My rose garden dreams, set on fire by fiends

And all my black beaches (are ruined)

My celluloid scenes are torn at the seams

And I fall to pieces

I fall to pieces when I'm with you

Cause I love you so much, I fall to pieces

My cherries and wine, rosemary and thyme

And all of my peaches (are ruined)

-Lana Del Ray

M A R N I E

We danced until our heads spun and laughed until my mouth started hurting.

And I wondered, was I setting? Just to have some part of her was I fine with being kept in the dark? Honesty is key to a healthy relationship. But here I was not receiving any.

"Arthur?" I say as I get in her car. My heels were in my hands and my balance was fucked because of how much I had drunk already.

"Yes, love?" She replied as I leaned my head back on the cold leather.

"I still won't trust you, you know that right?" I ask, when I said it was fine with me not being told the truth it also meant that she would have to compromise on my trust.

"Not trust me about what exactly?" Art asks before putting her hand on the back of my headrest and backing out of the parking spot.

"I will not be alone with you, I'm not going to come anywhere with you where I have to see people like Lorenzo, Karl, or anything like I did in Sicily. Basically, I'll protect my peace until you explain." I explain and she sighs.

"So, just school?" She asks and I nod.

"I forgive you for the Zara situation, but things won't be the same until you explain." I shrugged looking at the road. Never once meeting her eyes.

"I understand. Also, why did you come to Cameo that late at night?" She asks and I realize, I never told her about the coffee shop situation.

"Someone drugged my coffee," I state calmly and the car comes to an abrupt halt.

Arthur's arm holds my shoulders back before I can hit my head and I look at her with wide eyes.

"What the fuck?" I laugh out loud and she just looks at me with worried dark eyes.

"What do you mean by someone drugged your coffee?" She asks and I sigh before explaining everything to her.

"Well that's that, I think I recognized that guy. But I don't know who he was." I sigh and she leans back into her seat.

"Is this a situation enough, for you to explain?" I ask softly. All I want is the truth.

"I can explain some?" She states and I nod excitedly.

"Tomorrow?" She asks and I think about it.

"Fair enough." We are now back to driving, one of her hands is on the steering wheel while the other is on the open window sill.

I look at the street to see silhouettes of kids in their homes laughing and playing, a droplet of water falls on the window sill and I look at the sky. It's raining.

I was getting tired of the dry autumn. But now that the rain has finally arrived before winter I know it will be the best thing ever. The smell of the first rain invades my senses, each drop is like a single letter in a song that takes eons to sing. I close my eyes as we near the bamboo garden.

"We're here." Art says softly, I nod before getting out and rushing to my porch.

The crystals on my epaulet clink, I knock on the door as I watch Arthur through the open window of her car and grins at me and drives off as soon as dad opens the door and looks at me gaping.

"Oh my God, you look beautiful." He says and I grin before hugging him.

"Thank you, I thought you were going to come home early so that you could see me," I state as I enter through the gate and head towards the stairs with him behind me.

"Oh yeah, I was going to but I got held up by my boss. I'm sorry for that, I know I promised I would take photos of you." He says regret lacing his words.

I turn around and place my hand on his arm before leaning forth and kissing his cheek.

"It's okay, goodnight dad." I smile and so does he. His cat-like grin was etched into my mind forever.

I open the door to my bedroom closing it behind me as I venture into the dark and turn on the lamp near my vanity.

As I turn around I let out a started gasp as I see Arthur running his fingers on the spine of my books.

"What the fuck." I breathe out placing my hand on my chest as I breathe heavily. The droplets of water from the rain on those crystals are still cold.

"Sorry about that, love." She states nonchalantly.

I stare at her with squinted eyes as she looked at the books for another second or two before she turns around and leans on the shelf with her arms folded as she stares at me.

"Come on now, chop chop, ask me why I'm here." Art groans and I am taken aback by her cold attitude. It's almost the same as when she met me first.

"You're gonna tell me either way, so go on." I try to keep my voice low to not wake anyone up.

"I have some shit to do tomorrow, so I won't have time to explain." She says and I scoff walking over to the bed and taking off the epaulet

"Just when I think you're better than this." I chuckle looking at her as I carefully place it on my bed before grabbing a tissue and wiping the water off of it.

The rain is pouring down and all I can think of is the devil in my room.

"Let me finish. I decided I'll explain right now." She finishes, and my eyes snap to hers as I raise my eyebrow.

"Well then, go on." I urge her and her stance gets more rigid.

"You should probably get in some comfortable clothes." She says and I point my index finger at her before nodding.

"Good point." I nod to myself before getting up and walking to the closet before picking out a pair of white-colored nightwear.

I loved wearing silk and lace at night, even more, in front of Arthur showing her what she could've had.

I slip on the white slip dress and the sheer robe over it

I excuse myself to the bathroom before taking the quickest shower I ever have and pulling my now short hair back in a half up half down bun.

I walk back out and see Arthur sitting on the small window sill opposite my bed. I take steps toward her and because there is no space next to her I sit on the ground. My knees pulled to my chest as I lay my chin on them and stare up at her.

"Go on, explain," I whisper and she nods looking down at me.

"I am a middle woman as I told you." She starts her voice low and I nod.

"There's more to it than that, Enzo has an import and export business. But it's not normal shit. He exports drugs, imports arms, and ammo." My eyes del out of my socket.

