𝐆𝐞𝐭𝐚𝐰𝐚𝐲 |𝟏𝟖+

The Neighbourhood - Devils Advocate

𝔚𝔚𝔚
Celina

They came today.

They drank from my gold porcelain. They ate the fine foods my country had to offer. They sat with my daughter, held my granddaughter.

Yet, they still turned around and laughed with my enemy.

They took my hospitality for weakness and put a target on my back.

His wife was quiet, he was known to be dangerous. Yet a single afternoon with the couple made me realize that she was the one to be weary of.

She hid her danger. Held it in her tightly clutched palm and concealed it in her white smile.

I need to be weary of her. You should too.

Leather slams, fingers tighten and my lips press together in an attempt to push back the frustrated scream. I manage to suppress the scream, but it doesn't stop me from chucking the journal in my hand at the wall.

I fucking hate cliffhangers, and Jido's cryptic final journal entry, the only one that gave me an ounce of juicy information, is the biggest fucking tease of the century.

I pace back and forth.

I need to find the others.

If not for the fact that they belong to me, then for the fact that my curiosity wont be satisfied until I do.

Yet despite my frustration, a twinge of regret forces me to walk across the ancient pastel carpet, pick up the journal and dust it off, before hiding the palm sized booklet back behind the very painting that covered the hidden passageway into the room in the tower.

I rarely came back to this room. Not only was the door always locked, but the dolls that once took up every inch of the room were back, only now it seemed as though someone went out of their way to hang more shelves to display them.

I'm milliseconds from moving the painting back into its place when the closet doors fly open, and a rush of blonde hair emerges from the darkness, barrelling towards me, at full force, a war cry escaping the mouth of it.

I step out of the way, and as my luck would have it, the bull like ball of blonde hair doesn't realize until she's slamming into the wall and falling onto the ground.

I laugh, she hisses.

"How did you get into my bedroom!?" The failed exorcism of a girl groans while I glance around the room, making sense of its state. She thinks it's hers now. "The door is locked from the inside!"

While true, I dont choose to tell her about the hidden door behind the painting and instead settle on delusion. "Magic."

She sits up and looks over at me, her shoulders relaxing and gives me an ernest nod, as though it makes complete sense. "Oh,"

Instead of walking out the door, I decide to walk over to the wall of new floating shelves and linger, having missed not being the craziest in the room. "Who hung these for you?" The sight of her, rubbing the bruise forming on her forehead brings a smile to my face. "Was it your little boyfriend?"

"Dima is not my boyfriend." She rises to her feet and glares at me. "I like Dima, but Adriko is my one true love."

Dima. I fucking knew it.

I laugh to myself. The stone faced asshat had a thing for the less than mediocre mental patient.

How cute.

"Natasha, sweetheart." I slowly make my way towards her, "Adrik and I are already married, you gotta move on." I place a hand on her scrawny little shoulder, and force sympathy onto my face. "We cant have you turning into a doll crazed nut job, can we?"

"You got married...? "Those pale blue eyes of hers widen, as a look I can only compare to that of a crestfallen child falls over her features. "But I wasn't even invited."

"Why would you be invited?" I raise a brow, entertained by her entirely. "You're not one of my friends."

The look she has on her face only intensifies, this time the hurt is mixed with disbelief, as though i'd betrayed her. "You have other friends?"

"Lots of them." I offer and before I can offer another blow that'll crush her little heart, a knock sounds.

Natasha in all her nightgown glory, races me to the door, even though I make no move to, only before she opens it she casts me one last longing look. "Did you sleep with him?"

"My husband?" I cross my arms and tilt my head, I should spare her, but I don't. "Yes. Multiple times, in the dirtiest of ways."

The statement may not have been an honest truth, but it wasn't a lie, nor was it an exaggeration. It was more so a foreshadow. One based on the fact that Adrik Kozlov is single handedly responsible for giving me the best sex of my life and I plan to explore it throughly, in every possible position.

With shaky hands and an unstable look in her eyes, the nutcase swings the door open to reveal Adrik's less likeable errand boy. He looks annoyed by me already. "Adriko is requesting your presence."

I bite down on my bottom lip, withholding a smile as I recall the events of last night. He'd driven us home, excused himself to make a call and in waiting for him, I accidentally fell asleep next to Sitto. Only to wake this morning with a call from the La Haute board, congratulating me of my new position as one of the thirteen new debutants for this season.

"Where is he?" I walk forward, complying as though the fact that he's now summoning me like a sixties mistress doesn't bother me. You'd think he'd treat me with a little more respect considering last we talked, I had him in my mouth.

