The Assassins Weakness

Learning The Ropes

I slept the best I've ever slept in my life. That's why I groaned and grumbled when my phone alarm went off at oh five thirty. I slipped out of bed and headed to the closet that Aurora had filled for me while I was in Enzo's office.

She also left a cute note for me saying I was welcome to explore the house and raid the kitchens at any time. After Enzo's serious warning yesterday I don't think it would be a good idea to try to get too close to her. He seemed too protective of her for that to turn out well.

I grabbed a sports bra and pair of leggings before throwing them on. I went in the bathroom and quickly brushed my teeth. I pulled my hair back into a high ponytail. After checking my reflection and seeing the black and blue handprint Dimitri left on my cheek I sighed and left the room.

It's going to be hard to look sexy with that on my face. Even though Aurora had brought me makeup, I had no idea how to use it. One of the house maids would do our makeup for us before an assignment so I've never had to learn.

I followed the hallways into the training room. When I got in there I looked at the clock that showed it was 0h five fifty. Only two or three people were in here, I suspected the rest would file in as time went by. I began to stretch out all my muscles. While I sat down and had one leg bent in front of me, and the other lifted up to stretch behind my head, I could see the others look at me being impressed or lustful.

I just ignored them as I went into my splits. We had to train in flexibility as much as strength so I could bend almost anyway. It also helped in the bedroom. Men were ecstatic when they could bend you like a pretzel.

Once it was oh five fifty eight I saw about five more men and woman file into the room. By that time I had finished my stretch and began to do jumping jacks and high knees to get my blood flowing. By oh six hundred I stood prepared to start the morning.

Enzo came in along with Mateo, Aurora, and scrawny. I saw more people filing in and held my breath preparing for their punishments for being late. Every second late was a lash of the whip.

I felt surprise as Enzo just ignored the people trickling in. He began to lead us in different stretches. The hell? If training starts at oh six hundred shouldn't everyone be ready to go by now?

I just followed the stretches that everyone else was doing. Today I was going to try to get out what I could from Enzo's men. The underlings are always the best to talk to. They aren't as suspicious and paranoid and let a lot of things slip that they don't think are important.

After stretching, scrawny began yelling out groups of names to split up and train. Apparently we will be moving through four stations; guns, knifes, knife fighting, and hand to hand combat. Each group had ten people so only forty people were here.

I trailed over to shooting where my first station was led by Aurora. She gave a simple presentation and I quickly understood why there were so few people here. These guys were all amateurs and this was mid level training.

Most of my group could at least hit somewhere on the paper target. Three couldn't even do that much. I stepped up when it was my turn and placed my bullets perfectly. I noticed how silent it was when I was done.

I looked around to see every person in the room staring at me. I'm trained to blend in and be invisible. Having everyone's eyes on me made my skin crawl. I quickly set the gun down and moved to the back of line with my head down to let the next person shoot.

After a couple seconds noise came back as everyone continued their training. The guy in front of me turned around.

"God damn that was cool!" He exclaimed.

"Thank you," I replied.

He was one of the people who couldn't even hit the target.

"I can give you extra lessons if you want," I said with a smile on my face.

"Oh, for real?! That would be awesome! I'm Antonio by the way, but you can call me Ant." He said while holding his hand out to me.

I took his hand to shake and widened my smile before saying,

"Nice to meet you Ant, I'm May. I would say you could call me by a nickname but my name is already short enough."

He chuckled before giving one last smile and turning around to get ready for his next turn. There were two targets set up so two people could go at the same time. Each line had five of us, and it moved pretty quick since each of us got five bullets.

When it was my turn again I got five more perfect shots, to my relief no one stared this time. After fifteen minutes we switched stations. My groups next one was knife fighting.

I smiled at Mateo who was leading this group.

"Okay everyone, partner up with someone close to your size," he commanded. I turned to see a girl about my height but with quite a bit less muscle. I walked over to her and held out my hand before saying,

"Hey I'm May, it's nice to meet you."

"I'm Lucia," she responded with a smile while giving me a hand to shake.

We were the third pair to go up on the mat. Mateo handed us little rubber knives with red paint so we could see where we 'cut' our opponent.

I felt almost bad when it took less than three moves before I dragged my fake knife across Lucia's throat leaving the red streak and 'killing' her. She looked up at me surprised.

I guess I was probably making Dimitri proud showing off my Russian training.