Notes: Apologies for the lack of updates. Life is a wreck. :c

Warnings: Murder, angst and thoughts of suicide.

Chapter 9: Alone

"A little girl that wants to be loved... Non è sbagliato. (He isn't wrong.) But it is too late for that, even if only to protect anyone that would ever love me. He always takes them away..." Hollie mumbled to herself and vacantly looked down at the bustling streets of Manhattan through the window. Maybe there was a time that she was naïve enough to think that someone might find it in their heart to accept her. Maybe. Stark was right about one thing though, her heart may not be bulletproof, but it was certainly solid steel.

Hollie learned early on not to let emotion cloud her judgment, even if meant that sometimes it was easier to just feel nothing at all. She never regretted what she did, though she knew it was the devil's work. She didn't have a choice, so why bother with guilt?

Well, that isn't right. There was always the guilt after that one time; it just missed the mark a bit.

A young Italian woman sat alone at a small bistro table outside of an unassuming cafe in Florence, on a temperate spring day. She was a lithe creature with a slender frame and waist-length brunette hair. Though, her beautiful face was marred by a jagged scar on her left cheek.

She took a sip of an iced coffee and watched as a businessman with a short, stocky build entered the cafe, his formal black suit in stark contrast to the casual atmosphere and bright colors. The young woman absently smoothed a few wrinkles out of her pale yellow dress and watched the door. Assunta Antonelli may have been one of the Italian Mafia's best, even at such a young age, but the sixteen-year-old girl in the little yellow dress certainly did not look the part of a trained killer. Which may, in fact, have been her most deadly weapon.

After a few moments, the man came back with a coffee in a Styrofoam cup and nonchalantly took the seat across from her.

"Per questo motivo egli ha inviato? (Why has he sent you?)" He asked, his voice heavy with a Sicilian accent. She only smiled, wistfully as he took a long drink of his coffee.

"Addio." She said cheerfully and stood with the grace of a woman twice her age. "For the betrayal of our mutual friend, your punishment is death." The man gaped at her, but couldn't reply as he clutched at his stomach and fell, twitching from his chair. The woman didn't even look at him as she strolled away, with a smirk.

"I will see you in hell, Assunta!" He managed to gag, just as a crowd began gathering.

"Cyanide. Troppo tardi. (Too late.)" She mumbled without stopping as she walked away. He twitched once more and went limp. The crowd paid her no mind as she disappeared among them... And managed to sneak back into her high school classroom without anyone even noticing she'd left.

She fidgeted uncomfortably in the cheap plastic chair, and watched the clock on the wall as the teacher rambled on about the Renaissance period of Italy's history. Assunta didn't care. Dante was proud of his heritage, and every day was some other bit of nonsense about those years. How many sculptures and paintings had he made her steal for his little collection at his mansion? She'd lost count years ago. The only one that really excited her was the Michelangelo, and that was only because it had been such a difficult job.

Eventually the bell rang, and the class filed out of the room, another young girl with inky black hair and bouncing curls was instantly at Assunta's heels.

"Assunta! Assunta! You should come by my place later! You like art, right? Papa just bought a lovely Renaissance era statue for the collection. It is Venus from the Greek myths." She said excitedly.

"Your Papa also said you should stay away from me." Assunta said blankly.

"Because you are an orphan; he is superstitious and thinks I will catch your bad luck or something. It's silly. Please come over!" She chatted, and tripped on the edge of her long powder blue skirt as she struggled to keep up with Assunta's brisk pace.

"No, Maria. I can't. I have work to do." Assunta said. "Tomorrow?"

"Yes tomorrow!" Maria agreed and waved goodbye as they parted ways outside of the school building.

Tomorrow, as it happened, was the last day that Maria ever spoke to Assunta.

"My Papa... He is dead." Maria cried, resting her face on her knees where she was curled up on one of the benches outside the school the next morning.

"He... What happened?" Assunta asked, genuinely surprised, as she placed a hand comfortingly on Maria's shoulder. She shrugged it off and glared at Assunta with a pure hatred that she had never before seen in the cheerful young woman's eyes.

"He went for a business meeting yesterday, and someone poisoned his coffee! He was Mafia, and he made a mistake... but... the boss said that it was you, that you are one of theirs. That you... killed him." Assunta shook her head, and backed up a few paces.

How could that be?

"I swear to you, I-"

"No! Never speak to me again! You killed my Papa! You are a monster! He was right to tell you to stay away! I hate you!" She shouted and ran into the building. Assunta stood there, dumbstruck. At least, no one had heard her, or it could have been a horrible situation. ...Not that it wasn't already.

Assunta hated Dante, she always had. He allowed her comfort – a luxury apartment in the city, and anything she asked for including everything from designer clothing to priceless jewelry. But whenever she seemed to stray from his projected path – she was punished.

Horribly.

The man she killed probably hadn't betrayed their clan at all. No, Assunta knew Dante had made her kill him to drive a wedge between her and the only real friend she'd ever had. Filled with hatred, she turned around and had her limo driver take her to Dante's restaurant. She'd apply for a new school in the morning. She could never face Maria again.

"You! Why would you make me do this?" Assunta demanded as she threw open the oak doors leading into his office without even knocking. She balled her hands into fists as the bald-headed giant of a man glared daggers at her, and curled his lips that were full of a reeking cigar into a sneer. Assunta held her ground; she was not intimidated easily. Those days were gone. She could kill Dante fifty different ways with her little finger, if only she wouldn't be hunted for the rest of her life – and he knew it.

"Because you are forgetting who you are." He snapped. "You hunt alone. You kill alone. There can be no strings for others to pull to weaken you. You must detach yourself from them. You forgot this, and I reminded you."

"For seven years we have been like sisters, and now you do this?" Assunta spat.

"True, but it is not done. Tonight you will murder Maria Uglione." Dante said flatly. Assunta shook her head in horror. "If you refuse or fail to carry out this task, you will not only face execution yourself, but I will make both of you watch as my men kill her entire family. Then, you will watch as I strangle her to death with my bare hands before I deal with you."

"I understand." Assunta said miserably and left.

That night, she made short work of breaking into in the Uglione family's mansion. Assunta hesitated for only a second as she stood over the sleeping form of Maria.

"Goodbye, my friend. I would rather take one life than be responsible for many." She whispered and injected her with a poison. She would die painlessly, and to anyone else it would seem that she died peacefully in her sleep. When Assunta was back in her apartment, she cried. Cried for the first time since the night of her first murder and honestly contemplated taking her own life as penance for the horrors. Maria had done nothing – nothing but see Assunta as a person and not a monster. She didn't deserve that fate.

...Neither did her family.

When Assunta woke the following morning, there was a newspaper left on her kitchenette counter with a note from Dante.

"Never talk back to me again, Cari (dear)." It said. Assunta wanted to die when she saw the headline. The entire Uglione family (Maria's mother, two younger sisters and older brother) had been murdered in the night, and their art collection stolen. With tears in her eyes, Assunta balled up the paper and threw it out a window in rage.

It was then that Assunta decided that Dante had to die, by any means possible. The problem with it, was that he realized it too. She never saw him again, not in person. He only sent his men or used dead drops to give her jobs. He knew her methods well enough to hide from her, but keep her where he wanted her at the same time.

...For a while, anyway.

He would live to regret the day he turned an innocent child into a soulless killing machine. Assunta would make certain of that.