For Eternity

Chapter 1

Cene

I was getting dressed to go to the gymnasium for my morning sessions when Chenienaline tutted disapprovingly and shook her head at me.

“What?” I asked, irritated as I tied my shoelaces
“You will be turning eighteen soon. Beautiful women of marriageable age like you shouldn’t be allowed to go out alone. And in those clothes! A gym is no place for a woman”
“Chi, we’ve had this conversation a million times before and still you don’t see reason. How can I make you understand?”
“It’s simple, you can’t”
“I’ve told you that I am what I am and I will never change. Never. I have to go now or I’ll be late. Goodbye” I say, grab my bag and walk out.
I unlock my Cadillac and slide in. I turn on the ignition and drive off. After working out with the punching bag and lifting off some dumbbells I start running on the treadmill at the highest speed I can manage, trying to cool off my anger. I hear the doors slide open and turn my head to see the familiar stance walking in. His gaze meets mine and his eyes scan me down from head to toe. I give him a small smile and a wiggle of my fingers. The corners of his lips twitch.

Of course, Made Men don’t smile in public. Actually, they shouldn’t smile at all. Cute. Not!

I stop the treadmill and plug out my earphones as he approaches me.
“Hey”
“Hey”
“What are you doing here?”
“You asked me to meet you here”

I blink at him in confusion and then it comes to me.

“Oh yeaaahhhh. Sorry, I forgot for a minute. Yes, I thought we could have breakfast together?”
He nods “Sure”
“Just a minute, I’ve gotta change clothes”
“Right”
I grab my bag and walk to the changing rooms. I change into blue jeans and a white tank top and come out. I hook my arm through his “Come on”
We go to a cafe and give our orders.
“I have something to show you”
“What?”
“This” I say pulling out an envelope from my bag
“What’s that?”
I hand it out to him, “See for yourself”
Confused, he opens the envelope and pulls out the photographs. He shuffles through them, smiling slightly
“Where’d you find these?” he says handing them back to me.
“An old bag” I say as go through them for what seems like the hundredth time.
They were photos of Fabiano and me from a couple years ago. They brought back memories, lots and lots of them……

My mother had died while giving birth to me. It was an awful tragedy. My father had choked the nurse who broke the news to him. Everyone thought he’d give me away or bury me alive but instead he kept me and hired a young French girl to raise me. That was Chenienaline. As daughter of the Neo Roffe, the Consigerilie, it had been expected of me to be even more frightened and vulnerable than other women in the mafia but I turned out to be the exact opposite. My father gave me all the love there was left in him and never raised his voice nor his hand on me. So I had a pretty decent childhood compared to the other children in the mob. I went to a Catholic girls’ school and never had many friends. Other children were mostly afraid of me but that’s because I’m someone to be afraid of. I usually got into fights and always won. I was extraordinarily strong for my skinny physique. I was definitely not the common woman of mob life. When I was twelve I asked my father if he could enroll me in shooting classes.
He laughed and said, “Why would you need to go to shooting classes?”
He narrowed his eyes “You’re not thinking of shooting someone, are you?”
“Noooo, ofcourse not” I giggled
“I don’t see why you have to learn to shoot you’re never touching a gun in your life and you know that”
“Of course, I just thought it would be fun and I really really really want to go” I whined
It had been hard to persuade him but I had batted my eyelashes at him and said “Pleeeeaaaseeee???” and in the end he had given in.
It had been an exhilarating experience and I’d become an expert in no time, my aim was as well as any made Men’s. That was when I’d started carrying a gun around. I’d lectured my father on the dangers of mob life and that I could get kidnapped and held for ransom anytime. I’d begged him to give me rifle but he had laughed at him. In the end he gifted me a P-90 Beretta. It was the best gift of my life. I carried it around in a small holster with me all the time.
I’d gone out for a walk in the park with Chenienaline when I aw it. A pigeon perched on a bench. It had a tiny sealed envelope tied to it’s leg. It was a homing pigeon. I’d whipped out my gun from the holster and shot it dead in a second. We’d wrapped it in a handkerchief and taken it back home to father.
I burst into his office
“Father! Look what I have! A homing pigeon!”
He’d taken it from me and opened the envelope. It was some sort of coded message and it helped out in attacking the Russians. Everyone had been awed that a twelve-year old girl had shot down a homing pigeon. I was famous. My father was extremely proud of me. That was the start of my new life. My father allowed me to go out more often and I was free to do many things, one of them was permission to go to the gym. Soon I started taking fighting and self-defense lessons. I fought other boys my age who were on the start of their induction process and I won. I was stronger than I looked. Their pride had been deeply hurt and they started raging out protest at my father to keep my at home, caged like every other woman in mob life but my father had ridiculed them and told them that it was their weakness that a female was able to outfight them. I loved seeing their shamed faces.