They accelerated through a red light, speeding past a wall of traffic shooting across the junction towards them, causing a roar of screeching brakes and horns, and into the tangle of streets north of East Russell Road.

"Keep your head down," Rocco told her as he slammed the car around corners, allowing the steering wheel to spin beneath his lifted fingers.

He pumped his foot hard on the accelerator, the brake, the accelerator, one after the other, as he swerved between cars, on the inside of the lane, then the outside. Rocco's shaggy dark locks flew around his forehead as he jerked the car left and right, speeding, then braking.

They slowed down on New York-New York, the engine purring as they turned slowly down a narrow street, slipping into the stream of traffic heading towards Roy Square, then seemingly back the way they'd come.

Rocco nodded at the dash compartment. When Elodie opened it, she saw a baseball cap and dark sunglasses.

"Put them on."

Elodie heard sirens then; racing away from them, sometimes towards them.

Gunning the vehicle, Rocco swerved onto the wrong side of the road, and straight towards lanes of oncoming traffic.

Heart in her throat, Elodie clung onto the dash with one hand, and the oh-shit handle with the other. Eyes flicking from the rear mirror to the wing mirror, and squinting into the sky—checking for helicopter and trails—Rocco was apparently oblivious they were about to smash into a car that was swerving in panic in front of them.

"Rocco!" Elodie screamed, hunching her shoulders and gripping the handle in her right hand until her knuckles cracked; braced for impact.

Rocco jerked the wheel, skidding ninety degrees to perfectly negotiate the narrow entrance to a news street, and sped up. They were in one of the busiest city in the world, Elodie wanted to tell him, and one of the most heavily surveilled; it was insane to think they could evade capture.

The police was probably looking for them—her, specifically—right now.

But a garage door opened up halfway along the mews and a Corvette pulled out of it ahead of them. Rocco slammed the brakes, Elodie was flung forwards, to swing into the garage behind it. Shards of glass fell from hair as a brick of wall rushed towards them—but the car stopped dead.

Elodie's heart leaped to her throat, a scream caught halfway in her windpipes.

Hana's fatal pirouette was still imprinted in her mind's eye; echoes of the automatic gunfire still juddered her bones. Again, bile rose to her throat.

"Get out." Leaving the engine running, Rocco climbed from the car, but leaned back and pointed at the pen, which was on the floor. "Pick it up!"

Elodie snatched it up, and followed him to the other car. A man and a woman with similar builds as she and Rocco, both wearing sunglasses and baseball caps, appeared from nowhere and jumped into the car they'd just abandoned in the garage. It pulled out and drove the opposite way.

When Rocco drove the Corvette onto a main road, Elodie tried to get her bearings. They were somewhere in Utah, or maybe Arizona, she wasn't sure.

A helicopter flew above a building. A moment later, a pair of police vehicles sped past in the opposite direction, sirens wailing as they went.

Moving into a creeping stream of traffic, Rocco rested his elbows on the window of the driver's side. His surprisingly manicured nails tapped on the wheel. They crawled slowly along for a few minutes, Elodie's nerves screaming;it seemed to her that they were going in circles, continually doubling back towards the square.

"Rocco, what's happe—"

"Not now." Rocco pulled out of the crawling line of traffic and into a narrow street, where another car sat idling, the doors open.

He pulled up beside it, and they changed vehicles again. A man and woman sitting in front of a café and jumped into the corvette, which roared off.

Now hidden behind tinted windows, driving at a steady speed, they drove for another fifteen minutes, moving steadily in heavy traffic, waiting patiently at lights and junctions, as police vehicles and vans screamed in every direction.

At a red light, Rocco pulled behind an SUV. "Come on."

They climbed into the vehicle ahead, swapping with another man and woman who didn't even spare them a glance as they passed in the road. The lights changed and Rocco pulled across the junction, edging to the side of the road to let a police car roar past.

"Where are we going?" Elodie asked, but Rocco didn't answer.

He drove once again across East Russell Road, and into a cramped street, careful to give plenty of space to the evening crowds who swarmed across the road in search of casinos, bars and restaurants.

