Mature Content Warning

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"I found a martyr in my bed tonight

She stops my bones from wondering just who I am, who I am, who I am"
FUN. - 'Some Nights'

.                 .               .

Oliver left for Russia only a few days later, bundled up in a thick layer of clothes and secrets. John, Felicity, and Isabel Rochev went with him, flanking around him like an entourage as they left Cali standing by the car while they made their way over to the jet that was perched on the tarmac waiting for them.

Oliver had told her about it in short sentences that same morning, words clipped and voice terse. How John's ex-partner - a woman named Lyla Michaels - had gone missing in Moscow looking for the man who had killed John's brother, and Oliver had offered to help his friend find her. He had...connections, he said. With the Bratva.

Oliver knew the freaking Russian mob.

Somehow, he managed to keep surprising her.

And then Isabel Rochev had tagged along. She had smiled at Oliver with those sinful lips, looked at him with those sinful eyes, and told her she was going with him. That she didn't trust him on his own. That perhaps he needed a keeper. And Oliver hadn't done much to stop her before she moved around him and boarded the plane.

Cali tried not to be jealous, but just for a moment, she thought she saw a gleam of some kind of animalistic satisfaction in Oliver's eyes. Thought his mouth might have twitched up at the corners by the faintest amount.

For a fleeting moment, Cali saw exactly how good Oliver might be with someone like Isabel Rochev, and something in her chest kind of just crumpled in on itself.

She managed to shove it all down enough to paste a convincing enough smile on her own face, and Oliver didn't falter when they finally made eye contact with each other, his own expression dissolving into something warm and lovely as he set aside whatever mask he'd selected for the trip. For that brief flash between them, she could see him, the Oliver that she loved. The Oliver that would not be boarding that plane, the Oliver that would not be going to Russia with Isabel Rochev, the Oliver that did not exist whenever it was anybody but the two of them.

Isabel Rochev might provide a passing amusement, like a toy gifted on Christmas day to a young child, but she couldn't claim that like Cali could. Cali was the favourite toy, the first pick, the one that Oliver actually loved.

It wasn't until the jet's engines were howling away in preparation for take off and Cali was ushered back into the car and driven away that Janet's voice threaded back through her thoughts, supple and familiar and sad.

"He will chew you up and spit you out and never, ever say sorry for it. The moment you start thinking of yourself as his, CC, it's already too late."

Cali stubbornly set her jaw and stared out the window as the silent driver eased them into the traffic heading back into the heart of the city, and tried to forget all about her waitress and her warnings. After all, Oliver was one of the only people she had left. If Cali wasn't allowed to be his, then she wasn't able to be anybody's, and that was the kind of life that she wasn't sure she could ever live.

"And what about belonging to yourself?" Janet challenged silently in her head. "What about being your own woman?"

She didn't know how.

Maybe once, so many years ago, she might've been just fine being by herself. Answering only to herself. She'd been her mother's daughter, raised in the lap of luxury by parents who loved her and each other. She'd had Tommy, who still loved her even if he never really went out of his way for her on a daily basis.

And then her mom had died. And then the ship had gone down many years later. Still, Cali had known love. Through Tommy, and Moira, and Walter, and Thea.

And then she'd let Michael break her down into tiny little pieces of nothing, only for him to build her back up the way he wanted her. He'd trained her, twisted her all up until she'd forgotten what it was to live on her own, to choose on her own, to be her own woman. He'd permanently damaged something in her, that part of her heart that had loathed those shackles. He'd taught her to need them, to be the obedient pet at the end of the leash.

When he'd threatened her cat, when he'd pushed Thea down those stairs... It had been sheer survival skills not to leave him. She'd run away, let herself get swallowed up by the big bad world before Tommy found her and brought her home. She'd started work at the library. Oliver had come home.

Cali couldn't help but crave those shackles again. Oliver, without even realising, had twisted the key in the locks.

She wore them like bracelets now. Matched her earrings to them and everything.

When the car finally slowed to a stop in front of Verdant, the impassive driver that was not Parker or Cassidy blankly and coolly telling her to hop out of the car so he could return to QC, Cali all but tumbled out of it onto the pavement, her boots scrambling to find purchase on the slick, rough surface - still damp after last night's rain. She was relieved she was in simple jeans and a jumper rather than a skirt, else she might've given any passer-by an eyeful of more than they'd bargained for.

