"You're more stubborn than I thought you were going to be," Arlecchino pressed a cigar in between her lips and puffed. More or less in short words, she wasn't happy that I didn't keep my promise. Her smoke overran my nostrils and I chuckled, "you're saying it like I purposely want to stay here, I told you Arlecchino, I just stayed for the night." She tossed the cigar to the ground, looked at me with two narrowed eyes and forced me to watch as she crushed the filler. It burnt to a crisp, but it was her way of saying, "you should have ran away when you still had the chance."
"And you think the old man is just going to let you leave just like that?"
"What? Is he going to hold a knife to my head!? you're acting like my existence is crucial." I sighed.
"He could," her hands scurried to her pockets and she made her way, slowing down just to tell me a bitter word or two. "You think you're special just because he's not willing to let you leave? think twice kid, you aren't special, just someone he has unfinished business with."
I cocked a brow, "I never said I was special." She scoffed, but I couldn't understand why she was thinking like this. I wasn't special, I didn't have powers, I was just me. And it just turns out that Pierro has known me for a long time. Maybe he's made another one of those dumb promises to my parents, telling my worried dad he'd take care of me knowing how terrible the streets were out here. I just know that Pierro was close with my dad and my mom. And to him, they were family. Swiftly I crossed a corner and branched my fingers over the walls, the crevices and dents. This place was old but turned modern, pure timber carved to perfection. The place smelt like what a cabin in the middle of winter would smell like, except it wasn't. It was a big mansion and everytime I looked down these halls I felt my eyes throb.
I was just going to say my thanks and make my way out. Start from zero like I had said yesterday. Though I'd miss sleeping in these silky sheets, the nice warm air coming out of a heater, the slightly yellow dimmed lights. The smell of cinnamon first thing in the morning. It was hard to leave this place, but I needed to. I knew the consequences if I stayed. My hands hovered over the handle to his office, thick timber grinded to a ball. Reminding myself that all it took was one deep breath, one inhale and another rush of adrenaline. I pushed the door, it whined open.
"Morning" Pierro greeted me from his chair, slightly tilting his glasses down, signing a few papers with thick ink, letting it stretch across the letters elegantly in cursive. "Morning, Pierro." I smiled, walking forwards, a few guards by the door giving me the look, searching my body for any weaponry with those siren eyes. Relax, I didn't have anything.
"Listen old man–"
"I'm listening," he signed a contract and then moved onto the next papers, sliding a small bag of substance in a magazine. Looking at the guard next to him and signaling him to wrap it inside a bag, before heading out. I gulped by the thought of it, Pierro was serious business. Signing contracts, hiding secrets. How big was his mafia? Or well, the question I should be asking myself is...why he had even started one.
"I wanted to say my thanks."
His pen stopped. Two chilling icy blue eyes met mine. "What is it?"
Shit, was he so quick to catch on?
"I'm leaving." I stood in front of his desk and placed my firm fist over the table. If I was a stranger, I'd have several knives on me, but Pierro wasn't going to do that to me. I could feel his guards watching me, hands in their pockets, feeling the blade, waiting for the old man's calling. It was scary to know that everybody here could kill me. He sighed, told me to sit down and I did. I just wish he hadn't pulled out a huge luggage of money infront of me. My eyes shot wide open, he clicked his knife open, circled the money and then pointed at me. "And if I bribe you with money? Come on Tartaglia. Stay."
"I don't understand Pierro, why do you want me to stay so badly!? I'm not like Arlecchino or Scaramouche."
"Simple," he rested the knife on the table and glanced back at me, "I made a promise with your father and told him I wouldn't let you live on the streets, second of all." the knife slid my way, it stretched across, the blade perfectly opening in time while it landed in front of me, like a calling. "I see potential and I need you. I have a plan for the future and I need you by my side. Make your mother proud."
YOU ARE READING
The Rebellion〚Childe x Zhongli〛➷
Romance"What do you think you're doing?" his breath hitches, he's struggling when there's so much going on, our scents, his breath on my face, my hands on the knife he's holding. "Getting to know your body language, getting to know you. Getting to know why...
