My mood couldn't be dampened or even changed today. I very much am in a good mood because of the new hair cut I got this morning. Before work I met Charlotte at her real prestige salon, she owns percentages of stock in, and she got me in for free of charge for a hair appointment.

It had been her way of making an 'apology' for the things she had done in the past several months, even if I assured her it wasn't anything of her own fault for actions goddess did while inhabiting and controlling her life, but she insisted on taking me to get my hair done. I love my new hair.

Rebecca is the first to notice, making the sound of a gasp which followed with the loudest 'Woah', while I spun on the spot. " What did you do with the rest of your hair? The Ellie decker I know is a girl who loves her long hair and would never ever cut her hair short?!" I rolled my eyes, playfully, to her response and can't help but giggle at how her hand found its way to the roots of my shorter hair length. " You know it's going to take forever for it to grow back to its natural state again?"

I have forever to worry about that. Literally I do have that long. I chuckled at the irony of Rebecca saying it will take forever for my hair to grow out again. " Well, I happen to like, no actually love, it. And that is all that matters to me, Bec." I jokingly replied, pushing an arm into her shoulder while I hear the chatter of my fellow colleagues, and that is when I stop dead in my tracks after she says to me. 'Lieutenant Pierce is back'. I would've given it a second thought if I didn't immediately feel all the guilt that came rushing back up straight away from the night on the ranch. Him saving me from Jerry. " I'll meet you later on, 'Becca."

It didn't take me that long to get to Pierce's office, given his quarters weren't exactly that far apart to the rest of the station itself, and I opened the door without the need of knocking. I know there is no excuse to not knock, it's a common practice to participate in, but I think Pierce and I are past the stage of our professional relationship when it comes to polite courtesy. He was half undressed, the moment I walked in, and I am not left phased by his refine masculine structure. He's in a grey, loose, material tank top checking his injuries.

" Decker. I was just about to call you up here to my office. You must be a mind reader." He tried to sound playful, with his delivery, but his words came out blunt and plain. At least he tried. An A for effort. " There's something.. different. About you, that I can't explain." He stated, his voice still in its monotone base he usually spoke with, and i crossed my arms. I'm going to let him think on it more and not give him clues as a smiled slightly.

" I'll give you a hint."

I curled my finger into my hair. He clicks his finger, as if he'd solved a big mystery. " Your hair. It's shorter." He said, face straight, to my surprise he adds. " I don't like it. It's better, in my opinion, longer." He shrugged. " But it's your hair, Decker. Who am I to judge a woman on the length of their hair?" How dare he. I love my hair and how it is.

" Well good thing I didn't ask for your opinion on my hair, Marcus." I snapped, annoyed already by how arrogant he sounded talking about my hair. " You know what? To think I came up here to say welcome back, and how sorry I am for being the cause for you ending up in hospital, but I will just leave then."

I am not going to stand here and let Marcus deter my good mood, so I'm removing myself out of this predicament. That's what I did.

Walking out of the office I don't listen to Marcus calling me back into the room, grumbling how he didn't mean his comment. I feel my eyes flicking between both my human eyes and my angel ones which made me clench them shut.

~•~

Lucifer is meeting me at the scene of the crime I told him to meet me at. I had to have time to cool down, still agitated at how Pierce made me, and I found him loitering about touching things that he knew would containment the scene of the crime. I am not in the mood to correct him right now.

I have to admit the look in his eyes when he spots me, coming out of the rooftop stairwell case up on the actual scene, had me rethinking how I did feel. I'm glad someone is pleased to see me.

" You chopped your hair, darling." He remarked, his cheeky grin never falters. I prepare myself for one of his retorts he usually had waiting inside of his mind but his voice found a softer register as it came out. " It suits you, Ellie. I love it. You look, well, you look beautiful. That is all I have to say."

" I'm surprised you noticed the difference when it comes to my hair, Luc." I teased, falling in line to Lucifer's pace he walked with, my mood lighter in comparison to before. " You are the second one to have said my hair looks good. Unlike lieutenant.. he hated it." I muttered, which didn't go unheard, and Lucifer scoffed at the audacity of Marcus and his dislike for my new haircut. I don't need Pierce to validate my choice but a simple 'it looks good' goes a long way in my opinion. " it doesn't really matter to me, though. At least you and Becca are the ones who like my new style. That's all I need."

