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ChapterOne
Isit outside the fence of the vineyard, watching the woman in the gazebo. Her light purple hair hangs over her face as she reads a book, and her legs are curled up under her dress. I notice the bassinet next to her. She doesn’t know I’m sitting here. I could easily kill her, and she would never know I was there. Her guards walk the perimeter, not seeing me either.
I’m not here on an assignment. I’m not supposed to be here, but I can’t stop myself. Ever since the memories began plaguing my dreams, I’ve been drawn to this property. I remember the garden. I remember sitting in that gazebo and playing with dolls. There is a huge gap in my memories, but lately the space has been growing smaller. With every frequent headache, a flashback is unveiled, showing me bits of a past I can’t fully remember.
Growing up, I was told I wasn’t wanted, that I was left at a church, and then thedoctorcame for me. But that’s a lie. I had a loving family. I had a brother and a father who cared about me. I know this because today I remembered the moment I was taken to the church. A woman had driven me to a priest and told him to get rid of me. She looked down at me and grabbed my chin so hard she left marks.
“They love you so much they are blinded with it, and he won’t give me a child. I must have an heir if I want to control the family. Therefore, you must go far, far away.” She shoves me away from her. “Father, maybe you should make sure she’s pure.” Her laugh is evil as she walks out. I scream for Dante and Papà, but they don’t come for me.
The memory causes a sharp pain in the side of my skull. I grab my head and close my eyes, hoping the pain subsides along with the nausea. Instead, another memory flashes behind my lids.
I’m giggling and laughing as I run through the maze of the garden. I turn my head back to see a tall, dark-haired man chasing me. “No, caro fratello, no.” I laugh as his long legs eat up the distance. He swings me up in his arms and laughs as I squeal in delight. When he hugs me to his body, I take a big sniff of him, smelling the vineyard on him. He squeezes me tighter to his chest.
“Love you, Luna Lou.” He kisses my forehead before he sets me down.
A stick snaps, and my eyes flash open. I’m dressed in all black with black grease camouflaging my face. I carefully twist around and see the form of someone moving closer to me. It’s not one of their guards.
I look back at the gazebo, and that’s when I see him walk out and take the woman into his arms. He holds her for a moment before kissing her hard on the lips. He then reaches into the bassinet and pulls out the blue bundle of blankets.
Dante.
I have to focus on what I need to do. I must lead the enemy away from them. I silently move along the perimeter of the fence until I’m out of sight of his guards. Once I’m far enough away that they can’t hear me, I take off running.
I need to get away. My punishment is going to be severe for coming here. This is nowhere near the location of my last assignment. I went dark and didn’t check in after my last hit. Something pricks the back of my neck, and I pull it out. It’s a dart, which I toss away from me.
I want to laugh at them. He trained me to be almost immune to most sedatives. I take a deep, calming breath to help slow my blood pressure so the poison doesn’t hit me faster. I turn and face off with the first man, my knife out and the blade arcing in the darkness. I use black tactical knives so they don’t reflect any light.
We are in complete darkness out here so far from Venice, where the Lupo vineyard is. The doctor’s guard falls to the ground, but before I can turn and run again, another is on me. He shoots, and I barely dodge out of the way. The bullet slices through my side, but I don’t care. I come at him with my gun. The silencer muffles the sound as I shoot him up through his chin into his head. Blood and brain matter splatter me, but I don’t react. I’ve been killing for years. I’m desensitized to it.
A second dart hits me in the back, and I can’t reach this one to stop the flow of the sedative into my system. I turn and face the wimp as he steps back as if waiting until I’m incapacitated. I see the fear in his eyes as I advance on him. I drop to my knees and look beyond him to see the doctor making his way toward me.
“Oh, my daughter, you’ve been a very bad little girl. Now, Father will have to punish you.” His voice is full of promise and growls from where his throat was damaged in a previous fight. He has a thick Russian accent that he tries to cover but is unable to, even after all his years working with the KGB before he got his job at theschool.