"In his library."

I nod and grip the door handle, "Tell him he can walk his ass up here and get me himself."  And with that, I slam the door shut.

I can feel the anger on the other end of the doorframe, and I only smile. There really isnt any reason to deny the man, but it feels good to.

"Why did you do that?" Natasha eyes me like i'm the odd one, but I merely shrug.

"Men need to be kept on their toes."

. . .

One.

Two.

Three.

Four.

I waited four hours before I decided to face the tyrant. He hadn't come for me, but he did call. I'd ignored him the first, second, and third time.

I was playing a dangerous game, with an even more dangerous man. But I relished in the thrill of it all. In the anger I was evoking.

And I could feel his anger.

It was quiet, brewing patiently, simmering beneath the surface. His men probably thought nothing of it with that stone cold facade of his. But I could feel it in the bones of the manor. Feel it with every step I took. As wood became expensive tile, and as that tile led me down into the training centres in the basement, where I'd been told he'd been last seen.

Yet I don't see it in his body or see him for that matter as I walk into the room.

It's deserted, dark, and still.

It feels completely empty.

Just how he likes it.

I don't turn on the lights, its dark, but there's enough light for me to see faint outlines of what's in front and around me. "You wanted to see me?"

No sense of movement, but a low voice does echo from somewhere around me. "Four hours and thirty six minutes ago."

I let myself smile because he won't be able to see it. "How romantic of you to count down the minutes."

He doesn't respond. I gather he's not impressed. "Consider it your punishment." I offer.

A beat of silence, my shoulders straighten while his all too familiar deep voice darkens with intrigue. "Punishment?" Excitement blossoms.

"Mhm." I step further into the room as cold air hits the skin at my nape, "For sitting next to another woman and publicly humiliating me."

He's quiet for a while, and when he speaks again, it's deliberate, while something around him snaps and smoothes. "And what about your punishment?"

I gather he's got something in his hands.

"For?" I turn to face the direction I hear him approach from.

I try to pinpoint what he's fiddling with simply by the sound, but it's long forgotten the minute I'm shoved from behind into what I can only assume is a nearby wall.

"For touching another man and attempting to make all those people doubt the fact that you're mine and only mine." His hot breath sits at my back, before the heat of his body follows.

I don't struggle as his chest pushes me further into the wall, I do, however, tip my head back, so that my lips brush the shadow of his chin. "I think killing him was enough, don't you?"

"It wasn't." He dips his head so that my lips aren't brushing his chin, but his lips, while a hand smoothes down my side and takes ahold of my wrist, pulling it behind my back. "I'm still unsatisfied."

I bite back my smile. "Are you gonna stand here and pout about it or are you gonna tell me why you wanted to see me?"

His other hand smoothes down my other side, and they only stop when his fingers wrap around my free wrist and pull that hand back behind me, "What if there was no reason and I just wanted to see you?" Low and gravely, his steady breath falls against my lips just before he pulls just out of touch.

I find myself craving his every touch so much so that I'm never satisfied.  "You'd never willingly admit to it."

I make out the twitch of his lips before they come down onto mine in a soft caress. "Smart girl." He murmurs, pulling away slightly before those lips of his are back on mine.

My head tips back at an impossible angle, and I'm barely able to keep up with the logistics of this upside down kiss, but I'm lost in it all. So much so that the air caught in my throat, and my hair trickling down my arched back makes me feel like I'm floating in his rough hands. Hands that grip onto me like he doesn't want to let me go.

This time when the wet heat of his mouth lowers onto mine, he nudges me deeper into the wall with his hips, while his hands holding my wrists behind my back, tighten, shift and by the time I feel something threaded around my wrists, he's pulling away with a soft inhale, one that's nothing but a low satisfied hum as he steals what's left of my breath.

Only when I'm pulled back and pushed down into what I can only assume is a chair do I try to untangle my hands and realize he's tied them behind my back.

Confusion washes over me, especially when the warmth of his body steals what little heat surrounds me.

Its a moment later when my eyes are forced to adjust to the blaring white lights that suddenly flicker on, and when I do finally adjust to my surroundings, I'm staring at nothing but an empty room, filled with locked up casings I can only assume hold weapons.

I crane my neck to his dark figure across the room. "What the fuck, Adrik?"

His eyes snap to me, unforgivingly hard and his face gives nothing away as he approaches me. Those stark deep ocean eyes, paired with his chiseled features, hauntingly empty and beautiful never fail to make my stomach dip.

I don't think I'll ever get use to the perfection.

Yet just as he makes it to me, and reaches down, his hands go to either side of my chair and he lifts the chair, and turns me around.

