"Okay, just because you're my girlfriend doesn't mean I can give you special treatment. You know that, right?" Reed said as we drove to the base.

It was the first session of recruit training. I was slightly nervous, but the excitement overtook that.

"Of course I know that. I wouldn't want special treatment from you anyway."

"That's not what you said last night." he winked.

"You're so gross." I exclaimed, punching him softly in the arm as he drove, making him laugh.

We eventually arrived at the base and sat in the car in front of the building.

All of the other recruits would already be there if they knew what was good for them.

"Can you give me a head start?" I asked.

"What do you mean?"

"Let me walk in before you so they don't know I'm your girlfriend. I don't want them treating me differently because of you." I explained.

"Does it really matter?" he asked.

"Yes."

"Fine, you have five minutes."

"Thank you!" I said happily, opening the car door to get out.

"Jules...I think you're forgetting something." he said.

"Sorry." I smirked, leaning over to kiss him.

I then ran out towards the base.

I made my way through the building towards the large hall, which was the first place Reed had ever brought me.

I stood outside the door and took out my phone as it vibrated.

Reed had already sent me a message.

'I love you'.

'I love you too.' I typed quickly before walking through the doors.

When I entered the room, there must have been just less than a hundred people in there. It was quite daunting.

Most of the recruits looked to be around my age, in their mid-20's, but a lot of them were also just kids, maybe 17 or 18.

I observed the people in front of me and there must have only been about 10 other women compared to what looked to be, 80+ men.

That only made me more determined to show them up.

Besides, I already had the advantage of experience. Most of my best friends were Capo Regimes and my boyfriend was the boss. I'd also had some kind of practice with Kayla in the bar.

I was adamant that I could do this.

I'd purposely worn long sleeves to cover up my tattoo. I didn't want the others to see that I was already 'technically' a part of the gang.

I walked in and stood beside two girls who looked around my age.

One had long, blonde hair and piercing blue eyes, like someone from a magazine. The other had a short, black pixie cut with green eyes like mine and freckles across her nose.

"Hey." I greeted them nervously.

"Oh hi!" the girl with the pixie cut said, waving at me to join them.

"I'm Julia." I said, shaking both of their hands.

"I'm Ally and this is Helen." the blonde girl smiled at me.

"Nice to meet you." I said.

"So Julia, are you nervous for training?" Ally asked.

"Slightly, but I don't think it'll be too bad." I shrugged.

"I heard the boss can be pretty scary." Helen said.

"Yeah, but he's also really hot." Ally laughed, making me clench my jaw slightly.

"Well, he has a girlfriend." said a guy interrupting our conversation.

The guy was tall with messy, light brown hair and quite muscular arms. His jaw-line was sharp and he looked quite young, with large, wide eyes.

"I heard that, but it's just a rumour. Nobody knows for sure." Helen shrugged.

As they spoke about me, I found it quite amusing. The fact they knew of our relationship, but didn't know that I was stood right in front of them was laughable.

"I'm Eddie." the guy reached forward, shaking my hand.

"Julia." I smiled.

"Well, it's not like we'd have a chance with Reed anyway." Ally chirped. "But we have another 83 options stood in this room." she smirked.

I almost laughed out loud at this conversation but I just wanted to get on with the training.

Almost on command, the doors at the head of the room opened widely.

Reed strolled in with a hard expression on his face, followed by Blade and Cyrus.

They looked extremely threatening, like something out of a movie, but I found it rather amusing.

I looked around to see most of the recruits almost trembling in fear and all I was trying to do was hold back my grin.

If only they knew them like I did.

I attempted to hide among the crowd because I knew that Blade would have something to say about me if I didn't.

There's no way he wouldn't try and make a joke.

"Welcome to the first recruits training session." Reed boomed across the loud hall.

"There's currently 94 of you in this room." Blade said, cracking his knuckles. "But not all of you will make it through the course. It'll be too tough for some of you and we only accept the best, so some of you should be prepared to fail."

"You'll be put into three groups. Each group will be mentored by all of us throughout the day. Blade will be showing you knife skills, Reed will be training you in fighting and I, in shooting." Cyrus said and honestly, it was the most I'd ever heard him say.

Cyrus continued to announce the names in his first group, followed by Reed and his group and then finally Blade.

"...and my final 3 people are Eddie Millen, Helen Rigsby and...J-Juliette Godstone." Blade said, purposely messing up my name, which he knew would frustrate me.

I saw the boys begin to laugh at Blade's poor attempt at a joke like teenage boys, and I watched as a few of the recruits held confused looks at the unexplained laughter.

"I thought you said your name was Julia." Helen questioned quietly.

"It is." I groaned.

"Unlucky, looks like they don't like you already." she said, patting me on the arm to comfort me.

She seems sweet but she really has no idea.

"Okay, now you know your groups." Reed shouted. "My group follow me out to the gym, Cyrus' group to the shooting range and Blade's group to the knife throwing area."

"File out." he yelled, subtly winking in my direction.

I rolled my eyes at him before walking out of the room with the rest of the group.

This was going to be interesting.

~

When we got to the room where Blade would be mentoring us, I wasn't sure if I'd be able to take him seriously.

Besides, the man about to teach me how to throw a knife, is the same man who had a sleepover with me when I was sad.

"Okay listen up, as you know, I will be teaching you how to throw knives. This is a skill that you learn through practice, but you have to focus on accuracy otherwise this isn't going to work for you." he explained.

He went on teaching us the technique and showing us how to throw the knives and I was fairly confident that I could get the hang of it.

"Blade is really hot." Helen whispered over to me. "Do you think I'd have a chance with him?"

"No." I said defensively, possibly a little too aggressively. "I mean, he has a girlfriend...so, no."

"Oh really? How do you know?" she pouted.

