When I woke up, my parents weren't home. I'm not really sure what they were doing, but I didn't mind, since it gave me time to snoop through my dad's office.

I step into it, and look around. I've only been in here a few times, and never for longer than a few minutes.

The sun danced through the window, shining on the dark wood on the floor. The white curtains were open, and a bookshelf was pressed against the left wall.

I sat down on the leather office chair, the cold temperature of it making me shiver for a moment.

I began opening drawers. I wasn't exactly sure what I was looking for, but I was looking for something. Something that would tell me my father is not an evil man.

But his drawers were clean. Only empty notebooks, pens, and paperclips. A half drank glass of whiskey rested against the wooden desk, but besides that, there was nothing.

I walk over to the bookshelf. And none of the books tell me anything, at least at first glance.

I sighed and looked around the room. And that's when I spotted something.

The vent on the wall was slightly uneven. I got down on my knees, and pushed it to the side. And behind it, revealed a silver vault.

A five digit code is needed.

I swore under my breath and started to think of what it could be.

What could my dad have made it? There's an endless amount of combinations. How will I-

I stop my own thoughts as an idea comes into my mind.

10.9.02

October 9th, 2002. My birthday.

The vault opens, and I smile, as if my dad making the code my birthday meant he wasn't doing anything wrong. But deep down, I knew he could still be.

Stacks of money were at the back of the vault. The amount made my jaw drop.

A sheet of paper sat in the middle. Hesitantly, with guilt, I grabbed it. I'd feel awful if this was something personal.

I flip the sheet of paper over. In messy writing with a black pen, it read, 'Downtown apartment building. 3rd floor, second room. Resse Ricci.'

This must be where Reese lives.

I jump as I hear the door open. My parent's distant voices reach my ears, and I quickly put the paper back in the safe. I close it and put the vent cover back, before quickly standing to my feet and exiting the room.

"All I'm saying, Mariana, is that-" my dad stops talking to my mom once he sees me, and I made it look like I was just walking toward the kitchen. He smiled at me. "Hey, sweetheart."

"Hey," I say with my hands behind my back, rocking back and forth on my heels.

"Want to watch a movie with your amazing parents?" he asks me.

I nod, "Yea, sure."

We all go into the living room together, and I sit on the couch with my mom. My dad sits in a one-seat lounge chair, putting a cigar into his mouth while the movie my mom picked played.

I anxiously played with the edges of the blanket over me, trying to gather the courage to ask my dad a question. I could hear that the movie was playing, but I wasn't registering anything being said.

A guy on the TV gets hit by a car, and my dad laughs, making my mom scold him.

"Um, hey, dad?" I finally speak up.

He removes the cigar from his mouth and turns to look at me, "Yes?"

My mouth hangs open for a moment, while I continued playing with the blanket.

"What was that about yesterday?" I ask. "With over a dozen men running into Reese's cell."

He makes a noise while lowering his cigar. Smoke from it danced in the air, and he looked at the ground while he thought.

"We're trying to get someone's location out of him," his brown eyes meet mine. "But he won't give in. He even killed four more of my men yesterday, even with chains around him."

Someone's location.

"Whose location?" I ask, trying to keep my tone from sounding too interested. I didn't want to raise any suspicion.

He sighs, leaning back in the chair. I keep my eyes on him, waiting to hear what he says. Waiting for him to tell me he's not trying to get the location of a child.

"You really don't need to worry about this kind of stuff, Azzy," he smiles. "I'll handle it."

I try and hide my disappointment from his answer.

"But, they're a bad person, right?" I inquire. "You only hurt bad people. Right?"

An action scene plays quietly on the TV in front of us. But neither of us look at it.

He uncrosses his legs and leans forward toward me with his elbows on his knees. He smiles at me, "Of course, sweetheart."

I swallow my saliva and force a nod. He smiles at me for a few more moments, before going back to watching the TV.

The action scene continues to play. People are getting killed, shot, they're screaming, and crying. I look at my dad out of the corner of my eye.

He raises the cigar to his mouth, and smiles as the scene plays out.

«────── « ⋅ʚ♡ɞ⋅ » ──────»

I go to work after eating dinner.

I enter the kitchen, with too much weighing on my mind.

"One plate of steak, potatoes, and vegetables," Simon smiles at me as he hands the plate out for me to take.