The sight that greets me now, takes me by surprise and not the kind that end in ecstasy and happy endings.

Not when I'm staring at a table, with nothing but a gun set atop it. "Well, this is not where I saw this going."

He ignores me and I watch as he moves to the other side of the table, picks up the gun, unloads it, before swiftly loading a new clip into it.

He does this in less than five seconds, and when he sets the gun onto the table in front of me, barrel facing away from me, his eyes come back to mine. "Get out of the ropes and take the gun."

I don't like where this is headed. Especially not when his voice takes on a serious edge. "Then aim." He takes one step to the side, allowing my eyes to draw to the far wall, where an array of faux human targets are position. "And shoot."

I look from the targets, to the gun, then finally to him, my words far more guarded than before. "Why?"

He crosses his arms and eyes me like he's able to read every little change in my demeanour, "Because I need to know you're capable of defending yourself."

My jaw tightens, and his words on the drive from the safe house come back to me. "I thought you said you didn't care what happened to me."

He walks towards me, "And I thought you'd be better at snuffing out a lie."

I glance back to the gun, unease settling itself in my bones, yet despite that my hands begin to fiddle with the knots binding my wrists behind my back. "I can defend myself just fine."

"Not everyone carries around a knife, but they do carry guns." He counters, and despite his statement holding some truth, I don't like it.

The knot eventually gives way, and I'm able to slip my hands out of it and let it fall, but before I can get off the chair, he's in front of me, leaning over and planting his hands on either arm of my chair. Caging me to my seat."And for some reason you're afraid of them."

"I'm not." I grit, and in a complete rush of frustration, I push out of the chair, duck out of his grasp and don't stop until I'm standing on the opposite side of the table.

He looks from the ropes on the floor to the gun, then finally, to me, "Pick up the gun, Celina."

My heart beats in a race with my my short breaths, and I look down to the chunk of metal responsible for nothing but destruction. I shake my head.

The only ounce of reaction comes in the form of a clenched jaw, before he speaks slightly through gritted teeth. "Then tell me why you won't."

My defenses rise. I haven't told anyone. My grandmother knew, my father heard, and my grandfather was there. "How can you expect me to answer you when I don't know shit about you?"

He goes silent at my attempt to turn this around on him. And just when my shoulders relax at the fact that I'd successfully shut down the conversation, he speaks. "My father use to beat me to a pulp."

His statement, delivered in a monotone, makes every muscle in my body still and turn to watch him.

He speaks as though he's discussing something as irrelevant as the weather, as he occupies himself with he removing his blazer and drapes it on my chair.  "Sometimes when he grew lazy, he'd make his men do it and watch like it was his favorite sports game."

Something inside me goes cold and I feel enraged. I flicker my gaze around his face and get nothing. Not an ounce of anger, emotion or even unease.

It's terrifyingly impressive. "Is he still alive?"

He's selective in his response, yet still gives me a solid answer. "Barely."

Despite my hands itching to kill someone, his father preferably, I steady my voice. "If you're trying to make me feel bad for you, its not working."

"Good." He rounds the table. "I don't want your pity." He steps closer, and I can smell him. Cologne, the expensive kind. And whatever else, the clean kind.  While his eyes swim with determination. "I want your confession."

I can't take his stare anymore. And so, I reach forward and pick up the gun. The metal is cool on my hand, and I stare down at it, holding the weight of my own world in my palm.

"My grandfather began training me with guns when I was eight."

I lift the gun, and with a light tremor, aim it at the target but the all too familiar click of the safety lever being pulled down echos in my ears, and I'm suddenly paralyzed. Stuck in the same position I was all those years ago, moments before disaster.

A soft touch and long fingers lace themselves around mine, taking over, and holding the gun, while simultaneously holding me me steady. Adrik's body nearly swallows me from behind, reminding me of where I am in the world. His silence, urges me to continue. "My mother hated guns. She thought they were cursed." I look to the ground, to his feet on either side of mine. Shame that washes over me. "I thought she was annoying."

He's quiet, patient and still. Meanwhile my body feels like it's caving in on itself, and I feel like I'm moments from hyperventilating.

I can't do this.

I realize I don't want to finish my story. I don't want to think about it. I don't want to see her face. Hear her scream-

And as though the universe is on my side, i'm saved by a bell. Only this one's a continuous ring, coming from the pocket of Adrik's slacks.

His hand tightens around mine gripping the gun, and he makes no move to answer it. "You should get that." I say, but it feels more like a plea from my lips.

One he doesn't listen to. "It can wait."

