Author's note: I heart the mafia. I really, really do.

Giovanni groans, his eyes slowly flickering open, instantly becoming aware of the throbbing pain in his temple and the bitter taste of cloth in his mouth. Only after feeling the pain does he realize, though his eyes are open, he sees nothing. He feels his heart rate jump, quickly becoming worried when he realizes not only can he not see, he can’t move. He is stuck in a sitting position, unable to move either his hands or feet. With the cold bite of metal on his wrists, he begins realizes that he is truly in trouble, as he recognizes his predicament. He has bore witness, and even been the cause of it enough times before. He was sitting in a chair, hand cuffed, blindfolded, gagged, and although he could not see to confirm it, he was positive his chair was bolted to the ground.

He forces himself to be calm, and starts attempts to remember, through the pulsing of his skull, what had brought him to his point. Slowly, he begins to remember. He was on a simple job, just collections, nothing big. Nothing was supposed to go wrong, and nothing should have. Then Tony just apologized, out of nowhere, and...nothing. Well, nothing but pain to the side of his head. Giovanni realizes that he must have been set up. But by who and for what? Tony wouldn’t have betrayed the family because there had too much at stake, and he didn’t think he was high enough up on the ladder for a hit. Besides, if there was a hit to be taken out now, it would not be him, but the Don...

“I’m very disappointed in you, Giovanni.” A soft, yet very cold voice cuts through his confusion and pain like a knife. The voice of the very person he had just been thinking about. He relaxes, thinking for a moment that he had been saved, until the Don continues to speak, “Or should I say, Officer Jonathan Milano?” His heart, and his hope, plummets when he hears the name that he had left behind. It was so strange to hear it, after effectively being someone else for so long. But, how could he have been found out? There is no way he blew his cover. He feels his blindfold be removed, and his eyes meet those of the person who now holds his life in her hands.

The new Don of his family. No, he corrects himself, not his family. The new Don of the Abandonato family, the organization he was put here to infiltrate. Fiore Abandonato stands in front of his chair, just staring at him, her lips pressed into a thin line. Her black hair is long, and falls loose down her back. She was dressed in a pair of black jeans, and a long black leather coat. Under her coat, she wore a dark red tank top and on her feet was a pair of black, steel-toed boots. Fiore never was one for show when there was business to be done. On her hip, covered at the moment by her coat, was her handgun. Given to her on her twelfth birthday by her father, its black handle had vines and flowers of silver spiraling over it, and near identical ones of black lacing through the metal, the design denoting her name.

Fiore has hate in her deep brown eyes. Before her sat the man that threatened everything her family had worked for, everything she was working to maintain, everything her father had trusted her with. Now she was in charge, and she could finally do something about it. He had to be dealt with today; she would not have him threatening her already shaky image.

“I’m very disappointed in you, officer,” she repeats, spitting the last word as if it was curse. “Especially for not realizing you were in danger.” Giovanni just stares and her lips curl into an ironic smile, stepping a little closer to him. Fiore leans down so she is eye level and taps the side of her head with one finger, indicating. “Hurts, doesn’t it? It makes sense...you did get pistol-whipped in the temple, after all.” While Fiore spoke, she straightens up and reaches into a pocket in the lining of her coat, pulling out a neatly folded blade. She transfers it to the pocket of her jeans and removes her coat, beginning to speak again.

“I suppose you are curious of how you were found out and what I’m going to do about it.” She walks away from the man she knew for years as Giovanni, and hands her coat to a man standing near the door.

To Giovanni’s surprise, it was Tony standing guard. He stares at his partner, hoping he will stop whatever the young Don had planned. Though he and Tony did not associate too much in public, he knew the other officer almost always carried his service piece, and could easily put a bullet in Fiore’s skull, especially since they seemed to be alone. He then realizes Tony is not even looking in his direction, the other officer simply takes Fiore’s coat and resumes his staring at the wall. Fiore turns back around, a smile still in place on her pretty face. She notices the line of her captive’s gaze.

“No, no. Don’t get ahead of yourself. We will get to Antonio’s involvement in due time. Now, I’m going to use the last of the courtesy I can manage toward you and remove your gag. After all, I would like a few responses from you.” Fiore loosens his gag a little and pulls it down around his chin. She tilts her head slightly to one side, beginning to inspect her perfectly manicured and crimson polished nails, as if she was bored.

“What do you want?” Giovanni asks, his voice hoarse from lack of use and he wonders how long he was knocked out.

