β™‘ Chapter 3 β™‘

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I took the next few days off work.

I listened to music, painted, and even bought a few new plants for my room.Β 

My moms voice echos up the stairs, calling me down for breakfast. My blonde hair was messy from laying in my bed for days, so I threw on a large hoodie to make me look even more homeless.

A smile spread on my face seeing the pancakes and french toast on the table. I love breakfast.Β 

"Hey Azzy," my mom smiles at me. "Feeling better?"

I nod and take a seat, "Yea, actually. I think I'm ready to go back to work today."

As if summoned by the word work, my father enters the dining room with a cup of coffee in hand and sits across from me. He shakes his head, "No work today. There's a party tonight we're all going to go to."

"Party?" I raise my eyebrows while biting into my food.

"Mhm," he hums, speaking into his mug as he sips on it. "It's really for business, but I'd like my two girls to accompany me."

I hadn't been to one of my father's parties in a while. But knowing that Max would be there made me smile.Β 

"Okay," I nod. "I'll go. And so will mama."

My mom sighs and rubs her temples, "My show is on tonight. You're lucky I love you guys."

Dad and I laughed. I continued eating my breakfast, while thinking of an outfit to wear in my head.

I've had a crush on Max for years. But I only get to see him at events. He's the son of my father's friend, and even though my dad doesn't know it, Max has been my first everything. First kiss. First time having sex with. First crush, even. But he never talks to me, unless we're at one of these events. He says we can't be anything more, but then whenever I see him, he says maybe we can.Β 

It's confusing.Β 

"I have to stop by and try and get some answers from Reese Ricci before the party, but I'll be back in time," my father says while finishing his coffee.

Hearing he's going to see him, when I know he has part of the plate in his boot made me worried for my dad.Β 

"Keep your distance from him, Dad. He sounds dangerous," I say while poking at my pancakes.

My dad sighs, and runs a hand through his black hair with some grey strands.

"He is," he nods. "He has more blood on his hands than anybody else in New York. He hurts and kills innocents, so be careful when you deliver him food, Azalea. If only he spoke English, this process would speed things up."

His words made me freeze. The fork that was about to go into my mouth, I slowly lowered.

I repeated his words in a confused tone, "If only he spoke English?"

"Yea," he nods. "He's Russian. Clearly doesn't speak any English. With how we've tortured him and threatened him, nobody has the mental strength to not give in and talk. So, he must only know Russian."

My eyes lowered to my plate as I thought.

My dad stands and clears his throat, "Okay, I'll see you girls later. Be ready at 9."

«────── Β« β‹…Κšβ™‘Ιžβ‹… Β» ──────»

My white silk dress clung to my body tightly. With heels the same shade, and the hair clip that held half of my hair back.

I had entered with my parents, but wandered off to the fruit table to eat some cherries.

As I ate them, I looked around the busy room. The floors were beige marble, with white walls and people playing harps and violins live for music.Β 

My eyes caught the back of someone's head, entering the kitchen. From the dark red hair, I knew it was Max.

I smiled as I walked over to the kitchen and entered.

"Hey!" I say cheerfully as I enter.

Max quickly turns around, after grabbing a glass out of the cupboard. He looks me up and down, "Oh. Hey, Azalea."

The lack of excitement in his tone hurt a little. But I walked up to him with a smile, anyway.

"I brought his for you," I held the one white rose out for him to take.

He looked down at it and sighed, "Oh."

I keep holding it out for him to take.

"I can't really carry this with me, you know?" he says while taking it. A stabbing feeling in my heart forms seeing him toss it into the garbage. "I mean, thanks for the gesture, though. I guess."

I force a smile and act like my feelings aren't hurt, "Yea, I get it."

His dark green eyes look me up and down.

He steps toward me with a smile, "Hey, do you wanna head upstairs?"

His words disappoint me a little. I speak kindly, "Um, well, Max....I was maybe hoping we could do something else, besides hooking up. Like maybe go on a real date?"

"Yea, yea, of course," he nods profusely. "After tonight, we can totally go on a date sometime."

"You said that last time. And the time before that," I say, which makes him sigh and roll his eyes.

I add, "I don't want to just hook up, Max."

"So what do you want from me, huh?" he snaps, catching me off guard. "Want me to commit my entire goddamn life to you?"

