16. "The VSS Vintorez."

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I was brought out of my sleep, by the feeling of something wet on my cheek. I opened my eyes just a little bit. "Oh my god, ew, did you just lick me?" I rubbed my cheek. He was laying in front of me with a cheeky smile on his face. He's such an idiot. But he's my idiot apparently. "What are you? A dog?"

"Would you like me to lick you somewhere else?" He smirked.

I rolled my eyes at him. "Shut up."

"Is that a yes?" His hand gripped the back of my thigh tightly and pulled it so my leg was on his hip. My eyes widen at his straightforwardness. As his hand moves further up my thigh, eventually I slapped my hand onto his right before it touched that part of me.

"Woah, calm down boy. We are not there, yet." I chuckled over my words.

He sighed before removing his love-to-touch hand. "Okay. But I'm ready when you are, princess." He tucked a hair behind my ear. "And you better be sure when you are because I, am a beast. Once I start, I don't stop." He warned.

Uh. Okay. Did not expect to hear that this morning. "I'm sure you don't." I nodded awkwardly. "Now if you'd excuse me, I'm gonna go shower." I got out of bed and he grabbed my hand.

"No! I have to be with you at all times to protect you, therefore I must go into the shower with you."

I pulled my hand back. "What are you going to protect me from in the shower? Are you scared I'm gonna drown? Cause that's kind of improbable." I headed towards the bathroom.

"You sure I can't shower with you?" He raised a brow.

"I'm trying to get cleaner, not dirtier." And with that, I went in, closing the bathroom door and locked it.

After ten minutes of a hot, relaxing shower, I wrapped the towel around me and opened the door just a crack, peeping to see if he was still there. Of course he was. I walked out and it looked like he was asleep. Or so I thought.

"You should wear more Victoria's Secret. I like it." He said with a childish smile on his face.

Not even willing to argue, I grabbed some black lace panties with a matching bra and grabbed his t-shirt again. I got changed, in the bathroom, and laid down next to him.

As I was faced away from him, I felt the shirt I was wearing start to slide up, past my hip. "Thank you." He said. I could hear the annoying yet sexy smirk in his voice. He was looking at my ass. I put my hand on his, pulling the shirt back down.

"Hands to yourself."

He groaned. "But why?!"

"Because it's my body, I have a right to decide who touches it. You do not have access at the moment. Sorry."

He mumbled and grumbled about me not being fair and how I never let him do anything, and I thought my eyeballs would get stuck in the back of my head on account of rolling them so much. I turned towards him.

"Hey, I had a good view!" He frowned. I was this close to smacking him.

"You, my babe, are behaving very badly. I'm gonna have to punish you."

A mischievous smile spread across his lips. "Oooh, sounds kinky. Are you gonna spank me?"

"No, I was thinking along the lines of, hm, I don't know, maybe no kisses for the rest of the week?" I put my forefinger on my chin, pretending to think about it. His eyes widened.

"You wouldn't."

"I would."

"Nooo," he whined, "you can't do this to me! Harlow!" I turned away from him, crossing my arms. "Harlow..." He shook my shoulder a little. "Harlow, don't ignore me." His voice sounded a little, who am I kidding, a lot as in very exasperated. I turned towards him.

"What? I can't ignore you but you can ignore me? How is that fair?"

"What are you talking about, I've never ignored you." He shook his head.

"Uh, yes, you have. Remember? You got mad at me because I first got you excited. And I was trying to talk to you for like, five minutes and you ignored me. But then again, I kind of forgave you because that was the first time you'd ever kissed me. And Charlie didn't tell you but I texted him about it." I ranted, not even realizing I was smiling hugely.

"So you do love to talk about me!"

"Ugh, really? That's all you got out of that? I remind you about one of the best nights of my life and that's what you get out of it?" I huffed. God, he is so impossible with that ego of his!

His smiled suddenly dropped and he pulled me closer to him. "No, that's not all I got out of your cute little rant. That was a great night for me too. And I'd rather bathe in a tub of cacti, spiders and snakes, than kiss anyone else. And I'm deathly terrified of spiders."

"Really? I used to have a secret pet tarantula named Teddy." He looked at me as if my eyeball just turned into a tiny person.

"You're crazy. You are crazy. Holy shit, I have a crazy girlfriend. I need to take her to a mental hospital." He rubbed his temple.