Eventually, her faltering steps smoothed out as her footing grew more sure, and she slipped inside the sleepy, empty club, heaving the front door shut behind her and only wincing a little bit at the noise it made as it clanged closed. Her boot heel clicked on the flooring with each step, all but announcing her arrival to Thea, who was puttering around behind the bar, seemingly restocking their alcohol bottles.

Cali took careful note of the pensive look on her friend's face, and the way that she sometimes had to put a bottle back down because her hands trembled. Cali cast a furtive look about the place and frowned; no sign of Roy. He was either upstairs in the supply room, or the two of them were on the outs again.

"You should probably have a bodyguard at the door or something," Cali said by way of greeting as she wriggled onto one of the bar stools. Thea barely reacted to her presence other than with a distracted hum. Cali continued, "I'm just saying - if I can get in on my own, what's gonna stop some would-be mugger from breaking in and robbing the joint? Venue safety isn't a joke, Queen."

Thea's eyes flicked in her direction before returning to the crate sitting in front of her on the bench, half full of alcohol. "Yeah, 'kay."

Cali placed her phone down face-up so that she would see when they landed - courtesy of a text from Felicity, of course. Then she studied her friend carefully. "You thinking about anything in particular, critter?" She leaned forward. "You got that nasty frown on your face, so I know something's up. It's either Roy or your mom. And given that Roy isn't here right now-"

"You got me," Thea cut her off flatly. "Jesus. Yes. Roy isn't here. I told him to start later today. I needed space for a little bit."

"Did he get arrested again?"

"Lance let him go."

"Out of the good of his heart?"

Thea shrugged in answer. She braced herself against the bar, nudging the crate off to the side and sighed heavily, shoulders slumped in defeat. "If you and Oliver had to break up to make Mom look good for her trial, would you?"

Cali considered the question carefully, barely batting an eye at the topic change. It was always this way with Thea - when she was stewing over something, it was virtually impossible to get her to engage in any other topics of conversation until she blurted out whatever the issue was. Janet had done almost the exact same thing; a habit that Cali had once looked upon fondly.

Swallowing down the sudden tide of pain building in her throat, Cali said, "Nah, I don't really think so."

Thea somehow managed to deflate further. "Mom's lawyer told me to stop dating Roy."

"Fuck her."

"But she's right. We're making her look bad-"

"Speedy," Cali said, cutting her off and reaching out to grasp her frighteningly thin wrist. "Thea, listen. Your mom would be beside herself if she thought you were depriving yourself of joy on her behalf. She's done enough damage to know that you take those moments where you can get them. It's not your responsibility to decide her fate. Having a boyfriend who makes bad decisions isn't going to sink her entire case."

Thea managed a watery smile, her knuckles white where she was clutching the edge of the bar.

And Cali might not love Moira Queen the way she had as a child, but she loved Thea twice as much.

"If I could help your mom, I would," Cali said gently to her friend, ducking her head to meet Thea's eyes. "In a heartbeat, critter, I would. But not at the detriment of my heart."

Thea bit her lip. "But you love Ollie," she whispered. "More than anything. I see it. Without him, there's some part of you missing."

Cali flushed. "I-"

"I don't know how I feel about Roy," Thea continued, letting go of the bar and stepping away, out of reach, to keep restocking bottles onto the shelves. Her suddenly damp cheeks gleamed under the overly bright lights. "Not really. I mean, I love him. I miss him when he's not around. But I could live without him. He's not...half of my heart, you know?"

Oh, Cali knew. She knew what that felt like. To love someone, but not enough. To love someone the way she had loved Michael - with enough of her heart to stop it hurting, but distantly enough that you might stop loving them after a while.

Except Roy would never raise a hand to Thea the way Michael had raised a hand to her. No matter how much anger he kept curled up and burning in his chest, no matter how many times he came back with bloody knuckles, Thea would never have to fear him. Would never have to protect herself from him. Would never know the sting of a blow to the face.

So yes, Cali knew what Thea meant.

But she also knew just how much Thea was missing and it broke her heart.

"If you love him," Cali said quietly, gathering her things, "then let that be enough for now."

Thea nodded once, silently, and continued stocking the bar. Cali sat there without speaking, keeping her company until Roy slipped in and the first rumblings of party-goers stirred the quiet air outside. Then, once the doors were primed to open and Cali's phone lit up with a text from Felicity, Cali quietly slid from the barstool, pressed a kiss to Thea's cheek, and disappeared out the side exit.