My eyebrows lower and my mouth hangs open for a few moments.Β 

"I care about you, Max. I want a real relationship," I say gently while stepping forward, and moving my hand to the side of his face.

But he grabs my wrist tightly, removing it from his face. I gasp from the pain as he holds my wrist tightly, and jerks me forward.

"I don't want a real relationship with you," he speaks down at me while my wrist screams in pain. "You're not enough for me, Azalea."

Tears burn my eyes, and I couldn't tell you if it was from my wrist or his words.Β 

He releases my wrist, and my other hand goes to rub the red handprint on it. He gets in my face and adds, "You aren't special."

A tear falls down my cheek as he turns on his heels and quickly walks away. While rubbing my wrist and standing there, my bottom lip quivers. I take a deep breath, and realize I don't want to be here a second longer.

I nearly run out of the party, and send a text to my mom that I was starting to feel sick again, and was taking a taxi home.

I kept myself together the entire time I sit in the taxi. I thank the driver and tip, and hold myself together as I enter my house and walk upstairs.

But the second I lay in my bed, I start crying. I cry into my pillow, in a way I never had before. His words made my entire body hurt.

You're not enough for me.

You aren't special.

I cry for as long as I can, until my body exhausts itself, and I fall asleep.

«────── Β« β‹…Κšβ™‘Ιžβ‹… Β» ──────»

I haul my ass out of bed in the morning. At first, I didn't want to go. I didn't even want to leave my bed for the rest of my life. Max's words stuck with me, and the pain struck like lightning every time I thought about it.

But I got up, anyway.

I took a shower. Brushed my teeth. Straightened my hair, and got dressed.Β 

When I arrive to work, I smile seeing Simon.

"Azalea," he smiles at me and hugs me as I enter the kitchen. "How are you? You feeling better?"

I nod, "Yea. Is that a new tattoo?"

I point to one on his hand. Simon had lots of tattoos, but only on his arms and hands. He also only liked tattoos in color. So, both of his arms have green and red tattoos going up his dark skin.

"Mhm. Like it?" he smirks.

He hands me a muffin before I can even reply. I smile at him, "Thanks."

I eat the muffin before collecting the two plates. I deliver the first one to the man that's been here for a few weeks, and then I walk over to Reese's. I find myself taking a deep breath before entering.Β 

His head turns to look at me. I set the plate down, and slide it across the line. But I don't step over it. The bruises on his face tell me that he's been tortured more than once over the past few days.Β 

"Have them thinking you don't speak English?" I say while sitting down on the floor.Β 

He stands up slowly, making the chains shake. He takes slow steps over to the plate, and sits down directly across from me under the dim lighting.Β 

He picks something off of the plate and tosses it into his mouth.

"You haven't told your father," his deep voice speaks.

His words make me feel a little shame. Like I know that I should've told him, but didn't.

I shake my head.

"Thank you," he says. Nearly sincerely.

He picks up another bite of food and puts it in his mouth.

His black hair is messy. His face has three purple bruises, and a tiny cut above his eyebrow.

"Why don't you give them the information that they want?" I ask him.

My question makes him stop eating for a moment. His brown eyes dance around my face.

He wipes his hand against his black pants.

"Because," he starts off vaguely, then pauses as if he's thinking about if he wants to say more. "The information that they want from me, is the location of somebody. And I'm a lot of things, but I'm not a fucking rat."

He eats another bite of food.

"So, you'd rather get tortured to death, than give up someone's location?" I ask further.

His jaw goes tight for a moment, and he looks to the side.

"The person they want the location of is somebody I love," he tells me, moving his eyes back to look at me as his sentence goes on. "My brother."

His words took me by surprise. The way people talked about him, I would've thought he never loved anybody ever.Β 

"So you're capable of love?"

My words seemed to almost amuse him.Β 

"My father told me you kill innocents," I add to make my previous words make sense. "Is that true?"

He just looks into my eyes for a moment. His brown eyes lacked emotion and seemed like a deep pit of abyss.Β 

"Yes. I do," he answers me, which makes my nerves rise. "If there is an innocent person in the way of something I need to do, I will kill them."

My eyebrows lower as both shock and disbelief cover my face.

"B-but their innocent," my voice nearly raises. "Why would you ever feel okay with hurting an innocent?"

