~ with the Silver Fangs, Third POV ~

"How did he get out?! You made sure nothing was in that room didn't you?!" Adler yelled at the men who he ordered to set the room up.

"We did! There wasn't a thing in there and he was chained as ordered!" One of them cried, not liking the feeling of being in the hot seat at all.

"Sarah! What the hell happened in there?" Adler said, turning a sharp glare to the girl who had been silent this entire time.

"I don't know, when I came in Noel Limosa was unconscious and his brother told me that he'd fainted. He had Noel's gun and turned it on me, demanded that I release him" she explained and the next thing knew, she was struggling to breathe as Adler wrapped his hands around her neck.

"And you let him go?" He seethed and Sarah struggled to speak with her oxygen being cut off.

"You should have let him kill you" Adler growled before dropping her on the floor, the girl taking sharp breaths as she clutched her neck with tears in her eyes.

Her eyes trailed up when she heard footsteps and she saw some of their guards escorting their expected guest, Gabriel Limosa.

Everyone stayed quiet when seeing the leader but Adler was too busy ranting to notice that or the Limosa's presence.

"God damn it, that man is going to be here any minute and the only one in that cell is his dumbass son!" Adler cried and Gabriel raised a brow.

"My dumbass son?" He asked and Adler froze.

"M-M-Mr. Limosa!" Adler stuttered out as he turned around in surprise but Gabriel waved him off.

"Where is he?" Gabriel said while looking directly at Adler. Just from sensing the tension in the hall and the nervous looks from everyone, he was well aware that they had failed to successfully capture Cole.

"Please come this way" Adler said with a sigh and guided Gabriel to the room where Cole was supposed to be but instead only had Noel.

"We're very sorry Mr. Limosa" Adler muttered as he deeply bowed in apology.

"Father! Is that you?!" Noel's muffled words reached the group and Gabriel opened the door.

Seeing Noel chained up with a huge bump on his forehead just made Gabriel want to sigh. He wasn't angry, these people were careless so he figured they wouldn't be able to do the job successfully thus refrained from getting his hopes up.

"I sent you here to retrieve Cole, would you care to explain how it is that you ended up in his place?" Gabriel asked.

"..." Noel seemed to be too ashamed to speak of it so he just looked away from his father.

To think they both were trained the same, to be able to defend themselves and get out of even the most difficult situations was unbelievable. But Noel had always been the cowardly type that gave up when things got too hard, he had nothing on Cole who was stubborn as a mule and excelled in strategy and combat.

Gabriel turned to Adler who seemed to be waiting for judgement to be placed upon him, although according to Eros, it already has been.

"You don't have him so not only have you wasted my time, but you did not keep up your end of the bargain so I won't keep mine. I'm pulling my men from your areas, your protection is no longer guaranteed" Gabriel stated and Adler's eyes widened at the statement.

"P-Please sir! You have to understand, we put our necks on the line doing this, without your protection that bastard is going to eliminate us!" Adler exclaimed.

Gabriel sighed and put his fingers to his temple.

"I warned you that Cole is not someone you can carelessly lock in a room, yet you did just that" Gabriel said and Adler was quick to object to his statement.

"We made sure the room was bare of any possible weapons! There was nothing in there he could have used to get out" Adler reasoned but Gabriel seemed not to care for it as he was just about done with the conversation.

"Yet he still did. You just don't get it, do you? If he doesn't have a weapon, it's no problem, his body is a weapon itself. You should have locked him under this place to ensure his capture" Gabriel glared as he finished his sentence, he thought he wasn't angry but just thinking about how Cole had easily managed to slip away was starting to bother him more and more.

That child was so ungrateful...Gabriel had let him live, kept a roof over his head, made sure he was fed, trained him to be combat ready, and all he had to do in return was survive. But now he thinks he can just leave? Gabriel had plans to make sure that Cole thoroughly understood that his life is not his own to do as he pleases once Cole was back in his grasp.

"Then we'll do-" Adler's reasons died out when Gabriel covered his mouth.

He talked too much.

