Always

17.3| underprepared

GENIEVE

"Guys, I think I found something." Ace said as he burst into the room Me, Alexis and Romeo were in. 

"What?" Alexis asked. 

"I'll tell you once everyone is here." As if on cue, Carina, Luca and the other triplets came in. 

"Alright, so after doing extensive research on the city camera footage, I found this." He brought up two pictures side by side. One was a symbol in blood on a piece of paper, and the other was a tattooed shoulder. 

They both however had one thing in common. "The French Mafia Symbol. We know this, why are you showing it to us again?" Lucas asked. Alex spoke up before Ace. "Because at first sight, it might look like the French Mafia Symbol, which it is, but if you zoom in further, the text is written in German." 

"Töten oder nicht töten. das ist hier die Frage"

"To kill or not to kill. That's the question." I recited slowly. The French and the German. Together. In an alliance. 

"That's some messed up shit. Are we even sure we have to go to Italy? What if they're playing us?" Alex and Gen both shook their heads in unison. 

"They're using reverse reverse psychology. The German are all about mind games, it's their thing." Ace's shoulders sagged. This just got three times harder. 

"Well, I have another piece of bad news. The blood that was on the note. Was 1. Freshly taken and 2. Coming up in our database." I held up my fingers. 

"Wait- what does it mean, coming up in our database?" I opened the test results. "It means that it was the blood of someone who we know. One of our men, some distant family, someone we used to know. It's hard to explain but someone got here before me. 

They wiped the files and then hacked into the backup and wiped everything from there too." My hands gripped my chair. "I can get it all back, but it can take anywhere from a couple hours to a couple days. Fortunately they only wiped the medical files and they didn't even come close to anything else. And they didn't make any copies whatsoever." 

As we all got into the jet, I looked around at everyone strapping themselves in. "Alright guys. You all know the drill. Keep close, have each other's backs and-" 

"Have fun out there?" Ace finished in a joking tone as everyone laughed. 

"I was going to say don't be afraid to kill, but sure that works too." I told him, strapping myself in. The light atmosphere in the plane wasn't going to last long.  

I called Alex over once the seatbelt sign was off and scooched over for her to sit. I grabbed the red velvet box that I brought with me and placed it on Alex's lap. She raised an eyebrow before opening the box. 

A delicately crafted gun and dagger were placed inside. She held a hand to her mouth as she reached out and grabbed the gun. Her initials A.S.D.A were carved on both sides of the gun. "It's beautiful. Did you have his custom made?" She asked. I nodded, taking out my own gun. 

"It's tradition for each Di Angelo child to get one when they initiate into the Mafia after they prove their usefulness and worth. It's kind of stupid, but it's how it works. Dad gave me mine when I was fifteen, Ace got his three years later." She nodded, still looking at the box in awe. 

"These might officially be the nicest things I own." I chuckled as I traced my initials on my gun and Carter's right below mine. It was tradition to engrave the initials of your other half, your partner in crime, your soulmate's on your own for a sign of eternal bliss and happiness. I clutched my gun tightly, thinking about her. 

Right now if she were here, she would insist on coming even though she didn't know the first thing about hacking or fighting. She would always check us all over and fix any injuries that we would suffer. She had these cute, crazy cartoon bandages that she always had in her medical bag and all of us would love them. 

She'd kiss me where it hurt to help it heal better and I would laugh and pull her into my arms while she blushed furiously. She was a godsend. She didn't deserve to die. She deserved to live and have little kids that she would adore and give kisses to. She deserved to travel the world, she deserved to be given a chance to help others. But she wasn't. None of that happened because she died. 

"Hey Gen, do you mind if I ask you something?" Alex's voice broke me out of my trance. I turned to her. "Sì, certo, vai avanti." [Yes of course go ahead: Italian] "Who's Carter?" She asked tentatively. 

"Carter? Lei era il mio tutto. Era la mia fidanzata, ci saremmo sposati prima che morisse in un incidente aereo. Non hanno trovato un corpo quando l'aereo è bruciato. Era bella, gentile e intelligente e non meritava di morire, ma l'universo aveva altri piani per lei." 

[She was my everything. She was my fiancée, we were going to get married before she died in a plane crash. They didn't find a body when the plane burned down. She was beautiful, kind and intelligent, and she didn't deserve to die, but the universe had other plans for her.] 

I sighed before fiddling with my ring. "Can I ask you a question?" She nodded. "Who was your friend? The one who-" my throat was suddenly dry. 

''killed himself?" Alex finished for me. I nodded. 

"His name was Rhys. I had known him since I was two. Him and Damien, we were like a family. They took me under his wing. We learned everything together. We used to sneak out late at night and go to the Alley behind and practice fighting. We had found a knife set thrown in one of the dumpsters. 

It was complete from small to large ones. Damien painted over a cardboard box and that was our target ever since. When I was nine, me and Carina were taken to a foster home. Rhys and Damien made me promise not to ever forget them and I didn't. How could I? They were my closest friends.

So, every night they'd visit me and we found a better place to practice. An old man, Henry, took us in as his own. Every night, he'd tell us everything he knew about martial arts. When I was ten, he introduced me to a gun. And that was it. I was smitten with the damn thing. I spent every waking moment studying the gun, disassembling and reassembling it. 

They were always there for me. On my good days they'd tease me and on my bad days they'd hug me and tell me everything was going to be okay. 

It was when I was fourteen that things started getting bad. Rhys, he wasn't really around anymore. He used to come in beat up and too tired to train every day. I confronted him about it three weeks later and he said that he couldn't bear it anymore. When I asked him what he was talking about, he said that he didn't like when I flirted with Damien, but I couldn't help it because I liked Damien, not that I didn't like Rhys, it was more platonic with Rhys. 

He told me that he liked me and then he walked away. He wasn't around a lot after that and then one day He-" 

I know what she's going to say and she looked in pain for having to say it. So I stopped her. 

"You don't have to say it if you don't want to. Just focus your thoughts on something else." She nodded and admired the gun instead. She traced her initials with her callused fingers which were rough from previous battles. I smiled before I turned my phone on and scrolled through my pictures. 

There was a whole album dedicated to Carter. One for mom and dad and One large one for my siblings. The others were random pictures of trees, pigeons, the view, and a busy street. All that Carter took from my phone when we went for walks, or when we'd get out of the office for lunch. 

I sadly looked out the window, but nothing could prepare me for what was about to come.