Sᴇᴘᴛᴇᴍʙᴇʀ 22. 2024.
Around midnight, Petro Moskal's personal mobile starts to ring. The man who's still in his office, proofreading some paperwork, snatches up the annoying device then takes a good look at the caller's ID. Immediately, a smile breaks across his face and he answers excitedly, "Alessia!"
"Petro," comes a daft sound that's supposed to be Alessia's voice, "the man is dead."
He sits up quickly, holding the phone tightly to his ear with a frown, "Who?"
"T–The man—the politician—." She stutters. She's rather in a daze of her own at the moment.
"What?! How?!" He gasps, grasping the chair arm with his free hand.
She proceeds to explain what she can, "I'm not sure..." I'm not sure? He has never heard that from her before, but he listens anyway, "I arrived at the given time. He was supposed to be ready for me to escort him to his meeting, but instead, I found him lying in a pool of blood. I checked his pulse and there was nothing. He had a bullet to his throat."
Petro screws up his face in disbelief. That meeting she speaks of had already passed. What does she mean she arrived at the given time when she's calling him about it after midnight? This is ridiculous. Utterly ridiculous! "What time was given to you, Alessia?" His accent seems thicker in that one question and she exhales.
"Nine." She tells him.
"Check the email, Alessia..."
She hesitates at the dullness of his request. "It says here..." She trails off, opening the email she had received from him during the day. Once she's ready to speak again, her breath hitches in her throat, "Wait..." She whispers in realization, "Oh my Gosh..."
He doesn't need her to say a thing. He knows the answer already. She had made, yet, another mistake. The email says six o'clock, not nine. She was three hours late to her job. These mistakes have gotten out of hand. It has gone too far now. An important client is dead! "Alexa!" The girl almost drops her smartphone, startled by the sudden shout that emits from the speaker. Wasn't he talking to her calmly a second ago? "What the actual fuck?!" He is bewildered. "What has been going on with you?! Is it going to become a habit now to make mistakes, because I'm sure I did not train you to make mistakes—!"
The line goes dead in his ear. Slowly, he puts the phone on the desk, but in an instant, is overcome by his anger and he swipes his work, and a cup of pens to the floor. Then, he runs his hands through his hair, blowing heavily through his mouth. What's happening to her? Is it school? Is she hiding some secret that is making her unstable? Faye-ann was perfect. Why can't Alessia just be perfect too? He had trained her to be perfect, so what is the problem now? She was perfect.
• • •
Alessia wipes away angry tears from her face messily after pulling off her gloves. She's crying over things she can't control and things she wishes not to be so painful anymore whenever she remembers it. How can she escape the grasps of this despicable, tortured man?
Silently, she jumps into her car after stargazing in a remote area ways away from the City. Now, she wants to get her mind off of everything—to not dwell on it. She isn't ready to go home. Tonight has been the worst. She has learnt things that Petro surely wouldn't want her to know. His daughter, his plans, his madness... Everything is overwhelming and she wants release. She doesn't want to be angry anymore.
She slows down as she drives into the forest of skyscrapers, pulling into the nearest clothes store she can find as soon as possible. Walking in, she's barefooted and laced in leather. She quickly finds something her size, appealing and buys it. A sexy, black, sequined dress, with no back and drapes at her small bosom. Then, she adorns a pair of strapped black sandals and leaves for the club barefaced.