How to Raise an Assassin

CHAPTER 13: I SWEAR HE'S NOT MY BOYFRIEND

Lay started it. While everyone was already around the dinner table about to serve themselves, she wanted to go ahead and leap to conclusions.

"Oh baby," she snickered like a pig. "Zay's got a boyfriend."

But even before I managed to get into the dining room, I had to explain to countless guards around my family's estate that 1) I was not being held hostage (even though I felt like I was at times); 2) please don't shoot the black kid (cops get enough bad rep for this, don't need that karma passing onto security guards); 3) I didn't want to talk about the hairy blindfold (because it wasn't really any of their business anyway).

After managing to get Ashton through the frontier of the estate alive, I felt like I would be spending the next 24 hours protecting him rather than the other way around. Having him stay for dinner was one thing. Staying the night was another. How would he be able to keep track of me keeping my blindfold on if we're in separate rooms, or worse, if he's killed by my parents for even suggesting he stay the night in my room?

"You have your own town?" Ash sounded like a kid meeting Santa for the first time. "With basketball courts, a pool, and is that an airstrip?"

I ignored him as I focused on keeping him alive. Somehow, I managed to get us to the front door without my eyesight (after all, I came back often at night), and without getting Ash accidentally killed along the way.

I made an announcement to the whole house as loud as I could the minute I walked through the door. "Mom, Dad, I brought home a friend for dinner."

I heard my mom's high heels walking towards us. Her voice sang like a lullaby. "Aw darling, this is the first friend you ever brought home. You should've warned me, I would've had the maids tidy up the..."

Her voice dropped as her footsteps entered into the main vestibule. "Um, darling. What happened to your eyes?"

"Nothing mom. I just got roped into a dare that's all. And a Mata never backs away from a challenge, right?"

My mother paused for a second. Considering I couldn't see her facial expressions, I wasn't sure what she was filling in the silence with. I could only imagine her studying Ash like he was a stray cat who wandered in through the front door.

"Hi Mrs. Mata," Ash spoke beside me. "I'm Ashton, Zay's best friend."

Since when did I promote him to best friend?

"Well it's lovely to meet you Ashton," my mother's footsteps clamored over towards me as I heard her cheek kiss Ashton. His grip tightened near my shoulder, telling me he wasn't used to the European style of greeting. "Come have a seat in the dining room. Dinner is just about to start." She paused for a second and I heard her bracelets jangle like wind chimes. She was definitely wriggling her wrist towards me. "And guide Zay to the table to satisfy her little barbarian dare she's undertaking."

Ash guided me behind the click-clack of my mother's high heels. She never wears anything but high heels. I bet she even wore them in the shower. I knew she definitely used them for her contracts. Some people call her "Pump-Puncturer." I'll let your little mind imagine how she killed people with her high heels, because whatever you imagine, I'm pretty certain it's nicer than what she actually does.

That's when I heard Lay immediately squeak like a pig and claim that I had a boyfriend. I would've murdered her right there if I didn't hear someone put down his fork and knife, undo a serviette that was probably wrapped like a bib around his tie, and push his chair as it scraped along the floor. "Is that so?"

My father took his steps with leisure. It was like those of a panther approaching a dead prey. I felt Ash's arm shake around my shoulder. I felt his pulse shooting bullets of anxiety through the throbbing of his hand. My father could be an intimidating person, even when he didn't show anger. Stack up his career as an assassin (or a murderer, the lines between the two really tends to blur), and he was one fella you didn't want to honk at the minute the stoplight turned green.