of him again.

"So we're back with the silent treatment again I'm guessing." Getting nothing in response once again, I just continue to get dragged on until finally getting pulled into–what seemed to be the largest gym I had ever seen.

"Holy cow," I mumble under my breath as I intake the size of this gym. The gym was the twice the size as any other normal gym, and actually looked and smelled clean. There were things as small as weights, all the way to things as big as boxing rings. It was truly a gym-o-holics dream come true.

"Come on," I hear Adriano deep baritone voice say aloud before pulling me towards the large boxing ring.

Oh no, no, no, no. He doesn't actually expect me to learn how to fight like this, does he?

Tossing me in the ring, he then walks over to get a pair of boxing gloves before throwing them at my feet.

"You don't actually expect me to learn how to fight by just throwing me in the ring, do you?"

"Put on the gloves," is the only thing that comes out of his mouth, making me let out a groan in annoyance before picking up the gloves and slipping them on. As Adriano puts on the punching pad gloves, I can't help but to notice how the muscles in his arms contract as he slowly slips them over his hands. Slapping them together, he looks me in the eye before saying it.

"Hit me." With those words, I hesitate for a moment before finally beginning to punch at the gloves on his hands, barely even making his arms move at all from the low impact blows I am setting on the pads.

"Come on, Luna. I know you have more in you than that," he almost yells out in a teasing tone, making me hit even harder, but still nothing.

"I'm trying damn it," I say through clenched teeth, making Adriano let out a loud guffaw. Hearing the sound of his laughter, I stop punching all together.

"You know what, I'm done," I say in labored breath before taking the gloves off and jumping out of the ring.

"Oh come on, why are you giving up now?" He almost yells out, but luckily for me, no one was currently training at the gym at the moment.

"You wanna know why, Adriano? It's because you're supposed to be helping me and training me, but so far, you've done nothing but laugh at me and ignore me every time I try to ask you something! I am not giving up on this mission, but I'm definitely considering giving up on you as my partner!" I yell out before bolting out of the gym to get some fresh air. Taking a moment to look and see if he came after me, I turn to see that he didn't even come after to ask if I was okay. With a sigh, I begin to start walking down the sidewalk that was next to the gym. 

I mean, was this whole mission thing stupid? I get I wanted to do this in honor of my father and to help those girls, but is this truly what I expec-

Getting cut off to a loud honking and screeching sound of a car, I stop in my path to see a car barreling towards me. On instinct, I freeze up like a deer caught in the headlights. 

"Luna!"

Right as the smell of burnt tires hits my nose, I feel a large hand roughly grab me before the feel of a warm and broad body in circles me like a warm blanket. As soon as the person loosens their embrace on me, I look up to see familiar blue eyes looking down on me with concern written across their face.

"God, you're so f*****g stupid Luna, you know that?!" Adriano yells out before pulling me back into his embrace as he begins to stroke my hair. Looking, I see that there is a small crowd of people around us, probably due to that fact I almost got hit by a car. Trying to pull out of my shaken state, I then c***k a smile before breaking the tension a bit.

"I-I thought you weren't talking to me?" I say with a small smile gracing my lips, making him pull me out of his grasp and look into my eyes with a look of pure annoyance written on his face.

"Come on damn it. Before you decide to run in front of an eighteen wheeler this time," he says as he begins to drag me away from the crowd of people, that then begin to die down once we left the scene. Making it back inside of the gym, I feel Adriano's grasp leave my arm before beginning to see him pace back and forward while mumbling inaudible words in Italian.

"Are you upset?" I ask in a shy tone, making Adriano stop in the middle of his ramble to walk up to me in a quick fashion.

"Am I upset?! No Luna, I'm f*****g ecstatic. I love having to save women from idiots that don't know how to stop at stop signs, it's been my dream since I was a little kid," he says in the most sarcastic voice I had ever heard, making me let out a humorless chuckle in response.

"What? Like it would matter to you if I were killed anyway. Like you said before, I'm only your dead best friends daughter!" I seethe out through gritted teeth, making Adriano back me into a wall with his hands on my forearms, and not in a heat-of-passion kind of way, rather a I'm-furious-so-you-need-to-watch-it, kind of way.

My heart race begin to speed up at the proximity of out bodies. Was he going to hit me? Yell at me? What could he possibly do that would hurt me more than what he's already said to me?

"You're not just a dead mans daughter, Luna. You're- you're something special. Something that I know when you have a family of your own, you'll be able to find out for yourself." Loosening up his grip on my arms, the look of rage in his ocean blue eyes; softened to a look of guilt. Following the movement of his eyes for a moment, I follow it to see his eyes trail down my face before landing on my lips. Seeing that his eyes are on my lips, I lightly bite the corner of my mouth in nervousness. Right as I begin to see him lean in a bit to get the smallest of a peck on the lips, he closes his eyes before pulling away completely from my body. Distancing a good five feet away from me before walking away completely with his fingers messily entangled in his long raven black locks.

Seeing that he stopped in his tracks as he eyed something on the stool, he then grabs the wrap type things that were sitting on top of the chair before beginning to trudge back towards me.

"Put this on," he then says as he throws the wraps at me, making me fumble with it before finally catching it.

"Oh no, we're not going through this again, are we?" I ask incredulously before seeing the way he put the wraps around his hand.

"Just put them on, it won't be like last time, I promise. And promises are something I never break," he says before corking an eyebrow, making me not help but to smirk in response at his facial expression.

"Fine, but I have a problem," I say, making him give me a nod in answer.