"Get that." I turn my head, and look up at him, its so hard to meet his eyes, but I manage for a fraction of a second. "Please."

Anything to get out of this conversation.

It seems that fraction of a second is plenty for him to read me, because after a moment, he reluctantly lets me get away. He steps out of my hold, and answers the phone, but not before pulling the gun out of my hands with his.

I don't realize just how much relief washes over me until the trembling in my hands simmer and I can draw in a full breath. And by then, Adrik's shutting off his phone and reaching for his jacked draped on my chair. "I have to go." he slips it on, whilst holding my eye. "Will you wait up for me?"

He speaks the words with not a question, but a promise. Heavy and filled with so much I want to unpack, it almost distracts me from his first words. "Go where?"

He avoids my eye, "Dinner."

Suspicion washes any vulnerability away and i'm grateful for it. "With whom?"

The man loads the gun on the table and slips it into the front flap of his blazer before walking across the room, unlocking one of the safe's and pulling out another gun. "Two powerful men you've managed to make an enemy out of."

I wrack my brain through a list of men that I could possibly have made an enemy out of but it takes me a while to narrow the list down. When I finally do, I can't help but blurt. "Are you talking about Galanti?" When i'm confident in my answer I straighten out and step towards him. "You're going to dinner with Alessio Galanti and his suicidal boyfriend?"

Adrik doesn't respond, but its enough to tell me the man is planning to meet with the don of the Italian mafia and by the sound of how clipped his responses are, he isn't planning on sharing the details with me.

Annoyance laces my next words, words that definitely work in pissing him off. "I'm coming with."

He stops, and turns to look at me, with a look that can only be described as authoritative. "Nyet." 

The finality in his voice makes me bite my tongue with my retort. I could sit here and argue or play it smart. "What do they want?"

"Information." His clipped responses start to piss me off.

"On. What. Exactly."

He doesn't look like he wants to tell me. I stare him down until he does. "I did something years ago, and they're interested in hearing how."

He makes his way towards me, and I open my mouth, not nearly done gathering the information I'll need, but when he grabs my neck and pulls me into him, I shut up. "No more questions, Malyshka." His words are a harsh whisper against my lips, but something about them feel almost soft. Just as soft as the way he brushes his lips against mine, in the softest of kisses before he's gone.

And when the novelty of his actions have worn off, I can't help the way my mind schemes.

I fucking deserve to be there.

And like a wise woman once said, If you want a seat at the table, get yourself one.

And that wise woman, was going to do just that.

. . .

"Table for three, please!"

The host looks at the girl with a tight smile. "Sorry, we're all booked for the night."

As if on cue, my eyes wander to the restaurant behind him, completely empty. But the girl doing the talking doesn't quite seem to follow. "Okay, thank you for your time-"

Our darker haired companion steps in before I can, "Listen, my boyfriends here." She holds up her phone, as if the tracker is enough for the poor terrified host to let us through, "And if you don't take me to him right now..."

I block out the rest of what Giana's saying and instead, peek my head into the restaurant. It's completely  empty, but I spot a far hallway on the second floor and one of many men positioned outside one of the doors.

It's all I need to know before I walk right past the host and into the restaurant, "Hey! you cannot be in-" I turn and merely stare at him a second too long, before tilting my head, and it seems to make him so uncomfortable he can barely finish his sentence. "...here."

"Why don't you take your break for the night." He seems to grow uncomfortable, even moreso when he looks from me to the smiling girls who i'd managed to get here in record time.

And with one final glance up to the second floor, the smart host backs out of our way.

I turn and continue through the restaurant while footfall sounds behind me. One of a girl in Chanel pumps, and the other in a pair of white sneakers. Josie catches up to me first, planting herself on my right, her voice hesitant. "Are you sure your husband is okay with us joining him for his birthday dinner?"

"It doesn't matter what he wants." Before I can respond, Giana catches up to my left and speaks up. "If Lina wants us there, he'll have to deal with it."

For once, I find myself agreeing with the Italian princess who has no idea what she's getting herself into. "Exactly."

A few men linger around the door, I recognize some of Adrik's minions, luckily they know better than to stop me when I reach for the door and push it open.

And the sight that greets me does nothing but fill me with a sense of satisfaction.

Three large men sit around a large oversized circular table, one with enough room for us, while servers set down trays of food, before leaving through a door that leads directly into the kitchen.

Alessio's first to snap his head up to me, and when he does, his face drops. It satisfies me less than it should and its because the sight of his face angers me. When I look at him, all I see is a man who's had everything handed to him all because he'd been born a man, attractive, and into power.