Parker was rolling to a stop to pick her up less than ten minutes later.

.                  .               .

"Cali says good luck," Felicity said cheerfully as their small party of four entered the hotel lobby, her fingers flying across her phone screen as she whipped up a reply. "I still can't believe she didn't want to come with us."

Oliver didn't even let a flicker show on his face at the lie he'd fed his friends. That Cali had simply declined to accompany them. That she'd wanted to stay in Starling. The truth was that he hadn't told Cali at all that they were going to Russia until she'd come to visit the office ten minutes before he left for the airport. He'd sent Felicity with John down to the car and spent those ten minutes filling her in about their trip. He hadn't offered her a ticket. She hadn't asked for one.

Anatoly would've unhinged his jaw and tried to swallow her whole if he'd set eyes on her. Oliver's not entirely sure Cali would have done anything to stop him.

Plus, he needed someone at home to keep an eye on Thea and an ear out for Moira. Her trial was looming on the horizon - a monster he wasn't really sure how to defeat yet - and there were too many people, too many secrets and lies, lingering in the air for him to feel wholly comfortable abandoning the city entirely.

Having said that, the first breath of air he took after landing in Moscow tasted just a little bit like freedom.

"I've arranged a meeting with the chief operating officer of our Moscow subsidiary," Isabel said smoothly, interrupting his musings as she dropped back to his side, replacing Felicity who had drifted off with Diggle. "Tomorrow at 10:00am. Try your hardest not to miss this one."

She made to walk away again, but Oliver cleared his throat and spoke up, halting her just enough. "You know, I'm not this person that you seem to think I am."

She raised one perfectly angular eyebrow. "That depends."

"On what?"

She prowled one step closer to him, smirk curling about her lips. "On if I think you use the corporate jet for a weekend of fun with your assistant."

It was like cold water being dumped on him. "Excuse me?"

Isabel's eyes narrowed. "A blonde I.T. girl all of a sudden gets promoted to be assistant to the CEO? There's only two ways that happens. One is nepotism." She appraised him consideringly and then glanced over her shoulder to where Felicity was busy texting next to Diggle. "She doesn't look like your cousin."

Oliver's voice was steely when he finally managed to make it work, forcing it out through gritted teeth. "That's not what's happening. I am already seeing somebody else."

Isabel's smile widened, decidedly more feline now. "Oh, Oliver. Like that's ever stopped you before. Everyone knows you took Sara Lance on that boat with you while you were still with her sister. Monogamy means nothing to you." A flash of her white teeth. "From what I hear, you must get your penchant for infidelity from your father."

"I love Cali," he shot back, guttural, ignoring the white hot slice of rage that spliced his ribcage at her casual cruelty. Robert had his failings. Oliver was done trying to make his peace with them.

Isabel hummed. "I don't doubt it. Despite all of your bluster, your heart is annoyingly genuine. But you've lived your life a certain way for years. Your need for attention is...pathological. Forgive me for being sceptical about the sudden desire to change."

And then she was gone, her heels clicking against the tiles as she made her way upstairs.

Oliver watched her go and tried to figure out why he suddenly felt like there were millions of ants crawling around under his skin.

.           .          .

With Oliver in Russia, Thea at the club, and Moira in prison, there was nobody waiting for Cali at the Queen mansion when she arrived there, Parker lingering out the front until she'd gone inside and closed the door before driving away. The lights in the mansion were on but kept dim, a soft welcome home from the minimal staff members who cared for the place while they were all away.

It was times like these when Cali missed Raisa, who had moved away after the quake to go live with her family in a town not too far from the city. She'd taken her hot chocolate recipe with her - always with the hint of peppermint twined around the sweetness - and Cali hadn't had shortbread that had the same taste of home that Raisa's had.

Cali would miss her. Did miss her. She wondered what Raisa might have thought of her now that her father had killed five hundred and three people. Now that her father had killed Tommy and Janet and Checkers the Cat.

She wondered what Raisa might have thought about Michael.

What Raisa might have now thought about her.

Abruptly, Cali veered into the living room and fell onto the couch, reaching for the remote with a single minded purpose. She didn't want to think about Michael or the person he'd made her into. She didn't want to think about the mess she'd made after he'd gone back to prison. The mistakes. Like drinking the vial that Malcolm had made and hiding behind the wall it had built inside her. Like fighting with Felicity. Like lying to everyone. Like getting herself kidnapped by the Dollmaker.

