A Sweeter Poison

chapter 9: Pistanthrophobia

Song: Everything I wanted by Billie Eilish

Pistanthrophobia (n.) ; the fear of trusting people due to negative past experiences

I took a swig from the bottle of beer, leaning backwards in my chair, my feet on the desk. My notepad was on my lap, currently covered in tiny graphic drawings of various inappropriate encounters.

Rolf was stood in front of me, in the middle of talking, beside a large whiteboard. Pinned to the whiteboard were six pictures in a line in the centre, with arrows pointing from them and various notes. Several other pictures were scattered around the board of burly looking men and women.

As I finished my bottle, I placed it on the floor and reached down to pick up a second from the six pack under the desk. It was eleven am.

I suppose the great thing about living with Dimitri and Rolf was they didn't give a flying fuck about what I did. So long as it didn't affect them or cause them to go out of their way. As long as I remained invisible, I could do what I wanted, ergo daytime drinking.

Dimitri had gone out - making sure to rub it in my face considering I was on house arrest until we flew out to America. Rolf had decided to devote the day to preparing me for meeting my family. Of course this wouldn't be a wholesome family reunion. There was no way Rolf would have even told me about it had there not been some gain for him.

"Your job," he told me, pointing at me with a metre stick, "Is to infiltrate the Rodrigues family under the presumption that you are their long lost sister-"

"I am their long lost sister," I rolled my eyes and Rolf waved me away.

"You are going to feed us back information on them - information we can use to get rich fast," Rolf continued.

I raised my eyebrows, guesting around us, "We are already rich, Rolf,"

"I will not tolerate backchat," he jabbed me in the stomach with the ruler and I winced as he hit bruise central.

"What we have now is millions," he said, as if it's something anyone can throw around, "What we can get is billions - we can do what we like with this information. They have a shipment coming in? Finders keepers loser weepers. We can sell it to their rival mafias, and in the meantime gain important allies,"

I chewed on the end of my pencil after finishing my latest doodle (Dimitri as a pig being murdered), "I'm confused - I thought we hated the mafias. Now we want them as allies? Don't they all, like, hate our guts,"

Rolf smiled at me, his teeth gleaming, "Ahh, Belle, what you don't understand is that a mafia's greatest enemy is their greatest threat, and their greatest threat are rival mafias. You see? Their hatred for the spanish mafia, for instance, is far greater than their petty hatred for local anarchists such as us," he moved to stand beside his whiteboard, obviously proud of his display, "Now these," he pointed to each of the six pictures in turn with the ruler, "Are you siblings. The rodrigues' family. The Spanish mafia. One of the most dangerous mafias in the underworld. You speak Spanish, yes?"