And then theres the tattooed druggie, who's leaned back in his chair, smoking a cigarette. He barely turns his head when he spares me a single glance, but his displeasure is clear in his gravely words that he speaks to my husband, "Does it ever die?"

Adrik doesn't respond, and Nico goes back to ignoring me.

"Hey Josie?" I'm still in the door frame covering my two guests when I tilt my head at him. "I thought you said Nico was going to quit cigarettes, for real this time?" And just as I finish my sentence, I step out of the way, and let the doe eyed girl make sense of my words.

Nico doesn't process my words until a few minutes too late. Just as he's about to take in another drag. "Nico."

He coughs, almost choking on his puff as his eyes find his girlfriends and I can't help the genuine smile that falls against my lips.

She says something in Spanish, he says something back. But i'm too busy trying to ignore the lazy yet calculated stare piecing into me.

I can only hold off for so long before my eyes are drawn to those sharp blue, and when I do look at him, he doesn't look surprised, he does however look the slightest bit annoyed.

"Sorry, I'm late." I force my gaze away from Adrik's and to the other men in the room, especially Galanti, who never fails to leave me out of matters that definitely concern me. "I brought some friends. Hope you don't mind."

As if on cue, his eyes go to the girl behind me, and a low 'Cazzo' escapes under his breath. "Giana? Why are you here?"

Her voice takes on a defensive edge. "Why don't you look happy to see me?"

I turn to watch her as she enters the room and heads for the seat next to Alessio Galanti. She ignores Nico, and shoots Adrik who's staring at me a smile. Only her smile instantly fades the longer she stares at Adrik. And I can swear I catch a hint of something haunting as though she's seeing him for the first time.

I ignore it and make my way towards Adrik's side of the table. He's sat in a place that puts the most distance between him and the others. As though he'd purposely isolated himself. 

I take the seat next to him, just as Nico Blaine speaks. "We're leaving."

A cute little frown mars Josie's pouty lips. "But... I just got here..." And when she looks up at him from her seat, he can't seem to look away from her. "And i'm hungry."

Nico pauses, it's long enough for him to send me a stare that'd probably put anyone else six feet under, before he rubs his jaw and pushes his plate of food towards her. "Eat. Then we leave."

"Okay!" She smiles, pulling the plate towards herself. And when her eyes lift up to mine a moment later, something mischievous sits in her soft gaze. I realize a moment later when she begins eating, at an abnormally slow pace that she'd lied.

I smile, it's encouraging and one of approval. And with the way her cheeks flush she seems to gain validation from it.

It tells me that maybe, I'm a bad influence.

"You ruined this night," Adrik's voice lowers as he leans into my ear. "Are you satisfied?" His voice holds a dark promise, one of punishment and promise. And his eyes trail down my seared form, his eyes dark and glued to every inch of me, while his voice Carrie's disapproval.

My eyes float around the room as I lean into the powerful man at my side, while the other two powerful men no doubtedly want me dead and then I look to the two women who no doubtedly have them wrapped around their fingers.

I had no fucking idea what part these two men played in whatever game Adrik was playing, but I intended to put myself in the know, even if it meant I had to forcefully get a seat at the table.

I wanted in on it.

I sit up and unfold the napkin, setting it across my lap in order to protect my dress. A dress I know he doesn't like. "Partially." I lean over him and drag  his plate of food towards myself. "But the night is still young, and i'm only just getting started."

𓆩❤︎𓆪

So so sorry I had to break this chapter up, the next will not disappoint, I have a lot planned for it...

Also I wanna get serious for a sec:

This chapter was extremely hard to write and I'm going to try to articulate why.

I guess it began with immense guilt, to do so much as eat breakfast knowing that there are people who's food and water supply is cut off. To charge my phone and write, while their electricity is cut off. To sit in my comfortable bed, and cry about it, when they are - and have been for years - subjected to violence, trapped in the open air prison that is Gaza.

I've taken history classes, learned about the many cruel histories of the world. It isn't suppose to repeat itself.

Yet here we are, living in the modern age of technology, where information is accessible yet manipulated. Where people have the privilege to sit safely at home and side with the oppressor. Where we are all witnessing a genocide, live and there are people trying to justify it.

And those who declare themselves neutral?
I don't believe one can take a neutral stance when it comes to genocide.

I know this place is an escape for a lot of us, and It's not my intention to bring politics into it, but human rights is not and should never be a political issue.

And if what I'm saying is news to you, plz take some time out of your day to learn about the occupation in Palestine and not just what's happened in the past few weeks, but what's been going on for years and years.

Anyways, I guess what I'm trying to say is free Palestine
❤️🖤🤍💚