The Thorned Rose

36

I followed the smell of waffles into the kitchen, and found Fabri working hard, with Rico and Dino sat at the breakfast bar.

"Morning Savannah!" exclaimed Dino.

"Savannah... how?" I was so confused. Where did they get my full name from? I hope it was Nadia, and they hadn't actually found me, because if they found me, they can easily find my parents, and if this group of dimwits can find me, a primary school child could find me. What if bad people find my parents? What if the people my dad is hiding from find him? I started hyperventilating. Fabricio ran over to me and pulled me into a soft embrace, probably glaring at Dino from over my shoulder.

"It's okay, Nadia just told us your full first name, nothing else, and no one else knows it apart from the close family and the capos. Don't worry. I promise it'll be okay," he started stroking my hair to calm me down and it felt... nice. It felt nice. I felt all tingly inside again. What the fuck is happening to me?

When I gathered myself together, Fabricio released his embrace.

"Idiot," Rico said, rolling his eyes and 'jokily' punching Dino, but it looked like it hurt as he grabbed his arm in pain. They started fighting eachother.

"You two, stop it! This cannot be good for our dear Savvy," Donna commanded, walking into the room. Savvy? So, I have a nickname now, and it is literal pirate slang? Great.

Donna walked over to me and kissed me on the forehead, saying, "Sandrino never cooks, you are a special one, and he has never slept in the same bed as another girl." She winked at me. I tried to tell her nothing happened, but she walked away before I could, breaking up the ongoing fight between Rico and Dino.

I turned to look at Zaccaria walking into the room. He was related to the Russos, but distantly enough to have lost the green eyes, and his second name wasn't Russo. Zaccaria's father was Fabricio's father's cousin, so I guess that makes them second cousins. I mean, Zaccaria could've just said second cousins when he explained.

Zaccaria walked right up to me, grabbed my face with both of his hands and kissed me on each cheek once. "May I be the FIRST to say this morning that you look absolutely ravishing," he announced. I blushed and smiled at him.

"Thanks."

"Zacc! What the hell are you doing?!" cautioned Rico.

"Yeah be careful man," added Dino, still stroking his arm from all the punches.

"I'm just being nice! I don't think she gets told enough," he defended himself. I quickly glanced over to look at Fabricio, whose face was filled with resentment.

"SAV!" screeched Loretta as she ran in, grabbing me away from Zaccaria and pulling me into a hug.

"Hey Loretta!" I laughed. She dragged me over to the small sitting area just next to the kitchen, and we had a lovely little conversation. The boys tuned us out and started messing around in the kitchen, all teasing eachother and pissing eachother off. Most of the teasing was towards Zaccaria, but everyone got a fair share, and it made me laugh.

"Zacc, may I be the first to say, you look absolutely ravishing," mocked Rico, grabbing his face and planting a slobbery kiss on his cheek.

"Oh fuck off," he laughed. Dimitri walked into the room, hand-in-hand with Nadia. Dino saw this as a perfect opportunity and ran over to Dimitri, mocking Zaccaria again, planting a huge kiss on Dimitri's cheek, causing everyone to burst out laughing, including Zaccaria, Dimitri and Nadia to just look confused. My favourite laugh to hear above it all was Fabricio's. Don't ask me why, it just sounded nice.

***

After an absolutely delicious breakfast, everyone sat back in their chairs, sipping orange juice or bellinis. I thought this was the perfect time to find out what the fuck happened to make me go into a coma, and what happened whilst I was in one. I picked up my teaspoon, and tapped the side of my glass, causing everyone to look up at me.

"I can handle it now. I want to know everything. I would rather it be in this environment too because it is a lot calmer, no pressure and way less dramatic. Don't make it dramatic," I announced. There were a couple of weird looks around the room at eachother, wondering what to say.

Nadia, who was sitting next to me, grabbed my hand and was the first to speak. "You remember being punched, well after that you were shoved on the ground and the punches, combined with that gave you some brain damage. You were kicked, and stabbed four times, and when we found you your heart had stopped." She paused, but I nodded for her to keep going.

"Don Sandrino's men tortured everyone in that warehouse, and killed the rest, trying to find a defibrillator, but just in case they sent four cars away to speed to the nearest one, grab it and go back to you. Sandrino started doing CPR and rescue breaths, and then Rico took over," I looked up at Rico and Fabricio, with gratefulness in my eyes, and they smiled slightly, but were still saddened, I guess it was a hard few minutes. "At the same time, you had four stab wounds, so Dimitri and three other men put pressure on them whilst you were having chest compressions. The defibrillator came and they attached the pads to you, having to... cut away your clothes."

"So, everyone here had seen my boobs?" I looked around the room kind of awkwardly.

Fabricio shook his head, "only myself, Dimitri and Rico in this room, and three of my men who were putting pressure on your wounds. But no one watched, no one stared, it wasn't perverted. We were trying to save your life," he explained.

I nodded my head, "go on." I said.

"After two shocks from the defibrillator, with Dimitri doing chest compressions in between, it detected a heartbeat, and your heart began again. They rushed you to the hospital, and because of the brain damage, they put you in an induced coma," continued Nadia, "you had various tubes and wires attached, one so you could eat and drink, a drip, and an oxygen mask, and others. Two of the stab wounds pierced your intestines, and there were some complications, and the other two were very deep, but the doctors operated and sorted it all out. Then, after about a week, they began decreasing the amount of drug that kept you under, until they took you off completely and you woke up, and you know the rest."

"So that's what happened to me medically, okay, that isn't as bad as I thought," I shrugged my shoulders. To be honest, I had been stabbed in the abdomen so many times, it wasn't bad, and I had a couple of punches to the face, and the tiniest bit of brain damage, but I was sat here now, and I was fine.

"Not that bad?" Nadia looked concerned, "if they found you maybe five minutes later, you would've been dead forever." Dying didn't hurt though, it was peaceful.

I looked around at the table, and there were faces full of sadness and guilt. "But you guys did find me, and you started my heart, and I am here right now, and I am fine." They tried to smile slightly but I could tell it was a sore subject. I have never tried to cheer people up before, because I just didn't care if they were sad or not, but for some reason now I felt like I had to.

"Tell me about what happened during the coma, with Domenico," I asked.

I was told the whole story, in great detail, about Aleksander, Haris, Nasir and Nadia coming, bringing their crews, and raiding all the warehouses, and how Domenico shot Nadia in her vest and then Fabricio shot Domenico in the head. I was told how Aleksander and his men returned all the women to their homes, and how many of the families who never understood exactly what Domenico did to get in power, or what he did with his power, now pledged allegiance to Fabricio, and the others had no choice, as there was now one united Italian mafia, and Fabricio was the boss of bosses. When they were explaining all of this, they all perked up a bit, which I was glad about, although I was kind of saddened; unusual for me.

"I wish I was there, I was completely useless in all of this, just asleep," I mumbled quietly.

"Don't you dare say that," protested Fabricio, "the only reason we had Aleksander, Haris, Nasir and Nadia and all of their people was because of you, because of things you did before, and you weren't asleep, you were in a medically induced coma, because you fought all the way to the end to try and save those women, and you suffered awful injuries because of it."

"How can I say I'm a good assassin if I cannot even fight against a couple of guards?" I complained.

"You were tied up, there was nothing you could do," reassured Nadia.

"I just feel helpless," I sighed. "Thank you for dinner," I smiled, getting up out of my chair, "I'm going to go on a walk."