Monsters

Adelaide

---

I smiled at him. I was in no place to call him a monster when I had done much worse things in my shorter lifetime. I couldn't help but think that he should be the one calling me a monster, throwing his drink over me, and then fucking my brother.

That is if I had a brother.

He looked up at me, "You're no monster."

---

I laughed at his statement before looking over at him and seeing that he had a bewildered look on his face. Almost as if he believed his words.

"I'm serious, stella."

I cleared my throat and shuffled in my seat.

"I killed a guy last night for no reason other than money. If that's not a monstrous act, I don't know what is"

He paused for a second, redirecting his gaze to the starry night sky outside.

"Yes, but I'm the one that ordered the hit. That makes me as guilty as you are. Even more so."

I studied his features, illuminated in the candlelight. He looked serene in the light, almost as if he were an angel. It was slightly ironic.

"I suppose that makes us equally guilty."

He turned his face to meet my eyes, scrutinizing my face before giving me a curt nod as a response to my statement.

"He worked for my father when he was the don. We were known for human trafficking. We enslaved women, children and men who all captured and taken to different corners of the world to be sold like cattle."

He took a stabilizing breath before continuing.

"Fawker handled the transactions in America, making them look legitimate and all that stuff. When I became the father of the mafia, I stopped it all. I redirected our focus on guns and prostitution. And before you ask, prostitution and human trafficking are different. Human trafficking is forced while prostitution is not. All my girls are taken care of, I make sure of it."

He stopped his speech and looked over to me as I was processing everything he just said to me. Human trafficking, huh? That's something I was unfortunately familiar with.

I sighed. It was one hell of a good reason to murder someone, but to me, nothing can justify taking away a life unless it was in self-defence. And I didn't kill Simon Fawker out of self-defence.

"Murder is only justifiable in self-defence, Romano. There's no point in trying to justify the fact that we killed a man in cold blood."

He furrowed his eyebrows, confused at my response.

"But what he did was wrong, we were taking a terrible person out of the world."

I inwardly sighed. An outsider may find it funny that me, an assassin, was trying to teach a mafia don the burden that comes along with first-degree murder.

I looked up to the starry night sky, feeling small. Sometimes, they made me feel so small that I felt that the wind would sweep me away, somewhere far. Where nobody could hurt me.

"Just because what he did was wrong, doesn't make what we did any less wrong. We still killed a man. If we were to eliminate all the terrible people of the world, objectively, we would have to kill ourselves too."

My voice was small and quiet.

When I met Romano's eyes again, instead of seeing light there, all I saw was a dejected and defeated man. Maybe I was too harsh on him.

"You can try to justify it all you want but two wrongs don't make a right, Mano."

He smiled a little at my terrible nickname for him and yet again, the door swung open for the server to collect our empty plates.

Silence engulfed the room as the server set down new dishes in front of us, dark chocolate ice cream.

I couldn't concentrate on the chocolatey goodness in front of me because Romano was staring at me with an indecipherable look.

"Your ice cream is going to melt if you keep staring at me like that."

I didn't look at him but I could sense that he was smiling at my comment and that made a warm feeling settle in my stomach.

"I'm sorry carota. It is just that you are four years younger than me and the things you say are much wiser."

I smiled at his comment. I was well-read, but that was because I was basically on house arrest my whole life except for when I could leave to kill. But wise?

I didn't think so.

"So you're 28 then?" I asked him, trying to get off of the topic of death.

Of course, I already knew this when I had acquired his case file but it was the only thing I could think of asking him off the top of my head that wasn't about death or destruction.

"Si, carota. Does the age gap matter to you?"

I chuckled. He was still under the impression that I wanted to date him even though I told him I wouldn't kiss him back.

I admired his persistence.

"You're basically a granddad, mafia man."

He looked over at me and smirked.

"I wouldn't mind if you called me daddy in bed."

I snorted.

"You wish."

I finished off my ice cream and set the small bowl back down on the table.

"Well, tata, tonight has been lovely. You make for some good conversation."

(Translation: Daddy)

Romano's eyebrows furrowed again at my new nickname for him.

"Tata?" He asked.

"It's your new nickname. Latin."

I stood up to leave, wiping my palms on the front of my dress before running my hand through my hair.

"What does it mean, cavolo?"

I giggled.

"Secret."

Letting out a deep chuckle, he interlocked his arm with mine, leading me outside of the beautiful room and through to the hallway.

He guided me up the spiral staircase and only let my arm go once we were directly in front of my door, stopping me before I left.

"I'm sorry carota, I have one last question."

I turned back to him, waiting in anticipation for him to speak.

"How were you so accepting of the fact that I killed my parents? Is there something I'm missing?"

I paused. He sounded vulnerable and pleading. Maybe that's what made me tell him the truth.

"Because, if I were to meet my parents again, I might do the same thing."

I pulled my arm away from his warm grasp.

"Goodnight tata."

He smiled.

"Goodnight stella."

---

My eyes were closed when he heard him come up behind me.

The wind kissed my legs and tugged at my hair when I heard his light footfalls, obviously trying to conceal that he was standing a few feet behind me doing nothing but what I assumed was staring.

I whipped my head around, my eyes landing straight on his face and evidently surprising him by his audible gasp.

"Good afternoon, ma'am." He spoke, redeeming his wits.

He didn't know that Romano and I knew that he was an CIA agent, and I was too tired to deal with trying to keep it a secret.

Sighing, I turned my head back around trying to slip back into the peaceful state I had previously settled in.

Unfortunately for my sleep-deprived self, Dante made his way around the rickety bench, plopping himself down next to me and letting out a long sigh in the process.

"Lovely day isn't it?" He asked, trying to strike up a conversation that I found mundane and often left me more tired than I started.

When I didn't reply, he kept speaking,

"The roses are coming in nicely this year but it's hard to tend to them when I'm the only groundskeeper." He complained, stretching his arms above his head.

"I can help."

Dante looked at me with horrified wide eyes, as if I had just admitted to manslaughter.

"I-I can't possibly-."

"I will."

I cut him off, abruptly standing up and storming over to the bed of roses for no reason at all. Dante rushed to my side, stealing glances to the mansion most likely checking if Romano was watching us.

"W-what will Mr Acerbi think of this ma'am?" He stuttered, fear evident in his words.

I chuckled as we reached the roses. I fingered the red flower, pinching one of the petals and letting the velvety smoothness of it calm me.

"Don't worry so much Dante. And please, call me Darwin." I smiled at him, fighting the urge to laugh at the name I told him to use. Whenever a person wanted to know my name, and I didn't want to give them that information, I gave them the name of an Australian city. It's almost as if I'm taunting them with my name, Adelaide.

It's a power rush.

"Darwin is a lovely name." He smiles and hands me a secateur.

I feel the weight of the object in my hand, thinking of the many ways I could use this against Dante and I smile knowing that he is none the wiser to my horrifying thoughts.

"I need to deadhead the rose bush. It's quite a large job so I was putting it off until a later date but with you here, we could get this done before the hour is over." He grinned at me and starting humming to a song that I didn't recognise.

I gingerly wrapped my hand around a decaying flower before chopping its head off.

"Like that?"

---