"I erm- I don't know, I just do." I shrugged.

"Okay, next five, line up by the targets." Blade shouted.

It was my turn.

"Pick up the blade's and throw." he announced.

I picked up all three of my knives and held them in my hand, feeling the weight and getting used to them.

I then looked up to the target and aimed my first knife.

I threw all three, one after the other and looked to see how I'd done.

All three knives were directly in the centre of the target. Bullseye.

I looked to my side to see how the others had done, expecting all of them to have done just as well as me. But I was wrong, there was only one other guy who'd hit the bullseye and he'd only done it once.

I felt quite proud at how well I'd done seeing as I had barely any experience at knife throwing.

Maybe this is the life meant for me.

"Well done newbie!" Blade said, beginning to clap. I gave him a subtle 'shut up' look and he soon realised what I meant. "I mean er- Julia."

"Thanks Blaze." I smiled smugly, receiving an unimpressed look.

"Julia is the first person to hit the bullseye with all three knives. If she can do it, so can all of you. I'm expecting to see better, let's go again." Blade yelled, ignoring my comment.

I blushed from slight embarrassment as I received dirty looks from a few of the recruits around me.

A lot of them grew up in mafia families, so were obviously expecting to be the best of the group.

Unfortunately for them, I was here. And I wasn't going to downplay my skills to suit them.

I don't mean to sound arrogant, but for some reason, I just don't find these kind of things very difficult.

I suppose that's just the luck of the draw.

We finished Blade's session after an hour or so, and then it was time for the shooting class.

~

We then arrived at the shooting range, waiting for Cyrus's class to start.

Cyrus, Reed and Blade all went to Reed's office after each session to update one another on our progress.

My group was now smaller by at least 10 people, seeing as Blade had cut people from the course already.

Although I was most likely safe, I was still nervous to be cut from the course.

I knew that I was going to be a fighter eventually, but no matter who I am, the boys won't accept people who aren't good enough.

However, I almost felt like Reed was the most likely to cut me, seeing as he never wanted me to fight in the first place...but I was determined to show him I could do it.

"So, how did you find out about the recruits programme?" Helen asked me as she stretched.

"It's a...long story." I said. "Let's just say I learned about it through some friends..."

She didn't need to know that these 'friends' happened to be the people mentoring us today.

"What about you?" I asked.

"I was in a gang before, there I learned about the Vipers and I wanted to be a part of it. After all, this is the best mob on planet." she shrugged.

She wasn't wrong about that.

Suddenly my phone buzzed in my pocket, I took it out to see that Reed had texted me again...

'Blade said you're best in your group. That's my girl ;)'

I rolled my eyes as a smile formed across my face.

"Who's that?" Helen asked, indicating towards my phone. "Whoever it is, you should probably tell them to stop messaging you, phone's aren't allowed in training."

"I think it'll be fine." I said.

"Whatever, it's your funeral." she shrugged.

This girl really didn't get it.

"Okay group 3, are you ready to practice shooting?" Cyrus announced as he waltzed into the room.

"Yes." we all chanted.

"Good, everyone line up and we'll get started."

Cyrus quickly showed everyone how it was done and I was feeling quite confident.

I'd had practice with a gun and hopefully it'd come in handy. After all, I think my aim is pretty good.

Before I reached the front of the line, I looked over to Cyrus who was indicating for me to come and speak to him.

I walked over to him quickly, leaving a couple of the recruits wondering.

"Are you doing okay?" Cyrus asked me.

"Yeah I think I'm actually doing pretty well." I smiled up at him.

"Good, Blade said you were the best in this group and I wasn't surprised." he said.

"Thank you."

"If you need anything just give me a shout, okay? Don't let the recruits intimidate you."

"Thanks. Cy" I said as he patted me on the shoulder before I got back in line.

"What was that about?" Eddie whispered over to me.

"Nothing, he just wanted to talk to me."

"How are you so chill about that? They're all so terrifying." Helen shuddered.

"Not really." I shrugged.

They both stood looking at me with their mouths gaped open

Before they could say anymore, it was my turn to shoot.

The task was to shoot three moving targets. I walked up to the platform and held the gun in my hand.

There was a considerable amount of pressure because of all the people stood watching me, but I tried to ignore it to the best of my abilities.

I took a deep breath as Cyrus gave me a nod, to indicate that it was starting.

I held the gun out in front of me and immediately shot the first target which moved quickly towards me.

I then spun around to shoot the second target, which was moving from left to right at speed.

Finally, I turned once more to shoot the final target coming straight for me and I placed the gun back down.

It was all so fast, I didn't get the chance to see how accurate I was or if I even hit the targets at all.

I took a deep breath and turned towards the group who were all looking pretty upset once again. I don't think they liked me very much but I didn't really care.

"Okay, let's get the targets in." Cyrus shouted.

The three targets automatically moved towards us so that we could see the results.

I'd hit them all perfectly once again, with just one target being slightly off by a couple of centimetres.

However, it was still accurate enough that it'd be fatal to someone.

I felt quite smug with these results and Cyrus was impressed.

I was glad to be doing so well. This would show Reed that I really do belong here.

~

After Cyrus's shooting class was over, it was finally time to see Reed.

This was the class I was most nervous for.

Throughout the morning I'd relied on my accurate aim, but fighting was a completely different ballgame.

There'd be people in my group who excelled at fighting and were much better than I.

I'd been training a little, over the last few months, but it was nothing like the intense training that the gang did.

This was where I probably wouldn't be top of the class, but I wanted to show Reed I could do it.

I also wasn't sure how I was supposed to act around him.

I know that I was the one trying to blend in, but how would he act around me?

I was hoping that he'd at least let me fight, because knowing Reed, he'd want me to stay out of the action.

It was time to find out...