" Lieutenant piss has no room to talk about style when he, himself, has that sorry excuse of a hair cut that half the population of America had back in the eighties." He stated, offended on my half of the argument about my hair, lifting up the yellow police crime tape stuck on the victims plant room middle class apartment that is hidden on a roof-top. Olden day Hollywood posters of crime boss movies were wrecked and aged on the walls. " Is this the poor man's version of a penthouse or..."

Our victims wounds indicate he was shot a point blank range, right up close to the chest, and then left on his brown couch to rot. I would touch him but lately my gift of feeling pain has become a bit more severe to hide. It's been like so for months. I haven't told anyone, not even Lucifer or any of the angels in my life, wanting to see if I'd get an understanding of it myself. I didn't wish to place such another complication in their eternal lives.

Lucky for me no one has questioned my own self exclusion of the fact at hand. " Who could have.. done this? I can't imagine who would do such a thing to this young man." I sympathise, gnawing on my inner cheek, the smell of the house rich of oxygenised blood and metallic. His legs are bent are uncomfortably contorted, bended and broke. " Poor boy.."

" I'm afraid I might know." Stated lucifer which I blinked at, taken aback. How did he know him? I wouldn't have not pictured or guessed Lucifer to know a young man like such. What am I saying? He gets to meet new people each day at Lux. " I did this young man a favour."

" Lucifer." I guide Lucifer out of the victims living space, in the small corner where the kitchen was built with the main dining table huddled tight in the corner, different framed dog portraits hung on each one of the walls. Lucifer's face spoke all the words he couldn't say. " How exactly is it you know our victim? What was one of the favours?"

" Well, for starters, his name is Joey pileggi. He came to me a few months ago, and asked me for a favour, and I granted that said favour to him."

I frowned at him mentioning he is still granting favours. I wasn't the one to tell him what should be done but from the outside looking in all of the favours he's done seems to be coming back into a frame of bad faith and it doesn't look good. He is in need of some evaluation to who he granted all of these favours too. I stayed quiet.

" And before I hear you say why are you still granting favours? All I have to say, to that, is I will never be the one to stop give and granting those in need of favours because that is what I do. Darling." He answered my unsaid statement. " I mean, I may have gotten distracted for a while, but then I realised granting all of these favours defines me."

" Okay."

He blinked at how nonchalantly I said 'Okay' and I shrug. " Look. I'm not going to dictate anything you do, in your life, Luc." I didn't have that right. I am his friend, his best friend, and that is what a friend does. They support each other. " all I am.. going to say is be careful." I say, looking back at the corpse of Joey who was once a boy struggling to make ends meet to keep a roof over his head. " Granting these favours, good or not, can come back to bite you in the ass. Like this one. Careful of who you choose or otherwise there will be, so, many more of these on our hands."

" Much as I find it riveting how insightful your words are, Darling, this one wasn't dangerous." He recounted, looking past me to the living room Joey is being inspected by Ella in, he cleared the back of his throat. " His desire was to become the new godfather, a scarface for millennials." So he was introduced to the Mob? With Lucifer's help? Oh that is perfect. I ran a hand down my face.

" The mob? Really, Luc?"

" I may, or may not have, gotten him into doing an internship."

I'm choosing peace over arguing with Lucifer. He follows me out, while I rolled my head in a circle, and I listen to the flashes of Ella's camera. " What do we have, Ella?" I asked, me understanding I'm looking at the motive behind the attack as part of the mob's motive to kill Joey for whatever reason he deserved to be killed over, my voice showing a tinge of flat out exasperation. She didn't notice.

" Two gunshot wounds to the chest and his legs were broken, practically shattered." She explains, her gloves were half off in spite of her still being super close to Joey's body but she kept a distance from his bloody wounds, one leg rested up while her other is kneeling still. " I thought the killer broke Joey's legs first, you know torturing him before killing him. But, look.." she circled Joey's exposed leg bone cartilages, a result of his knees shattering at the strain and broken pieces of his femoral muscle breaking off, which I can't help but grimace at. Poor guy having to deal with his legs being torn apart. " Minimal Haemorrhaging. That's when I realised Joey's legs both broken postmortem."

What kind are they trying to give from this? It doesn't sound right to break his legs then just to leave him here, in the open, for us to find.

" Oh, dear. I fear I might have an answer for that, Miss Lopez." Answered Lucifer, deep exhales of air left him. " It may be a commentary on the job that I got for him, as a runner for the mob."

