Song: Devil in Paradise - Cruel Youth

(edited)

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Adelaide

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"Goodnight tata."

He smiled.

"Goodnight stella."

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My eyes were closed when he heard him come up behind me.

The wind kissed my legs and tugged at my hair when I heard his light footfalls, obviously trying to conceal that he was standing a just few feet behind me doing nothing but what I assumed was staring.

My head whipped around, my eyes landing straight on his, causing him to take in a sharp breath.

"Good afternoon, ma'am." He spoke, redeeming his wits.

He didn't know that Romano and I knew that he was an CIA agent, and I was too tired to deal with trying to keep it a secret.

Sighing, I turned my head back around, trying to slip back into the peaceful state I had previously settled in.

Unfortunately for my sleep-deprived self, Dante made his way around the rickety bench plopping himself next to me and letting out a long sigh in the process.

"Lovely day isn't it?" He asked, trying to strike up a conversation that I found mundane and often left me more tired than I started.

When I didn't reply, he kept speaking,

"The roses are coming in nicely this year but it's hard to tend to them when I'm the only groundskeeper." He complained, stretching his arms above his head. 

"I can help."

Dante looked at me with horrified wide eyes, as if I had just admitted to manslaughter.

"I-I can't possibly-."

"I will."

I cut him off, abruptly standing up and storming over to the bed of roses for no reason at all. 

Dante rushed to my side, stealing glances to the mansion.

"W-what will Mr Acerbi think of this ma'am?" He stuttered, fear evident in his words.

I chuckled as we reached the roses. 

I fingered the red flower, pinching one of the petals and letting the velvety smoothness of it calm me.

"Don't worry so much Dante. And please, call me Darwin." I smiled at him, fighting the urge to laugh at the name I told him to use. 

Whenever a person wanted to know my name, and I didn't want to give them that information, I gave them the name of an Australian city. 

It's a power rush.

"Darwin is a lovely name." 

He smiles and hands me a secateur.

I felt the weight of the object in my hand, thinking of the many ways I could use this against Dante, causing me to smile from my power.

"I need to deadhead the rose bush. It's quite a large job so I was putting it off until a later date but with you here, we could get this done before the hour is over." He grinned at me and starting humming to a song that I didn't recognise.

I gingerly wrapped my hand around a decaying flower before chopping its head off.

"Like that?"

He looked over to where I had chopped off the flower head.

"Yeah, like that but a little faster."

I nodded and concentrated on the next flower that I found. 

I lifted it as high as it would get and quickly snapped the head off, retracting my hand back to my body fast and letting the flower head fall to the floor.

I looked over to Dante with wide eyes, looking for validation.

"Perfect." He smiled widely at me quickly snipping at another flower.

After I had snipped a few heads off of the flowers, I looked back to Dante who had started to sweat from the harsh gaze of the sun.

"What are you humming?"

Without looking up from his task he answers,

"A song."

"Which song?"

He looked up at me, confusion evident on his face.

"You don't know it?"

I shook my head at his words and his jaw dropped.

"They don't have Bruno Mars in England?"

My eyes narrowed at his statement, ignoring his insult. 

"How do you know where I am from?" I snapped.

A small smile grew on his lips, our task of deadheading the roses quickly forgotten.

"I didn't. Though, if you're trying to hide where you're from you might want to change your accent. It's very English, not that hard to figure out."

He turned back to his flowers while I stood back, a little shocked that he had the balls to say that, knowing that he had probably figured out that I'm not here to just clean dishes.

I slowly moved my hands back to a rose, snapping off the head, hurriedly moving to the next, then the next, then the next.

Before I knew it, I started grabbing roses at random.

The thorns pricked my skin, and in the back of my mind I registered that warm bloodhas started to drip down my wrist. 

A gentle touch on my bare arm forced me to resurface from my erratic acts. 

It was only then that I had realised what I had done.

In my rush, I had cut roses with no abandon, ruining Dante's hard work in the process.

"I-I'm sorry."

He lifted his hand from my arm and rested it on my shoulder so that we were both facing the graveyard of rose heads.

"Don't worry about it, you looked like you needed a release, I'm sorry if I aggravated you."

Guilt swirled in my stomach the longer I gazed at the rose bush.

I looked away.