I can feel my eyes widen as I take it from him, "One?"

"Yea. They...got rid of that one guy earlier," he whispers to me while shrugging. I feel panic rise in my throat.

"Ricci?" I ask anxiously.

He shakes his head, "No. The other guy, Cade."

I let out a breath of relief. A few other cooks stand in the kitchen, cleaning it before they go home. But instead of turning around, I stay exactly where I am, biting the inside of my cheek.

"Hey, Simon?" my voice is soft and quiet. "Have you ever heard of my dad doing anything....wrong?"

He laughs a little, "Define 'wrong.' Some people would say this place is wrong."

I nod, "Yea, I know, but....have you ever heard of him....hurting children?"

His dark eyes widen. He glances over his shoulder, making sure that none of the cooks are able to hear us. He takes a step toward me and talks in a whisper tone.

"Look, I'm really not trying to bad mouth your dad. He pays my salary, and I'm very grateful for that," he answers, but I'm not satisfied with that answer.

"Simon," I say seriously. "If you know something you're not telling me, you need to tell me. I won't tell my dad you told me."

He looks conflicted. I continue looking at him seriously.

"Okay, fine, but you didn't hear it from me," he whispers, and I nod. "But I've heard sometimes he uses children for stuff downtown."

My eyebrows lower, "Like what?"

His mouth hangs open, and he looks as if he doesn't wanna tell me.

"Simon!" I scold and step as hard as I can on his toe.

"Ow! Okay, okay, fine," he lifts his foot up in pain. "I've heard that sometimes he will use children to pick up things with people he doesn't completely trust. So, if something goes wrong, it's them and not him."

I stand there in a little bit of shock as I take in his words.

"You say this is downtown?" I ask to clarify. He nods. "Okay, thank you. Now, just one more question. What do you know about Reese Ricci?"

He rubs the back of his neck, and once again looks like he doesn't wanna tell me. I raise my foot to step on his toe again, but he speaks before I can, "Okay, okay! I'll tell you."

I lower my foot and look up at him.

"He's from Russia. The most skilled assassin from there," he tells me. "Seriously. He hasn't just killed people in the mafia, but people even higher up. Think politicians. He moved here, after having enough of working for the Don there. And ever since he has been here, your father's men have been dropping left and right. Courtesy of him."

I don't reply at first, taking in his words.

"Why is he killing his men?" I ask.

"Well, I've heard it's because your father tried to blackmail him into working for him. Threatened to go to the police and blame some murders on him, or something like that. Then for the past few years, he has been killing his men nearly every day. Although, this is all stuff I've heard through the grapevine. Nobody has ever heard Reese speak a word himself."

I have.

"Thank you, Simon," I say sincerely. "Seriously."

"Of course. Anything to save my other toe from being broken."

I laugh as I turn around with the plate. I walk over to Reese's cell, and slowly open the door.

But as I step in, see that he's asleep on the bed. I set the plate of food down anyway, and slide it across the line.

He lays on his back, his eyes shut as he faces the ceiling. His legs are crossed at the ankles, and his hands are behind his head. I look at him, and take a few steps forward.

But my eyes widen once I do. His torso is filled with cuts, and I can assume how he got them. And they didn't even bother to treat them.

I leave, and return with some ointment and bandages. My steps are silent as I walk over to his bed, and slowly sit down on it, trying not to make too much noise since it squeaks with weight put on it.

I scoop some ointment and slowly start spreading it on his wounds. I go slow and careful, not wanting to hurt or wake him.

Once the cuts have had it applied, I grab the white bandages and start covering them up.

"You don't need to keep doing this," his deep voice speaks as his brown eyes crack open. "It's not your problem."

"Problem? No," I reply while covering the last cut. "But job? Yes."

It wasn't actually part of my job. All I'm supposed to do is deliver food. I've never cleaned anybody's cuts before Reese's.

He stares up at me, and I keep sitting there.

"I heard you killed a few people," I speak. "I assume they took your weapon away?"

"Mhm," he hums. "But no worries. All I need are my bare hands, and I could kill all of them."

My fingers play with the ends of my sleeves as I look at him. His black hair is messy from his nap, and veins pop out of his biceps.

