ROSE ||18+ (on hold) (Fatal #1)

2

I put my hands in the pockets of my jacket, watching as Alisa stepped out of the darkness. She was good with hiding.

She grimaced at me. "Why am I summoned here?" She folded her arms against her chest, eyeing four of my men who stood behind me.

"Befriend Rose," I said, my eyes scanning the street we were in again. The Creeds were good. Bastards were out for blood and I'd be damned before they got any of ours. I looked back at Alisa who was looking impatient, her fingers tapping against her bicep. "Keep her safe."

"Are you kidding me?" She huffed. "I don't make friends on-demand, brother."

"Do you not?" My head tilted. Her face hardened. Love. "And you make them something more, too."

"Fuck you, " she spat, walking away. I didn't bother stopping her. She was a good soldier, following orders was easy for her but taking them from her brother was not something she could stomach.

"Keep her safe," I murmured to my right-hand man, Nikolai. He nodded wordlessly, scarred face holding nothing as he walked to Alisa, easily catching up with her. I watched them round the corner and when they were out of sight, I took my gun out, pointed right where I knew he was standing, and shot.

A thud was heard.

The man could either be my father's or Creeds'. If he were my father's, he'd assume Creeds got the hold of his spy. If he was of the Creeds, they'd expect nothing less than death from me.

"Check him."
. . .

I heaved the box up, sitting it down in the topmost rack of the shelf. Rose was sitting on the shelf, putting books in a very dangerous way. She could fall any time but refused to get down.

"Rose," I said calmly. I wasn't used to women being defiant. "Get down. You will injure yourself." My accent was barely there. I doubled anyone could sense it.

She narrowed her eyes at me and continued taking the books out of the box and putting them into the topmost rack.

She didn't like me much.

I wasn't used to women not liking me, either.

I leaned against the wall, watching as she worked. I was, as promised, an hour early. She just pointed at things, muttering instructions, and drank her coffee. She had drunk three cups since I came in.

"Rose."

The small jerk of her head was the only signal she heard me. Infuriating woman. "What to do if a rude customer comes in?" I tried to make my voice sound friendly, yet I sounded like I did while giving orders to my men.

She looked at me. "Kick 'em in the butt."

I could do more than that. "And get arrested?"

She sighed. "Just try to be done with them as soon as possible. If they still act rudely, send them to me. I'll handle them."

And she'd send them running. I could picture this playing out rather perfectly. A mobster sending a mean customer to a barely five foot five woman who drank excessive coffee.

She jumped off the bookshelf and walked away. I picked the box up, following her. She climbed on another bookshelf and sat on the top of it. I sat the box in the topmost row and she arranged the books.

"How old are you?" She asked me. Her voice was soft, unlike her personality.

"Twenty-one," I answered.

"You look to be in your late twenties," she deadpanned. "I'm eighteen."

I was aware I looked older than my age.

I hummed, watching as her small hands put the books in the rows quickly. By the looks of it, she had been working in the store for quite a time. I knew much about her now. Her name, her parents, her and her mother's financial situation, and her boyfriend. Jeffery Finn, a twenty-year-old guy who owned a garage out of the city. Apparently, Rose and he had been together for a year. She had been seventeen and he nineteen when they got together. They became public when she turned eighteen.

She got off the shelf, walking away once again. I followed, looking around the bookstore. I had control over every camera in the whole block, something which my men looked over twenty-four seven. No way in hell was I letting the Creeds get their hands on me. That would ruin everything.

The store opened soon and then, Rose was a small blur of activeness. Bouncing around the store, helping customers, and pointedly not looking at me. Her efforts at ignoring me were the only sign that she was intrigued.

I could work with that.

I worked, too. I helped customers, all of them somehow being women, especially goggling college girls. I could fuck someone. I needed to get some tension out but the second I let any of them know what I actually did to girls, they'd run away. Shit like that wasn't for everyone.

I wished it was for Rose.

When it was time for my lunch break, a half an hour break, Rose was sitting on her desk with her phone in her hand. My eye flickered over her face. Troubled. Angry. Sad.

I walked closer to her. She looked up at me, brilliant green eyes that had knocked the breath out of me. Standing there across the street the day she bumped into me, this fiery little thing had looked delicious enough to eat.

I leaned against the table. "Where do you recommend I should eat?"

"Not within a twenty feet radius of me." She gave me a bitter smile, yet I could see the blush on her cheeks, the slight tremble of her fingers which had come into force only after I had spoken. Her eyes flickered over my face and then dropped me to lips.

"Let's  have lunch together."

"I will have it with my boyfriend." She looked down at her phone just as a message popped up. "And he is here. Bye, Alex." She hopped off the desk, grabbing a small purse from her desk, and walked out of the bookstore. I watched as a blond man came into view. He was tall, not as tall as me, and moderately muscled.

I watched as he pulled her in for a kiss. His hands were on her waist. He pulled back and walked, Rose followed him.

The edge of the desk had creaked under my grip, splinters digging into my skin. I welcomed the pain. I would find a way to get rid of him soon.

Rose was mine.

. . .
rOsE wAs MiNe