Garden of Roses ✔️

Chapter 18

Zara

During the first week of our preparations for the attack on Isabella, things couldn't have looked worse for us. Bianca, Alex, and Carlo managed to kick the new recruitments' asses every single time. They were beaten and needed to physically recover for a few days before continuing with the training.

There were a lot of them, so I decided to help with the training every time I got a second of free time from working with Marco.

We've managed to go through and test all the weapons during the first week. Unfortunately, we discovered a lot of them were inadequate, and now we were working on making a list so Dante could order new ones.

Lorenzo was working with the snipers, but there was not a lot of them left after Isabella's little stunt. The ones who remained needed to be extra productive to compensate for the lack of them.

Gabriella worked her ass off every day, not even remembering to eat or drink in the process, and she still wasn't getting any closer to breaking into Isabella's security. She was desperate and Camilla had to force her to take a night off so she would finally get some sleep. Her eyes were blood red from staring at the bright screen for days in a row. Camilla had to intervene because once Gabi got into her trance, she couldn't break out of it on her own.

Dante and Camilla ran all over, supervising our work, giving orders, and developing a strategic plan.

I haven't seen Dante much because we were all too busy to even lift our heads from our work. Here and there when he would come to check on the progress we'd made, I would catch his look and he gave me what seemed to be a small smile. It wasn't much, but at least his rage didn't take over and made all of us tremble in fear of what he might do if things don't start going for the better.

During our second week of preparations, things really did start going for the better. We ordered our weapons, and now we were waiting for the shipment to arrive, which gave me more time to help with the combat training since Marco and I's work was done. Alex, Bianca, Carlo, and I divided them into four groups, each of us taking on one group. At the end of every day, they would fight each other, and the four of us would stand aside and note the necessary improvements that needed to be made.

They weren't so bad anymore. Their bodies were bruised, painful, and exhausted, but they still gave everything they had into the training. They were getting stronger and their stamina improved from what it was when they first got here.

Seeing those people become stronger and more skilled every day made us feel some sense of pride and satisfaction. Carlo was getting nicer every day, and by now, he almost completely stopped making hateful comments regarding me and my squad. Maybe by the time this was over, he would even start trusting us.

Okay, that was kind of a stretch, I wouldn't count on it.

"What do you think, are they going to be totally badass by the time we're done with them, or what?" Alex asks with a huge grin on his face. He looks like a proud father as he watches them fight each other.

"You bet they are," Bianca responds, crossing her arms over her chest and looking at them all closely, not missing any of their moves.

"Maybe, but they're still not even close," Carlo intercepts with his usual pessimistic comment. The three of us can't help but roll our eyes at him. He always has to kill the mood.

"Yeah, keep rolling your eyes. I'm just saying, they are still far from what they should be," he says, not even looking at us. Instead, he keeps his gaze on our students. "Let's just hope we will have enough time to make them into something."