Fantine

The cold rain was hitting my face and soaking straight through the fabric of my red dress as I stood in the middle of the gravel alley, and the bright headlights of the black sedans were blinding me so badly that I had to raise my hand to see the tall, gray-haired man stepping out from the rear seat of the lead vehicle. It was Marcello, my father’s oldest lieutenant and the man who had overseen my target training since I was a child, and as he walked toward us with his leather gloves tightly fitted around his fingers, the dozen enforcers around him shifted their automatic rifles to...