Flashbacks and Considerations of Wagers

Posted on Friday, 5 June 2020 - 3:59pm by Lieutenant JG Adrianna Eberhardt

Baciami was walking back from the seeing Soral. The man's consideration of wager played on her mind.

There was no denying the woman was lonely. She had been seeking company for a while and though still young in the grand scheme of things, she wanted to settle down. Yes, Adrianna had been raised in the typical Italian family, where she was consistently pushed to find a man, settle down and have a football team's worth of children, but opportunity had never blossomed to actuality.

The Italian had only ever been in love once, but as it had turned out, it was one sided.

************A day before joining Starfleet**********

There was silence round the table. Dario Baciami, Don and Adrianna's father was angry. "Papi, listen, it was going to happen," a man a little older than Adrianna broken the silence.

"Not under my roof and by my own blood," the aging Italian spat, standing up and slamming his hands down onto the oak, before a somewhat crooked finger pointed to Adrianna, "you, you will fix this."

"I will not fix something that is not broken," Adrianna simply replied, "you, papi, once said to me that no one could help who they fell in love with."

"A member of Starfleet," Dario asked kicking the legs out from his daughters chair, but catching it just before it fully tipped, getting close to her face. Adrianna's seven brothers flinched, but knew not to disrupt their father.

The woman held one hell of a poker face but everything on the inside was screaming to run, "the person my men found you with was a member of intelligence, not engineering. You are blind and stupid. Do you enjoy betraying your name?"

Adrianna went to reply, when her seat was thrown back to being upright. The older man was shaking with rage. A few moments of tense silence later and he shattered it with words Adrianna would later hear about herself, "I want him dead." Dario pulled a small dagger and threw it into the table below his hand allowing it to shake violently upright, about an inch into the oak conference table.

One final murderous look to Adrianna and he stormed out, followed by all of her brothers but one. Giovanni Baciami. He was the oldest, and set to take command next.

"Gio, I didn't know," she pleaded, a heavy lump in her throat forming.

"I know. I could see you loved him," he replied with a sigh, "Papi is right though. He was using you and we have proof."

Adrianna shook her head in disbelief but something in her had known all along. "I didn't mean to-" she began.

Giovanni waved her off before handing her a sheet of crumpled paper, "I know your love is now lost, but I've agreed with Starfleet that if you give them all the information they need about Papi and his ventures, they'll take you on. You'll be as million miles away, safe. Safe from when all this goes to hell. Find someone, fall in love properly, get married, have children, die of old age, just don't look back. That guy, he's waiting for you on the outskirts of Rome. Make your excuses and leave tonight. Don't look back."

"You, you set me up."

*************

Adrianna shook the image out of her head. From that event onwards she had spiraled into an endless stream of not feeling good enough for any man, boasting her faults as being too much without letting anyone see first hand if it was actually a deal breaker; she'd put walls up to prevent heartbreak not wanting to be used again; she used her family name as an excuse for being tough, when deep down the woman just wanted to offload her mind and be made to feel like a normal woman.

Perhaps the wager wouldn't be such a bad idea. Adrianna would be forced to have to combat her own faults in life and love. This would only be the perfect excuse.