song:
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➙enemy by imagine dragons

tw: violence included
-Small chapter-

WE RISE TOGETHER, we fall together. Dante always taught me to handle two different types of weapons together, so that, when one breaks other stands. My sword pierces out of the male's chest with a gaping hole. I do a cross sign with my arms and shoot a near one while with the other, creating a smooth straight line across his neck.

We are fighting to buy time for our people to visit their rescue hut and it's damn tiring to me. "Who send you?" I turn back to see Xavier pulling hair behind the guy's head while his target remains at the male anatomy.

"Your grandmother." I roll my eyes encircling the sword and gun above my head to relax my muscles as fresh drops of blood fall on my glistening skin causing a burning chill on the wounds.

"Yes, pathetic. I had to kill her like I'll do to you." My ears are good at heating gossip and this one is far better.

I can imagine while blowing others' faces that the guy shuddered at the casual tone of an acceptance speech.

"I won't tell."

"And I won't forgive you for that." The swoosh sound is nearly clean cut as I stand near the range to hear but the gurgling sound more like screams is a violation to my ears. Taking it as a sign of distraction my opponent strikes me in my face.

"Uh-huh, don't do anything to my face. I had to spend thousand dollars for the massage and others listed in that fucking package." The cut rest on my left cheek as I glare at him.

With a swift turn, I stab at his heart repeatedly as if roasting a chicken that refuses my honor of humanity.

The gunshot rings behind me as I drop to my knee. Great!

"Pathetic." The person whistles behind me. "I thought that the Reaper is a clever one, guess he isn't." The use of he confirms that they aren't from our land. Fucking Russians. "But he keeps bad girls in his stock. Small girls can also be good for my feed." The sound of his boots gets clearer as he approaches near to me. I slowly clutch the head of the sword and wait. "Even her mother is hot, like a fucking delicious meal waiting for me to- holy fuck."

Not only does my sword pierce his kneecap but a shot sits perfectly between his eyes. I sigh turning to look at Xavier who furiously turns back to shoot more. Rosey eyes and blood-like love, are awesome.

I stand wincing from the pain meanwhile rotating the sword and with an immediate tug back the oof sound creates a gentle stroke of my blind aim. "Non minacciare la mia famiglia." I calmly speak to the dead man.

[ translation: Do not threaten my family]

"Fuck." I curse when a sudden punch hits my nose ring pouring out blood from my nostrils. The body falls forward hitting the ground. I arch my brows and find Alessia with a knife and hand it over to me.

Oukay.

But when she finds I already have two, she rolls her eyes and uses that knife to stab her prey. "Who send you?"

I slam my foot on the wood handle of my sword that has fallen on the ground rise in the air with the minimum kinetic energy and I catch it smoothly. Good thing or else my reputation would be an embarrassment. I don't stab now, I tear their skin apart, and if not with the pointed object then with the metallic weapon.

"Ivanov." I sigh may be in relief because the constant enemies are good but if added to the already overloaded package everything will be out of our hands.

"Check the tattoos behind his back and confirm," I tell Alessia who does and finds the scorpion with a small crown tattoo behind it.

Carlos soon covers me and the metallic aroma covering me in the huge hall just makes me want to gag. I scrunch my nose in displeasure at the pungent smell of the dead bodies around me.

"Are they safe?" I ask him.

He nods. "They are." Now I do sigh in relief.

"We need to go and order your minions to remove this evidence." I stomp over the hand of some dead one and kick it aside. "And meet us in the hidden passage. Thanks to Umbria, we had only a few people, or else the whole gang would have been in serious issue to handle."

He nods and walks out. I release a tired breath and roll my stiff muscles. Suddenly, my brain registers the phone I have of Aristide. I go to the wash basin and wash my hands with hand wash. I scrub the gap of each finger properly watching how red mixes with water to give out its color on the entire basin.

I dry my hands and pull out the phone of Aristide. I open the screen only to find its pin locked. For a guy like him, I expected a password. Whatever!

I close the screen and hold up my hand below the light where I find his fingerprint on five numbers. I rearrange and then find something in common 3 8 2 4 5. His mother's name is Chloe and if I transfer it into a number then it will be 3 8 12 14 5, and he removed the 1 as they were in common. I chuckle watching his pattern of arranging things.

