I woke the next morning with a sore hip and a need for a hot cup of coffee. It was Saturday, I got to stay in on the weekends while the guys attended people until twelve pm. I slip on a pair of cotton shorts and fix my oversized LED ZEPPLIN shirt, slightly massaging my hip as I waited for the coffee pot to finish.

I looked around the apartment, the couch was full of Harry's clothes that I'm sure were dirty. He must've taken them out of his room while I showered last night. I felt guilty for taking his bed, his whole apartment for that matter. We didn't know each other, I honestly don't know if I would do the same for a stranger who wondered in here looking like she came out of a horror movie.

I walk over to the closet and open it, my blood stained dress hanged carelessly, although the blood was now dry and a much rusted color I can still see images of it splattering on me. I can still smell the metal scent of it. It didn't even look like the dress Oliver picked out for me. That's right, he picked it out for me.

What the hell was I thinking?

The front door opens and in comes Harry, oil on his hands. "I'm making coffee." I say, closing the closet door. "Also, do you want me to wash your clothes? I don't know if they're dirty or not—"

"We need to talk," He interrupts me and I straighten out. "I think I've extended my hospitality here for far too long for me not to know where you came from." He crosses his arms in front of him and it takes me a second to actually process his sentence.

I bite the inside of my cheek and walk towards the kitchen as the sound of the kettle whistles through the room, breaking the silence.

Speak of being saved by the bell.

Harry still looks like he awaits my response but what the hell am I supposed to say? I know it isn't fair of me to keep him in the dark, especially since he's allowing me a place to live. But the less he knows, the better. My anonymity meant the world to me and my family, the dangers of being known as a Mafia leader's daughter is critical and quite frankly, I would love to go back home in one piece.

I grab a white mug with a picture of a Formula B race car and focus on that as I serve the hot water.

GRAND PRIX, CHEVRON B15, 1969. INTERNATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP.

"Emma." Harry calls my name sternly, forcing me to look away from the cup and away from him as well. "Answer me."

Jesus Christ, just tell him something it doesn't even have to be the truth, just make something up!

So I say the first thing that comes to mind. "I ran away from my husband on my wedding day." I blurt out. It was partially true, only I didn't run away. My father forced me to leave with no context of what actually happened. My eyes trail back to Harry who looks bored and unamused at my answer, his arms still crossed.

"Right," Harry mumbles. "The dress was a given." His voice sounds satire and like he expected a more extended answer.

"Well," I hum, grabbing the coffee and stirring some in the cup. "That's what happened."

"You are not going to give me that half assed answer. I want you to tell me why." He pushes and I have never met anyone who's as nosey as he.

He's probably not going to let this one go, keep feeding him lies and hope that he believes you.

I shake my head and sigh, playing on to what I'm about to say. I did tell Zayn that there was a shooting on my wedding day and Harry overheard, so now I have to add onto that. The truth was, I don't even know why that happened, the whole place was secured.

It's like, one minute it's bright and sunny and the next everything is painted red. It was a bloodbath. I start to think of possibilities of why that may have happened. Oliver loved to gamble, maybe a little too much. What if he won against someone he shouldn't have and because of that, they came looking for revenge?

He was in Vegas after all for his bachelor party.

Harry looks at me, still not letting this go. "My husband gambled with people he shouldn't have and they came looking for him." My tongue continues. "My father sent me across the border for safety." This was a pretty watered down version of what actually happened but it was pretty close as far as comparisons go.

Harry looks pensive, I almost didn't know wether he believed me or not with the way he looked. But he soon speaks. "Were you followed?"

I shake my head. "It was pretty late at night when I found your place." I confirm.

Harry nods and bites the inside of his cheek. "And I'm assuming whoever's after your husband will come looking for you?"

"More than likely," I say and at this, Harry runs a hand through his curls, his nostrils flare as he lets out an annoyed sigh.

"Do you even know what these people look like?" I shake my head at this.

"Everything happened so fast." I say.

"For fucks sake," Harry breathes out and paces, my eyes follow his every move. "The last thing I need are some goons snooping around my shop. I'm already dealing with—" He stops himself. "I don't even know why I'm involving myself, this is Zayn's problem."

"I don't think it's going to be much of a problem," I say. "If anyone comes looking for me you can just tell them you've never seen me before." I could not afford to live out on the street, I was just getting used to everyone here.

