Chapter 68: Codename: Aconite Chapter Eighteen

“Would you like some more food, sweetheart?” asks my grandmother with an encouraging smile.

“If I eat anymore, I’m going to be sick,” I groan, rubbing my engorged stomach.

“Don’t be ridiculous. A growing woman like you who is still healing needs lots of food. You need your energy,” she coaxes me while scooping more food onto my plate.

“For heaven’s sake, Viridis, stop force-feeding the poor girl. She’s clearly full,” says my grandfather in exasperation. I mouth a ‘thank you’ to him while my grandmother glares in his direction.

“Mamma, I think she’s had enough,” adds my mother, while my father sips his drink to stay out of the conversation.

“I’m just trying to take care of my granddaughter. Look at her, she’s skin and bones and healing from near-fatal wounds,” grandmother protests, flopping back down into her seat at the table.

She and my mother go back and forth discussing my eating habits and my overall health while I sit back in my chair and enjoy the soothing warm breeze of the midday air while the sun refracts light off the shimmering surface of my parent’s 15-metre pool. Its tranquil waters are calling out to me, begging me to dive in, but I can just hear the protests if I even so much as dip a toe in.

“This is why we came here; you’re being too lenient with her. She’s too stubborn to take care of herself properly, you have to be more forceful,” says my grandmother with authority.

“Excuse me?” I exclaim incredulously, staring across the table at my grandmother. “That’s why you came to Greece instead of us visiting you in Italy? You wanted to baby me?!” I shriek.

“I told you this would happen,” my father mumbles, earning an elbow from my mother.

“Dasha, you’re lucky to be alive. Your wounds were very nasty. We didn’t think getting on a plane was a good idea for you right now. It was much easier for us to come here than for you to come to us. Besides, we realised we hadn’t visited Greece in quite a while, so it really was a win/win,” says grandmother offhandedly.

I stare at the woman in bewilderment. You probably think my grandmother is just a sweet, over-protective old lady, and to that, I laugh. Grandma Viridis is more infamously known by the codename Oculus, so named because she enjoyed killing people by gouging out their eyes and keeping them as a memento before she retired. She’s 78 and stands at 5’6” with shoulder-length pure white voluminous hair that she keeps combed to the side. Her skin is still a medium olive tone with slight liver spots around the edges of her face, with the harsh signs of age creating jowls along the edges of her mouth. Her eyes are a deep dark, brown, almost as dark as her soul with perfectly styled dyed black eyebrows. She’s a very fashionable 78-year-old, wearing a low-cut taupe jumpsuit with black lapels showcasing her evil eye tattoo across her chest while obscuring the talisman tattoos around her wrists. She’s not your typical granny, and if the tattoos didn’t give it away then the black lace choker around her neck and dagger pendant resting against her sternum might just clue you in.

Yes, my grandmother has baked me cookies, sung me songs and read me stories, but she’s also opened up a can of whoop-ass on me on more than one occasion. I’ll still never understand how such a normal man as my grandfather ever fell in love with her. They’re such opposites! He’s kind and gentle and reserved, while she’s a cold-blooded killer who would pick a fight with your dead grandmother just to make a point. But the two are madly in love, so who am I to question how it happened?

Regardless, I can’t believe she flew all this way to aid my mother in treating me like a fucking invalid!

“I’m not a baby. It’s a dangerous profession, everyone at this table knows that, and we’ve all had our close calls,” I say before throwing grandfather a kind smile. “Except you, of course.” He gives me a warm smile in return. “Why is everyone suddenly acting like I’m an invalid who is at death’s door? I’m surprised you even let me come over for lunch. What if I damaged my shoulder while driving?” I gasp dramatically. “And are you sure we should be eating outside by the pool? What if I suddenly choke on perfectly good air and then stumble into the pool and drown due to my extreme ineptitude?” This makes my father snigger into his glass.

“I warned you she’d be like this. She’s too much like you, Noemi,” says my father in amusement.

Mother scowls at my father before turning her attention to me. “I’m just trying to look after you. Can you imagine how I feel seeing my baby return home, shot, beaten and nearly decapitated?” she says with a quiver in her voice.

“My head is still very much attached to my body and I’m perfectly fine. My shoulder is healing great, my head is healing great, and a well-placed scarf does a world of good. You raised me to be in this life, so you shouldn’t be surprised when sometimes there are violent side effects. It’s like being shocked your microwave exploded when you put a can in it,” I say in frustration.

“Don’t get snippy with us, Dasha, we are only trying to look out for you. Your parents were extremely worried, as was I. After all, it was quite the story. Evading one assassin only to end up in the clutches of another. That’s beyond coincidence,” says Grandmother suspiciously.

I sigh and scrub my hands down my face. It’s been a month since the events in Russia, and for the most part, I have been taking it easy just as I promised Uncle Vsevolod. Though I think you’ve gathered by now I couldn’t have done much else even if I wanted to. My parents took one look at me and couldn’t stop fussing over me. They were taking care of me day and night for five straight days before I lost my cool and kicked them out of my apartment. I love them to death, but they were smothering me, and I needed my space. But then they called in reinforcements in the form of Hurricane Viridis.

I’ve managed to get them to give me some space, which I needed so I could get some work done without everyone hovering over my shoulder. While I’ve been healing from my injuries I’ve been cultivating some new killer cocktails, and utilising every connection I have to dig into Armand Aguilar, and you know what I’ve found out? Not a fucking thing. The man is squeaky fucking clean. Even my neighbours aren’t that clean, and all they do is run a bakery. No one is that clean, especially not if they’re willing to hire an assassin to commit murder. If anything, his clean record was a giant red flag as opposed to something to dismiss. This tells me he’s gone to great lengths to bury his background, and you only do that if you have something terrible to hide, or you’re hiding from someone who wants you dead twenty different ways.

On top of this, I learned that the man who attacked me in my hotel room was also an assassin, Codename: Piano Man, and I think you can figure out why. As Grandmother said, ending up in the crosshairs of not just one, but two assassins is virtually unheard of, and I suppose when you look at it like that, I’m lucky to be alive. But still, this is the life I was raised in, and this is the life I chose just like the women who came before me. They need to stop fussing and just let me do my job. I mean, would they still be fretting this much if I sustained all these injuries during the Tournament? Okay, probably, but it still wouldn’t change anything.

“I appreciate the worry and concern for my wellbeing but smothering me and treating me like a helpless child doesn’t make me heal faster nor does it help me in figuring out just how this all came about. So, if you would like to be of help to me, rein it in and help me find out more about my former client,” I say, rising to my feet and grabbing my jacket from the back of my chair, slipping it on and untucking my hair as I feel a strain in my shoulder and neck. Yes, things still hurt and ache, and some movements hurt more than others, but I usually just tune it out. Especially around my guardian assassins.

“You’re leaving?” asks my father.

“I have had a lovely lunch, but yes, I have to get home and get back to work,” I walk over and kiss my father’s cheek, and feel him affectionately cup the back of my head and kiss my cheek. My mother hugs me and kisses my other cheek as I kiss hers. I quickly hug my grandfather who hugs me back tightly and then I hug my grandmother, who stubbornly ignores me. I sigh. “Ti voglio bene, nonna.”