"You're crazy too."

"I'm crazy about and for a lot of things. I'm crazy for Harlow, gelato, soft beds, cats, dogs, and coffee. None of those include spiders." He talked really fast, I could barely understand him. Then all of a sudden, he's talking in rapid Italian.

I put my finger to his lips. "Hey. I don't understand you. Use your big boy English words. I don't exactly have Google translate right now."

I looked at my phone. We got up earlier than I thought. It was only seven in the morning. "Hey, random question. If we were to breakup, how soon would you move on?"

He blinked at me, mouth agape, as if I'd just insulted him. "I wouldn't move on. Why are you asking me this?" This time, his right eye started to twitch. I've noticed that when he's emotionally brought down aka his feelings get hurt, his right eye twitches. But when he's annoyed or angry, his left eye twitches.

"Sorry. It's just a random question. On another random note, do you believe in ghosts?"

He narrowed his eyes for a second. "Uh, sure."

Then suddenly, we hear the front door open and close. We both hopped out of bed and opened the door to see him. His eyes were red and puffy, like he'd been crying a lot. I ran down the stairs and gave him a hug.

"Zach, what is it?"

I could hear more people coming downstairs. Zach hiccuped into my shoulder as he tried to speak.

"S-she--d-died this m-morning. I-in her s-sleep." I hugged him tighter and I heard gasps and sobs behind me. "J-just an hour a-ago."

"Oh God. Zach, I'm so sorry." I sighed, rubbing his back. This hug was probably the longest hug I've ever hugged. But I didn't care.

"Can I just--be alone in my room for a bit?" He whispered. I hesitantly nodded, pulling away and he went up the stairs, into his room. I walked to Cristiano who was holding back his sadness and hugged him. He wrapped his arm around my shoulders.

I don't know why, but I have a good idea of who shot Stella. The only question is why?

****

As the day went on, nobody talked. Not even to each other. Zach stayed locked in his room, not ever coming out. Dominic started planning the funeral, which was next week. Marcella helped him plan it. Eli occupied himself with his work, Alexi occupied herself with her fashion designs, I occupied myself with what I'm gonna sing at the funeral, and Cristiano occupied himself by looking over the slightest piece of evidence we have, which is the bullet found in Stella. He wanted to at least identify what type of gun was used. That way he could see which mob owns the gun supply. Every mob has their own special supply of special guns.

I wrote down possible songs to sing at the funeral. It took me fifteen minutes, but I finally decided.

I looked over at Cristiano who was sitting at the desk inside our room, his hair falling in his face as he closely examined the bullet. He ran his ungloved hand through his hair in frustration. I knew not to bother him while he's trying to concentrate, because if I did, he'd get super pissed. And he's kinda...scary, when he's super pissed. Plus, I wanted him to figure this out for himself so when he does, it'll give him closure when we catch the freakazoid bastard that did this.

"Stop staring at me." He said lowly, exasperated. He has eyes in the back of his head, I swear. It's probably those two tiny cute moles on the back of his neck--what the fuck am I thinking about on a day like this?

I looked away. "Sorry." I mumbled.

He sighed. "No, I'm being stupid. You're fine, bellezza."

I got up and walked up behind him, rubbing his tense shoulders. "You'll figure it out. This, is your thing."

"But this is your thing too."

"So, you're asking me to help you?" I stood next to him and he pulled me onto his lap.

"No, I'm asking you to deliver a message to Marcus Aurelius in the underworld." His left eye, annoyed, twitched, sarcasm dripping from his voice. I gave him a look. "Sorry." He mumbled. "Yes, I'm asking for your help."

"All you had to say, babe." I said, slipping a glove onto my right hand and picking up the bullet, examining it. I looked at it for five minutes.

"Got anything?" He asked, slightly impatient for no reason when he just took three hours looking at it.

"Nope. Not yet, Romano. Not yet." With my words he gripped my thigh. Again.

"Your hand."

"What about my hand?"

"We talked about your wandering hand this morning." I took the magnifying glass to get an even closer look at the bullet.

"But I'm not doing what I was going to do this morning. This morning, we talked about the sex stage in our relationship. That's not what I'm doing now, I'm simply touching your leg, not your--"

"Okay! I get it! Keep your hand!" Thank God I was faced away from him, I was blushing so much right now.

"Okay."