'What a sick, and twisted, hyperbole that is. His legs being the one use that got him the job ended up being the one that, also, took his life.'

With the crime scene exonerated by the LAPD it meant I had to go back to the station, in order to go over the evidence with Lucifer, and my uncle Dan met me in the debrief room. Ella is freaking out about how in mint condition and rare Joey's high tops were. How expensive the prices are for the limited edition sneakers. I didn't take interest in the concept of shoes, the nicest pair of I owned are the ones bought by Maze for my birthday that I am wearing today. Speaking of maze she is due back from her bounty trip today.

" Joey's high-tops were limited edition. Easily a grand total for any of em! I'm talking like three zeroes on the end of the price tag, for these bad boys. My brother's would flip over these!" She is fan girl-ing hard, right now, as I leaned back with a slight smile on my face at how excited she is for the opportunity to marvel at the shoes. " Look at these, Liz! Tell me you can't say how awesome all of these bad boys are."

" Sweet kicks, indeed."

" Sorry I'm late!" Charlotte came in, chipper then how I usually would see, and she randomly gave me a kiss on the hair with a one arm hug around my neck. My uncle, Lucifer, and Ella stared at me bemused with how much Charlotte is being very affectionate with me all of a sudden. " Your hair is stunning. I'm glad you went with my advice on it, Ellie. I knew I made the right choice, to bring you to my salon, cause that meant I didn't have to go alone." I smiled, laughing at all of their faces.

" Charlotte. H.. Hey, what are you doing here? I didn't think you were scheduled to be of council to someone today."

Uncle Dan spoke up, for the rest of those inside the space whose confusion is changed into an expression of content seeing how I am easy to relax around her, Lucifer is still the one to be uncertain of how he should behave with Charlotte. " Are you defending someone?"

" No. I quit my job."

" Ah, good for you, Charlotte. Had enough of life as a corrupt defence lawyer, have you?"

Lucifer, his noticeable presence of indifference to others struggles in their everyday life including the one who was inhabited by Goddess, states to which I could but all sigh.

I know it is difficult for him to be around her, it must be hard to not see how his mother isn't Charlotte. She is beginning to get her life back on track.

" Today is my first day in the district attorney's office, as prosecutor. I'm on your side, now."

Charlotte explains, the switch in jobs a piece of information I am already aware of her having with our conversation this morning about our career paths, and she motions a hand to me.

" Detective... I mean Ellie and I were discussing.. it at her hair appointment early in the day. Can you believe how impressive it is for her to be the youngest recruited detective in the history of the LAPD? It is amazing. I definitely trust her on our streets and to fight crime."

" I think it's a good thing, that Charlotte is here." I say, in her defence, shrugging. " We have her on our side which means we can put more bad days away and in the places where they belong." I add, noticing the tension forming in the space itself, I uncross my arms.

" Plus. It's not up to any of you two.." I glance between my uncle and Lucifer who I know are the least popular fans of Charlotte but I needed to say what needed to be said. " To make that choice whether or not she can be here." They did not say it, outright, but it's written on their faces how they feel about Charlottes change came from being a foe to friend of the station.

" Now can we get back to Ella's show and tell of joey's expensive sneaker shoes? Please? I very much like to understand the importance of the different brands and their worths."

~•~

The mob's of Los Angeles, and the United States as a whole, are systematically more violent than any other criminal groups the LAPD has dealt with. I personally haven't come across the mob, before, until today.

They can be scary if provoked and it doesn't take much for them to hold onto an old grudge or blood feud. Generations of families who have been at war with one other. Walking into the assigned interrogation chamber in the station, where a mobster is waiting for his questioning to start, I got a sense of discomfort of being in the same room as him. I had to push past that feeling and remain professional, while I pushed any source of uncomfortable feelings I've got out of my mind, focusing on the job at hand.

" Hello, Frankie."

Lucifer greeted, as though they are on first name basis with one another, those words made me feel confused then I remembered of course he'd know the mob. He helped our Vic get his runner job with his connections. Charlotte, entering the chamber room behind me while closing the door, came to my side while I sat at the table.

" Hello, I am detective decker. I take it you are.." I glanced at the file, wanting to pronounce his name right, inching my seat forward to lean my hands on the table itself. " Mr. Ferrante? Thank you for coming in today."

" And we know each other quite well, don't we, Frankie?"

