You Smell Like Trouble.

Chapter 1: Merge

BEFORE YOU READ, NOTE THAT THIS STORY MOVES A LITTLE FAST. SLOW BURNS GIVE ME ANXIETY BUT FAST BURNS KINDA PISS ME OFF, SO I PACED IT MODERATELY.
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My alarm for 5 am goes off for school. I can't wait for graduation in a few months, and not just so I can stop waking up this early, but so I can leave home. My parents run shady businesses that are very meticulously masked with regular ones. They're assassins and so are my brothers. Not only do they kill, but they traffic drugs and weapons. Google calls it a 'mafia' but I call it a 'joke'. It's just a bunch of middle aged people fighting and killing for control and an easy way to rack up cash. It's dumb.

And it makes their kid's lives harder because of how different everything is. We don't get a normal childhood. We grew up with guns and blades in our hands, instead of Barbies and toy cars. I'm not an assassin because I've always been against killing and no matter what my parents did or said, I never wanted to do it. I've gotten a lot of scars on my back from it, but it worked.

I go into my bathroom and grab my toothbrush and toothpaste. As I start brushing, I head to my closet to choose what to wear today. It's a Friday, so I'll be lazy. Black sweatpants and a white t-shirt. I'll have to wear lashes though so I don't look too boy-ish.

After I finish getting myself together, I walk downstairs. The front door is guarded by a guy and then there's five other guards around the floor.

"Hey, Chris." I say to my bodyguard. My parents said he's a bodyguard, but I think he's just here to report everything I do to my parents. The guy comes to school with me for Pete's sake. He's basically my bestie though. He lies for me all the time.

"Good morning, Miss Tai." he bows.

He acts so formal around my parents, but the moment we sit in the car, he's cracking jokes on the stray strands of hair on my head. I get why though: If he talks out of way to me in front of my father, he'll probably lose a finger... or die.

"Ma, I'm heading out." I say.

I'm actually not sure when or why I started calling this devil my mother; she's only my step-mom, she doesn't think I know. It's so obvious. But, she's Nash and Nehemiah's mom. Weird, right? My dad had an affair while they were together, but she forgave him. Not so sure where my actual mother is now though.

"Come here." she waves me over.

I walk over to the table her and my father are sitting at and my father says, "I'm sending Chris, Roman and Bullet with you to school."

"Dad, no." I shake my head. That's so embarrassing. They won't do anything to me while I'm in school, that's just dumb.

"The Guaio family is back in town, and only the Lord knows who may have followed them."

The Guaio family: they're the most powerful across the US and Eurasia. They seem to have a problem with my family for some reason, at least that's what my dad thinks. He's afraid of them. Hell, everyone is.

"Dad, you said that Chris is as far as this whole "bodyguard" thing would g-"

"Hush. All three of them are going, so shut the hell up and go to school."

Fuck, man. Chris and I were going to go for ice cream after school and blame it on traffic. Now, I have to come right back. I'm glad that we're famous or having guards would look suspicious to people.

"You never make Nash or Nehemiah take bodyguards with them anywhere, so why do I have to?! I grew up with a gun in my left and a knife in my right just like them!"

Nash and Nehemiah are my big brothers. Nash is twenty and Nehemiah is twenty-two.

"They're men, Tani. They can take better care of themselves than you, a female, could ever."