The smell of smoke and curiosity

~Flashbacks~

With the first bottle almost empty and my words starting to make less sense as we continue passing questions, he's sat there as if the alcohol has barely touched his pale but soft-looking lips, I begin to wonder what to ask next.

He swiftly arched his arm over the back of my sofa that I can almost feel the non-existent heat coming from him and he turned his head in deep thought. "So what did you do before you settled on writing for a career?" The sudden question brought back a lot of memories I had wished to forget for it was not a nice time in my life.

-2 years ago-
I was working at my parent's restaurant as a waitress and my day-to-day life was good as it got for a family that was riddled in debt from head to toe. I had always wanted to work here since they opened it when I was 13, but I was too young to understand at the time that my family had opened this to make money for my college fund, which I messed up.

A month into working there and I was loving it, my life was amazing, good parents, lovely customers, my future was all planned out for me, nothing could go wrong, or so I thought. It all went wrong when I met him. He was blonde, tall and a handsome man, someone I saw myself marrying, his name was Eric. Being the boss of a big company and madly in love with me, he offered to help my family's debt off, of course, that meant his name was on the restaurant deed and eventually it was on my parent's house as well.

Nothing could go wrong with that. We thought wrong. We misjudged this man for anything but nice when in fact he was a gambling man, and his money wasn't his at all. For his money was a loan shark who had a lot of men looking for Eric, and when he pointed his slimy money-grabbing finger at us, we lost it all. The restaurant, our house, and our pride.

Now living in a small flat between the three of us life was hard. Nobody would take us up on a job as they had heard we were con artists, a very nice word from Eric's lying mouth. Still owing money to the loan shark we tried to hide but he eventually found us when he paid off my dearest 'partner' to find us and find us he did.

The door was struck down in the middle of the night and four big men flew into our scabby home with weapons. My dad went first, lunging at the men to protect his family while mother was behind him telling me to get out quick, but I froze there in the hallway when he suddenly stopped and dropped down and hit the floor. I still remember the thud.
My dad had been stabbed.

With the blood seeping through the floorboards towards us, Mom took a glance back at me and mouthed the words "jewellery box" and then she shot forward like dad did avoiding the men and fighting with everything she had. I had run to her box and saw a small stack of cash, I grabbed it and turned ready to run towards them with it in hopes I could save them from hurting her too. But it was too late.

A loud bang of a gunshot off and the smell of flesh was in the air as I heard my mother scream. The next loud bang was my heart dropping to the floor as the realization hit me. They don't want the money anymore. They want blood and they want mine. Trying to not freeze up I ran to the window and jumped without looking back, it was only a first-floor flat so the ground was near and my feet hit it quickly.

Touching the ground the pain shot up my legs to my heart like lightning. But I couldn't let it get the best of me right now, I had no time. I dashed into the night holding what little money and ran, ran for my life. That was the last time I saw my parents and it was all my fault. That dreadful night all started because I fell in love with the wrong man.

Tears brought me back to the present as one was falling off my cheek. And Dante was open-mouthed and the shocked expression fell on his face. Snapping myself out of my memories and back to him, his glass was empty and so was mine. "I'm sorry about all that, it just all fell out of my mouth. How stupid of me to just rant go, someone, I barely know about my sad little life, let me get you another drink"
His face was no longer stunned but now turned sympathetic, I didn't want to be pitied by him, why did I just tell him all that.

Gripping at the other bottle I smiled in hopes to lighten the now depressed mood I caused on the first proper night of meeting him. I struggled with the metal rim of it, which he made look so easy getting off the first one. Slash, and my hand was now oozing with blood. The metal had made a deep cut in my hand, but the pain wasn't there, only the thought of crap I've just made a bad situation worse.

I turned to Dante for help which was useless because he was now at the other side of the room with his back facing me. I shot up and grabbed the nearest kitchen towel, stopping the bleeding, it wasn't deep enough for stitches but obviously, it was bloody enough to freak him out.

"I'm sorry, I made this situation worse, are you afraid of blood or something?" I spoke, my hand now starting to throb. He didn't respond, only head down and as far away as possible and body now as tense as a door. His breathing was heavy from the look of his back but he still wasn't moving from that spot.

"I- I need to go" he stuttered his head slightly turned to me but not enough so I couldn't see his face. "What's the rush? we haven't started the other bottle yet and this will stop bleeding after I've rinsed it, so I'll get you some water and we can get back to happier topics" I giggled a little to lift the mood that was now too heavy to lift.

"I shouldn't have come, this was a stupid idea, to begin with. I'm leaving" his sudden change of tone was enough to startle me, he grabbed his coat and rushed for the door. I didn't want this night to end yet, I have questions yet to be answered and I was beginning to warm up to him a little. I rushed over but the door was already cracked open a little "wait please I'm sorry I messed this up, don't go" I went to reach out to him but then his face turned quickly like a flash "don't come near me!" He shouted and slammed the door in my face.

Standing there in complete shock, struggling to come to terms with what just happened, still holding my hand which was now starting to hurt a little. If it wasn't for the alcohol in my system I could have sworn his eyes were glowing ruby red for a second.