I started to stride back to the main house when I heard his voice call out after me.

"Will you come and keep me company tomorrow?"

I stopped and turned back at him, smiling in the process. 

My green eyes met his deep brown.

"You're not the only one who needs to work on their accent," I stated before moving back to the house.

He may work for the CIA, but my gut told me that he was the only person I could trust in the estate.

I rushed down to the training room and immediately made my way to the punching bag, where, for the next hour, I pummeled the bag with my fists and legs, so much so that the previous blood on my wrists had dried and cracked, replaced by the blood from my knuckles. 

When I finally halted my onslaught of hits, I wiped away the sweat dripping down my forehead and started stretching, something I should've done when I first got to the room.

After spending a full twenty minutes stretching, I made my way over to the water cooler and drained a glass of water.

What came over me today?

I never had problems controlling my emotions, I had been trained in doing so. 

When Dante had mentioned my noticeably English accent, I couldn't hold back anymore.

The creak of the door opening snapped me out of my thoughts.

I looked over to see who it was and was greeted by dark attire and long dark hair.

Jaekyung.

She made her way to me, elegantly filling up a cup of water and bringing it to her lips before draining the entire thing just as I had done earlier. 

She didn't take her eyes away from mine the entire time.

"I lied to you."

I kept my face impassive as she spoke, I didn't reply. 

She was trained, evident by the professional way she acted when things started to go south on our mission. 

My trust hadn't extended to her yet. 

When she realised that I wasn't going to reply, she gestured towards a mat in the corner of the room.

"Come, let's do some hand to hand combat."

I hesitantly followed her to the mat, turning over the things she's said to me, the things she could've possibly lied to me about.

We positioned ourselves on the opposite sides of the mat, my eyes never leaving her figure and hers never leaving mine. 

We looked at each other for a few moments, neither of us willing to say anything or initiate the fight

I simply waited and she did the same to me. 

When five minutes had passed, I sighed and left the mat.

"This is stupid," I muttered to her, laying down on the floor so that I faced the grey ceiling.

I heard the light tap of Jaekyung's feet as they came toward where I lay. 

Without saying a word, she lay next to me, looking up at the same grey ceiling.

"I don't work for South Korea's secret service anymore, I stole many documents on an important project that I was working on because I found them... damning, in a way."

Her voice was robotic as she said this, almost like she had rehearsed it. 

I tilted my head to take in her expression but she continued to look up at the ceiling as if it was the most fascinating thing in the world.

"I hid them under a floorboard in a house my parents used to visit sometimes during the summertime, the organisation is still after me."

She rolled her head so that we were facing each other, our noses almost touching, her breath mingled with mine and her dangerously dark eyes drew me in.

"Why are you telling me this?" I question her, my voice a whisper.

Her face remains stoic as she takes a minute to mull over my question.

"You know something that I have never told anyone before, and could ruin my life with it, you could turn me in and gain a hefty amount of money in return, my life is in your hands."

My eyebrows furrowed as she spoke and I turned my body so that not only my face was facing her, but my body too.

"You considered my life when we killed Fawker, something that I deeply appreciate, you have earned my respect and also my trust, I hope by telling you this, you can start to trust me too."

Trust.

Something necessary, but so hard to build. 

As I lay on the hard floor next to Jaekyung, I seriously thought about whether I could trust her. 

The information she gave me could be false, she's lied to me before, who's to say she wouldn't do it again?

At the time, I wasn't sure whether I could trust the strikingly beautiful woman or not. 

I could respect her, yes, respect her professionalism, her talent, her knowledge. 

But trust?

It was something I wasn't ready for at the time.

"I respect you," I replied to her.

A moment passed between us when we were just staring into each other's eyes, processing what had just been said. 

What had just been put onto the table.

"If Romano's kill list goes south, which at this point I am sure it will, I want you to know that whatever happens, I will always want your best interests in mind."

She turned her head back up to the ceiling before sitting up and strutting out of the room.

My best interests in mind?

Why was she sure that the hit list would fail? Why was she adamant for me to trust her? Why? Why? 

Why?

The previous mission of finding peace in the training room was forgotten as question upon question flit through my mind leaving me confused and struggling to put the pieces together.

Huffing, I left the room.

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okay bye