"There's nothing you can do anymore. You're useless to me now because your time is up. You know as well as I do that when Eros Azure is set on doing something, it gets done" Gabriel said and removed his hand from Adler's mouth.

"I could only hope that you manage to get out of the country before he comes...but even then, I doubt that'd be far enough"

~ a few days later, Cole's POV ~

"...later on today" the sound of faint talking was disrupting my sleep and I cracked an eye open reluctantly. My back was facing the window so the sun rays reflected as such and from how bright they were, I figured it was sometime in the morning.

"Okay, you can choose the restaurant this time but it can't be seafood based. My friend is allergic" I heard Eros chuckle at whatever the person on the phone said and then silence followed.

I debated for a moment on whether or not I wanted to get up but my stomach made the choice for me as it yelled at me to get up and feed it.

Shut up stomach, let me sleep.

Sighing, I sat up and stretched a bit, another yawn escaping from my lips as I did so. I rubbed the sleep out of my eyes before looking at the clock on the bedside.

It was half past nine, and I was once again amazed by how long I slept. I'd been sleeping in a lot since we've been here and it's only because Eros won't just wake me up like I asked him to, always going on about rest is important but I believed too much can be bad at the same time.

"Cole?" Eros walked in the room after a few knocks and I looked at him.

"Good, you're up. Hungry?" He asked and my stomach spoke for me as it growled. I looked down at it in distaste before nodding.

"Well I can make you something light for now since we do have plans for lunch. And don't worry, no seafood will be involved" he said.

I wasn't going to lie, I felt a bit happy that Eros remembered my allergy but instead of showing it like a normal person, I just nodded in thanks.

Getting up, I slowly got showered and dressed, my drowsiness sort of still having a grip on me. I could probably go on a quick walk to wake myself up.

"I'll be back" I stated as I headed to the door and Eros hummed.

Once I was out of the building, I released a sigh of relief. I still wasn't used to all the attentiveness from the employees so it was hard for me to interact with them, the most I could do was give an awkward smile and leave.

I didn't take long on my walk, it was still the middle of summer so it was hot as all hell out here with the concrete. Though I did also enjoy that it wasn't too cold, I didn't enjoy freezing either.

After feeling like my walk has gone on long enough, I headed back to the apartment where I was once again greeted by the overzealous staff. After I was back in the apartment, I went to the kitchen and saw a plate of food on the table.

I could hear the shower running so I just assumed the food was left out for me and began to eat it.

Once I was done eating, Eros had finally finished getting ready, and joined me at the table.

"What's the agenda for lunch?" I asked.

"War plans" he stated and I deadpanned.

Of course it is.

"Mm...war for lunch, sounds delicious" I said and Eros just let out a short laugh at my dry words.

"We're going to be having lunch with an old friend of mine who's going to help us get rid of the Silver Fangs. Gang wars aren't uncommon as you obviously know and other groups usually don't like to be involved in others beef but she's been barking up my tree about it for sometime now. I'm sure she'll be more than happy to hear that I've finally decided to agree with her" Eros explained.

"Are we really going to kill off an entire group?" I asked. Surely there were some who didn't agree with the way their group was run, maybe this forced disbandment could be the outlet to a new life for them.

"Well, if there are members who surrender than they're more than welcome to flee the scene. But for those who fight back, I won't be so forgiving" Eros said and I just sighed.

"Is there ever a day where we get to sit around and do nothing?" I said as I rested my head on the table.

"That's not in the contract I'm afraid" Eros said.

After a while, we headed off to the restaurant and I saw that it said Italian cuisine which made my stomach growl. It was my favorite...

"Eros!" A woman who was sitting at a table excitedly got up when seeing Eros and I approach.

She was probably one of the most prettiest women that I've ever seen. Her chestnut hair was long, longer than I've seen for most women as it went down to her thigh in a braid and I wondered how she managed it when it was so long. Her eyes were green like my own but much brighter and they seem to shine with happiness at the sight of her old friend.

"Hello, Eloise. You're a dangerous ray of sunshine as usual" Eros said, giving the woman a short hug.