"His brother, Alexander is the boss of all this, Enzo is his right hand. All these drugs come to Florence from Sicily. I stayed in Florence until this year managing everything there. But I was moved here because there were issues with the shipments, they kept on disappearing." She goes on, and I have realized she talks with her hands a lot. Her rings clicked and made sounds when she did that.

"What the fuck." That's all I can let out at the moment.

"We deal with drugs in Cameo. So every couple of days as we perform it's a distraction so that trucks and jeeps full of cocaine, fentanyl, LSD, opioids, methamphetamines, Molly, and more." When I say I'm shocked, it's an understatement.

"So, when you're performing..." I trail off and Art nods.

"Exactly, it's a distraction. We then spend the night segregating them, I distribute them to the dealers receiving 20% of the cut." Art explains.

The sun is coming up and the night is dying. But I'm sitting here listening to my lover telling me how she deals a shit ton of drugs and still not counting it as a red flag.

"So even the owners of Cameo don't know?" I ask and she shakes her head laughing.

"Love, Alexander owns Cameo. It's his club. Well, more like a coverup for his deals." Art explains and I furrow my brows.

"Look, if he has large trucks and shit go to a warehouse it will be suspicious. People will start to develop doubts. Now Cameo is so huge that it can be written off as more licensed liquor or new furniture and all that shit." I nod as Arthur raises an eyebrow to see if I have any questions. Which I do.

"So, when we went to Sicily- wait, why did we go to Sicily?" I ask her and she chuckles before looking at me.

"Our shipments disappeared. Again. They had arrived from France and went through a checkpoint in Sicily, before they could reach here, the trucks and all that shit just disappeared." Art explains, her fingers intertwined.

"To figure that out, we had to go to Sicily. Enzo said that he'd send someone over to have that checked. Hence, Zara came." She says and I nod. Her voice was soft and slow, letting me absorb every single detail.

"Why did you start working for them?" I ask and she sighs.

"Mom had just passed away, I was looking for jobs all over my hometown. I didn't want to go home 'cause everything reminded me of her." She explains, her voice cold. Not letting out any emotion.

"I didn't care that Nan was hurting too, she had outlived her child. I spent my nights in the barn in our yard because I could not enter the house without breaking down." She cleared her throat before continuing.

"I accidentally walked into a huge drug deal during those times. It was at a club, that Alexander owned. Saints. if you remember." She says and I nod my breaths shallow not knowing where this story was going to go.

"I was 17, Enzo found me, and told me to fuck off. I denied. He hid me so that his brother won't find out. Granted his brother found out in an hour. Burst into the bathroom I was hiding in. Spoke to me. And by the time I left the bathroom I was a newly recruited middle woman." I gasp, she was seventeen.

"I wanted a clean slate I got it, I still didn't want to go back home though. So when I was just meandering through my hometown Ronan found me. He was my neighbor, so when I saw him I ran. I had so many drugs stuffed in my pockets and bag that I was so scared I'd get caught. He tackled me down and as the drugs fell out of my pockets he somehow sympathize with me." Art shakes her head as though she doesn't understand where his kindness came from.

"He took me in. Cleaned out his store room for a place for me to live. Nan always knew I was out and about. I told her that I had made a friend and I would live with him. She objected. So I just did what any angsty kid would do. I walked out. I heard him play drums once and I loved to sing." Art shrugged, putting it off as not much of a big deal but I can see the pain behind her eyes.

"We were a good match, so we went around finding talent. We went through almost the entirety of Italy. Within 5 months we had a band. Almost everyone except Dain was living a poverty-stricken life. We picked them up and gave them a life full of danger but a shit ton of money." She says and I can just imagine her and the band being so young living shitty lives and now living a life full of luxury but danger.

"And now here we are." She mutters her voice cold almost as if she doesn't wish to show any emotions after telling me about a really low time in her life.

"Are you happy though?" I ask and to my surprise, she nods.

"I love my job Marnie, I will not trade it for anything." She shrugs and I nod before remembering something.

"When you saw Enzo in Sicily you said you didn't recognize him. How?" I raise an eyebrow, tilting my head in confusion. The sun is now up and shining on my face.

"He's a natural brunette love, I met him before he went blonde. Besides, it's been a long time. He was 20 around that time." She says and I nod.

"So it's like a ring? A drug ring?" I ask and she nods putting her hand out and tilting it to one side and then to the other. An action of 'something like that'.

"That's all I can tell you for now." She says and I sigh. That was a lot.

"I don't know what to say," I whisper as I look back up at her. She nods slowly.

"You're sleepy you should go sleep." Art nods her head at my bed and I shake my head my shoulders slumping a little.

"I know you want the truth and I hope that you don't hate me." Art whispers fiddling with her fingers.

"I don't know what I feel right now. I mean that's a huge thing. Do you own a gun?" I ask abruptly and snap my head to hers.

"I do." She nods and I nod slowly too.

"Is it licensed?" I whisper and she sighs.

"This is my cue to leave." She stands up grabs her coat and swings it over her shoulder.

I'll take that as a no.

"You can slowly sneak out of the back door, rather than climbing back down," I say softly never once looking at her as she rounds me and walks towards my door.

"You look like an angel." She whispers before walking out.

I place my hand on the hello kitty keychain that she was once fiddling with only to find it warm. I hold it in my palm as I stare at the slowly shutting door.

I hear her car drive past and I smell her musky perfume that has marked my bedroom. I get up walk towards my bookshelf and trail my finger over the books desperate to feel her touch.

What the hell is happening?