When We Met

CH 9 Rosaline

"Oh my god, that was sooooo long," Alejandro groaned in an exaggerated tone of exhaustion as we finally disembarked the plane at Heathrow.

"Alejandro, please don't act like a bloody five-year-old," Matias chided, smacking the back of the younger man's head in that familiar disciplinarian way. "You're twenty-nine years old, for Christ's sake. Act like it, you imbecile."

I shook my head slightly at the two of them, unable to repress the faintest of smiles. For all their bickering, it was abundantly clear how much they truly did care for each other in that unique fashion only brothers could share. They had been raised together practically since birth under my father's tutelage, forged into soldiers - into the family - through the brutal crucible of our harsh world.

A pang of melancholy lanced through me as I watched their interaction, my thoughts straying to my own late siblings - Romano, Matias, and Raphael. I couldn't even begin to fathom how they must have suffered in those final, blinding moments of betrayal as my uncle's forces descended on the compound. Had they fought back valiantly until the bitter end like the merciless warriors they'd been cultivated to become? Or had it been over in the cruellest instant of shocking surprise and lethal gunfire?

"Hey, Rosaline?" Matias's gruff voice snapped me from my morbid reverie. "You all right over there? You seem...distracted."

I felt his knowing eyes scrutinizing me with the same intense focus he applied to any potential threat assessment. For several beats, I simply stared back at him blankly, struggling to formulate a response around the sudden lump constricting my throat.

"Oh...yeah, I'm good. I'm just..."

The lie shrivelled up on my tongue as I studied the two men who had become more brothers to me than even my own late-blood siblings. How could I even begin to articulate the roiling tempest of grief, guilt, rage and loss still raging through my soul? The desperate need to mourn and yet not having even been afforded the barest slice of time to process everything that had happened?

All I could see was my mother's stricken, pleading face as she screamed at me to run being the last image seared into my mind before I turned and fled the assault on the compound. I hadn't looked back, not even for her - just ran as fast as my legs could propel me while the unmistakable thunder of automatic gunfire split the air behind me. Part of me wondered if she was even still alive, or if perhaps her punishment for birthing me into this bloody life was finally complete.

Sensing my darkening emotions, Matias swiftly moved to redirect my focus to the practicalities of our new reality.

"Okay, you two - remember our cover story from here on out," he stated in a low undertone. "I am Alex Jones. Alejandro - you're playing my brother Nick. We'll figure out who Rose here is meant to be in relation to you later."

He paused, clearly weighing how much operational information to divulge to me in my fragile emotional state. Alejandro opened his mouth, no doubt to pepper the elder man with his typical brand of smart-ass queries. But one withering glance from Matias promptly snapped his jaw shut like a steel trap again.

"When we arrive at my aunt's place, she'll be appraised on our actual situation and status," he went on carefully. "Just know that for years now, she's been operating a small-scale restaurant as a front for trying to exert some toehold and expand the...business interests here in the UK. She's been providing us shelter and support as we establish a much wider-ranging presencia

in this region."

I arched an eyebrow, catching his brief slip into his native Latina at the end. It was a telling crack in Matias' trademark unflappable poise - likely brought on by my brooding silence and the strain of transitioning between the roles of sturdy bodyguard and active operational strategist and his angry spark at the memory of my father's demise.