"And what if they show up unexpected? What if they see you here and just wreak havoc on my shop?" I look down before I get an idea.

"We can always come up with a code word?" I suggest.

"What the hell do you think this is?" He retorts. "I hate to say it, but you are a good worker. I'd be lying if I said things weren't going smoothly since you arrived here, but I can't have people from your past coming to look for you here. If it comes down to you or my shop, I will not hesitate to turn you over." He gives me a menacing look, takes the cup of coffee out of my hands and walks away outside.

Right, so this just proved to me that out of everyone here, I couldn't trust Harry. My hands tug at the roots of my hair and I let out a groan. As I'm leaning over in the counter, I notice a carving on the kitchen's wood counter.

Claudia.

My fingers traced the childlike writing until I decide it's time to get dressed and go downstairs.

—

"I wish my hair was long enough for a messy bun," Raven pouts, I laugh behind my beer bottle and take a swig. "You've got great hair."

"Thanks," I say, setting down my bottle. We were currently sitting around the table downstairs, some of the guys sat on the hoods of the cars smoking and talking with each other while I managed to give Raven double braids on her short hair. "Done." I say and she turns to me, a grin on her lips.

She looks at herself on the mirror of the car and giggles. "I can't tell you how many times I tried doing braids on my hair."

"She cries every time she can't." Zayn butts in.

"Short hair is frustrating, but I refuse to grow it out." Raven adds, taking a swig of her beer. I hear the sound of a car joining us in the garage and when we turn, it was a red Camaro.

"Great." Niall mumbles under his breath, pressing the rim of the beer bottle to his lips. When the person of the car gets out, I see it's the same man from the night we went to what they called "Little Mexico". Liam was his name and if I remember correctly, he was antagonizing Harry over something.

"Look what the cat dragged in," Zayn says, blowing smoke from his lips. Louis comes out of the passenger side and throws his cigarette on the floor as Liam leans against his car, twirling his car keys on his finger. "Louis, I thought we told you to stop hanging around the trash. It's unsanitary."

Louis goes over to Liam and they exchange a brotherly handshake. "Don't judge me because I have friends outside the lot you." Louis remarks with a smirk.

"What the fuck are you doing here?" A voice booms throughout the warehouse and when I look towards the stairs, it was Harry. He wore denim jeans, dirty white vans and a white shirt with a faded checkered flag in the front.

Liam turns in his direction and grins up at him. "You can relax, I'm only here to drop Louis off."

"Which by the way, nice of you to offer to pick me up from the airport you fucking dicks." Louis retorts, looking at the guys.

"To be honest with you, I didn't even know you were gone." Theo says with a chuckle.

"Zayn," Harry says, earning Zayn's attention. "Make sure you take the trash out and see it that it stays out." He had his keys in hand as he walked towards the outside.

Liam rolls his eyes though his smirk remains. "Are you going off to see Alexis?" Harry stops at this and turns back around, expecting Liam to say more.

"The fuck do you care?" Harry retorts with a glare.

"Might want to reconsider leaving her for good, last I saw her she was hanging around with a Demiro." Liam speaks with a level on nonchalant in his voice that you can tell clearly annoyed Harry. Whoever this Alexis and Demiro person was, their names evidently should not be used in the same sentence.

The room grew silent as Harry glared at Liam. "Get the fuck out. Now." He grits and leaves out the front door, it slams shut behind him.

Liam chuckles at this and opens the door to his car. "You guys should probably start looking for somewhere else to work," He says, getting in his car. "I can guarantee you Harry won't be in charge around here for much longer."

Niall puts his middle finger up at Liam. "Go fuck yourself." With one last smirk from Liam, he speeds away and everyone turns to Louis.

"What the hell are you doing, bringing Liam around? You know Harry will kill you." Zayn scolds, Louis only grabs a beer from the chest and cracks it open.

"Harry won't do shit, you want to know why? Because it's not in his nature to be confrontational." Louis glances over to me. "Why do you think she's still here?"

"Don't drag me into whatever this is." I retort, a glare of my own directed towards Louis.

"You dragged yourself into this when you stumbled in here two months ago, darling." Louis remarks and turns to point to the rest of the guys. "I have a feeling that she will bring nothing but chaos and you all will be to blame."

With one last glare at me, Louis walks away with the beer in his hand. It is silent after this, until Raven turns to me and hugs me. "I personally am happy that you are here," She says. "It's nice to have a girl around for a change."

