Red

C H A P T E R T H I R T Y N I N E

“There! Finished!” I held up the big ring covered in tinsel, glitter and baubles. It was amazing. Okay, it was tacky and colourful but still, I made it and for some reason that made me immensely proud.

“Good job Gracie, it’s beautiful.” Ace cooed, kissing her on the top of her head.

“Gracie? I did far more than her, she just tipped glitter on.” Ace laughed but Grace stuck her tongue out at me cheekily.

“Good job Red, you really worked hard with the gluing and the sticking. So magical.” He was being sarcastic, I could hear it in his annoying voice.

“Oh whatever.” I brushed pink glitter onto my hand and blew it at them both. Gracie laughed but Ace tried brushing it away, only spreading it around more. Ha! Try leading your mafia men when you sparkle like a pink unicorn.

“What now Gabriella, can we make gingerbread houses?” Ace nervously glanced at me.

“Yeah!” I answered a little too enthusiastically.

I envied Grace, she got to be a kid. I didn’t get to celebrate Christmas or sit around the family kitchen making cute little crafts. I didn’t have a father who kept my existence a secret in order to protect me at all costs, I had a father who kept me a secret so I could be his deadliest weapon. So I could reap revenge on the one person I couldn’t bring myself to kill.

I was in so fucking deep right now and yet, I was determined to live up to my legacy. To make my family proud. I was raised no fool.

“Why are you smiling?” Grace asked me, dotting my nose with a finger full of flour.

I shook my head. “I’m not.” I lied.

“I’m going to work.” Adrian interrupted the gingerbread making. He kissed Grace on the top of her head and she mumbled her goodbyes.

“You better be gone by tonight and I don’t just mean out of the door.” He warned me.

I raised my middle finger at him and Grace clutched her palm around it tightly.

“Do not swear.” She warned.

“Okay, jeeze.” She released her grip and stuck candy onto her gingerbread house with an icing pen humming a little tune between her lips.

“You hungry?” Ace leaned down on the counter, scooped some frosting onto his finger and sucked it off. I swallowed, hard and he smirked at me sexily.

“Famished.” I answered, clearly not talking about food. His eyes sparkled with mischief and then Graces small voice spoke up.

“She’s been eating the gingerbread daddy.” I popped another piece into my mouth.

“Tattle tail!” Gracie laughed.

Ace got to work in the kitchen, getting out pans and food from the fridge, I was surprised he could cook.

“Come on Gabriella, I want to show you my vegetable patch.” She grabbed my hand and pulled me up out of my seat.

“Oh okay.” I answered with a mouthful of gingerbread and candy.

“Wait, Grace.” Ace stopped us quickly. “I don’t think it’s a good idea you go outside where I can’t see you.”

“It’s okay daddy, Gabriella will look after me.”

“Yeah daddy, Gabriella will look after her.” I answered smartly.

“Don’t call me that.” He frowned at me. “I’m gonna be right here, watching from the window.” His words were an unspoken threat to me. I laughed and then followed Grace into her little garden.

She had wooden sleepers making up square patches and little lady bug labels that read ‘carrots’ and ‘tomatoes,’ ‘raspberries’ and ‘strawberries.’

“We’re not in season for most of it now but this is the winter bed and some of the blackberries are growing through. Taste one.”

She handed me a blackberry and I popped it into my mouth, it was bitter and made me scrunch my face up. “Yum.” I lied. “So you like this shit then? Growing your own food?” I wiggled my finger over the vegetable beds and fruit planters.

“Yeah, I like this shit.” I smiled at her.

“Cool.” I picked up the soil and squished it beneath my fingers. It was dense and conditioned, naturally fertilised. “Hmm” Grace looked at me, expecting me to elaborate further. “Nice soil.”

She looked at me strangely but I wasn’t going to tell her that a decomposing human body was made up of so many healthy nutrients for the Earth.