"What are you doing here for half an hour?" I quickly look up to find Alessia standing with a kit box. I shrug shaking the phone screen in front of her. "Did you crack his phone code?" I nod my head, lips twitching upwards proud of pinning down the cracking of code. "Good. But we are all going downstairs, you too." With a slight push, I accompany her out of the kitchen with my head down click on the app, and finding it unlocked.

I even try to open his Google only to find blank search history. Did this fucker use Orion Vpn? Anger rises along with a hint of pride. He is faster than I assume him to be. He deliberately used the pin code to deflate his mindset cause he knows that whatever he is keeping in this phone will only be stored in his memory.

The urge to hammer his brain open and to find his hidden passage of storage filled with memories crawls into my veins. I find only his mother's name in the contact list and nothing else. Absolutely nothing.

With force, I turn off the screen and put it behind my pocket. I limp to the hall and down the stairs of the hidden passage. Shiver run across my body by watching a good number of my men and women being injured. "We have twenty dead people." The pain intensifies as I glare at the huge wall-hanging frame. Maxim is going too far this time and I feel my story to end with either one of us staying on earth and the other in hell.

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"Ouch." I whimper when a nail gets out from my skin.

"We need to shift to a different place."

"More like we need to be separated. We need to get immersed with the general category to hide our 'cause every time the Ivanovs are attacking the place where we all live in."

"But where will we go?"

"The Berlusconi palace." My head snap to look at the culprit who suggested for us to go to that cursed palace only to find Adora saying that.

"Do you know what that palace holds each one of us?" Carlos, for the first time in front of us, yells at her. He too was a victim of that palace. As a curse it is, it's also a place where all of my nightmares are stored in.

Adora whimpers. "I know that but at least think about it. It's the only place where no one knows except three of you. Caterina, Xavier, and you, so I think we should place Caterina and Aristide there. Bianca and Xavier can come with us and the rest to another secluded area."

Carlos tightly holds her elbow and shakes her roughly. "Do you know what you are saying? She took you as a therapist and I am well aware that there was the speech of that haunted house and related to the nightmares we are all suffering."

"You are hurting me, Carlos." Adora moans in pain.

"Be-"

"Leave her," I commend him and stretch my knees, waving at Alessia to move from my side. He does what I say and leaves with a filthy glare at her.

"I don't even understand why didn't you put Aristide under your scrutiny?" Carlos growls.

"Well, he was a pawn in the game that's all."

He scoffs. "And you believed him?" He folds his arms and sneers at me. "Where is the Reaper that we all looked up to? Where is the power and intelligence everyone wants from you? This is neither my friend nor my leader."

Anger rises like a molten magma. "Think before you speak. And FYI I told Xavier to do his research so don't tell me shit before knowing anything."

"What did you tell him to do?" This time Adora asks.

I smile sweetly at her. "It's called fuck off." My smile wipes out by the next second. "Also Adora did say right. That place does not support any internet connection nor any challenging human intervention except wild animals but that doesn't mean I will go there."

"Are you scared of that place?" Adora looks smug as she asks me the most ridiculous question. Of course, I am scared of that place, aren't I human too?

"Yes." I grit. "Why, aren't you too scared of hospitals? That makes me want to guess why." I drawl following her movements to be stiff.

"You need to face your nightmare so that next time you can defend yourself." She states.

I scoff. "Why don't you do that experiment to yourself first and then come to me and give me your review?"

"I am going." I look up at her, surprise flickering in my eyes as they narrow as if in terms of finding her interior motive.

"Why are you doing this?"

"I am trying to make you face the reality."

"That's not my reality, that's a fucking nightmare I played for seventeen years," I yell at her causing her to take a few steps back.

"I am sorry." She murmurs.

"Sorry won't bring back those years, Adora. So, stop using that blessed damn word." She flinches back.

I release a tired breath and plop down on the couch. Once again, I watch everyone. Those who were always there even if to witness my death as a sense of peace or greed and those who proved to be real even for half a cent, I must take this step.

I cannot not again bother someone else life just for the extraction of my lifeline. With trembling lips, I seal my death in the haunted palace. "We will go."

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are you sure I am not traumatizing her? I mean- I am loving it while watching her being crumpled down.