The Thorned Rose

9

When I woke up, I was somewhere unusual. There was a bright light which made it hard to see. Of course, whoever it is would get me when I am defenceless and sleeping, fucking cowards whoever they are. They must've drugged me whilst I slept, although I am very resistant to sedatives, so they must've overdosed me or something, but it actually turned out to be the right amount. Stupid, but I guess it turned out in their favour. Now I was awake though, there was nothing that could hold me back. My hands were zip tied behind my back, literally probably one of the easiest things to break out. I pushed my hands backwards and quickly hit them against my back, pulling them apart at the same time, and they ripped on the first try. My legs we also bound by a zip tie, but now my hands were free, I used a bobby pin in my hair to interrupt the mechanism of the zip tie and loosened them. I scanned the room; it was a room with no windows, but a huge light shining directly at me. There was a CCTV camera in the corner, and other than the chair I was in, there was nothing. I used the same bobby pin to start unpicking the lock on the door, and within a couple of minutes I heard it click open. I slowly opened the door, and saw a man was standing with his back to it. With all my force, I whacked his neck, where the vagus nerve is, and he was immediately knocked out. I looked up and down the corridor, it was empty. I searched his body and found a penknife, a set of keys, a torch, some money, his phone and the gun he was holding in his hands. Even though the man was knocked out, I couldn't risk him coming back to get me, and each opponent that was dead made getting out of here that much easier. I grabbed the penknife, extending the largest knife on it, and slit his throat.

The next decision was whether to go left or right. I felt a light breeze coming from the left, and I chose that way. It led to a set of stone stairs, that I cautiously climbed, which ended in a door. I opened the door and I saw I was on a roof, in the middle of Rome. I used my parkour skills, see, I told you they were useful, and jumped over onto the roof of the next building. I did that a few times until I was about four buildings away from the one I was at originally. I had nothing on me, no getaway car, I didn't have my laptop, and all my lovely purchases were still in my hotel room. A clever abductor would keep a man in my hotel room, in case I did escape and go back, so I just hoped they weren't clever. I used the money I stole from the man to get a taxi to my hotel, and I snuck in through the back entrance, noticing a man in black, looking like someone part of an organising crime ring, was sat in the lobby. I quickly got in the lift and went up into my room, listening closely to see whether anyone was in there, but if they were, they would be dead pretty soon. I opened the door, grabbed my laptop, car keys, phone, weapons and purse, putting them in my rucksack. Fuck the rest of the material shit, I could always come back for it later, or just buy it again. I heard noises in the corridor, and quickly opened the window. I was on the fourth floor, which was not that high, but too high to jump. I quickly stepped on the ledge, shut the window and moved out of the way of the window. I gracefully began climbing down, and at the second floor I jumped down. I ran to my car and drove as fast as I could out of Rome. Thinking there could be a tracker on the man's phone whose throat I just slit, I quickly opened it, and I searched the contacts, half looking at the phone, half looking at the road, to see if I recognised any names. There were photos of his kids and wife, there was a couple of games, but nothing of any use to me, so I threw it out of the window and sped up.

I stopped on the side of the road briefly, opened my laptop, saw where I had hacked Fabricio's phone, and dialled his number from my phone, the call going through handsfree. He didn't pick up. I dialled again. No answer. I called about seven times before he finally picked up.

"Who the fuck is this and why do you keep calling me?" he hissed.

"I swear to God Fabricio, if you have sent your men after me after the favour I did for you, I will find you and I will chop your dick off and force you to eat it," I said with no hint of emotion in my voice at all.

"WHO THE FUCK DO YOU THINK YOU ARE TALKING TO?!" he screamed down the phone.

"Have you sent your men after me or not?" I asked calmly.

"Who the fuck is this?"

"You are so fucking stupid." He got angry again. It can't be him; he would've known straight away. I hung up and dialled Nadia.

"Hello Savannah-"

"Nadia, I am in Rome, I was drugged in my sleep and tied to a chair in some random building, I am driving at speed, as fast as I can go, but I need you to find out who they are." There was no time for formalities.

"Do you know what building it was?" I remembered the name on a road I saw and retraced my steps back from there to the exact building.

"Okay... it was rented by... wait, this cannot be right... your father?"

"Fucking dad, I swear to God!" I instantly stopped the car on the side of the road and took a minute to breathe. "Every so often my Dad likes to hire some people to do something like that, fight me or drug me or try and assassinate me, but I have no idea, it is just more practice. It's a new thing he decided to start." Nadia breathed a sigh of relief, we spoke from formalities and then I hung up.

A few minutes later I got a call, from Fabricio's phone number.

"Is this the Thorned Rose?" asked the voice on the phone, belonging to Fabri.

"Yes."

"Sorry about earlier."

"It's okay, my dad sent some men to kidnap me and drug me, lock me in a room and see if I could escape, but I had no idea, I thought it was you. It's all good practice though."

"What the f-... did you... escape?"

"Yes, but I won't tell you how, in case you decide to imprison me. See you around." I hung up the phone before he could speak another word, or get someone to track the call. In fact, him having my phone number is very damn risky. I downloaded all of its contents onto my computer, put the phone in front of the wheel, and ran over it, hearing it crack beyond belief. I stopped by a phone shop and bought 4 phones, 3 burners, one personal. I downloaded all the content from my previous phone back to my new one, and texted Nadia and my father saying this was my new number.

I noticed there was a red car that seemed to be following me, I made four right turns in the city streets just to check, and the car was still following me. I swear, whoever is following me has a damn death wish. I pulled the car into a multi-storey car park and drove to the top floor, parking my car in one of the spaces, and the red car parked itself in a distant, different space. Now it was a game of who would move first, and it definitely was not going to be me. Still had no idea who was in the red car, but I felt as though I was going to find out soon, as I watched the driver-side door open and a heavily built man got out. A grey-haired man got out of the passenger seat and two more heavily built men got out of the back. They stood by their car, watching my car, and I left them there for a few minutes. I made sure my gun was loaded and put it in my waistband, then got out and faced the four men. Now we were staring at eachother, it was another game of who would make the first move, and again, it wasn't going to be me, so I leant back on the car and got comfortable.

"Hello Mrs Cardamom," said the grey-haired man. So they have my name from the ball, and a name attached to that face. Okay.

"Hello," I spoke in a clear voice.

"My name is Vivaldo Berti, you killed my friend."

"I've killed many people; you will have to be more specific."

"Giovanni Furfaro," the man didn't speak with the anger or hurt that I would expect to be laced within his voice.

"A job is a job," I shrugged my shoulders, "is that all you wanted to say?"

"This is," he said as a man from a rooftop above shot me with a tranquilizer dart. Do they honestly think that would work? I grabbed my gun out of my pocket and shot the man with the gun. I was feeling much weaker, but I hadn't been knocked out yet, and I wasn't going to make it easy for them. I shot two of the burly men before someone attacked me from behind, stabbing me with, what I guess, is more sedative. I felt the lights dim as I crashed and fell to the ground.