That the reason her vegetables grow so good is because her daddy probably buried one or two bodies underneath her vegetable garden. So instead I sat quietly and listened to her talk to me about how she grows her crops.

Ace called us back inside after not too long and placed an amazing looking omelette down in front of us. I poked at it gingerly with my fork, it was spongey and yellow with bits of meat tucked up inside. My stomach growled with anticipation.

“You okay?” Ace asked, noting me not eating anything.

“Yeah, this looks great. Who knew you could cook?” I turned to Grace, she had her mouth full and closed her eyes really enjoying the flavour on her tongue.

Ace had started eating too. He chewed quietly and washed it down with a glass of water. I picked some egg up on the end of my fork and turned to Grace

“Hey Gracie, try this for me would you?”

Grace looked at my fork with a questioning expression. Ace started laughing.

“Seriously?” He spat out in disbelief, I hovered my fork closer to Grace.

“I don’t want to be another one helping the vegetables grow.” I muttered. Grace clasped her mouth around my fork and chewed until there was nothing left.

“Satisfied?” He cocked a brow.

“For now.” I answered, taking a bite of omelette. “Oh my god!” I gasped.

“What now?” Ace asked in exasperation.

“It’s so fucking good, I would’ve willingly died for this omelette if I knew it tasted this good.”

“Red!”

“It’s so fucking good daddy.”

“Grace!”

He was pissed with me. We ate in silence, just cutlery clanging against plates. His jaw clenched a little too hard even when he wasn’t chewing.

Grace found me funny, I think. She certainly laughed at everything I said and copied things I said. I liked her, it was a shame I planned to reap my revenge on Ace by kidnapping and killing her but I’ll make sure it was quick and relatively painless.

It was the least I could do.

“Can Gabriella stay the night again?”

“Oh-I-uh-” have business to attend to, now I know about you I need to set my plans in motion, plus the nightmares. So-

Ace turned to us from washing the plates at the sink. “I think that’s a great idea, keep her somewhere I can keep an eye on her.”

“But Adrian-”

“Doesn’t call the shots around here, I do. It’s either here Red or in the warehouse. Adrian will be staying at his own house tonight.”

“I need to make a few calls.”

“No.”

“Ace-”

“The answer is no, Red.” I excused myself for what I told them was a bathroom break but rather I took the time to look around Aces home.

It was smallish, like a loving family home, one I’ve only ever seen on the television.

Large, worn in sofas, all warm and cosy dominated the living room with their festive cushions and chunky knitted throws.

A Christmas tree, made everything seem magical and the orange flickering glow of a log burner made me envy their life just a little.

Aces house was a sense of normality outside the mafia, it was somewhere he could leave the violence behind and truly unwind.

I crept upstairs, the gentle waft of gingerbread enclosed the whole inner space. They had photos hanging on the walls, only of them and Grace throughout the years. Never anybody else.

I was only drawn to one place, Aces bedroom. I wondered how many more panic rooms he had in his house, I’d love to see the blueprints.

I checked in all of the generic places for hidden weaponry or his safe but so far I was coming up blank.

“You won’t find any.” His voice startled me. He could walk so soundlessly against his own floor. He knew where all of the creaky floorboards were located.

“Then how do you protect yourself?” He half smiled, it wasn’t genuine.

“My duty isn’t to protect myself, it’s to protect her. I can’t have guns lying around she might get hurt.”

Fair point, I guess. But at her age I was trained enough to know how to use a gun. No, actually at her age her grandfather was holding me hostage in the warehouse next to my dying mother.

Still, even then - much to my mother’s disapproval, we knew how to fight. We knew the importance of weapons. We were not naive to the mafia way.

“Can she fight?” I found myself asking.

“No, I tried to teach her self defence but her reflexes are much slower and overall she hated it. She’s a pacifist. So I built panic rooms around the house and taught her how to hide.”

“How many rooms?” There, he gave me an opening and I took it. Feed my curiosity Ace.

He smiled, this time genuinely.

“Need-to-know basis Red.”