Lucifer noted, as he stares down our suspect doing what he does best whenever we're around alleged criminals but this time we are in front of a literal mob man, taking his seat next to mine. He'd pulled the seat a little closer to me, I didn't question it being too focus on the file sprawled on the table, and Charlotte had her long slender arms cross over her torso observing the suspect. Mine were tensing, in overdrive of being near Frankie.

" I don't believe we've ever met, Buddy."

Said the one across from me, denying he'd ever met Lucifer in his past, an old country Italian accent is heard in his words. How he pronounced them sounded fluent, and rather cool I admit. He is manspreading with his legs parted on either side of his chair, leaning his arm on the seat itself rather uncomfortably, and he looked to Charlotte as I continued to talk.

" This here is..."

" Charlotte Richards! It's good to see you. Tell me how are the kids?"

She did say she had some of the mob as her clients in the past. That isn't a big surprise.

" Hi, Frankie."

Charlotte greeted, with a hesitant smile, not sure how Frankie will react to her new position as a DA for the district attorneys office.

" Man, the guys are sure gonna be jealous when they hear you're defending me."

" Look, Frankie, I'm not here to defend you. I'm the prosecutor. I work with the cops now." She corrected him, voice stern and dripping with an affirm tone that told no lies, breathing in. " That means I am not your lawyer. I am here against.. I am here against you." She glanced at me, as if she wanted to be sure she said the right thing to him to which I nod slightly in turn, crossing my ankle over the other. " Detective decker wants to ask you a few questions in relation to a case we've got and I suggest you answer them with respect."

" What happened, Frankie? You were supposed to mentor Joey Pileggi, not kill him."

" I got no idea about any killing."

" Oh, did joey steal from you?" Asked Lucifer, his question a rhetorical understanding of what he'd already suspected happened to Joey. " So what? You made an example of him?"

He goes on to add to his list of reasons of wanting to punish Frankie for joeys death. I watched Frankie, trying to read his energy that I could usually understand with a straight answer of whether they're guilty or not. I couldn't pick anything up. I hid my growing face of worry from both men in the room and Charlotte.

" Guess what? I just love making brutal examples of people. Especially those that cannot keep their eyes straight and off of those who are spoken for."

Lucifer clicked a finger, right in-front of my face at Frankie, his glare deadly as it could be.

It didn't click in my mind at Frankie's insistence to stare right at me. I'm use to men staring at me, I became increasingly more aware of my beauty, so nothing else is new to me no more. I don't think I am that beautiful but I do know that I can make a human man fail to keep his eyes off me.

" Like I said I don't know any Joey and I don't know you."

" Except you do." I slide the photo of Joeys dead corpse right there in Frankie's face. " You know him. Don't you?" I tap the photo. " Why lie to us, Mr Ferrante?"

" Okay, yeah, I might have seen him once. It's lil hard to say."

'This is going to be a little harder than I'd like it to be.'

~•~

" Someone was definitely sending a message."

Ella spoke up, mindful of our second victim who is laid on the polished lavished floors of the hair salon we were called out to for another murder. I looked around the nicest hair salon I've set foot in, after the one I went for my hair appointment, of different models and chandlers stringed up on canvas.

Our victim was found on a noose of fake hair extensions. Lucifer's words sounded in the back of my mind 'He's sending a message to me.' Which begged the question. Who? And why him?

" Frida Marquez, thirty six. The noose was made out of her own hair. How twisted is that? It was not the hanging that killed her. You'd think it'd be! But nope. She died from two gunshot wounds to the chest!"

" But why would our killer string her up... like.." I have never been rendered as confused I am right of now. " How we found her? Why go out of the.. way to make a scene? Show them off like they're part of some sick display of art? Like Joey?" That is half of my thought process, worry in my veins, as the thought of Lucifer being next made what I was thinking much more worrying. He's next. Or someone else he helped or someone personal in his life is going to be chosen. I don't know how my hand found its way into Lucifer's but I allow myself to hold his hand for my own comfort.

" We need to find the man who did this and give him the punishment he has coming to him."

I agree. These are getting too close to home.

JASMINE SPEAKS;

I had some trouble updating, as I had started and restarted this chapter over and over again, which I find incredibly frustrating. Because inspiration seems to leave me fast then it magically appears, again, after a long time.

What did you think of this chapter? Ellie with the lieutenant/Pierce and Lucifer?

How do you like her forming friendship with the new and improved Charlotte Richard's?