Training

Adelaide

—-

"I don't trust you, mafia man, lead the way," I remarked, narrowing my eyes and nudging him forward by the small of his back.

He chuckled but didn't argue.

After a minute of silence, Romano turned around to look at me, making me almost crash into him. Almost.

"Mafia man?"

—-

His eyebrows were furrowed and his body was hunched a little bit. We were close. Too close. I took a cautious step back. "What's wrong with mafia man?"

He took a minute before responding.

"It's so... what's the word? Unimaginative." He lifted his hands in the air and continued walking down the winding stairway.

"And calling me various vegetable is?" I criticised with my mouth curving into a small smile.

He let out a bark of laughter before stopping in front of a wooden door.

"We've arrived, Adelaide." He said slightly creepily, straining my name.

"Why'd you say it like that?" I questioned him, still suspicious about the choice of venue.

"What do you mean, Adelaide?"

"Wait, stop. Why are you saying my name like that? What happened to carota or cavolo or even piccola patata?"

He let out a small chuckle before looking me straight in the eyes and striding over to where I was leaning against the wall.

"I thought you preferred it when men called you by your name, Adelaide."

"Not when they say it all creepy like you are." I teased.

He moved closer to me, leaning against the wall so that we were both facing each other.

"Are you calling me creepy?"

By this point, I had completely forgotten what we were doing down here in the first place.

"So what if I am?"

He pulled his gorgeous face away from my scrutinizing gaze for only a second before pushing me against the wall and putting his elbows next to my head. We stayed like that for what seemed like hours but was most probably only a few seconds.

This man was different from the Romano that I had known yesterday. This version was scarier. More dangerous. Cockier.

Time to take him down a notch.

I waggled my finger to beckon that I wanted to whisper something to him. He smirked, obviously thinking that I had fallen for his little act, and brought his ear to my mouth. I wrapped my other arm around his back that had skilfully unsheathed the knife that was concealed on my belly and was now positioned behind him. I pushed his back into my body and clasped the back of his head.

"I could kill you right now," I whispered seductively in his ear whilst pressing the tip knife against his shirt.

He instantly stiffened, no doubt feeling the tip of the blade.

"You wouldn't."

I suppressed the laughter that was rising inside me. I loved situations like these. When your target was completely at your mercy.

"And why wouldn't I, carota?" I teased him, bringing my mouth closer to his ear.

He took a short pause before answering.

"It would be too easy, wouldn't it?"

He's got a point there. Plus, I was in this for the money and if I killed my boss I don't think any money would be coming my way.

Damn, this was just starting to get fun.

I tilted my head up and took the lobe of his ear in my mouth, softly biting it before pulling my knife away and pushing him off me.

"I guess you're right," I muttered now having lost all my entertainment.

"You're a dangerous one aren't you, porro?"

He wiped away some of the remaining saliva on his ear. I snorted as a response. "I'm an assassin, what'd you expect?"

"I didn't mean to offend you carota, I meant it as a compliment. I like dangerous things."

If he wasn't getting on my nerves before, he was certainly pushing it now.

"I am not a thing Mr Mafia, and we're here for a reason. Now are you going to open that door like a gentleman or is chivalry really dead?" I spat at him, gesturing to the unopened door that we had both forgotten about until this moment.

He wore an amused smile on his face making his way to the door and clearing his throat. He made a show of opening the door for me, bowing before he did so. I had to fight the urge to roll my eyes at his childish antics. Relief flooded my body when I finally got to the other side of that goddamned door. There were only two people there.

"You're late."

The first person I recognised was Jamie who was sitting at a table that was positioned in the middle of the room with a computer. He didn't look up to greet me.

The second person was a girl I didn't recognise. She was sitting on one of the leather couches that were positioned to face a massive television. Her skin was pale and heavily contrasted her long raven hair.

"We got distracted." Romano simply stated, making himself comfortable on a leather sofa.

"Adelaide, assassin, MI6, Great Britain" I said with the most professional voice I could muster before striding over to her and holding out my hand for her to shake.

"Jaekyung. Don't shorten it, I don't like nicknames. Intelligence, NIS, South Korea." She took my hand with a firm grip and I nodded my head as a sign of respect. She seemed like a no-nonsense type of person and I didn't want to get on her bad side.

I chose to sit down next to her over Romano.

Jamie cleared his throat. "Our first target goes by the name of Simon Fawker. He's a well known American banker. 42 years of age. One wife, no kids. Infertile." He listed before continuing.

"Romano has invited him for dinner in Italy 1 week from now under the pretence that he is interested in taking out a loan. Fawker probably thinks that Romano wants to wash some money and is using the excuse of a loan as a cover."

I averted my gaze from Jamie to Romano only to find that Romano was staring at me. I didn't like the way my cheeks reddened so I looked back over to Jamie.

"The only thing we need to work out is when we are going to take the hit. We don't want people thinking that Romano was the one who ordered it because that could make jeopardize a relationship with future targets. I suggest that we murder him after a fake deal is made with Romano and Fawker with a single kill shot, therefore letting people believe that Romano had no valid motive."

Jamie was always a serious one. He always thought things through. His eyes were glued on his computer screen, not looking up once.

"No." A stern voice said beside me.

That made Jamie look up.

"No?"

"No. Look, you aren't in the field when these things happen so you don't get it. Theoretically, that sounds great, but the chaos that will ensue afterwards is going to attract unwanted attention. We want to keep our identities secret so we need something more subtle. Does he have any underlying health issues?" Jaekyung muses.

Jamie leaned back in his chair and eyed up Jaekyung.

"Heart issues. Why?"

A sinister smile appeared on Jaekyung's face. "Ricin. We'll use ricin to poison him. It makes it look like a heart attack."

"And where the hell are we going to get our hands on that?"

Jamie looked unconvinced. He usually never had this kind of pushback from fellow peers in MI6.

"I can get you whatever you need. No price is too steep." Romano chimed in.

For the first time since I stepped into the room, Jamie looked at me. "What do you think, Ads?"

I leaned back into the leather chair, mulling over the options given. Using a gun was too loud. Too messy. I wasn't a bad shot but I usually try my best to steer clear of them. I hated a mess.

"I could dress up as a waitress and fill up his water or something. Meaning Romano, if I come up to you with a jug of water, politely decline. From my experience, ricin works fast and we don't need that much of it to kill him but just in case I'll keep a knife handy."

Jaekyung started grinning like a little child.

"This is so much fun, I haven't had the chance to use ricin in ages."

For the next few hours, we went over any information that Jamie had acquired including more about who Fawker was, the layout of the restaurant they were meeting in and anything else Jamie deemed important, which was everything in his eyes.

When we finally finished for the day, I was aching to get my body moving. I asked Romano to show me a place where I could train my body and be happily obliged, leading me to the biggest indoor gym I had ever seen.

Finally, I thought, some alone time with just me and my knives.

I spotted a few targets at the end of the room and decided that instead of working out, I would release my stress by target practice. I swaggered to the other side of the room and picked a small set of knives off the wall where they had been hanging. I put one in the palm of my hand, feeling the weight of it, then I dragged my finger across the blade. It was sharp.

"Carota, will you indulge me in a game?" Romano asked from across the room.

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