"I....um...." I trail off for a moment. "I've been looking into my dad. To see if what you told me is true."

He licks his bottom lip for a moment, while shaking his head ever so slightly.

"You shouldn't do that, Azalea," he tells me firmly. "You're going to be disappointed when you get your answer."

I stop playing with my sleeves, and he pushes himself up to sit upright.

"You've been killing my father's men?" I ask him. "Even though they aren't the ones that have done anything to you?"

He doesn't reply right away, but looks into my eyes.

"I may be a bad person. But at least I don't lie about it," he says while slinging his legs off of the bed, his boots hitting the floor.

I keep sitting directly beside him.

"I'm going downtown tonight. To see what my father is doing with the children there," I tell him, and when I do, his head snaps over to me.

He shakes his head, "Don't. I mean it, Azalea. It's dangerous down there."

"I need to see for myself what my father is doing."

"By getting yourself killed?" he argues. "Congratulations on having the best plan since somebody grabbed a cow and thought, huh, what if we squeezed it?"

His sarcasm made me roll my eyes.

"I'm not gonna get killed, I'll be fine," I stand up.

But he stands up, too, towering over me.

He rubs his temple and swears under his breath, "Fuck, Azalea. If you're really not going to change your mind, at least bring a weapon with you."

"A weapon?" I raise my eyebrows.

"Yea, a weapon. A knife, or taser," he lists of items. "You need to be able to protect yourself down there."

I nod, "Okay, okay. I'll bring something with me."

My words seem to make his face relax. I begin walking to the door to leave, but stop in the doorway.

"Reese?" I say, and he turns to look at me. "How come you kill people for a living?"

He just stared at me for a few moments.

"ранить людей или люди ранят тебя," he says.

[Translation: Hurt people, or get hurt.]

I don't know what he says. But I nod anyways, and close the door behind me.

«────── « ⋅ʚ♡ɞ⋅ » ──────»

I can see my breath in the cold night air as I walk. My hands are inside of my jacket for warmth, and the white knitted hat on my head keeps my ears warm. A pocketknife sits in my jacket pocket.

It was barely above 0 degrees celsius. My cheeks and nose were red as I walked down the alleyway.

I turned on my dad's location with me on his phone after dinner. He said he had something to do quickly, downtown. So I followed him.

But I parked my car a few blocks away so that he wouldn't see it. I have a pink small teddy bear dangling from my rearview mirror, so he would know it was mine if he saw it.

The sky is dark and the alleyway is dimly lit up.

I slowly stop walking as I hear voices coming from the street corner. I put my hand against the cold brick wall, and poke my head around.

On the corner of the street, a kid around 10 years old sat on a bench. An older man, looking to be in his thirties, sat with him. I wasn't sure if this is what I should even be looking at at first, but once I saw my dads car parked in the distance and that he was watching them, I knew I was in the right place.

Fog comes out of both of their mouths as they talk in the cold weather. The older man whispers something in his ear, and the kid looks around for a few moments.

Something already felt off about this. Why was this kid here? Whatever this was, he shouldn't be involved in this.

The kid pulls something out of his pocket, and shoves it into the older mans. It didn't take much brain power to figure out that it was drugs. I knew that my dad was involved in the drug trade, I had overheard him a few times. But I never knew he was using children to deal.

The kid held his hand out, as if telling the man to hand over the money. I kept most of my body behind the wall as I watched.

The older man reaches into his pocket. To hand over the money, I assume.

Bang. I audibly gasp and slap my cold hand over my mouth with wide eyes. The older man had pulled out a gun, instead of money, and shot the boy once in the head.

Tears burned my wide eyes as I watched. The man quickly got up and started running away, when my dad's engine roared to life. He sped down the road, hitting the man that was running away with his car. His body flew over the car, before lifelessly rolling a few times.

My dad continued on driving. He didn't turn around, and he didn't raise his phone to call the police.

Tears rolled down my cheeks as I looked back at the boy that lays lifelessly on the cold sidewalk. My dinner rises in my throat, and I hunch over and throw it all up.

I cry as I do. And once my stomach is empty, I stand upright and wipe my mouth. I sniffle and wipe my tears as I start heading back to my car.

My father isn't the man that I thought he is.

And somebody needs to do something about it.

Even if it means doing things I had never done before.

Word count: 2694