"Eros, we've been friends for years now how many times do I have to tell you to call me El! You know Eloise is my old lady's name" She chided but Eros shook his head.

"Eloise is a fine name, you should be proud of it" he stated. Eloise just huffed and then her eyes finally landed on me.

"Oh, is this the friend you mentioned? He's very handsome" Eloise said as she smiled at me and we kind of stared each other down for a few seconds. I just matched her gaze and seeing that I wasn't bothered by her stare, her smile widened as if satisfied with my reaction.

Was she expecting me to be afraid of her or something?

"Yes, this is Cole. Cole, this is Eloise, she's the wife of the head of the Jade Devils. We've been business partners in trade for quite sometime now" Eros explained, though Eloise let out a huff at her introduction.

"You just can't admit that we're friends, can you?" She said and Eros merely just smiled.

"Shall we sit?" He said and we all took our seats.

As I looked over the menu, the two kept up their small chatter.

"So, how is Kenneth?" Eros asked and Eloise smiled.

"He's fine, just super busy giving a certain group the run around. They've been tailing our men for a while now" She explained.

"So it's not just us" Eros muttered and Eloise nodded.

"Yes, which is why I hoped that when you said you wanted to talk about the Silver Fangs, that you meant it's time to finally do what I've been telling you for ages" she said, a look of annoyance crossing her face.

"I don't go around starting wars with groups because they sneezed in my food, Eloise" Eros chided.

"Don't know why..." she muttered.

A waiter had stepped in to give us water and take our orders and after ordering, Eloise was straight back on the previous topic.

"I've heard it all you know? What's been going on. These guys are going around extorting groups for their assets and I'll be damned if our group is next. I would hope they realize that they're making lots of enemies" Eloise said.

"They're well aware but with such an incompetent leader who seems to not give a shit, they likely feel empowered" Eros said and Eloise looked to him with a determined gaze.

"Well, Kenneth and I are ready to give you all the resources you need" she said and Eros thanked her.

When our food came, I was more than happy to dig in to the creamy pasta dish, the food being a momentary bliss that helped to forget all about this crap we're dealing with.

"So, what happened to Johnny?" Eloise asked.

"I fired him" Eros said simply and Eloise nearly choked on her wine in surprise.

"What? Why?" She asked.

"Because I felt safer with Cole" cue my turn to choke on my drink.

Figuring that he was joking as usual, I tried to compose myself but hearing those words had really thrown me in for a loop. We had barely known each other at the time, I clocked him not even 24 hours prior to his proposal of me joining his group, so it was just highly unlikely that he felt "safe" with me.

"I never know what to believe out of those lips of yours" Eloise said, a sigh of resignation coming out of her.

Suddenly, Eloise reached over the table and placed her hand on mine in a friendly gesture, a warm smile on her face as she looked at me.

I understood that she was trying to be nice but I couldn't help but feel uncomfortable, I didn't really like when people touched me. Usually when people touched me, pain followed so it was hard to let go of that concept. I knew I had to work on it which is why I tried not to show my discomfort.

"Well, Cole, I hope we can be friends too. You don't talk much but I think getting to know more about you would seem fun" she said and just then we jumped at the sound of Eros' fork stabbing his plate.

"What's got your knickers in a twist all of a sudden?" Eloise asked, finally removing her hand from mine and I tried to pull it back slowly so as not to seem weirded out by the lady's touch (which I completely was).

"Whatever gives you that idea?" Eros asked giving a tight lipped smile as he stabbed his salad again.

"The way you're stabbing your fork into your food as if imagining it's me" Eloise said.

"Was I?" Eros asked, playing the oblivious role.

Eloise looked between Eros and I, me looking at her in confusion while Eros seemed to be trying to convey some kind of death threat with his eyes.

"Oh...so it's like that. Fine, I get it you can stop murdering your food" She said and while the two seemed to come to a mutual understand there was just one problem.

I had no idea what the hell that was about.

Deciding not to be bothered with it, I continued to enjoy my food, savoring the flavor as if it was my last supper.