My Mafia Madness

Chapter 19 - The Reaper

Both Alexa and Nicola were currently sitting on opposite ends of the long white sofa. The room was filled with an uneasy silence as they did their best to try and ignore the other.

After doing it for almost ten minutes, Alexa had enough of the awkwardness and decided to get a conversation going between the two of them.

She wanted to know a little bit more about Nicola and the place they were in. Call her curious.

Shuffling herself in closer towards him, she watched as his eyes followed her with each of her movements, as if he were afraid of being anywhere near her.

"I don't bite, you know?" she suddenly broke through the silence with a kind smile.

He did not reply to her attempt to bait him, instead he reached into his jacket pocket and grasped at something.

"So why don't you tell me a little about yourself, Nicola?"

She surprised him with her forwardness all of a sudden.

He frowned at the suggestion.

"What do you want to know, Miss Myers?" he asked cautiously.

She shrugged as she replied.

"I don't know. Anything I guess... and please, call me Alexa. Miss Myers is so formal."

He appeared to take her request on board before he finally turned his body around to face her a little more.

"I mean, what do you do for work?" she asked, seemingly interested in what he had to say.

"Like, what's your job description here?"

Now it was his turn to shrug.

"I do a little bit of this and that. I'm Dante's second-in-command, so I usually just maintain control of the other staff and their workloads. Nothing too exciting I'm afraid."

As Nicola began to play with something in front of him, Alexa suddenly noticed the concealed weapon that he was currently twirling quite skillfully between his large fingers. He was actually quite good at it!

"Is that your knife?" she asked him.

He only now appeared to notice that he had been playing with it in front of her, as he glanced down to see it in his hands.

A guilty expression suddenly washed over his face, and just as quickly, the expression had disappeared once more.

"Uh, yeah. It's one of my favourites, actually." he admitted shyly. "It's called a nine-inch Punisher Skull Stiletto Tactical Spring Open Assisted Pocket Folding Knife..." he paused nodding proudly.

"Wow, that's certainly a mouthful, isn't it?" she teased, her brows furrowed in jest. "Kinda just rolls off the tongue, doesn't it?"

He appeared to smile at her joke.

"And you use this knife for..."

His expression suddenly changed, becoming much darker.

"Believe me when I tell you, piccolo... (little one) you really don't want to know."

"You've called me that before. Piccolo. What does it mean? It's Italian, right?" she asked.

"It means 'little one' in your language." he replied with a smirk.

"Right... because I'm so small?"

"Compared to me you are." he mused.

She merely smiled back at him and the cute little nickname he had for her. She liked it.