Honestly, the fact that people still wanted to be around her was constantly surprising.

"I thought I'd raised you with better awareness of your surroundings, my dear girl."

Lightning lashed down her spine and sent electricity skittering out along her limbs as Cali hurled herself back off the couch with a shrill cry. Claws speared into the back of her mind, crushing any thought or any reaction other than sheer panic as she backed herself up against the wall and held trembling hands out as some kind of flimsy defence.

That hollow, sleeping bond in her sternum exploded into life with a sudden and painful howl. Sensations assaulted her ribcage - hot and cold and hot and cold - and suddenly every nerve ending inside her was alive and her body was loud and-

And that was her father standing there, smiling at her, looking exactly the same as he had the last time she'd seen him-

And even though she'd known, somehow, that he hadn't died that night, seeing him still stole the breath straight from her traitorous lungs and left her wheezing and useless.

"You-"

Malcolm didn't do anything except move to sit in the spot she had just vacated, perching himself on the cushions comfortably and crossing one leg over the other. He was wearing all black clothes, hidden under a large woollen overcoat, but his face... that was the same face. He hadn't changed, hadn't aged, hadn't...

This man. This man had killed Janet, and Checkers the Cat, and Tommy. Had shot her in the leg just to stop her walking away from him. Had subjected her to that-that serum and stripped her of any kind of normal childhood.

This man had killed Tommy.

Her own father had killed her brother and now he was here and-

"What do you want?" She gasped out, still holding those useless, weak hands out. "Why are you here? How are you alive?"

Malcolm watched her with a level gaze, seemingly unfazed by her reaction. "Come now," he said lightly. "You thought I didn't have a plan? I expected that Moira would betray me at some point so I put contingencies in place. The fact that they never found my body should have told you that I wasn't really dead."

"You killed Tommy."

Dark emotions stained his eyes, and his casual expression deepened into something angrier. "He shouldn't have gone after Laurel."

"You shouldn't have destroyed half the Glades!"

"They killed my wife!"

"AND YOU KILLED MY BROTHER!"

It was nothing short of a bellow, hurling out of Cali's throat with a viciousness that surprised both her father and herself. Each breath tore out of her, violent and shaking, but it was rage, for once, and not panic that sent her blood thundering through her veins.

She was so tired of being scared of this man. She was so tired of being the one who had to move out of the way of his ruinous hands.

Tommy wasn't here to protect her anymore. Neither was Oliver, or John, or Felicity, or Thea. The only person Cali had left to rely on was herself.

Her chest heaving, she reached inside her for that muted thread that had been still and silent inside her since the day half the city crumbled. Malcolm's eyes narrowed. "You killed your own son," Cali spat at him, and she was shaking still, like a child. "You nearly killed me."

Malcolm's voice had gone low and icy, and he prowled forward a step. "I wouldn't have let that happen, Calico. You would've been fine."

"But why me and not Tommy?! Why don't you love him too? He was always Mom's favourite-"

It was like a knife had slid between her ribs, burning hot and agonising as Malcolm turned her own ability back on her, cramming her full of his rage and hatred, until whatever righteousness she'd cobbled together for herself was buried once again under the weight of someone else's emotions. It wasn't like when she took away feelings from Oliver, or when she monitored her friends subconsciously.

Instead, it was an assault on her senses, focused in a way she'd never experienced before. Clearly, whatever that stupid fucking serum had done to bond her and her father together had condemned her to a fate worse than death.

"Don't you ever accuse me of not loving my son," Malcolm said gently, voice soft like velvet, even as he dug those invisible claws even deeper into the soft meat around her ribs. "Do you think I wanted him to die? He was supposed to stay with you, in my office - far away from the Glades. It was his choice to go running after his stupid little lawyer girlfriend."

Cali choked on her next breath, wheezing out a meagre wordless protest as she fell back against the wall, hands falling down to grasp at her abdomen as rivulets of liquid fire tore through her. Whatever Malcolm was doing with that connection, however he'd managed to weaponise his emotions... she had no idea how to fight it. How to strike back. How to defend.

If he could reduce her to this so easily, she had no hope against him.

Tommy wasn't here to protect her anymore. If she couldn't protect herself, she had nothing.

She had to try.

"What do you want from me?" She forced out through gritted teeth, reeling those tendrils of feelings into her ribcage one at a time, swallowing up each mammoth pain and burying it deep, deep down. "Why are you here?"