“You never liked me, did you? And just be honest, it’s a simple question of opinion. You’ve been around since I was a little girl. I was...seven, I believe, when I first started seeing you around. That was ten, almost eleven years ago now. But I could tell, even then, that you didn’t like me. So what was the problem all these years?” Giovanni just blinks and stares at her, before replying.

“I had the same problem then that I have now. You were a spoiled mafia princess. You still are.” Fiore’s smile fades as hand goes to the grip of the handgun on her hip, as if debating injuring him for that comment. But, the smile was only gone a moment.

“Yes, Giovanni. But I’m not exactly the princess anymore.” She replies. Giovanni scoffs, thinking what most involved in the underworld had been thinking. Ever since Fiore was old enough to understand, she had been trained by her father how to fight. Not only that, but she often sat in on his meetings. He had been molding her into a successor, and not only did most think she was too young to mange the Abandonato organization, but she also had critics because she was female. No one thought the old Don had been serious about his daughter inheriting his position, but he did leave it in his will, and Fiore instantly stepped up to defend her rightful place. The old man has planned ahead, knowing of his heart condition, and knowing not too many would be too happy about his teenage girl taking charge.

“Yeah, now you’re the Don, but that won’t last long,” his voice was soft as he spoke, but audible, unfortunately for him. Fiore pulls her gun from her hip, her lips again pressed into an angry line, and slams the back of it into the side of his face. Not his temple, though she would have loved to make his injuries match; she wanted him in pain, not knocked out.

“You never did know when to shut your fucking mouth.” With her free hand, she grabs a handful of his brown hair, pulling his head up and setting the barrel of her gun against his forehead. “I won’t last long, huh? No, not with shit like you infecting my family, and I’m going to remedy that now. I’m going to prove to my uncles and my cousins that my dad wasn’t crazy for wanting me to take over after him, and it’s going to start with you. I run the show now.”

She drops his hair, and steps away from him a little, starting to pace a little in front of his chair, the only sounds in the room being the noise of her steps, and Giovanni’s pained breaths.

“You not shutting your goddamn mouth was your downfall, officer. You have been around since I was little, and no one bothers to care what little kids hear. I heard enough things that made suspicious of you as a child that all it took was a little prying when I was older to confirm everything. Antonio didn’t expose you, if that was what you assumed when you looked at him. However, your old partner did betray the force for the family. Maybe it was all the money he handled, and he was sick of letting everyone around him get rich while he upheld the law. Maybe he was just afraid of being put in the situation you are in, and exposed himself to me because of it. He swore loyalty to the family and he will forever be Antonio Dionisio, no matter who he was before. He can’t go back now. I’d kill him, and... ” Fiore flashes a grin “not to mention the law won’t take him back, seeing as he is a murderer and he’s acquired a bit of a coke problem,” she turns and flashes a smile at the man by he door. “Haven’t you, Tony?”

Antonio simply bows his head a bit and stares as intently at the floor as he had been at the wall, as if not looking at the young Don will make her stop talking about him. Giovanni stares; his partner had always been a little greedy, but to know he had joined the family was about as heavy a blow as he had just taken to the side of his head. Giovanni looks at Fiore.

“If I’m such a problem, why don’t you take that beloved gift of yours and blow my brains out? You say you know all about me, so why keep me around? You don’t need the information,” Giovanni manages. Fiore just smiles, and puts her gun back at her hip.

“Because my father always told me a quick death is more a reward than a punishment, so why reward you for infiltrating my family?” Pulling the folded knife back out of her pocket, she inspects the hilt for a moment. It was black with the same silver vine and flower design as her gun. She flicks the weapon open with a quick movement of wrist, revealing a sharp double edged blade, and looks past it at Giovanni. “You almost stole my chance at power from me. I don’t have to tell you what the family does to thieves.”

Giovanni’s eyes widen. No, she didn’t have to tell him, because thieves loose their hands. That was why she had the knife, why she refused to shoot him. She was going to cut off his hands. He starts to pull against his restraints, but the cuffs hold his hands firmly to the wooden arms of the chair. Fiore just laughs.

“Where are you trying to go? You should know I wouldn’t be stupid enough to make it so you could get away.” She laughs softly, randomly. “I always wanted you to be my first kill. I felt it would be appropriate. But here we are, almost three years too late. But it is most definitely better late than never.” Stepping to his right, Fiore holds down his right hand, tracing his wrist with the tip of the knife. Giovanni looked at her, panicked.

“Did your papa really train his little flower to be such a cold killer, Fiorella?” She looks at him, furious that he had used her father’s nickname for her. She wasn’t a little girl anymore. She slams the blade down between the joints of his hand and wrist.

