"Natasha?" she repeated in disbelief.
"Yes. Hmm... She was a remarkable one, OCD, annoying, psychopathic maybe, and had an undeniably terrible personality and character. But if there was anything that made up for all of that, it was her skills in bed"
She rolled her eyes for the millionth time.
'Già non mi piace [I already dislike her]'
"Oh really?" She asked in a bored and sarcastic tone.
He leaned forward and rested on his arms.
"Is that jealousy I hear?" "Your hearing is impaired. I don't see why I should be jealous of 'Miss. Special' "
"You have a thing for nicknaming people. I wonder what you named me"
"Signor testa arrogante" "Now what does that mean?"
She smirked slyly. "You'll have to figure that out by yourself," she said and wiped her mouth with a tissue.
"All done?"
She nodded.
They both stood up and walked out of the store.
As they walked down the streets, they began talking personally.
"Seems like you know this city very well" he commented after she told him a few of her adventures in Los Angeles.
"I stayed here for a few years once" "Why, wanted a change of location?"
"Nah! My Dad made a very important decision regarding my life, and neither did he ask for my opinion about it, nor did he give me a chance to change it, I got pissed and came to Los Angeles to clear my mind"
"That must have been a really tough fight for you to have left him, seeing as you nearly gouged my eyes out when I hit him"
"It was. Even though I knew he did all that because he cared about me, I was still angry at him for years, until I overcame it and came back to New York"
He instinctively took her hand in his as they began walking again.
"What exactly did you do for a living?"
"I was an assassin. Wasn't it obvious when you found out the truth about me"
"I mean aside from that. Didn't you have another source of making money?"
"Nah! I was either trying to steal something, kill someone, or lay low after I've played yet another powerful guy" she replied in a sort of cocky tone.
The sky cackled again, preceded by a quick strip of lightning.
"It's going to rain again. We better take cover" Don warned.
She studied the sky and then turned to him.
"Follow me, let me show you something," she said and began walking before he could answer.
He followed her through reluctant until they came up to an elegant-looking apartment.
"Where are we?" "My house. The one I was living in while I was here" she answered as she inputted the passcode into a security device on the door.
They entered once the door swung open, and slammed it shut behind them.
It was dark and quiet, not until she flicked the lights on and yelled, "Home sweet home!" as she dramatically fell on one of the sofas.
"Nice interior" he complimented, "Thanks. One of my targets did it"
"I'm guessing he paid for this house as well"
"He did, and gave it to me as a gift"
His eyes swept to a giant portrait hanging on the wall.
It was of a very beautiful woman, portrayed as an angel.
She had a crown of yellow dahlias on her head, doves on her shoulders, and one on her finger, and had a smile so bright that the sun would be jealous.
He stepped closer to it and on the bottom saw a unique signature of the initials 'A. G'.
'Did she paint this?'
"Come on, Ace. Up here" she called and pointed up a staircase.
He followed her until they came to a room at the far end of the hallway.
She entered another passcode for the door to open and allowed them in.
As expected, darkness greeted them as they entered. She switched on the lights, and he stared around in shock.
"Earlier, you asked me what I did for a living, well here it is... I'm an artist" she said stretching her arm to show the sea of canvases, some white and untouched, some already made into an artwork.
Blotches of paint decorating the ground, the walls colored with different shades, paint brushes lying around...
"Wow!" was all he could say in shock.
The same spitfire that had tried to kill him had the peaceful and calm mind of an artist?
One thing he couldn't deny from all the artworks was that they were all magnificent and beautiful, all in their own theme.
There were ones of landscapes, sunsets, sunrise, wildlife, flowers, the night sky, oceans,
Ones of people he could and could not make out. There was one of her dad and all his expressions, one of her friends Zara in her meek and sweet aura, one of her friend Elizabeth in her sassy persona, one of the same woman whose portrait he saw in the living room.
He wondered if that was her Mother.
He saw other ones with dark depressing themes.
One looked like twins in stickman form, with blonde hair, one long, one short., drawn as devils, or rather something evil.
He saw this duo in a couple of other portraits; one where they were standing with some other people, encircling someone with black hair in the middle.
Another one showed a black-haired stickman being tormented by phantoms, another showed the same character lying on the ground with red tablets scattered beside them.
He was slowly deciphering the meaning of all these portraits.
He moved to another and found this character sitting head between the knees in the midst of dead bodies. Red streaks of paint signified blood all round this stickman, as they sat confused.
Another showed this same character surrounded by pills, tablets and syringes, and being comforted by an angel after having taken them
He was so engrossed in the deep meaning of all these artworks that he didn't even notice when she came and stood beside him.
"You drew all this?"
She nodded in affirmation.
He lifted his hand to touch the painting, and could almost feel the dread and despair wafting off the painting, as if he could feel her emotions when she painted them.
He turned and saw another painting of the woman he had seen countlessly in her paintings.
"She is beautiful" he remarked. "Who is she? You seem obsessed with her"
"I can't remember when love or the longing feeling to be with someone became obsession... I called her my angelo"
"Angel?" "Yes. When she was alive, she would tell me all about angels, fairies and all the sort" she began and sat on a three seater, twisting the ring around her finger under the lights as she stared at it as though reading something in it.
"I can't imagine you believing in fictional creatures" he sneered.
"I did as a child, because she was as nice, sweet and kind as she said they were that I even thought she was one of them.
When she died, I lost belief in all those things because I didn't find one person half as nice as she was"
He took another glance at the picture.
"You look just like her though, you should also share similarity in character as well"
"In case you don't know, that's how it's supposed to be between a mother and child. As for character, I took my dad's. I wasn't as gentle and patient as she was. Unlike me, she has never even as much as injured someone, talk less of torturing and killing people" she snorted.
There was a long pause as the wind howled.
"What about these?"
She frowned on seeing him pointing to the dark paintings.
"Who are these?"