Finally, Rocco swung into an underground car park. At the entrance a barrier rattled to the floor, and they clumped across a metal ramp, riding the curved band of concrete down into the gloom. When they reached the wide concrete basement, there were only three other cars parked in the entire space.

Waiting at the door of a elevator at the far end was a group of well dressed men and women. The car glided to a halt in front of them, and Rocco killed the ignition.

Two men walked towards the car. One had a device in his hand, which looked a lot like one of those fancy dust-buster thing she'd once seen in one of her client's house; the second carried long piece of colored fabric.

Rocco nodded at the pen in Elodie's hand. "Give me that."

Elodie handed him Hana's pen. When she climbed out, the man with the dust-buster shut the door behind her, and said, "Raise your arms, please."

She glanced at Rocco, who nodded.

Considering that he'd just saved her life, it seemed ungracious to object, so Elodie raised her arms.

The man lifted the device to her head and slowly pulled it all the way down her body. Satisfied, he nodded to Rocco. "She's clear."

The man came up to her and, like a department store shop assistant, held up two cocktail dresses. One was yellow and sparkly, the other a slinky black number. Strappy silver high-heeled sandals dangled from one of her hands.

"Which one?" He asked.

Elodie stared at him in incomprehension. She had nearly been gunned down, there were probably bits of dead woman brain matter in her hair, and he wanted her to play dress-up.

Then, she remembered just whose brain had exploded before her very eyes.

Oh, God. Hana...

This time, she was unable to stop the projectile vomit. And it was just the store assistant guy's luck that he was standing in front of her.

*

The opulent rest room she'd been shoved into after her whole mess was located a floor above the garage floor. Glass-doored stalls along one side faced a mirrored wall with sinks and counters.

Elodie glanced in the mirror and winced: average height, slim woman, straggly dark hair, pale complexion and huge blue eyes ringed with two huge circles. Her bones felt weak and heavy at the same time, and she wanted to sleep for a whole week; hoping that when she woke up, this would all be a nightmare.

Her clothes were still salvageable, but nothing the dresses, which was just as well, because she wasn't in the mood for that.

Poor Hana...

Elodie closed her eyes against the onslaught of emotions that hit her like a sixty-ton brick, then leaned over the sink to splash water on her face.

She was drying off when a knock came to the door. After thrashing the used tissues, she went to open the door. Rocco stood, leaning against the wall opposite her, eyes impassive.

"Are you okay?"

"I'll live," she sniped, wondering why he'd ask that when she clearly wasn't.

"She can't go in looking like that," store department assistant guy was saying, "house rules."

Elodie glared at him. "I'm not in the mood to play dress-up, okay?"

"I have strict instructions not to let her go up looking like that," he insisted, looking put-upon himself.

Rocco scowled, lips pressing into a thin line. "Here." He gave him the pen. "Get it to our tech guys as quick as you can, or the Don will be pissed. They need to access the chip. We need to use it tomorrow night."

The man took it and walked off.

"Come with me." Rocco led Elodie to the elevator.

When the door opened, the burgundy walls and the perfumed interior contrasted with the bleached hallways.

As soon as the door closed, Rocco smiled for the first time. "Hello, Elodie."

"Hi, Rocco."

She hadn't expected to see the man again after their encounter on the Yatch. Elodie almost imagined she could rest between these walls forever—until she felt a sharp sting in her arm.

With a force that surprised her, Elodie slammed Rocco into the wall, growling.

"Hey. Easy there, tiger." Rocco quickly held up a stubby needle in his fingers. "It's to neutralize any trackers you may have inside you, it's not going to do you any harm. We can never be too careful."

Elodie breathed hard. "For fuck's sake, Rocco."

He laughed. "I come in peace, though. Or, would I have saved you if I planned to kill you?"

She managed a wobbly smile. "How do you even know to be in the right place at the right time?"

Instead of answering, Rocco closed the distance between them, and Elodie felt herself tense up. But, he only gently shook out the collar of her shirt to let the shards of glass trapped inside it fall to the floor.

"It's good to see you again. I just wish the circumstances were different."

