Page 18 of Little Sparrow

“Yes, I know,” I tell him, clenching the phone in my hand.

“I know you don’t like killing, but you’re a Barelli. That means something here. Kill whoever has it. If it’s a woman who owns it, just bring her back here. Your father was right in that you needed to be able to kill people. He was wrong to force it when you weren't ready as long as you follow the rules. We won’t go your father's route with torture.”

I hold in my sigh and look around, noises come from one of the doors and I get an idea.

“Keep me updated when you find out more, have your hackers looked on the dark web? It might be on there?” Then I hang up, I know he will do what I say. He is just as anxious as I am about getting it in anyone's hands. I slide my phone back into my pocket and stalk up to Rose’s neighbour's brown door, I knock three times and wait. Voices mutter from inside, through the door I hear a faint male voice, “Who is it?”

“I need to ask some questions about Rose,” I call out, my hands starting to sweat. People who fear repercussions tend not to speak to the police, I’m hoping that is what happened with them.

“We have already spoken to the police,” the male voice on the other side calls out. I sigh and rest my hand against the doorframe.

“I’m not the police, I'm a private investigator,” I lie. Remembering my thoughts from earlier about the man I had seen. Rose was a nice girl, her father must have raised her that way, meaning he was a decent guy. A neighbour would want to help find a killer, some police are compromised, but a PI, they don’t take shit from anyone.

There is silence before the door opens two inches, and a short older man is on the other side. He takes a breath. “There is nothing we can tell you, we weren't home that night. We couldn’t have seen or heard anything.” He tells me. I deflate, my fist clutching onto the sketchpad harder in frustration. Before I can say anything else, the man closes the door in my face while muttering an apology.

I run my hand through my hair, hopelessness beginning to settle over me.

The lock beeps on my hotel room door as the key card swipes through. The heavy door slams behind me, I do the only thing I can think of. Social media. Now that I know Rose’s last name, I might find something others can’t. I scroll through everything. Pictures of her and friends. Places she had been tagged in recently, background searches of people she was seen with most. With limited hacking software, I scour the internet, every deep part of her life I could find.

She had already told me some things, like the party, although there is not much about the car crash she had been in except a newspaper article and how lucky everyone had been. It was a drunk driver.

I couldn’t find pictures of her absent mother or anyone she could have been associated with. It's as though she had been scraped from existence. No vengeful person would have come after them. I try hacking into Rose’s accounts, but once I got in, there was nothing suspicious. Shewas just a normal teenage girl with no real enemies.

Nothing made sense. She just vanished into thin air.

Part two

Two years later

Thosewhocanmakeyou believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.

-Voltaire

Chapter fifteen

Rose

Calabria, Italy

Mytargetishere.I can sense him. Leonardo has spoken about him and says that he needs answers, but Matteo Mancini is being difficult. They have commanded me to seduce him and get inside his mind, but I don’t need to seduce; I haven’t for a long time.

I had to learn how to control my deadly touch so I can enter and manipulate minds instead of completely killing him, but the taste of a soul that is terrified is delicious. I can’t help myself sometimes but take more. During my training I took a few souls in the beginning, the others who stayed alive started imagining things. Seeing me in every corner of a room even though I wasn’t anywhere close. Screaming in the dungeons, I could even hear them when I wandered around the gardens. Two of my surviving victims took their lives in fear that I would come for them, making them suffer even more if I got my hands on them again.

Leonardo is part of the N’drangheta, he’s the Don of the Italian Mafia in Calabria. His soldiers guard me at all times to stay safe from others who want to take me and kill me, just like my Dad had said. I almost got one of the soldiers killed by seducing him, hoping to take something I crave. Leo taught me I need to stay a virgin or an overwhelming hunger will come over me, and without a sustainable ‘feeding’ source, I will die. No one would dare come near me anymore knowing this, knowing I will kill them.

So here I am, doing his bidding. The only father figure I have is my boss. I never wanted to work for him, but I had nowhere else. He said if I’m good, then he will take me to my mother. He described her very well and even mentioned her by name a few times in passing. Getting my hopes up as though she will be joining us for dinner sometime when I wouldn’t be eating alone in my room. He stated that they were old friends that he helped go into hiding and she will have to stay that way until it is safe, until I’m trained so I can’t hurt her. I can’t risk it, I don’t want to hurt her by accident.

During my training, I saw more of the estate he owned. It’s beautiful here with the huge gardens full of flowers, but I miss the chaotic streets at home. The quiet here can be suffocating when noise sounds like home. I miss the way my dad would make me breakfast in the mornings, I wish I had more time with him to ask questions about my life and why hadn’t he told me all these things about myself or even who my real father is. I shouldn’t care who my real dad is but it plays on my mind often. Have I met him before and not known? Does he know I exist and just wanted nothing to do with me? Leo made sure I knew that he wasn’t my real dad, so I ruled him out over a year ago.

Leo has people come in to teach me to fight to keep safe but only enough to get close to the people to kill, to get inside their heads. I haven’t had to yet. They are always easy to get to. When I touch them, it feels like I’m taking part of their life away and some, by accident; I did. Delicious screams filled my mind as I burned my way through theirs, collecting their memories to help Leo get what he wants, to be King. Take everything he believes is his all over the country, maybe even further. I’ve learned that he wishes to expand more across the world. He tells me he is close, but we must be careful.

The happier he is, the better I’m treated. Even my collar is off now, although they all wear rings with an amulet inside for protection. The same amulet I had worn for the two years I’ve been here.

He kept me in this small dark room for months, chained to the wall. Maria and one of the guards would punish me if I didn’t do as they said. Sometimes they would starve me, and sometimes they wouldn’t even allow me to shower, sitting in my own filthy clothes for days. The guards never left the outside of my door. I still have two, on rotation. It’s better than the four I had last year. No matter how much I try to flirt to get something I want, they never relent. My room is bigger, but every night I’m locked in. I’m still that prisoner, just in a nicer cell.

My only reprieve now is my friendship with one of the guards, Gabriele. He doesn’t seem much older than me, he is loyal to Leo. But I think it’s because he has been around this family so long, it’s what he feels like he has to do. He does seem lonely, maybe that's why we get along so well.

The massive four poster bed in the centre of my room has a very comfortable mattress and plump pillows that ease me into a deep sleep every night. My wardrobe is full of dark clothes now, I’m used to not having colours anymore and I know I definitely will never wear white ever again. Or red.

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