I have the urge to spit at him, but that will only make my pain and punishment worse. He punches me, and I fall to the ground. Just before I lose consciousness, he hovers over my body.
“Father is going to show you what happens when you disobey me.”
I fall into the bliss of whatever sedative concoction he made to bring me down. Good, because I don’t want the memories of what he’s going to do to me. I have too many of them already. At least he’ll be fired if he rapes me again, or so the deputy chief threatened. It gives me some comfort, but not much though.
* * *
Several hours later I come to in the warehouse in Léon. This is where the doctor and his team usually do all their work. I’m not the onlypatient, but I’m his longest living one. So many before me ended up killing themselves when they went crazy from all the drugs they were given or the shock therapy. I don’t know why I haven’t yet. I’ve thought about it.
I don’t move or change my breathing so that no one knows I’m awake yet. I’m strapped to the chair and my head is already locked into place with the bite block in my mouth. I can’t turn my head and look around, but I hear Deputy Chief Moreau’s voice as he hisses in anger.
“You told us she was good. You said that she was completely under your control and wasn’t slipping. I told you if she isn’t under control, we’ll have to get rid of her. She knows too much. She could bury us both, or she could go crazy and go on a killing spree. Neither of us can handle the hit to our careers. You were barely hanging on at that school when we found you. Do you want to go back to that?”
“I have complete control over her. She isn’t slipping. I don’t know why she was there, but we’ll take care of it now. I decreased her dose last time because we haven’t had an operative under this kind of control for so long. I don’t know the risks,” Doctor Formanski defends himself.
I’m not slipping their control because of less medication. I’m fairly certain that my mind has decided enough is enough. That my own body and mind are finally fighting the drugs and torture he’s put me through for years. Ever since I was a small girl, he’s been giving me different vitamins, medications, and a mix of illegal and controversial drugs. I did some research recently on some of the medications I knew the names of. I have a photographic memory, and I memorize the names from the bottles sitting on the counter before he drugs me. I’m able to remember them afterward with lots of concentration. I leave myself notes to remember certain things. This time I won’t be able to leave a message for myself except for the backup plan I’ve put into effect. I need to get out of here before the doctor turns my brain to mush from all he does, or the agency sends a hit squad after me.
I’ll never be able to return to my family as long as both of these men live. Deputy Chief Moreau does work for Interpol, but this agency of his is a side project. I wonder if they know he uses his own company to do contract work for them.
I start concentrating on their voices again.
“We need her for at least two more assignments. Then you can do whatever you want with her, or if she is still good, we’ll use her for some other side projects.” I hear the glee in the deputy’s voice. “But we need her for this one in six weeks. It’s the key to getting her into the other.” What I assume is a folder slaps down on the table behind me. I continue to keep my breathing normal and my eyes closed so they don’t know I’m awake. This way I can learn more. “Get her ready for this one. She’ll need hand-to-hand combat and some sex appeal.” I don’t understand why he doesn’t think I’m sexy. They made me this physically fit. They demanded I look like this. “Then we’ll set her after them. She’ll start with the family in Vicenza and then move to them.” I don’t know what “them” they are talking about, but something in my gut turns. “And stop raping her.” I hear their bodies shuffling around, and I imagine that Moreau grabbed a hold of the doctor. “We can’t have her get pregnant or be repulsed by sexual contact. We need her to lure him in. I’ve warned you once; I won’t warn you again. I’ll set her on you to kill next time.”
“She won’t kill me.” There is a touch of tenderness in the doctor’s voice. He thinks I care for him. I try to hold the vomit in my mouth. He makes me sick. “Besides, she can’t get pregnant. I had a vasectomy years ago, andIcontrol her body. She’s medicated every three months,” he spits out, and this time the vomit causes me to cough. Now they know I’m awake. The doctor is lying, but he’d kill me if I told anyone why he can’t get me pregnant. He’s been raping me over and over since I turned fifteen, but lately, I know he does it before he wipes my mind because I feel it afterward. The fear that he’s done something to prevent me from ever getting pregnant isn’t there because I don’t deserve that miracle.