"Where are we going?" asked Elodie, as the elevator began to slow down.

"Someone wants to talk to you," he told her.

Someone? Not Angelo?

When the door opened, Elodie stepped out into the middle of a crowded cocktail party.

"Wait here," Rocco said to her, and he walked into the crowd of smartly dressed men and women laughing and chatting over drinks.

Elodie pressed herself against the on-trend lavender wallpaper. In her shirt, jeans, and sneakers, she stuck out like a sore thumb among all the expensive suits and frocks; and almost wished she'd picked one of the dresses.

They were in the top-floor bar of an expensive New York-New York hotel, the type of place she only saw in online magazines these days. A long counter dominated one end of the room and floor-to-ceiling windows ran the entire length, looking out over rooftops. The sun had gone down, but the sky was still brushed with wispy pink clouds. The flashing lights of helicopters swept back and forth above the cityscape.

Elodie watched the men and women in expensive design labels flick their shiny hair in delighted laughter, and wondered how the hell she had ended up here.

Less than an hour ago, Hana's body had lifted in the air, twisted in a graceful slow-motion twirl, her feet leaving the ground as the top of her skull blew off.

Elodie closed her eyes and pressed her fingers into the lids to try to dismiss the image. She'd say she'd seen worse, but that'd be a lie. And while she may have not been the one to pull the trigger, Elodie knew that she was responsible.

She'd led Hana to her death.

If only she'd picked her call before leaving the conservatory for the square, then maybe she'd be alive and not some carcass on the roadside, body riddled with the rain of bullets that had showered after her death.

And yet somehow or other Elodie was still alive; it made no sense.

She made a silent vow to make whoever was responsible for Hana's death pay.

But then, her own brother flashed into her mind, and she felt fear surge through her body. Mace was all that mattered to her. Even more than her own life.

Elodie had last seen him one week ago; had left him in the hands of Jean, who she didn't know beyond their work kinship and their sometimes shared bus-rides conversations.

What kind of sister was she, anyway? It was her job to protect him, nobody else's. She had a very urgent need to know that he was safe.

"Oh, you poor thing," said a voice, and when Elodie opened her eyes, she saw a woman in a glittery ankle-length dress and gelled-back hair coming towards her.

When the woman grabbed her arm, Elodie's frayed nerves sizzled; and she was ready to hit her in the nose. The thought of violence was unexpected and it made Elodie blink several times.

"Oh, God. I know everything. You poor thing. You're so brave. Very brave."

Elodie looked for Rocco.

"Considering all you've been through, your skin still glows. You look ravishing." Placing ring-speckled fingers on her chest, the woman spoke in low, emotional tones. "Well done, sweetheart. Well done."

She was saved from further praises when the very last person she expected to see approached her.

"Isn't she so brave?" The woman asked Vasily, who looked every bit handsome in well pressed cream-colored suit and shiny loafers. His hair was brushed back, shiny and wet.

"Indeed." Vasily didn't take his eyes off of Elodie even as he spoke to the woman. "Why don't you help yourself to a drink at the bar, and I'll be along in a few minutes."

When she had gone, Vasily flashed an all-white teeth smile at her. "I'm going to give you a very big hug for the benefit of the room, so please play along."

He draped an arm around her stiff unyielding body, and hung there for a minute. His cologne stirred up her unsettled stomach, and Elodie had to breathe through her mouth to stave off the threat of vomiting.

"I'm so glad you're safe," he said, leading Elodie into the crowd. "Do try and smile, darling, you're among friends."

Elodie looked anxiously over her shoulder to Rocco who stood by the elevator.

"Don't worry, he isn't going anywhere," said Vasily. "He has strict orders not to let you out of his sight."

Elodie didn't have to imagine who the order was from. She knew.

Vasily led her away from the party, where they stopped several times for people who tell Elodie just how 'brave' she was or how she 'glowed'.

They came to a darkened space in the back of the room. "We can talk here."

Although everyone was dressed to the nines and all middle aged, Elodie couldn't shake the feeling that there were trained experts in the crowd.

"What am I doing here?"