"I have no idea how to put these on." Adriano then lets out a small chuckle at my cluelessness before grabbing the wraps and my hand. Slowly, he carefully wraps my hand before switching to the other one.

"You know, Nightmare. You're not as mean and cold hearted as people make you out to be. So why do you try to be true to those peoples words and shut all your emotions out?" I ask as he finally lets my hand fall after being done with wrapping it, along with the small smile on his face.

"That's something we're to never speak about, okay Luna?" He says before walking away and towards a punching bag across the room.

"Follow me."

I guess I hit a soft spot for him. Maybe someone close to him died and he's still coping with it, or maybe he lost his family in this line of business. Or what if he actually had a wife and kids and they were killed by one of the drug cartels he was talking about? My heart immediately wrenching at the wretched thought.

"Hey, you coming anytime soon?!" He yells across the room, making me snap out of my thoughts before running over towards where he was at.

"You're kind of out of it today, Luna," is all he says before tightening up the wraps on his hands and arching an eyebrow in mischievousness.

"Um, I-I guess I just didn't get a lot of sleep last night," I say in hopes that he won't question anymore. I don't want him to know that the stuff that's happening around me is actually getting to my head. I can't let him know.

"If you say so. Now you see this punching bag right here," he says before grabbing both sides of the bag and looking at me through the side, making me shrug in obviousness answer.

"I need you to hit it," he says, making me let out a sigh before begin to hit it, almost immediately getting stopped by the man himself.

"You see, that's your problem. You're punching all over the place, you need to punch in one area of the persons body, you need to aim for a specific spot before you start to punch, like this." He then begins to punch the bag with swift punch that were so intense, it made the whole bag rock in every which way.

"Got it? Now you try," he says before moving out of the way. Stepping in the same stance he was, I begin to hit the bag the same way he did, obviously not hitting it quite as intense as him, but surely hitting it better than I was before.

"Better, now let's try some other technics that you'll need to know."

After another hour of learning different fighting techniques and just exercising in general, we decide that that was enough for today and we'll save the rest tomorrow.

"Hey, thanks by the way," I mumble under my breath as he begins to pack up the stuff he brought, making him stop what he was doing for a second to answer me.

"For what?" He ask before continuing to put the stuff in his bag. Knowing he knew what I was talking about, I left out a frustrated sigh before answering back.

"You know what I'm talking about, Nightmare." 

"Doesn't ring a bell, Fiore," he says, practically hearing the smirk as he spoke. I let out a groan this time before taking my hair down and begging to mess with the hair tie in a nervous habit.

"Pulling me away from the car that was about to hit me, thank you for saving me." Adriano then turns around to show off the wide grin that I knew he was sporting, making my shyness turn to frustration.

"You ass, I knew you knew what I was talking about," I say in a serious tone before punching him on his shoulder. He was about to open his mouth to say something snarky back, but he's wide smile faltered into a look of anger and rage before he could a word out. I then begin to hear a slow clapping noise. Turning, I see a man with tattoos all up and down his arms and a darkish skin complexion clapping his hands in a mocking way.

"Xavier, che ci fai qui?" (Xavier, what are you doing here?) I hear Adriano's deep voice yell out in distain, making my stomach go in knots.

"What? I have just as much a right as you do being here. Men in our line of work need to work out, am I right?" He says as he leisurely begins to make his way up to us, his eyebrows immediately shooting up as his eyes land on me.

"And I'm guessing this is the famous Petrov boss has been raving about," he says before taking my hand in his and trying to kiss the back of my hand, but right before his lips could touch my hand, I feel a tug at my arm and feel a warm body against my back as muscular arms are wrapped around my torso possessively.

"Ah, already marking your territory I see."

"I'm not marking anything, Xavier. I'm just following bosses orders," Adriano response venomously through gritted teeth, making the man chuckle before walking closer towards us.

"I'll take that as she doesn't know," Xavier says with a smirk on his face, making my eyes go wide before my head begins to spin with thousands of unanswered questions.

"Leave! Now Xavier!" I hear Adriano's demanding voice yell out, making me wince at the harsh tone. The man then backs away from us with his hands up in protest.

"Hey, I'll just be in the exercise room. Nice to see the famous Petrov in person. Especially since we'll be seeing a lot of each other in this next three months." And with that, he disappears into the next room.

"Three months?" I think aloud, but when I turn around and out of Adriano's grip, he's already got his gym bag in hand and beginning to make his way out of the gym with my hand in his.

"I'll explain in the damn car."

After another five minutes of silent driving, I contemplate on wether I should talk or not. In fear that if I actually said something wrong, he might snap at me.

"You said you'd explain in the car," I finally blurted out, making Adriano let out a low growl from his chest in annoyance.

"At least I got a good five minutes of silence," he says in a sarcastic tone. I then cross my arms, waiting for his explanation onto what that man was talking about back there.

"Fine, I guess since you are a part of this now, you need to know." I just sit there for another long second, still waiting for the explanation. Until finally, I get it.

"Like all other assignments, we were given a deadline to get this mission done and over with. And that deadline would be in three months. So we have three months to get you trained, get our whole recruit together, and still have enough time to attack the sick bastards." At this point, my mouth is so ajar, I'm pretty sure I dislocated my jaw.

"H-How are we going t-" 

"I don't know, Luna! That's the exact thing, I don't f*****g know!" He says before running one hand through his shaggy black hair in frustration. There was a moment of silence, a moment I didn't know what to say or do. A moment I had no idea what would happen in the next.

But like my dad always use to say, make up your own ending if there's a chance the original one would most likely end in tragedy.

"Is this a bad time to ask if I could pick up my stuff from my house?"