Malcolm's head tilted to the side, his mouth flattening, exasperated. "It seems that this is my first chance to speak with you without the risk of your little guard dogs interrupting us." He raised an inquisitive eyebrow. "I do question Mister Queen leaving you here by yourself given all of the... interest in you from the public these days."

And for a moment, she could hear Sebastian Blood crooning in her ear, whispering those horrible truths about Michael and Oliver and her own father. For a moment, she was behind that invisible wall she'd built inside herself, talking to that cashier like she didn't care whether he wanted her dead or not.

"I haven't had death threats since I moved here."

"Calissa, my dear, if you really think Oliver hasn't had people filtering through your mail-"

"He would have told me."

It was unquestionable. Unthinkable. They would've told her if she was still in danger. Oliver had sworn it to her the day she moved in - that he would be open and honest, that she could trust him, that he didn't want to do what Michael had done.

She'd believed him and then and she believed him now; she would take his word over Malcolm's anytime.

But...

But.

"Go on then," she said to Malcolm, feeling abruptly like that weak little girl she'd been back when her mom was still alive. "Say what you want to say, and then get the hell out and stay the hell away from me."

Malcolm gives her a mockingly wounded pout, dark eyes twinkling like distant, cold stars. "I just wanted to check on my daughter, is that so wrong? You were in hospital for so very long, after all."

Cali swallowed against the venom rising in her throat and forced her next words to be measured and calm instead. The raging inferno Malcolm was tunnelling into her flickered in response. "Turns out I heal quickly," she pushed out through gritted teeth. "The doctors were amazed. You should know all about that."

Malcolm clicked his tongue, looking the perfect concerned parent. "See? That serum wasn't the death sentence you think it is!"

"I'm a freak!"

"You're alive."

She reeled back from him, pushing into the wall as though it might give way and let her escape from this place. Escape from him. "That's all you care about, isn't it? That your previous little lab experiment survived your little homicidal rampage, so you can still study her! You don't care about me, not really. The only value I have to you is for whatever it is in my blood."

The jagged spikes Malcolm was raking against her ribcage grew hotter and sharper in response to his building fury, gouging deep lines into her bones like some kind of twisted tattoo. Ruining her from the inside out, like a rot that would never go away.

Cali bit her tongue so hard that red stained her bottom lip.

"I don't care if you hate me," Malcolm murmured, midnight-soft. "You don't speak to me like that."

"I'll speak to you however I want," Cali managed to say, swallowing down a mouthful of blood and pressing her sore tongue to the roof of her mouth at the dark glare he sent her way.

Standing up to Blood was one thing. Defying Michael was another.

Whatever she was doing here, now, with her father... This was a whole other breed of monster standing in front of her. This was not something she could run from, or fight against. There would be no Lance to save her, no Oliver or Felicity or John to protect her and coddle her. They were miles away in another country, chasing shadows and ghosts.

"I'm sorry," she said, barely above a whisper. "Dad, I'm sorry. I didn't mean it."

Adapt to survive. Make yourself small. Don't fight back. Let them burn themselves out. Don't move. Don't speak. They smell fear. They taste blood in the water. Do not show them weakness or they will rip you to shreds where you stand.

Survival instincts drilled into her from those years of living as some sliver of herself. Instincts Oliver and Tommy had ever so slowly sang back to sleep.

Malcolm shifted in front of her, one hand reaching out to touch her chin and lift her head until they were staring eye to eye. It was gentle, warm, familiar. The very brush of his fingers against her skin sent agonising lightning skittering down her nerves, setting them alight. Unintentional, maybe, but still painful.

Malcolm turned her head ever so slightly to the left, and then again to the right, attention so laser focused that she almost felt like he was peeling back the layers of her face until he could see underneath it all. Like he could see the stains of Michael's fists, like he could count every tear she'd ever shed, like he could tell which freckles Oliver has pressed his lips against.

"I would have killed him for you," Malcolm said simply and swiped the pad of his thumb over his cheekbones like he used to do when she was young. "If your friends-" he sneered the word, "-hadn't gotten you out when they did, I would have killed him for laying his hands on you."

Her throat was impossibly tight and hot, but Cali still centred herself enough to ask, "Why did you wait?"

Not just this time, but for all those years she'd wasted next to Michael's side, letting him shut her away from her brother and everyone who loved her. Not just this time, but for Gabriel, and everything that had gone wrong after that.