"At least someone that isn't Alexis." Theo says under his breath next to us, the name sends a shiver down his spine. Niall looks around the room before turning towards Zayn.

"Do you think Liam's right?"

Zayn looks at Niall and scoffs. "Harry's the most resilient son of a bitch when it comes to this place. There is no way in hell he'd give it up, not without a fight at least."

"Why does Liam want this place anyway?" I speak this time and everyone turns to look at me, Raven looks down. I didn't understand what was so special about this place, if Harry was being offered a deal, I'm sure anyone would take it.

Niall glares in my direction. "This is none of your damn business." He spits and I glare back.

"I wasn't talking to you." I retort and turn to Zayn who's biting the inside of his cheek. "Why does Harry want to keep this place so bad?"

"Because this is all he has left." Theo speaks for Zayn.

"I really don't think we should speak on his behalf," Zayn turns to Theo with a warning in his eyes before turning back around to look at me. "If Harry wants to tell you, he will." Zayn then leans off the car and holds his hand out to Raven who was at my side.

Raven turns to me and smiles. "I'll see you." She hugs me and takes Zayn's hand as they both walk away. Theo nods to me and blows the smoke from his lips.

"See you tomorrow, Emmaline." This left just Niall and I. I don't expect him to bid me goodbye so I stand up from where I'm sitting and begin to collect the beer bottles from the table to throw away.

"You know, it's not healthy to be meddling into things that don't concern you." Niall begins, still leaning against the car.

I continue what I'm doing. "I wasn't meddling, I was asking a simple question."

"Nothing about your question was simple. Considering you're a fucking stranger that literally came out of nowhere, being curious where you shouldn't be can get you killed."

At this, I turn. "You don't need to worry about me, I can handle my own." He doesn't know who the hell I am.

Niall scoffs at this, angering me. "Worried is something I'm not, especially about you. We do shit here a particular way and we sure as hell don't need you fucking with our system."

"What system?" I raise an eyebrow. "The ripping off clients or the car thieving?" At this, Niall stalks close to me and throws his beer bottle on the ground by my feet, it shatters. I'm sure what he wanted was to scare me so I stand my ground and glare into his eyes as he was arms length apart from me.

"You don't know shit, you hear me?" His voice is thick in anger, his eyes emanate the feeling of burning holes in me.

"Niall." A new voice joins us in the silent warehouse and when Niall cranes his neck, it's Harry. I didn't expect him to be back anytime soon. Harry walks closer to where we are and notices the broken pieces of the brown beer bottle littered around the floor by my feet. "Go home." Harry says rather calmly, a tone I haven't heard on him before.

Niall's glare remains on me. "If you fuck with us, I will personally put a bullet between your eyes and that's a fucking promise."

My jaw clenched as well as my fists. "I'm not scared of you." I remark and turn my back to continue the cleaning, stepping away from the glass carefully. I hear Harry say something to Niall who walks away without a care.

And then it's silent, with just the sound of the glass hitting against each other in my arms and the crunching of the broken glass beneath my boots. "Are you okay?" I finally hear Harry speak, I had thought maybe he left.

When I turn, he's already looking at me. I nod my head. "Why wouldn't I be?" Harry doesn't say a word after this, just as I'm throwing away the bottles I see him grab a broom and the dust pan. He begins to sweep the broken glass and when he has it in a pile, he turns to me.

Harry holds out the dust pan and I take it. "You stood your ground," He begins as he sweeps the glass onto the dust pan. "Most people give in whenever Niall's angry."

"Well I am not most people," I say. "I'm not scared of him, of any of you."

Harry scoffs. "Your confidence is cute," he says as I throw the glass in the trash. "Just a bit of advice, stay clear of Niall and Louis. They don't particularly like you, but I assume you knew that. If you don't want anyone coming to find you here, I suggest you make nice."

"With those two?" I taunt. "They collectively decided I was an outcast."

"Well I mean you kind of are," Harry comments. "You don't belong here and I'm sure you didn't belong in the life you used to live. Whoever you fucked with back home, I don't think you can ever go back there. People don't forget people they have it out for."

"So what are you saying, I can never see my family again?"

Harry looks into my eyes almost sympathetically, in a way in which tells me I shouldn't be expecting to go back to a house and a family. I look away, for that was something I refused to let my mind think about.

"I hate to say this, but you're on your own."