Chapter 8- His Angel

I can definitely see the allure- the reason Thirteen had agreed to become Leone's assassin. The thrill of unspeakable wealth had pulled her. And at this point, it's obvious that while the asshole in question is a lot of bad things, he pays his employees like he fucking plucks the money from a tree in his yard. 

On the back seats of the car he had asked to pick me from the hospital last night had sat a case filled with crisp cash, supposedly my flat-rate salary for the past three months that I had been in coma. That was what it looked like, because he certainly couldn't have been paying me for disrespecting him, daring him to come get me at the hospital, trying to defy him as well as escape the contract that Thirteen entered into with him. Yet if he had, my jaw would have dropped the same way it did when I first saw the cash in the car. I didn't mind it at all. If I'm going to escape at some point, I need all the money I can get.  

Post recovery from my shock, I had turned to the driver, my brows climbing higher over my head. "This for me?"

"What do you think?"

"They pay me when I'm not working?"

"You didn't read the contract or you just forgot?"

Raffaele. He seemed nice, in a savage, detached, constantly amused sort of way. He answered my other questions without sass though. How far was the facility from the city? Quite a distance. Place is a huge private property on the outskirts, he had said, surrounded by woods for miles, perimeter fencing, with men on sentry duty around the clock.

I knew he was trying to disabuse my mind from hatching escape plans, so I told him: "Leone told you to tell me that?"

He had laughed. 

But he had been right. 

The facility is lodged in a wilderness that I'm sure is swarming with crazy predators like Leone, only, they will have four legs. The service road is in top condition, but it's winding, and difficult to keep track of. There are some other private properties that I used as landmarks, but between the tall fences and the nondescript walls, it was a serious gamble. When we arrived, I had no idea how we got there.

And when we drove past the gates into the sprawling spread of top-tier real estate, I was speechless. The facility is fucking huge, and I saw just how huge yesterday when I arrived. There are two training buildings, one for the female assassins-The Dollhouse- and the other one for Leone's men- The Boiler Room. Aside from those, there are two designated residential buildings for the assassins, male and female, separate, and much like dorms, yet not like dorms. First, because said buildings are fucking mansions where every assassin working for Leone has a private bedroom as luxurious as the rest of the house. 

There is a weaponry building to the far back, a gym, as well as facilities for playing all types of indoor and outdoor sports, including mother-of-pearl courts. There are four pools in the premises, three ornamental gardens, and a twenty-car garage on the surface- Leone's. I was told that there are more heavy duty trucks and sportscars for use for official assassination tasks down below, in an underground garage. To finish up, topiary art, weeping fountains and gravel driveways spread across and around the structures, making it look like a small boulevard. Leone's facility is a whole community on its own, with designated housing systems, hierarchy, as well as rules and regulations.

Like the one about all the dolls getting up at the crack of dawn to train. While I might have spent quite some time getting lots of rest in coma, none of that made up for just six hours of actual sleep post that, or even prepared me for getting up to a fire alarm at five a.m in the morning, gearing up, and dragging my ass to the training hall. 

And now that I am, I listen to some of the other women- colleagues, fellow 'dolls'- chatter as we make the five minute walk there. But I don't contribute. I don't know any of them and I'm dealing with a good deal of problems: I didn't sleep well last night, the previous owner of my body signed away my freedom and the owner of said freedom said he has to see me at training today, else, heads will roll… and none will be his. Well, not exactly, but I won't put it beneath him. He finds me a tad bit amusing, yes, but he would kill me if I gave him a need to. There is a reason everyone else is morbidly afraid of him. It shows in how the other girls are hurrying to training, drowsy and tired yet desperate to please. 

When we arrive, the building is lit with fluorescent lights, throwing our shadows along the walls. From what Raffaele told me yesterday, the place is bigger than it looks from outside. It has a huge training space, a stocked gym, locker room and bath, fighting arena and snack bar. But it's the training hall we all head for as soon as we're in. 

The combat instructor is impatient when we join him, barking orders for all of us to get in position at once. It's obvious that he is as on edge as the rest of the women. They must have caught wind of the fact that Leone would be coming to training today. 

But as we begin to learn new blocking techniques and do spars, it becomes more and more obvious that Leone isn't coming. Yet this does nothing to reduce anyone's anxiety, especially mine. Not because of the no-show of a boss I just found out I had yesterday, but because I'm fucking going to die in training if care is not taken, and the asshole will be responsible for it. 

Dodging blows and punches to my mid-section, ribs and face is not exactly a walk in the park while I'm still trying to recover from injuries there to begin with. The prescription painkillers I had been given by the doctor only work as long as the injuries are not inflicted… not when I am being pounded to a pulp in here. It hurts like hell.

When Thirteen was here, she was a star student, no doubt. It is obvious in how often the trainer keeps calling me to demonstrate blocks or attacks… all of which come naturally to me, to this body. It is obvious in how I execute flips, kicks, and dodges with a near-perfect flair... But when spar time comes and I am paired up with combatants to fight until the expiration of a certain time, I end up in my back too many times than I can count, pain spreading across my body like a fever. 

And nobody sympathizes. No one gives a shit that up until yesterday I was dead and now that I am not, I still have the souvenirs of that experience wrapped in bandages on my body. Absolutely no one cares. They pounce on me like wolves, and they nearly tear me to pieces.

Even the trainer ensures that I am not treated differently, despite how deserving I am of that luxury. I don't know if this is some sick ploy to make me recover faster through tough love tactics or maybe it is just Leone's way of punishing me, but I don't find it funny at all. My anger just rises with each punch I half-dodge and then barrel to the ground from because of poor recovery; every blow I take to the head; every time I try a move or landing I should have aced but fail at it.

After training is done, and everyone else leaves, I notice that the spread of glass that directly faces the hall, the one on which we've been watching our forms to be able to correct and adjust them as we train, is two-way. I didn't think about it before because I was just so busy getting my ass kicked. But now that I do, it's obvious to me that there must be people watching on the other end. No wonder everyone was on their toes... Leone had been watching. 

Fuck him.

Because I'm hurting in so many places- a lot more than I was yesterday- and it's all because of him. Before leaving, I face the glass and flash my middle finger. Yes, fuck him. And if there are others with him, fuck them all.