HIS ASSASIN

Nine

ALEXIA-

"I don't really see a point in that."

"Why? Is something wrong, you will meet him eventually but we may as well get greetings over with-"

"I don't see a point in having a personal servant." I didn't like the sound of it either, as much as I knew that they loved what they did with every fibre of their being I didn't want a secretary.

He looked taken aback by my refusal, questioning my motives in his mind before speaking, "Why is that Miss Thorne."

"I don't see a point in someone serving me that has no loyalty towards me, it devalues all that having men is." It was the truth, men were supposed to have undivided loyalty to whom they were protecting, unless they were for the whole family, a direct assistant had to give priority to the one they were assigned to. My guess would be that his siblings plus his cousin all had men who were singularly for them. The withholder of secrets and your very own left hand they were critical in the upkeep of the family. There were very dark aspects to the mafia and it helped to have someone outside of your family to confide in about the things you've seen.

"What makes you think that my loyalty is divided?" he questioned.

"You serve the family first."

"A family that you're now a direct part of."

"I haven't been here the longest, any normal person would have an affiliation towards the people they've been around most, the people they've been through the most with. It's simple really." At least I thought it was.

"I'm not a normal person, none of us are." He looked at me like he recognised a familiar depth within my soul. "I am loyal to whoever I declare myself loyal to. My integrity will never be compromised because of personal agendas, especially since the person you are presuming I have this affiliation with directed me to impart that same loyalty to you."

Well, I couldn't really argue with that. "Hm, so you are telling me that I could tell you anything and you wouldn't whisper a word?"

"Not unless you order me to."

"And you work for me? You follow my commands?"

"Yes, Miss Thorne."

"So if I told you to kill Damian you would?"

"If that is what you ask of me then yes, although I presume that would not be in your best interests."

"And what exactly do you know about my interests? And that definitely wouldn't be in your best interests either."

"I have no interests for myself, and if I did all of yours would overrule that. And just the gist that you're running...or hiding from something. Haven't gathered the specifics yet." He spoke as if this hadn't been a conversation with another person, but instead between him and his mind, like he saw things no one else saw and it was just a matter of time before the deepest depths of my secrets took themselves to the darkest depths of his soul.

I didn't bother asking for more information about what he knew of me, I had a feeling that this was really between him and himself.

"Okay, whatever, I accept for now but I do not trust you. I don't know how anyone in this place feels about women and what they're meant to be doing but I'm a very different type of person. I kill, but I think you already know that. I serve no one but myself and I will not be pushed around in this place."

"I understand Miss Thorne. I actually respect your ruthlessness, I believe that Damian holds this feeling as well."

He does? Well, that's something. What he'd given me up until now hadn't been a lot but from what I'd seen he wasn't the most approving of my resistance to giving him what he'd wanted.

"Alexia, I came to speak to you, may I?" Bella appeared from behind me, holding a wine glass in her hand with what looked a lot like champagne she spoke to me.

"Yeah you can, we were just finishing up anyways, is that alcohol?" I didn't want to speak to him anymore to be quite honest, I would never fully trust him. And I didn't think that he would ever really trust me although that wasn't as important to him. I would use him if need be but aside from that I had no interest in forming fake partnerships.

"Sorry, Neal I'm gonna go talk to Bella, I'll see you around though?"

He stood, unfazed "Sure thing Miss Thorne, I will be with you shortly." I didn't like how soon that sounded but I would have to brush it off for now. Bella insisted on getting to know me so I might as well roll with that one. There was more to this place than met the eye and I wanted to know all of it.

We walked towards a little section in the back of the hall with some empty chairs for us to sit on. "Yeah it is alcohol, they don't really care about it though, said that I've seen enough already and if a couple of glasses of wine was enough to throw my life off track then I was too weak to be here anyways." I almost laughed out loud at that one, it was a fair declaration but it didn't make it any less brass.

"Well, how could you argue with that." She held her glass up and took a swig in response. From this side of the hall, I could barely see anyone, I hadn't seen Damian since the ceremony and I didn't really want to. It just reminded me too much of the reality of all of this. "So what do you do, what's your purpose in this place?" I asked her. It was true that many made men didn't like the idea of the women, especially those they loved being exposed to the brutality of the mafia. I found it ridiculous.

Time and time again we were all shown that simply protecting the women wasn't enough, they were targeted and degraded to the highest possible extent when they were caught and kidnapped. All of that pent-up anger, cutthroat hatred all taken out on a poor girl. All because the men around her were too selfish to train her but brave enough to allow her to be involved unarmed, it was all a joke.

Some, smarter families did the opposite, they trained their women just like the men. They put up a fight and it ended up in a great number of them being kept safe. My father was like that. Would never of bet on anyone to keep me safe at all times, no one else would look over you like you do for yourself he would tell me.

She tried to hide it but I could feel the nervousness creeping out of her as she answered my question. "I'm still young, so I just help out sometimes. With training my brothers and sometimes my cousin. I also have to go to the balls and the charity events you know, all the things that make us look picture perfect." 

  As the only woman in their family it was likely that these were the tasks that she would have to be doing, as interesting as men were there was a certain barrier that made their actions a lot more notable to the average person than them as individuals. With Bella, they could make all sorts of assumptions about her life, who's she dating, who is jealous of her, who she is jealous of, who she is going to marry? And not to mention looks, the media always loved a pretty face and she had that for sure. It wasn't a surprise that she was the spokesperson for the family.

"Oh, I see you're like the face of the family."

"Yeah, I guess you could say that. I humanise us in a way, you can only relate to a man so much and he's closed off enough already so it makes the most sense." She stared into the crowd, she looked lost in thought before she turned to the side and looked at me. "What do you plan to do here, what's your game plan?"

Well, that was a great question. I was pretty sure that everyone already knew that I had no intentions of giving up any information to them before I knew I had something to hold over their heads after the fact. When that saga was all over I didn't know what I wanted to do, I could cheat, be with whoever I wanted to be with but it had to be a secret, couldn't ruin their image after all.

"Stay until this is more stable, then I don't really know. But he's not in love with me, I can leave, we could fake a death that's not really my concern."