Page 30 of Alessio

She figured a change in subject was needed.

Alessio let out a steady stream of air, his smile growing again. “The League.”

“What is—”

“An … organization,” he interjected carefully. “Do you want me to be frank, or color it up with goodness for you?”

“I’m sorry?”

“I know where you came from—who you are. So, you’re aware of some thingsabout this world, and how it works. You recognize things are not always black and white because some of us, like me and Corrado, or the people you come from, live in shades of gray.”

“Corrado told me he was worse than them once. Made men, I mean. The mafia.”

Alessio nodded. “He’s not wrong, either.”

She stilled, a chill running down her spine. “But what does it mean?”

“The League trains people—we walk in one way and walk out another. Think of it like this … a man comes back from a war, he has a very specialized set of skills that is no longer useful to his country, and won’t help him in civilian life. What’s he to do?”

“I’m not sure.”

“The League does. They’ll train him, and he’ll either become an independent contractor for the organization, or he’ll be auctioned off to a buyer who will decide, depending on his skill set, what kind of jobs he might do. Recons, hits, robberies, recoveries … more. It all depends on what someone needs, and what the person with the skills is capable of. The training takes place over a year, it’s intensive, and it’s hard.”

“That’s …”

“Overwhelming, isn’t it?” Alessio asked, chuckling. “It’s a lot to take in. Sounds like a fucking movie, huh?”

“Like it’s not real.”

“Except it is, and from the time I was ten, it’s what I’ve done with The League. I’ve been to twenty-eight countries, I have taken out the potential leader of a major rebellion for a government who couldn’t have it on paper, and I have been on a team that went after a politician’s daughter to remove her from the traffickers who took her from a family vacation on a cruise. I killed a mob boss’s rival because he was causing too many problems, but he couldn’t be attached to the hit. What do you think I do for a living, Ginevra? Or Corrado?”

“Hitmen doesn’t sound like the right word.”

Alessio scoffed. “Not even close.”

“What would you call it?”

“Well, everybody likes to call it something different, but The League likes to say they train assassins. Highly skilled, dangerous, and useful depending on who has deep enough pockets to buy one of us.”

Oh, wow.

Ginevra had another inkling even as the chill in her spine grew colder. “So, why is Corrado guarding me, then? Seems like a waste of his time if you all do … other things.”

“He owed a favor.”

“Oh.” Ginevra pulled the blanket down and eyed Alessio. “Ten, you said?”

“Yeah, it’s about when I first came to the people who started and control the organization.”

“That’s very young.”

“My father had been dead for years, and my mother might as well have already been six feet under what with the way she needed drugs to get her from the bed to the floor on an hourly basis. The League was a far better choice for me, trust me.”

God.

Her heart hurt.

No child should feel unloved by their parents. Ginevra missed her mother more than anything in the world, and thoughts of Marie filled her mind late at night when she couldn’t sleep. The pain of losing her mama would never go away, but she realized as she stared at Alessio, she would much rather deal with this kind of grief than the type he faced every day of his life.