The Story of Blood and Roses

Despite the space being as impersonal as it could get, my mind went over a nightmarish thought over and over again. The fear that my secret would be prematurely exposed was something that I feared more now than I had at the beginning of the mission. The revelation would lead to not only my death but to a mission that could make the job of the organization so much easier. Death wasn't that much of a deal when I had the opportunity of doing something as fantastic as taking down Darcy single-handedly under the pretense of working for Anthony. Letting go of such an opportunity would be terribly foolish. So, I decided on the most natural and logical solution.

Anthony was still deep in thought when I peered at him while I drove. When I went off the designated path his head snapped up and he gave me an incredulous look. I could see the suspicion lingering in his eyes, and to say that I felt a crushing defeat would be an understatement. My goal to make him have an irrevocable faith on my loyalty to him seemed not to have worked according to plan.

"Are we taking a detour?" he asked me with a huff. "Do I get a drink wherever you're taking me?" The statement that was supposed to have come out as a joke, fell flat and made him sound in real need of a drink.

"Easy there," I tried to soothe him with a chuckle. He rolled his eyes at me, but the tension in his shoulders didn't go away. "I'm just going to go over to my place. Mine is closer than yours and I really need to look through that CCTV footage from the night I signed the deal with Nolan." My explanation seemed to comfort him, but he needed more explanation. "I think we'll have a better understanding of what they were talking about, now. I think that would be good for us. What do you think?" He cleared his throat as he contemplated the possibilities.

"It's a good idea. I just need a drink," he assured me.

As we waited at a red-light I voiced my reassuring thoughts to him. The reception was just as happy as I had expected it to be.

"It's a legitimate worry-" He cut me off before I could even specify what was the obvious reason for him to worry. With Anthony, you never knew what was obvious.

"I'm not worried, Mia," I heard him scoff. "I am not worried about any of those things because I've been through worse situations and taken decisions which were far more difficult than these. What you are presuming is me worrying is simply me concocting plans to run through this mess smoothly." I would have said that he seemed cocky, but there was nothing cocky about how he spoke those words. It was sheer confidence that laced his voice. His eyes glittered with the intensity of his belief. He knew that it would be a piece of cake for him like he had already calculated the outcome and predicted the future. "We're walking on thin ice here. It will either be war, or it will end up in a negotiation. Both will be costly, but as I said, it is nothing that I've not done before." He paused as he gave me a meaningful look.

The signal turned green then and I started up the engine.

After a while, he spoke again.

"While you watch the video's I'll be making some calls and talking strategy with the core team. We'll have a conference and see if we want higher casualties or a deal."

"I have beer at my place," I confirmed without looking away from the road in front of me.

"That would be exactly what I need right now: something bitter to make me alert." He ran a hand through his hair and then stared out of the window again.

"You'll get prematurely old and get grey hair at the rate you're going. I don't think you'll look any good with wrinkles on your face, Anthony," I tried teasing him. He guffawed.

"Men never get old," he played along to my childish demand.

"They do," I argued lamely. He raised a brow at me.

"And that's your argument? I thought that I had employed you because of your wit and strength. Clearly, I was wrong." Amusement colored the tenor of his voice. "Women age faster than men," he went on to explain. "Did you know that a twelve year age gap in a couple is considered the ideal gap? They are supposed to be physically and mentally compatible that way." The way he said it one would think that it was as obvious as Newton's first law of motion.

"Did you read this in one of those magazines?" I asked lamely.

"I'm pretty sure that it was a medical article-"

"-in your dreams," I completed the sentence for him. If I hadn't known better I would have thought that he was trying to be subtle and hitting on me, but I didn't think that he was doing anything of the sort. He was simply not in the condition to crack jokes about the non-existent relationship between us.

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