A New Game of Chess

♟nine♟

A couple of days had passed since visiting Ezra's office. Within those days I've been painfully occupied with some dance lessons and dieting the dance instructor suggested. The dance instructor asked me to tell her what my current diet was, and when I told her she said that if I keep eating the way I the way I ate, I would become horizontally challenged. I didn't know what the fuck she meant, but I knew it was some sort of insult. I bickered with her about the whole dieting thing, but she threatened to tell Ezra that I wasn't cooperating.

So there I was eating the foods from some stupid ass diet for breakfast. I had some plain ass whole-grain toast with some nasty ass avocado slices. The only thing I could season my toast with was salt. Fucking salt. As a side, I had some scrambled egg whites with kale in them. You know what the only seasoning was? You guessed it, salt. My drink of "choice" was this green juice.

I sat there picking at my food, internally crying and wishing I had a large stack of chocolate chip pancakes. Celissia sat next to me with a full plate of scrambled eggs, crispy bacon, and french toast. I slowly turned to look at her mouth-watering plate of food, then back at her. She noticed the sad look on my face and looked down at my plate. After she saw my embarrassing plate of food, it looked like she wanted to laugh but wouldn't. But as she slowly met my gaze again, she couldn't contain the laugh she held in anymore.

She burst out laughing and lost control of her body movements. She ended up falling out of her chair still cracking up on the floor. Her face was turning red as she gasped for air. Her eyes were glued shut as tears streamed down her face. I just sat there staring at her laughing body with a small smile that read 'I hate it here'.

It took her some time to finally regain control over herself and finally picked herself off of the floor. She sat herself down again and glanced at me. I could tell that she was trying not to laugh again but she contained herself.

"I'm sorry Adriana, I don't know why that was so funny to me."

"It's fine, I would've been laughing too if I wasn't the one eating this tasteless piece of shit." I chuckled.

"It must be really hard following the diet that bitchy dance instructor gave you right?" She asked while picking up her fork starting to eat her breakfast.

"I thought I was the only one who thought she was bitchy." I let out a sigh of relief.

"You're definitely not the only one, she was my dance instructor too when I was thirteen. Her 'wanting what's best for me' was just a sorry ass excuse for insulting me."

"That's what I said," I agreed. "She told me I was becoming 'horizontally challenged' when I told her my previous diet. I knew it was an insult, but what the fuck does that even mean?"

She looked at me with wide eyes and my eyebrows furrowed in confusion.

"What does it mean?" I asked, waiting for her answer.

"She basically saying you're getting fat." My eyes widened and I mimicked her previous expression.

"That bitch," I whispered.

"Don't worry she's just jealous of a bitch with curves." we both laughed. The rest of our conversation was filled with laughter. I painfully ate my tasteless food, but my conversation with Celissia distracted me so it wasn't so bad.

Ever since Celissia showed me around the house, we hung out with each other everyday, only if she wasn't busy. I appreciated her company since it made being here less agonizing. She's actually a funny and relatable person that is completely opposite from her brother. Her brother is, I mean, so fucking hot, but he's unapproachable.

After breakfast, Celissia and I decided that we would watch a movie since she was free for the next few hours. So we started walking to the movie room that was on the other side of the house. We were conversating the whole time until Celissia stopped us both.

"What?" I asked, visibly confused. She pointed in the direction of Ezra's office.

"He's probably in there so we have to sneak passed it," she whispered.

"But...why are we sneaking?" I matched her whisper.

"Because my brother's a pain in the ass, and if he catches me, he'll probably make me do something. I don't have much free time, so I don't want to be bothered."

"Couldn't he just ask one of his men?"

"Well he could, but an incident that happened a couple decades ago made the mafia very strict on who was to be trusted. So we prefer trustworthy relatives to do some of these tasks, aka me. Now let's go before he catches me." She grabbed my hand and we slowly tiptoed passed his office, fearing to make a single sound. We looked so fucking stupid, but our determination got the best of us. Once we made it passed his office, we both let out a sigh of relief. We silently celebrated as we started to walk normally again.

"Why are you both sneaking around?" asked a deep familiar voice from behind us.

We both were startled by his sudden appearance.

But before I could say any words, Celissia grabbed my hand and said, "Run." Our feet began to move until Ezra grabbed my hand.

"Stop," he simply said.

"No, you're evil, let go of her hand." Celissia hissed.

"I'm not here for you dumbass." he hissed back. The formal tone in his voice had suddenly slipped away, and I was left stunned. I looked over at Celissia to see if she noticed too, but her expression didn't change. Celissia and Ezra just glared at each other, both of them holding one of my arms.

Is...this how siblings act? Of course, I wouldn't know. My brothers barely acknowledged my existence.

"I don't trust that." She let go of my hand and continued, "Sorry Adriana but every man for himself." With that said, she sprinted in the other direction. "Escape while you still can!" she yelled before turning back around. She was fast as fuck. She must've ran track in the previous years.

I slowly turned my head to Ezra's gaze, and then looked down at our hands. He was still holding my hand.

I swiftly snatched it back and said, "What?" He stepped closer to me, closing off our distance. I put my hands on his chest to stop him from coming closer. He stopped, seeming a little shocked by my action, but quickly replaced it with a smirk. "Just say what you want to say. Last time I checked, my ears worked perfectly fine."

"Oh really? You must be hard of hearing since you can't seem to follow the rules." His snarky comeback only made me more irritated.

"If they weren't so rash they wouldn't be hard to follow."

"Respecting people isn't so rash now is it love?" His hypocritical response earned a chuckle from me.

"I do respect people. Just not you."

"And why is that?" He scoffed.

"Because you don't respect me. Simple." I slowed down my words to make it look like he sounded like an idiot, and I don't think he liked that very much. His jaw clenched and unclenched signaling his annoyance, but his arrogant smirk spread across his face. He removed my hands from his chest and proceeded to close off the remaining distance between us.

He stopped once his chest was now an inch from my face. He bent down to my ear and whispered, "Looks like our self-defense classes are going to be a living hell. Get ready and come to the training room in fifteen minutes." I shivered in response as he walked away without a second glance.

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