It's been a few weeks since the discovery of the most recent body. The silence on La Pussiance's behalf was utterly unnerving to the people of Los Angeles.

The last body found was that of Tricia Marlyn—a woman who was on the wealthier side and had a mansion in one of the most luxurious neighbourhoods. It wasn't long before people found out of her disappearance, and as it was for police to find her body. It was still identifiable yet the question remained of La Reine's true intentions if he continued to leave the bodies of his victims able to be recognized.

On one hand, Harry thinks they should be grateful of no more deaths for the people of Los Angeles. He and his team should rejoice in the fact that La Pussiance has taken a break on their four-month long murder spree.

In the comfort of his apartment, Harry sits at his desk, rummaging through the drawers before pulling out a package of cigarettes. It was still sealed tight in the plastic wrap and he stared for a moment before putting it back in the deepest part of his drawer. He abandoned his desk covered with files and reports, as his legs carried him to the balcony. Pushing open the two glass doors and allowing the cool breeze of the city to brush along his skin.

On that late Saturday night, Harry later leaves his apartment to get take out from a local diner. Observing the bright moon and cloudless sky, he decides to walk there. It was only about two blocks away and Harry grabs a trench coat before leaving. As he's passing one empty alley to turn a corner to pass another, he doesn't expect to hear grunts and loud shoves. His steps slow down, and his ears listen closely to the noises. Harry walks closer to the corner and peeks around the brick wall, he can only see darkness. Though the shoves and crashes were enough to make him almost step forward, about to stop the fight but a sleek black car drives up and stops right before the alley, leaving Harry to duck back behind the corner before the headlights alert his presence. His peers around the corner again and his eyes instinctively look at the license plate but the car is without one. Then, he looks up at the driver's seat and nearly loses his breath.

Harry immediately falls back and leans against the wall, his blood running cold and one of his hands gripping the handle of his gun that was nestled in the holster.

Right in the driver seat of the large car, was him. His blue eyes glowing in the dim streetlight, lips pressed in a tight line and not an ounce of fear visible on his face. The lone diamond on his cheek shone and glimmered, and that had Harry gulping and cocking his gun. Bracing himself against the wall and craning his neck to raise his gun and point it directly at La Reine's head.

Harry could kill him now, he should kill him now. Avenge all those affected by the man's horrid mafia.

Harry hears movement from the other side of the wall and feels the unforgiving twists in his stomach as he knew someone was being beaten to death in that alleyway while he didn't make an effort to help.

He had a finger on the trigger, pointing it between La Reine's eyes, the eyes of a murderer.

"Zayn," La Reine leans out the window and blinks slowly. "Hurry up, we have to get back before all hell breaks loose."

Harry's heart racing, pounding against his chest, and his breaths coming out in short puffs. He should pull the trigger, for all those who were lost in the ruthless world of La Pussiance. But his entire body is frozen, he moves no muscle when La Reine opens the door, he doesn't blink when La Reine steps out the car in a tight black long-sleeved turtleneck dress and red thigh high latex boots, but does he accidentally kick an empty soda can when he takes a step back, and that's when La Reine was merely four feet away from him.

The loud sound of clattering metal hits Harry full on, but he presses his back against the wall. Quickly lowering his gun and holding his breath. To his luck, it goes unnoticed by the mafia Donna.

"You know the drill, Zayn."

Harry takes a peek around the corner in time to see La Reine lighting a cigar, the thick stick between two of his thin fingers as his black stiletto nails drag along the pocket of his dress. Harry swallows, the fear making him feel nauseous.

"Dump him in the trash bin." La Reine's voice is like honey, sinking into the deepest parts of Harry's brain. "There, let's go."

Harry's eyes burned after not blinking for so long as he grips the weapon tightly. Unmoving, Harry doesn't know what came over him when he watched La Reine calmly walk back to the opened car door. The last thing Harry saw of him was his face in the wing mirror of the car.

Harry stands there long after La Reine drove off into the darkness, he doesn't know when he walked back home, his gun heavy in the holster. He doesn't remember opening his apartment door and going to his bedroom. He falls back onto his bed, the morning sun peeking over the buildings and clouds, casting shadows over the walls of his room.

That was when Harry felt the first tear prickle in his eye, the guilt of letting a powerful and terrifying criminal walk free finally settling. Harry now had blood on his hands, any blood that La Reine or La Pussiance choose to shed for the rest of their existence because he let him go and didn't even dare to report the murder he witnessed in that alley. It was a case of fascination before fear.

The dread settling in the pit of his stomach as he hopes that La Reine didn't see him—but Harry thinks that if the Donna did, he would have shot Harry on the spot.

La Reine was hypnotizing, he drew in Harry the moment the first case report landed on his desk. He captured Harry's interest when there was barely any known information about him. And the second Harry let La Reine take another breath, he sealed his fate and that of everyone around him.

Harry was gone, the FBI agent who wouldn't rest until justice was served, the man who would stop at nothing to make people pay for their misdeeds was nowhere to be found. Harry disappeared into thin air when he didn't shoot La Reine at point blank, Harry was dead.

That was because La Reine had Harry.

Harry doesn't sleep at all and now it was officially Sunday meaning Harry had a day off. He chooses to remain in bed, he switches off his phone after calling his sister and puts on a comedy on his television, carefully avoiding the news channel.

Harry spends the day alone in the darkness of his room with nothing but his thoughts.

The following day, Harry pulls himself out of bed. It was Monday and he wants to call in sick and avoid work as much as possible but he turns on his phone again and sees the many messages from Liam, the last one being to check his email. And Harry did, it was an email from their boss saying that there was an urgent and mandatory meeting scheduled for that morning.