“Yes. He did,” she replies as Giovanni cries out in pain.

“You bitch! You fucking psychotic bitch!” He screams at her and she just smiles at him.

“I may be psychotic, but my daddy taught me all I know.” Fiore’s voice was mockingly childish and innocent as an insane grin broke across her face. She drags the blade through his flesh, slicing tendons, muscle and skin. Giovanni screams, feeling bile rise sickeningly in his throat. Fiore continues to cut, slicing through the last threads of sinew connecting the man’s hand to his arm. Giovanni looks down as the hand is completely detached, watching his blood pour out of the stump where an appendage used to be. He loses any control he once had and vomits, out of pain and repulsion.

Fiore freezes, and stares at the floor, watching the disgusting puddle seep closer to her boots. She did not appear sickened, or even disturbed in the slightest. She simply looks at Giovanni, lifts her foot and kicks him in the shin with her steel-toed boot with as much force as she can manage, which is quite a bit. He cries out in pain again.

“Shut your fucking mouth and take it, you bitch.” She walks behind his chair and unzips a bag she left in the back corner of the room, just in case she needed some new supplies. She takes out a pair of forceps and clicks them together, smiling. There is a gagging noise in the room, but it wasn’t from Giovanni. She looks up, to see Tony still standing at the door, but looking rather ill.

“If you can’t fucking take it, then wait outside. You get my coat dirty and it will be you in this goddamned chair next, Antonio!” She calls to him, raging at his incompetence. Tony, however, takes her advice and steps out of the room quickly. Pansies, the both of them. She steps around to the left of the chair, avoiding the mess on the floor. She looks at Giovanni, who was staring, dazed, at the bleeding mess where his hand used to be and at the hand itself on the floor next to his chair. She grabs a hold of his hair again, yanking his head back and pushing the forceps into his mouth, grabbing hold of his tongue and pulling it out. Letting go of his hair, she smiles at him, and readjusts the grip on her knife, cutting out his tongue as he screams, a wordless noise like a wounded animal. She holds up the forceps, with his tongue grasped in between the metal, and smiles.

“And I’m taking this too, because you know far too much,” Fiore steps further to the left as Giovanni retches again. She sets the removed tongue down on the ground, as well as the metal instrument that still held it. Standing up, she steps behind the chair and puts Giovanni’s gag back in place. If he wanted to be sick, he could, he just wasn’t going to make any more of a mess.

Giovanni stares up at her, a pleading look in his eye. He just wanted it to be over. The acrid taste of bile and blood lingered in his mouth, and where his tongue used to be was bleeding horribly. He felt as if he would choke on his own blood. However, Fiore wasn’t finished. She still had one hand to claim. She begins to speak to her victim as she plunges the knife through his flesh again.

“I don’t understand why a lot of leaders refuse to get their hands dirty. Sure, it adds a little danger, but,” Giovanni had degenerated into, in her opinion, hysteria; simply wordless, begging babble “Its worth it. There’s nothing like the satisfaction of a job done right.” She cuts the last bit of flesh away, watching blood spurt over her fingers. She looks at Giovanni, and waves at him with his own severed hand before dropping it the ground. He was staring at the floor, not responsive. His mind has stopped forming thoughts. Fiore’s face no longer bore a smile. She wipes the blade of the knife on his sleeve, before flipping it shut and pocketing it.

“I’ll see if I can track down your mother to send your hands to. That’s the most of you anyone will ever find.” She looks at her bloody hands, and wipes them off on her black jeansbefore again taking her handgun from her waist. She points at the tortured officer’s skull. “Buona notte, Giovanni.” She pulls the trigger, and watches the man’s body go limp as the bullet rips through his brain.

Her job done, Fiore walks to the door and opens it, striding out as if nothing had happened inside. Tony was still standing guard by the door. She takes her coat from him, and slowly puts it on.

“Clean it up.” She says, fixing the collar of her coat. Tony looks at her.

“But, I-” he begins to protest, but Fiore whips around and points the barrel at his forehead.

“Fucking clean it up, Tony. Don’t make me ask you again.” He stares at the barrel, wide eyed, and simply nods, stepping back and opening the door.

Fiore takes a deep breath and smiles, twirling her gun in her hand. She had actually been hoping Tony would protest about something, so she could have shot him. It’s not like he made good help anyhow. Maybe now everyone would realize that they couldn’t fuck with her. She simply smiles a little wider.

This little flower has thorns. Maybe now they’d all believe it.