The first thing I felt was a bone-numbing cold. My entire body felt positively steeped in it. Next, I realized that I was wrapped tightly in some sort of thick fabric. I smelled strong perfume, silk, and the unmistakable scent of sex.

Where was I? What was happening? It was dim, the only light coming from the crack under a door off to my right. I felt stifled and constrained, like a corpse in a burial shroud. I flailed off the bed and stood, kicking away what I assumed was a woolen blanket. It was then that I realized two things: my body was throbbing with intense pain, and I was naked.

There was nothing on my body except for some linen cloth wrapped around my midsection. When I put my fingers to it, they came away sticky with my blood. I could feel cool air on my bare skin, and I shivered.

I began to remember bits of what had happened to me. I had been wounded… somehow. A word, bullet, came to mind, but I wasn't sure what it meant. Then those men had tried to rape me, I had passed out, and woken up looking at… Ezio. Somehow, he felt important. I shook my head back and forth. I had followed him, sure that I was supposed to stay by his side. After that, it all got a bit fuzzy.

Where was he? I wondered. I listened, but I couldn't hear the rich timbre of his voice anywhere close by. Instead, I heard feminine giggles and moans, male gasps, grunts, and deep, arrogant chuckles. I was in some sort of brothel, I surmised.

As my eyes adjusted to the low light, I examined my surroundings. I was in a small, rather plain bedroom. There was a bed, mussed from me sleeping in it, a small dresser which I discovered was mostly empty, and a side table with a few items on it. The dresser only had a couple of large, flowy men's tunics in it, no belts with them. I picked the one that had far less smell and slipped it on. It appeared to be a dark blue, and it dwarfed me, reaching the bottoms of my knees and nearly exposing my nipples with every breath, but it was better than no clothes at all. On the side table, I found a bowl with cold, bloody water in it and a soiled rag that had probably been used to wash out the hole I could feel burning in my midsection. I felt my way around the walls and located a window, but it had no latch or means of opening it, and it was firmly anchored into the wall. There was no way of escape there. I pulled back the curtains, however, and a little more light came in, revealing that dawn was close by.

I examined the entire room carefully, but my hidden blades were nowhere to be found. A crawling sensation began in between my shoulder blades. Was I being held as a prisoner? The one door in the room appeared to be latched shut from the outside.

If this was a prison, it seemed a fairly strange one. Who would hold someone in a whorehouse? And why had they taken my clothes?

I heard footsteps approaching the door and quickly stepped behind it to conceal myself. There was nothing in the room I could really use as a weapon, aside from strangling someone with my bedsheets. Besides, I wanted to see if they posed a threat to me before I killed anyone.

The door swung open slowly, accompanied by the sound of feminine humming. A young woman in a very revealing dress stepped through, carrying some sort of tray. Before she could close the door behind her or notice that I wasn't in the bed, I got her in a sleeper hold and gently rode her down to the floor, my eyes turned to the open door. No one was in sight, so I examined the contents of her tray, now somewhat scattered on the floor. There was a clay jug of water, a small loaf of bread, a hunk of cheese, and an apple. My stomach chose that very moment to remind me that it was empty, so I quickly scarfed down half of everything and downed a good portion of the water. I had no pockets or way of carrying the rest of it, so I left it in the room. The girl was still breathing steadily, but I knew she would come around soon, so I slipped out of the room and latched the door behind me, intent on escaping the building before anyone knew what had happened.

I stuck to the shadows as I crept through the brothel, using every sense to avoid detection. There were very few people moving around due to the early hour, and I cursed my luck. It would have been easier to get out during the night, when a house of ill repute was bound to be busy.

I found only one door, all the windows having been built like the one in the room I had woken up in. As I moved eagerly toward it, however, a woman stepped in front of it, holding my hidden blades in one hand casually.

She was tall, dark-haired and statuesque. To most observers, she would simply look like a beautiful mistress in a dark red dress, but I sensed it. She was deadly, like a coiled spring. No amount of lace or makeup could hide it from me. I stood as tall as I was able and looked her straight in the eyes.

"̕E cos̕i che ripaghi la mia ospitalita̕?" She looked almost amused, but I knew she was waiting for me to make a move, any move. I eyed my weapons in her hand, feeling naked without them. She noticed the trajectory of my gaze and held them a bit higher, not quite offering them to me. It was as if she was trying to offer a treat to an unruly horse.

I was irritated with this entire situation. Who was this woman? Why had she locked me in a room and taken my weapons? Another wave of cold assaulted me, and my teeth chattered silently. Her eyes narrowed shrewdly, and she stepped towards me. A mistake.

In my pained state, I was bound to see any action on her part as threatening. I fought past the pain and cold and launched myself at her, determined to get out any way I could. I needed to find Ezio.

Translations:

̕E cos̕i che ripaghi la mia ospitalita̕? – This is how you repay my hospitality?