Malcolm exhaled slowly through his nose and dropped his hand, moving away again. With an air of disinterest, he said, "It would've drawn too much attention. That Sebastian Blood was already sniffing around you, and once Queen got back to the city, I figured he'd sort it all out anyway if I just waited long enough."

Cali very resolutely told herself that it wasn't disappointment that sat low and heavy in her stomach.

"I do love you, Calissa," Malcolm told her, even as he straightened his coat and readied himself to leave. "I truly hope that one day you will accept that and finally let me in."

And then, before she had the chance to scrounge up any kind of response to that, he slipped out of the room and disappeared into the shadows that lingered just outside every room.

Cali dropped to the floor, gathered her knees up close to her chest, and began to cry.

.             .           .

The text from Felicity came through sometime during the next night, when Cali was curled up under the covers and Cassidy was calmly stationed in a chair outside her bedroom door, watching his young daughter Maisie sleep peacefully on the mattress set up by his feet. There hadn't been time to find a sitter, he'd explained to Cali apologetically when she'd summoned him to do a perimeter check after Malcolm's departure.

She'd taken one look at that young face, those dark curls, and immediately given her blessing for Maisie to stay as long as Cassidy did.

When Cali awoke the next morning, she opened the audio recording curiously.

Oliver's voice rumbled through her phone speakers, low and thick as he crunched on the sharp vowels and harsh consonants of the Russian language. She'd expected the words to be bulky and coarse, little more than a growl, but instead each syllable was silky and smooth like satin, gliding across the back of her neck and down her spine.

She shivered and replayed the clip, closing her eyes as the familiar voice washes over her. She didn't speak a lick of Russian, so she had no idea what was happening, but whatever it was, it was fucking hot.

For Oliver to sound like that again - danger wrapped in velvet - she would do some rather unholy things.

Finally, she texted Felicity back, blatantly refusing to admit to the effect the recording had had on her. Felicity would know anyway; there was no other reason she would think to send it through.

'What is he saying?' Cali asked.

Felicity responded almost immediately.

'Apparently, he's saying please.'

.             .            .

Oliver texted her the night before he was supposed to leave Russia and come home. Cali saw it in the morning and did not respond.

'I did not sleep with Isabel Rochev.'

She did not have to try very hard to taste the truth pounding away under his skin, even when he was so very far away from her.

.               .              .

It did Felicity credit that she kept her composure for the duration of the flight back to Starling City.

Oliver hadn't expected her to, not after the fight they'd had the night before in his hotel room, both shouting loud enough for the paintings to rattle. Diggle had eventually asked them to keep it down so they didn't disturb Lyla, which had cooled tensions only marginally. Instead, Felicity had spun on her heel and stormed out of the room, and she hadn't uttered another word to him since.

He knew that she was upset with him on Cali's behalf, since the Merlyn girl wasn't here to react for herself, but some of the things Felicity had flung at him during that argument had stung so badly he'd gone a bit breathless by the end.

But that was the way Felicity had always been - cutting and ruthless when it came to protecting herself and her friends.

Oliver just never thought she would ever see him as something that people needed to be protected from.

"Felicity," he tried in vain, again, once they'd touched down on the runway and Isabel had already gathered her belongings and was waiting by the door to exit. "Please. I don't know what else to do or say to get you to believe me."

Felicity shook her head, pink-painted lips pinched and unhappy, and finally spoke. "Cali will believe you or she won't," she said dismissively. "And I will support her no matter what she decides to do about it. But Oliver, the fact is that I don't believe you. You should probably have a long, hard think about why that might be."

And then she was gone with a flick of her blonde ponytail, and Oliver was left with a stoic Diggle, who gave him a slightly pitying look.

"If it helps matters any," Diggle muttered to him as they disembarked side by side, "I don't think you slept with Isabel."

Oliver sighed, long and low, watching Felicity clamber into one of the waiting cars and immediately press her phone to her ear. Cali would know before long, he supposed. He hadn't received any kind of reply to the text he'd sent her after Felicity had left his hotel room.

"Thank you," he said finally, shoulders slumping in defeat. "But I don't think it's going to mean all that much anyway if Felicity isn't convinced."

Diggle clapped him on the shoulder and shook him slightly, familiar and friendly. "If you really slept with Isabel Rochev, Oliver, there wouldn't be enough of you left to scrape up and bury. She'd eat you alive."