"I thought we'd have a little chat, you and I." Vasily snatched two martini glasses from the tray of a passing waiter and gave her one. "About how you came to find yourself in the middle of this mess. It's clear that someone has it out of you."

"I'm lucky to be alive."

"I'm not sure about this, Elodie. If the sniper wanted to kill you, I imagine they could have done so easily. I think the aim was to scare Angelo out of hiding and implicate you in whatever conspiracy is unfolding. If that's the case, it's mission accomplished."

"Implicate me in what?" asked Elodie.

"Please take a sip," Vasily urged, waving at her glass. "I imagined you would."

"How very convenient that one of Angelo's men swooped in to save me."

"You're meant to be just out of rehab, I shouldn't give you that." Vasily took back the glass and placed it on a nearby table. That explained why she'd been getting praises from randos, then. "Now, that what we call luck. Although, Hana apprised us of Brooks plans to kill you and have it pinned on Angelo, or you wouldn't be here right now. You'd be as dead as a door nail, Amore mio."

Elodie's head spun. "I didn't do anything to Brooks to deserve this."

"Well, you did agree to spy on Casieri for him." Vasily sipped his martini, gaze blank as though he hadn't just dropped a world-shifting information.

If Vasily knew of her involvement with Brooks, this meant Angelo knew too.

Elodie's mouth went dry. If her heart was pounding before, it was like the drum beats of war now. Her nerves began to fray.

"The thing is, you're far involved in this than you know, Elodie. Delivering you dead or alive to Brooks wouldn't matter either way. He's dead-set on destroying what Angelo and I have built." He toyed with the rim of his glass, pausing to greet another man who stopped by to greet Elodie, once again."There are contract worth tens of millions of dollars, which are hanging by a thread. For a hundred and fifty years the Bratva and Casa Nostra have diligently toiled in the shadows of history, and we cannot risk our activities being brought into light to be prodded and examined. Which is why I'm providing you and Angelo with full support to bring down Brooks and as well discover why you've been brought into this."

"I'm going to take my brother and run," said Elodie, who didn't see any other option she had. Right now, she trusted no one.

"Nobody would blame you for that. But, you can't run forever." Vasily whisked off another drink from a passing tray. "I understand that our foe isn't to be trifled with. And, it's too late to bag yourself a Sugar Daddy seeing as you're already involved with a maniac that doesn't like sharing."

Elodie rolled her eyes. "That's not the point right now."

"Yes." He took a huge gulp of his drink. "So, what will it be?"

She bit her bottom lip, contemplating. "Okay. But, I have to make a call first."

For the first time that evening, Vasily frowned. "That's nit advisable."

She matched his frown. "Either I do that or I leave. What will it be?"

After some minutes of silence, he agreed. "Okay. But, just five minutes."

Elodie took out her phone and dialed Jean's number, sticking a finger in her other ear to block out the party noises. The phone rang five—six—seven times, and then was answered.

Jean answered. "Yes?"

"Jean, it's me." When she was met with silence, she added, "Elodie."

Jean said sourly, "It's way too early here for you to be calling me."

She was right, of course. Elodie hadn't been thinking about time zones when she called. "I just need to—"

"He's fine," Jean said sharply. "Don't call again. For now."

And then the line went dead.

Elodie pulled the phone back, brows raised. That was strange. But, she chalked it up to Jean being cranky about being roused from her sleep.

Vasily collected the phone from her for 'her own safety', and dropped it in her own untouched glass of drink, before Elodie could think of drinking it.

"Rocco will take you to Angelo now. And since you're flying out, you better leave now."

"Flying out?"

"You're going to Sunset Bay."

A/N:

HAPPY NEW MONTH, PEOPLE🎉🎉

And the plot thickens.....

Vasily's gibberish, I hope it made a bit of sense? Also, who else expected that Vasily and Angelo are working together?

And what do you think he knows, but isn't saying?

Why do you Think Angelo said they should meet in Sunset Bay?

Can we get theories about how and why Elodie became involved in this....whatever it is?

Oh, and let's welcome Mistydewlove. (sorry if I didn't get that right). Thank you for reading.

Don't forget to vote, comment and share.❤️