So, Harry showers to wash away the guilt. He lathers his body in coconut-scented lotion and combs his hair before putting on his grey slacks and black button up. He eats breakfast, a simple little sandwich that he barely finished because the sinking feeling was making him queasy.

He couldn't go to work, to a place where they enforced justice and pretend that he didn't let a most wanted criminal get away. The remorse was eating him alive, reminding him of his sin and the fact that he was not the same man he was twenty-four hours ago.

"All right, good morning, everyone." A tall man dressed in a fitting dark blue shirt and black slacks stands at a higher level of the office. His coffee mug in hand is steaming as he slowly scans the room. "I see everyone is here, so let's get started." He turns around and signals for the PowerPoint to start.

"Yesterday around noon I received an anonymous letter that I suspect is from La Pussiance."

Harry chokes on his coffee.

The man presses the remote in his hand as the slide changes. It shows a short body paragraph along with a high-quality photograph of an embroidered piece of fabric sealed tight in a large ziplock. The black and red embroidery of the cursive letters stands out against the white fabric, the ends of the letters looked to be sewn by a professional.

'Silence is deadly. Fear is power but respect is domination.

To those who know and who witness, I ask you, what about pulled you to break your oath.

I write to you as a warning. Keep watch of your mailbox. Or don't, but remember that everything is an eye for an eye.'

"The fabric had traces of cocaine and just about any drug that La Pussiance smuggles, though no traces of DNA. As you can see," the slide changes to reveal a zoomed in picture of the quilt, "there is a missing piece in the corner." The very bottom corner of the quilt had a circle burned out, the ragged edges were a black. "The burn seems to be placed right on top of the signature, only being left was part of La Pussiance as it was only missing letters."

"A cigar."

"Pardon, me?" The man pauses and everyone turns back to see Harry, standing still with his arms crossed over his chest. They hopefully don't see the thin layer of sweat covering his face.

"It's a cigar burn," Harry says clearly even though his mind was anything but.

It was too large to be a regular cigarette burn. Harry knew no one in Los Angeles had the time to smoke a cigar because it took hours. Every day was a rush and everyone in the city was busy. That was, except for one person—the person who wrote the note.

His boss eyes him wearily. "We will test that, Mr. Styles." He leans down and exchanges a few words with his assistant. He stands back to his full height and presses another button on his remote.

"I fear we are being targeted by La Pussiance now, more than ever. I ask everyone to take caution and more so in your homes. A direct note from this mafia has never been recorded and now that they aren't silent, it seems they have returned with tricks up their sleeve."

Harry has to lean back onto his desk, taking a slow sip of his coffee as he makes eye contact with Liam. The man furrows his brows at Harry's state.

"Anything that appears in your mailboxes or near your homes is to be reported to me immediately. The news has no idea of the quilt and will continue to be left in the dark of such."

"I'm sorry to interrupt, sir, but why?" A dark-haired woman asks, she is behind Harry and he has to twist his neck to see her. "Shouldn't the public be aware?"

"If this note is not from La Pussiance and rather a form of a prank and we blow it out of proportion, we could be targeted to the point of murder rather than just a simple threat as this is."

Goosebumps appear on Harry's skin and, his chest stills as he holds his breath.

"And the public will be hysteric, and I will be questioned by the director of the federal bureau of investigation. We could fear to lose our jobs to this if this is a prank."

The rest of the day, the office is quiet. Like everyone whispers instead of talking and their movements slow as if they're being monitored.

Harry feels the worst of it all. He knows the note was for him, he knows it wasn't a prank and that cigar burn had told him it all. Harry leaves work early, stating he was sick and left before Liam got off his lunch to pester him about his behaviour. The way to his car, he constantly looks over his shoulder, and the drive home is worse as he continuously glances in his side mirrors. He hates the walk from his car to the lobby door, the number of eyes that he could feel on him was chilling to his bone. He quickly puts in his key and swings the door open, walking straight to the elevator and ignoring his mailbox.

"Harry!"

The man turns around and is greeted by the sight of one of his neighbours. She was an eighty-year-old woman, with grey hair and wrinkles, and she had kind hazel eyes. Her name was Selene. She spent most of her days in the lobby on her wheelchair wrapped up in a thick knitted cardigan and always wore a polite smile. She waves Harry over and slips on her glasses.

"Hello, Selene." Harry leans down and kisses her cheek. He's known her since he moved to L.A. She reminded him of his mother deeply. "Is there anything I can do for you today?"

"May you please get my mail for me?" Her frail voice asks. Her hand grips Harry's and places her key in it. "Damn, landlord hasn't changed it yet." She laughs to herself.

"Of course." Harry's done this before. Always helping Selene get her mail from one of the top boxes whenever she asked. She got into an accident a while back and Harry was the first to offer her help, being one of her oldest and most caring neighbours. He takes the key and opens the box, inside there were a couple coupons and flyers, a letter addressed to Selene and one bill.

"How is work, honey?"

Harry freezes, his hand tightening around the stack of papers. "It's going well, nothing much has happened."

"Oh, yes. I was watching the news last night and they said La Pussiance hasn't had any victims." Selene says. "That's all because of you, Harry. Mr. FBI Agent."

She couldn't be more wrong.

"Well, here's your mail." Harry shuts the box and rolls on the balls of his feet.

"Oh, you're such a sweetheart, Harry." Selene smiles and takes the mail from him before setting it on her lap.

"Do you need help getting to your apartment?"

"I'm fine, dear. I'm going to stay down here for a little while longer and see if the landlord comes down." Selene pats Harry's arm. "I'll keep pestering him about my mailbox 'till he changes it."

After they both say goodbye, Harry descends to the elevator, suddenly feeling better after seeing Selene.