15. First Bullet, First Wound

Dawn had not fully broken when the sound of a loud knock on the room door shattered Helga's sleep. The girl startled, her hand reflexively reaching beneath the pillow, searching for the small pistol Rico had given her last night. Empty. She just remembered Zean had taken back that weapon after they entered the room.

Helga exhaled a harsh breath, swept aside the blanket, and immediately got up. She glanced at the other side of the bed, that place was already neat and cold. Zean apparently had been awake since hours ago.

When Helga opened the door, Rico was already standing there in all-black clothes that were no different from yesterday. His face was as flat as a chalkboard, without the slightest friendly expression.

"Twenty minutes in the basement training room. Wear clothes that won't make you die a foolish death," Rico said without preamble, then turned to leave.

Helga snorted, yet the corner of her lips rose forming a thin smile. This was what she wanted. She didn't need a sweet good morning greeting, she needed strength.

Twenty minutes later, Helga was already in the basement. She wore dark green cargo pants, a tight black t-shirt, and her long hair was tied up high. In the middle of the room covered with thick mats, Rico was already waiting with two pairs of boxing gloves and several training knives made of rubber on the table.

"Zean asked me to train you as if you were our best soldier," Rico began, his voice echoing in that soundproof room. "But to me, you are still an amateur who happened to be lucky enough to shoot one person last night."

Helga walked closer, folding both arms in front of her chest.

"Then, make me not an amateur anymore."

"We'll see how resilient your body is," Rico replied coldly. He threw a pair of boxing gloves toward Helga. "Wear them. We start with close-quarters combat. In the dark world, you don't always have the luxury of holding a firearm. Sometimes, bare hands are your only protection."

Helga wore those boxing gloves quickly, tightening the laces with her teeth. She took a stance that she usually learned self-taught from old books and videos she used to watch secretly to avoid her father's punches.

Rico stared at Helga's position, then shook his head.

"Your stance is too wide. Your center of gravity is wrong. If I kick your left leg right now, you will instantly fall."

Before Helga could protest, Rico had already moved. The man's movement was very fast and efficient, typical of a professional. A low kick swept Helga's left leg.

Helga fell thudding on top of the mat. Pain spread through her hip, yet her anger was instead ignited. She immediately rose, wiping the corner of her lip which actually wasn't bleeding, and put up her position again.

"Again," Helga hissed.

Rico showed no mercy. For the next one hour, that basement became a witness to how Helga was beaten severely. Rico punched, kicked, and slammed Helga repeatedly. Every time Helga fell, she would rise again with a gaze that grew increasingly wild. She did not complain, nor did she cry. This physical pain was nothing compared to the mental torture she had received for years from her drunkard father.

In the corner of the room, the iron door opened silently. Zean walked in wearing a neat suit, preparing to go to his office. He stood near the wall, observing how his substitute wife fell and rose on top of the mat.

For the umpteenth time, Helga was slammed down after trying to punch Rico's face but was successfully parried with ease. Helga's breath was panting, sweat flooded her body, making several strands of her hair stick to her forehead and cheek.

"Enough for today," Zean's cold voice interrupted.

Rico instantly lowered his hands and stepped back a pace, bowing respectfully to Zean. Meanwhile Helga was still face down on the mat, trying to gather her remaining strength to stand.

Zean walked closer to Helga, then extended his hand wrapped in a luxury wristwatch. Helga stared at that hand, then brushed it away with the boxing glove still attached to her hand. She rose to stand by herself, although her legs trembled slightly.

"I don't need your mercy, Young Master," Helga said with racing breath.

Zean stared sharply at the girl in front of him. There was a faint admiration behind his dark eyes, yet he hid it very well behind his flat face.

"You are stubborn. But stubbornness alone will not make you survive from Sebastian."

Hearing Sebastian's name, Helga sharpened her hearing.

"Rico said he is targeting me. Why does he want this necklace so badly?"

Zean glanced at Rico, signaling for the man to leave the two of them. Rico nodded and immediately went out of the room, closing the iron door tightly.

After Rico left, Zean approached Helga, grabbed a clean towel from the table and threw it to Helga's face.

"Clean your sweat. There is an important thing you must know."

Helga received the towel, wiping her face and neck roughly before sitting on the edge of the mat. "Tell me."

"Sebastian Norwich is not just Helen's stepbrother. He is a man who manages weapon distribution lines in the western territory. The reason why Helen held that necklace, because inside that pendant there is an access code for a secret data vault belonging to their mother," Zean explained while leaning against an iron pillar in that room.

"Their mother?" Helga knitted her brow. "You mean, Helen's mother?"

"Yes. Helen's mother was a very powerful woman in the underworld before she disappeared a few years ago. She left a very large legacy, not in the form of money, but rather information and network assets that could make anyone who possesses it become the new ruler," Zean said, his eyes staring straight toward the necklace still circling Helga's neck.

Helga touched that silver pendant. There was a strange feeling stirring in her chest. Helen's mother, why did that name feel so close yet so far? She remembered her childhood, about how she was left behind with her gambling-mad father, while her mother went away bringing her older sibling.

"If Sebastian knows you are the one holding this necklace, he will not stop sending people until he gets you alive," Zean continued, his voice lowering. He walked closer to Helga, then knelt in front of her, exactly like last night when he treated Helga's wound. "Tonight, I must attend a high-level meeting with the faction elders downtown. I cannot bring you."

"Why? You're afraid I'll trouble you?" Helga asked defiantly.

"I'm afraid I won't be able to focus if you are there," Zean answered honestly. That sentence slipped just like that from the cold mafia's lips, making Helga stunned. Zean gently gripped Helga's chin. "Stay in this house. Rico will guard you with his entire force. Never open the door for anyone, including if your father is the one who comes."

Helga stared into Zean's eyes, searching for a lie there, yet what she found was only a flash of a very deep protective feeling.

"Okay. I will stay here. But promise me one thing."

"What?"

"Don't die. Because if you die, there is no one else who can teach me how to shoot a target properly," Helga said with her signature sarcastic tone, yet there was a faint fear hidden behind her voice.

Zean pulled the corner of his lips, forming a very thin smirk, almost invisible if Helga did not notice it carefully.

"I won't die that easily, Miss."

Zean rose, fixed the position of his suit, then turned and walked out of the training room, leaving Helga who was still transfixed on top of the mat with a heart that suddenly beat faster than when she was beaten by Rico earlier.

However, neither Zean nor Helga realized that out there, a much larger plan was underway. In a dark room in a corner of the city, a man with a cigar in his fingers was staring at a monitor screen displaying a photo of Helga when leaving her father's old house.

That man was Sebastian. And he smiled cunningly.

"So, you are hiding your new toy in the Wilder house, Zean?" Sebastian whispered with a dangerous hoarse voice. "We'll see, how long you can hold her from me.”