The Thorned Rose

3

My flight got in early on Friday morning, which meant I was able to go to the event hall where the ball was being held, 'The St. Regis Rome', and scan the area. I looked for where I would park the getaway car I just bought (just a cheap black car), where the windows were, where I could escape and such. Then I spent the rest of the day and the Saturday exploring the city.

I went back to my hotel room early afternoon on Saturday to start getting ready. As I sat in the bubble bath, with a purple face mask on and a hair-mask in my hair, I read over the notes for the job for the twenty-fourth time. The target was Erasmo Pasquini, one of the 'Caporegimes' in one of the Italian mafias. The whole mafia was so confusing, and very, very, messy. We hardly ever got involved in any of their businesses. Most of our targets were politicians, or generals, or leaders of countries. Sometimes even the Secret Service Agencies of different countries paid us to take out big names on their hit list, sometimes above board, sometimes below board, like when they wanted to kill someone but if they killed them hell would break loose, so they asked us.

A caporegime is a head of a group of 'soldiers' in the mafia, who, I guess, do the grunt work. Above the caporegime is the underboss, and then the boss. But that is the hierarchy in its most basic forms. There are loads of bosses, and loads of just 'heads of family's', and then there was the boss of the bosses. There were different crime syndicates too, it was all very confusing, and I tried not to wrap my head around it. Erasmo Pasquini had stolen a shipment of guns and trafficked children from the Polish mafia, which angered the Polish mafia, but also angered his own family and friends, as many of them severely looked down on child trafficking. I guess the men who seemingly have no morals, maybe have one moral when it comes to children. Part of me hopes there will be a hit out for the people who originally had the children in the first place, but in this line of work you cannot involve your own morals or opinions. You get given the name; you kill the person. This was just a rare occasion where I actually knew a little more about the situation because of the danger that revolved around it.

I put on a seductive smokey eye, that brought out the blue in my eyes, even though my eyes would be hidden under my mask, and a red lip. My dress hung perfectly on my body. I stared at myself in the mirror, I looked sexy. If I was a man, I would want to fuck my brains out. They would obviously be checking bags at the place, and I may have to go through a metal detector, but with all the jewellery I would be wearing, I would beep anyway, and they wouldn't ask me to take it off. It was mainly the men that they were concerned about bring in weapons. No one would suspect a seductress like me, Phoebe Cardamom, from ever wanting to cause harm to anyone. I hid a set of four throwing stars attached to a band that went around my thigh, the one you couldn't see through the slit, and I hid a tiny knife in my golden blonde hair, that I had intricately pinned up. There was another knife attached to the bottom of my shoe, camouflaged into the material of my shoe, and another knife attached to another band on my thigh, just below the throwing stars. It would be almost impossible to sneak a gun in there, so I didn't try, especially a gun with a silencer, which would be vital as I wanted as much time to escape before they realised he was dead.

Once I was finished, I got a taxi to the ball. I double checked the car still parked in the right spot where I left it earlier, and went inside. As I suspected, they searched my beg, but none of the women had to go through the metal detector, only the men did. When I went in, I scanned the room, but my target was not there. For some reason, the men must've felt like they were too 'above' wearing masks, so none of them did, except for the odd one, who seeing no one else was wearing a mask, removed it and cast it aside. Most of the women were wearing masks, so I could still confidently wear mine. This definitely made it easier for me to be able to spot my prey.

I went and stood next to the bar, ordering a large martini but not drinking a drop, I just swirled the olive on a cocktail stick around.

(all dialogue from here is in Italian)

"Miss," said the bartender, tapping me on the arm. I was fluent in Italian so replied back perfectly, asking him whether everything was okay. The bartender pulled out a bottle of very expensive champagne, saying that a man had ordered it for me, and wanted me to take it, and myself, over to his table.

"I am very flattered, but I am not drinking tonight," I replied, he looks questioningly at my Martini glass, full of alcohol, so I added "I just wanted something to fidget with." He smiled sweetly, slightly laughing, and gave the champagne to a waitress who took it over to the table I was invited to. Sat at the table was perhaps the most gorgeous man I had ever seen in my life. He was well dressed, in a black suit and black bow tie. His dark brown hair was neatly gelled, and his beard was shaped to perfection, with such clean edges. I couldn't see his eyes from so far away, but I could tell he was staring straight at me, not taking his gaze off me, and when the waitress took the champagne bottle over instead of me, I could see he was frustrated, if not angry. This man was getting attention from every single woman in the room, brushing it off and ignoring them, but the fact I was the person he wanted attention from, yet didn't have it, clearly infuriated him. I was here on a job though, not for a one-night stand, and even if I wasn't on a job, I wasn't about to feed into his ego; I cannot stand men with big egos, and when I have anything to do with whether their ego grows or shrinks, I always choose the latter.

Ten minutes passed, and I sat having a conversation with a lovely group of ladies at the bar. The bartended came back to me, and said that a man had requested to refill my glass with whatever I had been drinking, but as my glass was still full, the bartender offered me another glass of my martini.

"Same man?" I asked, smiling.

"No, different," said the bartender, indicating over to a man stood at the bar a few metres away. I said I was fine without having the drink, and the bartender smiled sweetly.

Five minutes later, the room was full, and I was sitting at my table, listening to all the chatter, adding in snippets here and there. One after another, free drinks appeared at my table, various colours, in various glass shapes, and I rejected them all. The waiter said I might as well have them as they were already poured, so I just handed them out to the girls around my table.

"Wow, the guys really fancy you, huh," said one of the girls, in a satin navy dress.

"Is this how they flirt, by not speaking to me but by ordering me endless drinks?" I chuckled, and the other girls chuckled, saying that is exactly how these men flirt. For a bunch of egoist, confident, scary men, they didn't have the balls to go up to a women and ask for their number, rather than just sending them a free drink.

"Don Sandrino has been watching you all night, you know?" said a girl in an emerald, tulle dress.

"Who?" I asked. She subtly pointed at the gorgeous man from before, who sent me the bottle of champagne.

"Oh yes, he sent me a bottle of champagne earlier." All the girls on the table froze, looking angry, hurt, irritated, sad and betrayed all at the same time. "Is everything okay?"

"Don Sandrino never orders a drink for another girl, I don't know a single girl he has done it for, yet for you, a whole bottle..."

"Every single girl who has ever met him wants to get in his pants, but he has no time for girls, doesn't bother with a single one..."

"Yet you come here, and he's sending you champagne..."

"Really, it's nothing, I rejected it-" The girls just looked pissed right now.

"You rejected it?!" hissed the one in navy.

"The first drink he dares to send to a woman is rejected, that must've hurt his ego, you've messed it up for us all now!"

"If Don Sandrino sent me a drink... I would have fifty of his babies."

These girls sound ridiculous, I excused myself to go to the bathroom, not because I needed it, I just needed a breather. There were so many eyes watching me, analysing me, studying me. I was so thankful to have my mask on. As I came out of the bathroom, I wasn't looking where I was going, and I bumped into someone, who turned around like they were about to kill me, but when seeing me they apologised for being in the way. It was Erasmo Pasquini, of all people.