"Collateral damage," he says like a fact. It doesn't make him upset. "You seriously think your father isn't the same?"

I scoff and cross my arms. I shake my head, "My dad doesn't hurt innocent people. Only bad ones."

Reese laughs. But it's not a laugh because I made a joke, it was a bitter one. One that sent a shiver down my spine.Β 

"You don't seriously believe that, do you, Azalea?" he tilts his head at me.

"Yes, I do."

He runs his tongue along his top teeth while shaking his head at me.

He moves a little bit foward, but the chains stop him from reaching me. But his face is still close to mine as he talks.

"My brother, whose location that they want? He's 16," he tells me. "He's innocent. Has no idea about the shit that I'm involved with. He lives a normal life, going to school, playing sports, hanging out with his friends. They want his location from me, so that they can go and kill him. To get back at me for killing their men. They won't kill me until they can cause me the worst pain possible. Even if it's at the expense of an innocent child."

His face and voice are serious the entire time he talks. His eyes never leave mine, and mine never leave his. His words make me feel both shocked and sick.Β 

"You're lying," I say quietly, refusing to believe my father would do that.Β 

He shrugs, "Think what you want. But I don't gain anything by lying to you."

His words hang heavy in the air. I can't bring myself to say anything else.

His eyes slowly move down, but stop and look confused at something. He looks at my wrist and asks, "What's that?"

I look down and see the bruise from Max was slightly visible. I pull my sleeve down and shake my head, "Nothing."

"Bullshit," he says aggressively. "Show me."

"It's nothing-"

"Show me."

His tone is demanding. Like he's not asking.

I gulp. And slowly move my sleeve up, revealing the bruised handprint.Β 

His jaw goes tight and his eyes go dark.

"Name?" he asks me.

My eyebrows lower. I repeat, "Name?"

"Give me the name of the person that did that," he orders. "And once I'm out of here, I'll kill them."

I sit there in shock for a moment. He looks at me like he truly will kill them like it's nothing. I just stare into his eyes, not responding. The look in them is dark. Just from his eyes alone, I get a glimpse of what he is capable of. And it's nothing good.Β 

"I-" I start, but before I can finish, the door swings open behind me.

My head whips around, and the sound of dozens of men's voices comes in from the hallway. My eyes widen and I quickly raise to my feet as multiple of my dad's men enter the room.Β 

"We're getting answers today, Ricci!" one of the men shouts.

A different man grabs me and pulls me to my feet, and starts dragging me out of the room. More men enter the room, and they start punching him. Kicking him. Hurting him.Β 

"What are you doing?!" I shout as I continue getting pulled out of the room. But nobody acknowledges me.

Reese's head jerks to the side as they keep hitting him. They punch him, over and over again, while yelling, "Speak! Give us the location, you Russian piece of shit!"

"Stop!" I say, grabbing onto the wall so that the man can't pull me out of the room. "Stop hitting him!"

They pull out a gun and put it against his forehead as the man pulls me back, making my hands let go of the wall. He keeps pulling me down the hallway, away from his room. I fight to get free and yell, "What are you guys doing?!"

"This doesn't concern you, Azalea," the guy says down to me harshly.

He keeps pulling me, but I can still hear the sound of punches.Β 

"Get back!" one of the men suddenly yell. They all start yelling, with some of them rushing out of the room. "He's got a weapon! Two men are down!"

I can hear men groaning in pain, as blood slowly spills out of the room, and into the hallway. I know he's using the piece of glass from the plate to stab them.

One man stumbles out of the room, grabbing his stomach with a stab wound on the front that creates a circle of blood. He crashes into the wall, and slowly slides down it while groaning in pain.

"Let go of me!" I say to the man, as he pushes me up the stairs. He keeps pushing me up, making me stumble, until I'm all the way at the top.

"Don't-" I get cut off by him slamming the door shut, and locking it from the other side.

I keep yelling things while pounding on the door. But nobody acknowledges it.

I angrily kick the door one time, before starting to walk away.

I storm out of the building and get into my car. I slam on the breaks, making my tires spin a few times against the stone before I leave the driveway. My hands clench the wheel tightly, my knuckles turning white as I sped toward my house.

I'm finding out if what Reese said about my father is true.

And if it is,Β 

I don't know what I'm going to do.

Word count: 2663


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