He laughed, not unkindly, and walked ahead, sliding into the car beside Felicity, leaving Oliver the front passenger seat next to the unassuming driver.

Resigning himself to the awkwardest car ride of his entire life, he handed his luggage to the suited staff member who was patiently waiting and dropped into the seat, closing his eyes as soon as his head hit the head rest.

None of them said a word the entire drive home.

.                   .                .

Cali's toes curled into the bedsheets as Oliver breathed foreign words into her ear, his deliciously calloused hands doing extremely talented things to her that had her burning bright and hot underneath him. Felicity, John, Cassidy, and Maisie had all left hours ago and Thea was at Verdant until the early morning, so Cali and Oliver had fallen into bed together almost immediately, rushing to reacquaint themselves with each other's bodies.

They had not mentioned Isabel Rochev. Cali did not tell Oliver about the phone call she had received from Felicity only hours before. Oliver did not tell her again that he had not done it.

Instead, he had given her a filthy grin and purred out something distinctly arousing and Russian before swooping forward and all but shredded her clothes off her as she fell back onto the mattress.

He hadn't actually said a word of English yet, too busy tracing foreign linguistics into her breasts with his tongue and working her up to a ledge that he wouldn't quite let her topple off. Any more of this and she was going to go certifiably insane. Every single time she drew close only to eventually fall back and away was a step towards her brain cells never recovering from the torture.

"Oliver," she moaned, high and breathy, physically unable to stop herself from writhing under his skilful ministrations. He was playing her like a fiddle, their equal pleasure jumping from their lips and building between them in some kind of feedback loop, fed and maintained by Cali's abilities. It made each swipe of his mouth ten times more sensual, each crook of his finger the trigger of millions of tiny fireworks.

He rasped something she couldn't understand, the words short and sharp but blanketed in an onyx silkiness that had her eyes rolling back and her mouth falling open. Oh, he was never allowed to speak to her in any language except this one ever again.

"Please," she begged desperately when she found her words again, her entire body taunt and thrumming like a livewire as he dropped further down her body, his mouth joining his hands and pushing her closer and closer to that peak. He had to let her go over this time; if he didn't, he would break her. She would never recover. "Oliver, please oh god please please please plea-"

With one more low, gorgeous word, he finally met that tight little bundle of nerves and Cali dove headfirst into freefall.

Babbled gibberish filled the air as she convulsed, her breaths nothing but keening puffs and pants as wave after wave crashed over her, ripping through her with a fervour that made coherency impossible.

Finally, when she was through the best of it and lay, still twitching with aftershocks, she watched Oliver as he tore open a condom in preparation for round two. He was a generous lover at the best at times, at least with her, but there'd been something different tonight, something fuelling him in a way that was both incredibly appealing and also slightly addicting. Whatever had gone down with Isabel Rochev - whether he'd slept with her or he hadn't - Cali was sure it hadn't felt like this.

In fact, she almost wanted to push him back towards Isabel, not because she wanted Oliver to have someone else, but because when Oliver inevitably came back to her, the things he brought with him to lavish upon her was quite literally mind blowing.

"I missed you," he told her in the few moments before they reached for each other again. "I wish I'd asked you to come with me."

Cali smiled at him, open and forgiving. "It's okay," she said quietly, making a soft noise as she shifted and residual sensation skated down her legs. "Someone needed to be here for Thea, I understand."

She eyed him appreciatively as he settled back down over her, lean muscles flexing as he lowered himself down to press a chaste kiss to her lips. When he pulled back, she reached up to trace her sharp nails down his pec. His eyes flashed.

"If this is how you're going to greet me every time you come home from a business trip," she hummed, applying enough pressure that his breathing caught, "I think you should go on them more often. I'll make sure I'm ready and waiting when you get home."

The next kiss he bestowed upon her was bruising and hungry, and she all but mewled into his mouth as those deadly, dangerous hands reached for her waist and held her gently, like she was something precious.

And when he slid inside her, dropping his head to her chest once more and falling right back into that filthy Russian, Cali thought that Felicity didn't need to worry. If Oliver had actually slept with Isabel, it was little more than just sex.

This, right here and now with him pressed against her, moving with all of that controlled killing power? This was nothing less than worship.

If Oliver kept touching her like this, she would never, ever be dethroned. By anyone. Isabel Rochev was not a threat to Cali. She never would be.

Cali reached for Oliver's short hair and let herself topple right back into sensation.