Donna

6

SHE SET UP THE MEETING AT, GET THIS: an Italian restaurant. The message was clear. I can kill you easily. I'm surrounded. We both know nearly every one of these is hers.

Still, I sit down on the opposite of her, play her game.

“Italian, huh?” I regard her in amusement.

She glanced up at me with a small secretive smile.

“I wanted to share my culture with you, amico.” She snaps, food instantly in front of her.

Everything she does has a message. You just have to be intelligent enough to listen closely.

“Is that right?”

“Sì. Come, order friend.”

Another snap, and a menu is in front of me. I sit back in the booth, my lips quirked up, observing her.

“No thank you, friend. I just ate.”

“Are you sure?” She stared at me with that pout, the one that says I'm playing fair.

“Fine. Order for me. You know I don't know Italian.”

Of course she knows. Why else would we be here?

“Do you enjoy sweets?”

“Not particularly. But I could go for something sweet right now.”

She nods, snapping once more, a waiter appearing as if by magic. Briefly, I entertain cutting off every finger she has, so she can never snap again.

“Tiramisu, per favore.” 

The waiter leaves, and not a minute passed till the tiramisu is in front of me. Perhaps I should have called her genie instead.

“What is this?”

Roksana pushes her plate of pasta away, looking at me.

“It's a cake. It is made of ladyfingers dipped in coffee, layered with a whipped mixture of eggs, sugar, and mascarpone cheese, flavoured with cocoa.”

“Don't know what that is, but okay.”

Seeing my hesitation, she cuts a slice from the cake, putting in her mouth.

“It's my favorite. Try it.”

Reading between lines, I nod, trying it myself. It is good. Huh, if I trusted Italians, I would eat this everyday.

“So now, are we here to talk business, or talk cake?”

She shrugs, cutting another huge piece off my cake. I understood the first one, but now she's just eating my cake.

When she goes in for another piece I slap her hand away.

“Isn't this your restaurant? Get your own.”

She legitimately pouts at me, doe eye and everything. I must say, if I didn't know she was a heartless murdering seductress I'd say she looked cute.

Cake=Cute.

Huh.

“But I want yours.”

I roll my eyes but give it to her.

“Roksana, focus,” She looks up at me determined with a mouth full of cake.

“I'm focused.”

Biting back a laugh I continue.

“Have you found the undercurrent?”

Roksana swallows the cake, and things get serious.

“Let me tell you how I came to power.”

I nod, interested.

“I snatched the title of Queen of the South when I was around ten years old.”

“During that time, my...carrier,” She spat out the word with distaste, “Was in charge, and in a streak for revenge. She conditioned me to be heartless, emotionless.”

She smiled as if the memory was fond, but I could taste the bitterness.

“I was a killing machine at a very young age. Anyway, after I killed my only friend, I determined that I was going to kill her.”

My eyes are glued to her, her mannerisms, and aura so... Complicated. Reading people is what I do, but she purposely distorts her mannerisms, in connection to her words.

She has no tells.

“So from that point forward, I began to steal her organization. I took her soldiers, built up bank account, borrowed a few million from a few countries.”

“I earned everyone's loyalty although I was a child. Do you know why?”

Because she's sexy as f**k and scary?

“No.”

“Because Vitya,” I eye her intently at my name. “Where there is fear, there is hatred. However, where there is respect, there is loyalty.”

“She felt these people were loyal to her, but really, she kept their loved ones locked up so no one would leave. Because of her ego, she ignored me, put me in charge and I helped those people.”

Her brown eyes burn into mine.

“I earned their respect, because I am... well I'm a wild card. I saved their families. That earned respect but also some felt I was soft.”

“There was an uprising, so I quelled it with a public execution. And I gave those men a valuable lesson. Would you like to hear it, Vitya?”

I nod entranced.

“I was a young girl, and those men were big, strong. They could easily crush me. They didn't know why they obeyed me. So I told them.”

“I am in control. It is not about the fastest, tallest, strongest. It's about who is control. Those men, gave me their lives. They let me kill their principles, get into their minds take everything they loved.”

“They gave me control. I play on my weakness and it becomes my strength but most of all,”

“I am unpredictable. I make men like you uncomfortable. Because you don't know what I'm capable of, but you know it isn't good.”

Sounds right.

“I know what I am capable of. That is why I reign. I dismembered a man was a father to me in front of them," She chuckled.

“p***y ass bitches couldn't even take it. So you see, case in point is this: you have heard all of that, and yet, you only know what I tell you. Don't incur my wrath, Vitya. I am calm, I am quiet and merciful. But don't let it fool you.”

“The second you start thinking of betraying me,” She snaps.

At least twenty guns at me. I simply smile.

“Game is over. Capisco?”

Smirking at her, I lean over the table.

“I am not afraid of you, Roksana. Don't ever think I'm afraid of you. I'm cautious of you. I know you have a potential for damage.”

“But in the end, I don't have a f**k to give. Because frankly, you can only kill me once. Even you, with all your intelligence, and innovation. You can only kill me once.”

Taking out my wallet I slap a twenty in the table. I have things to do. Standing, I ignored the barrels pointed at various fatal parts of my body.

Leaning over, I whisper in her ear.

“Choose that moment wisely. They may give you control, but I don't.”

Leaning back I give her smile, kiss her cheek, and walk out, twenty guns trained on my back, three sharp shooters.

Oh, I didn't lie. I run a Mob. Death inevitable, for everyone. Death is the law no human, no criminal can escape.

You can cheat him, but only so many times.

Unlike others, I decide not to fear the inevitable. And that takes the control from anyone.

I'm not afraid to die. It's not like I was never going to do it. And as for my loved ones, well they are not many, but the same principal goes.

I may love them, but that doesn't save from death. So maybe it came before it should've, maybe it was painful.

But Death is law. We are prisoners.

Grieving for a fugitive who is finally captured makes no sense.