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𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐘 𝐒𝐀𝐘 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐅𝐈𝐑𝐒𝐓 𝐂𝐀𝐒𝐔𝐀𝐋𝐓𝐘 of war is innocence.
The youngest Cardinale child was far from innocent even before her father and brothers were shipped off to France, leaving her so very alone in their Birmingham home, giving her the first taste of bitter injustice of the world.
The war took and consumed and devoured; it burned, inflamed and spat out a girl that licked affection off bloodied knives and smiled with empty promises.
They should've known; they could've guessed back then when she was still a sprig of summer grass and bit her oldest brother for taking away her favourite doll - the one father brought her from London, with green and golden ribbons in her hair - ruining it with his silly little friends who thought it funny to dangle it in front of her window, scaring her witless.
Her revenge was as sweet as the Sun scorching the gravel in front of the house as she listened his sobs while their mother stitched the imprint on his arm. If you looked closely enough, you could've seen the tiny teeth marks she left as a souvenir of her rage.
At eight she practiced her addition by counting the bottles of whiskey at her father's warehouse by the canal. ( even later she was very best at numbers, soon enough taking over the overseeing of the shipments )
She broke Bessie Stone's nose at eleven for mocking her, saying she would end up a lawless, gangster hussy, just like her mother.
When Roberto Cardinale was called up by her teachers at St. Josephs to reprimand her, he found her grinning, happily showing off her newly chipped front tooth.
Oh I'll be a lawless hussy, alright, she had told him later while licking a gelato at one of their parlours, perfectly carefree as if she hadn't ruined the poor girls face, but she ain't going to call me that in the face, or I'll give her a third eye.
Beneath the façade of a spoiled teenager, red lipped smirks and ermine coats, brewed a chained tempest, an inherited bloodlust concealed by a pair of charming brown eyes, waiting for a moment to unleash the suffocating ambitions dancing around her head.
And it did come.
At her ripe age of eighteen, as Europe was plunged into the bloodiest war yet, the keys of an empire were passed into her expectant hands.
As the three Cardinale Devils boarded the train headed to war zone, their enemies were not quite aware they left the very worst of them behind.