"VSS Vintorez. It's a suppressed Russian sniper rifle. I used one when I was.." I trailed off to think. "17 years old."

"You're the best girlfriend I've ever had." He kissed the back of my neck.

"You've had previous girlfriends?"

He stayed silent for a few seconds. "Yeah." He said slowly.

"How many?"

"Okay, so, if I got my first kiss in 6th grade, that's my first girlfriend....then 8th grade.....10th grade....second half of 10th.....senior year of high school....freshman year of college...sophomore year....junior year....I've had...8 girlfriends."

"So you basically changed girlfriends every year?" I don't know why, but I was getting kind of pissed.

"Uh, yeah. I will not tell you the details of those relationships though. For I intend on keeping you as a girlfriend. And I intend on staying alive." He joked, but I didn't think it was funny. I stayed silent, my overthinking self taking over.

What if I'm just like his ex girlfriends. What if he just dumps me after this year, or as soon as he finds someone who he thinks is prettier than me?

The 'details'? Did he cheat on them? If he did, is he gonna cheat on me? I swear to God if he cheats, I'm gonna chop his head off and rip out his heart and put it in a meat grinder.

Why am I so worried? We've only been together for a few days. And I'm not in love with him.

Am I?

"Harlow!" He shook my shoulder a bit. "Calm down, you're crushing my hand." I looked down and I had his hand gripped tightly in mine. I let go.

"Uh, s-sorry." Suddenly my vision was blurry. He could see half my face since I was sitting sideways on his lap.

"Shit, why are you crying?" He cupped my face with his hands.

I shook my head, another tear falling down my cheek. "I don't know." What the hell is wrong with me?

"You're probably thinking too much. Just calm down. Everything's fine. Stop crying. I don't like it when you cry." He wiped my tears with his thumbs.

He kissed my forehead. "Okay, what about the VSS Vintorez?" He took his hands away from my face.

I cleared my throat, looking down at my hands. "Um, VSS, I used to work with it so obviously if anyone I know has the gun, it would be Francisco. Which means he shot Stella. Which is what I was guessing earlier. But since I'm out of the Russian mob, they don't have a sharpshooter sniper anymore so they had an ordinary gunman to do the job, so he missed Stella's heart and got the opposite side of her chest which was still fatal. So many mistakes."

"So Petrov shot her?"

I nodded. "Yup. Let's go tell Dominic!" I hopped off his lap and we ran downstairs and into Dominic's office. Weirdly, everyone was already in there.

"We figured it out!"

"Well, Harlow figured it out." Cristiano kissed my temple.

Dominic sighed. "We're in the middle of funeral plans. What is it?" He snapped.

"The bullet found in Stella is from a VSS Vintorez suppressed sniper rifle. A Russian weapon. I know this because I pulled the trigger of one two years ago. This gun is owned by Francisco Petrov, the man who killed your sister, Mr. Dom. Since he doesn't have his fabulous and one of the best sharpshooters on the planet anymore, me, his ordinary gunmen did it. But he fucked up and missed her heart, getting the opposite side of her chest, but it was still fatal. So to sum this up, Francisco Petrov has declared war in hell."

If there's one thing I'm sure of, it's that mobs and Mafias, if you kill the mother or father of one of your enemy's most important leading men, you're setting yourself up for one hell of a fight.

"Damn." Eli raised his eyebrows. I noticed Zach was there too. He tensed up.

"Well, he wants hell? We'll give it to him. Good job, you two. But for now, let's just continue with the funeral plans. We've upped it to being tomorrow. Have you gotten your song picked out yet?" Dominic asked. It's

"Yes, I do. I'm ready." I nodded.

"Good. We're all set." Marcella stood up. "I'll go get everything straight with Father Stefani." She walked out and patted my shoulder lightly as she left.

"I'm gonna kill that son of a bitch." Zach's voice came out in a bare whisper.

To be honest, Francisco's mother was a bitch. "Ooh, I'll help! Plus, he hasn't paid, and all my ex boyfriends pay."

But according to the Italian Mafia, Francisco Petrov has to pay with blood.

____________________________________

Sniffle, the funeral's tomorrow.

I'd like to apologize for the huge bucket of drama coming up in the next fifteen chapters. It's heartbreaking, really. But it's good.

And also, I'd like to say sorry for taking so long to update!

Bye, loves! Comment or vote!

- COA

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