Mafia Guard Loves the Daughter

2.5

2.5

To Leave and Live

Dieth

I watch her form fade. What used to be the little child that ran after her mother and was forced to play with me. I pull out the butterfly knife out of my pocket and start to fidget with it, playing with it till I even forgot that it’s on my hand. A putrid habit I couldn’t quite shake.

“ty v poryadke?” Vincent asks in Russian. Are you okay?

I look at Vincent. His eyes guarded now as he read my face. The bastard truly tries really hard. Too hard. “I’m fine.” I answered in English. “Something… is bothering me.”

“Could be because we’re all injured.” Adel groaned as he flipped open his leather jacket, where his wound is still bleeding through the bandage. He grimaces at the sight of the blood. “The stitches didn’t hold.”

“Sorry, that’s my fault. Kinda surprised you, didn’t ya?” Vincent says, while meeting Adel’s gaze through the rearview mirror.

Adel just shrugs. “It’s fine. I see that the little girl still has a crush on you Dieth” I could hear his smirk even when I’m not looking at him. “Clinging to your every word still.”

I ignore him.

Vincent gives us a Cheshire cat smile. “The silence does truly give answers.”

“Shut up and drive.” I lazily turn my gaze to the preppy i***t and raise my brows. “Count yourself lucky, I really like this car.”

Vincent salutes me” Sir, yes sir, Centur”

I can’t help but glare at his direction at the ranking. He just looks away as if he just didn’t call me from the title I earned as a child.

He finally drove out of the mall with nosy people and familiar faces as this small town had little to offer. Little towns and little lives that would amount to nothing in the end. The children would try to escape this town, but would come back in their old age and repeats the cycle.

A cycle that Rami wants for Ehryl. She told me that she chose this town because of how close knit everyone was, and how friendly and warm the neighbors are to each other. Yet she moved to the most isolated part of town. Our nearest neighbors are 10 miles away, and the farthest that the school bus could reach.

Still, she likes this town. Ehryl does too. I remember the Chicago school trip, and how she looked so despondent to not be able to see the stars at night due to the light pollution. But hopeful little Ehryl still looked at the starless sea. Hoping one would shine through it, which made me think of university.

We would all be leaving soon. Rami had already accepted that she’s going to hold down the house on her own and preparing herself for the time we’d be moving out. The small town is so isolated that it would take a three-hour bus ride to get to the nearest airport. She knows we’ll hardly visit.

Thankfully, Ehryl has you out there.

Me, inconsequential and ruined me.

Ehryl’s face is mostly what I could think of, the innocent and naïve roommate, who barely did anything wrong in her life. I press my thumb on the wound on my thigh, and I hiss in pain, the white flash of pain erased her face in my mind in an instant.

“Hey, you lunatic” Vincent frantically looks away from the road. “What’s gotten into you?”

“Just drive” I groan. “You did a horrible job on my stitches.”

“It’s not like you’re going to be a model.”

“I have an actual shot than you do at least” I grin.

“Bastard” he smirks.