JOSI

The place Croff escorts Josi to is a nightclub, but at the highest level of the building is a room that overlooks the club in its entirety. Josi follows Croff up some flight of stairs, bypassing strangers who have lost themselves in heavy alcohol. Or drugs. Or perhaps both. It's gotten hard to tell which poison they suffer from.

Croff brings Josi to the door, but advances no further because his job has met its conclusion. The first thing to welcome Josi is the window which was added for some extra perk, as it gives the visitor a personal view of the show below. Not much to be seen, though. Just the same streams of lively bodies in pursuit of fulfillment.

Then Idris meets her eyes. He's seated at the corner of the room, no cigar this time. Not even some glass of whiskey neat, the kind Josi knows he prefers. It strikes her as odd, but perhaps he simply isn't in the mood-though the subtext behind this possibly isn't a good one.

"Sorry I'm late. I had Croff make a stop." Josi gives him a kiss on his forehead, then heads for where the liquor is stored in the cabinet. "No whiskey today? What happened?"

No reply from Idris. He just stares at her, at the complete comfort of the silence he's managed to retain.

Josi turns to him with a glass that has been filled with red wine, now bothered by his choice to play dumb. "Is something wrong?"

Silence again. Then suddenly, "I saw your ex-boyfriend today."

Josi's sense of mobility grows dull, to the point where her arm collapses and the glass almost slips from her grasp. Suddenly the air becomes too thick to consider safe. Or perhaps it's just her respiratory system that has collapsed.

"What did you do?" Josi manages, but is yet again met by that same stoning silence. "Idris, what did you do!"

Idris's poker face is dented by the slight compression between his brows. "What does it matter?"

"You said you wouldn't touch him!"

Again, but in a much lower tone, "What does it matter?"

This is an accusation Josi has to maneuver her way around. Strike the wrong chord and it's game over. "He has nothing to do with us anymore."

The truth and nothing but the truth. But will Idris see it that same way? The look on his face tells Josi nothing of the like. "You seem to still care a lot about someone who has nothing to do with us." Says Idris, which all but drives Josi further to the edge. It's like he has lost all receptors tied to reasoning with her.

But she will not surrender. "He was the love of my life, Idris. You don't just forget someone like that."

The last of Idris's poker face collapses, and now he's visibly vexed. "And what am I?"

"For crying out loud, you're my current boyfriend. Bradley is long gone. I haven't seen him since the day I left with you!"

"That's a lie."

Josi subconsciously begins giving up. It has not fully hit her yet, but she's trembling. Her temperature has even dropped a couple degrees, and now adrenaline has been forced to take over.

"That day at the Vanderbilt - you two met each other." Idris tells her. "I saw the surveillance cameras."

It's difficult to do so, but Josi has to reply. Because her silence does not serve her well. "That was purely coincidental. It's not like we sought each other out."

This gives Idris much to think about. He keeps his eyes on Josi, his face now much more relaxed, but still nowhere close to the warmth a human should carry. Then he sighs, and Josi releases a breath of relief. But what Idris says next sends her right back to where she was those seconds ago.

"I don't know, Cade. The sight of him makes me irrationally angry." He leans his head back against the couch, eyes so low he looks asleep. "I had to resist the urge to snap his neck in half."

Her last name, not her first. Goosebumps like never before - not even when Idris had once almost coerced her into murder. It is in times like these that Josi is most fearful, when the affection Idris harbors for her turns tail and is replaced by the unfeeling part of his mind. She leaves the glass of wine by a table, then goes to kneel in front of him. She has to win him over before he does something irreparable. Something she'll be regretting for the rest of her life.

Josi holds on to his hand. "Listen to me. Bradley's in the past. I've forgotten about him." She looks him in the eye. "It's just us now."

This does the job fairly well. Idris holds her gaze a couple seconds longer, trying to dig up as much of the sincerity as he can. He accepts the candor and relaxes, then with his free hand begins caressing her cheeks, the same way he always does. "I love you."

Josi nods with a smile crafted from pure desperation. "I love you, too."

Now things are back to normal. Josi makes herself comfortable on his lap with a smile much more reassured. She even kisses him long enough for him to break the kiss, which is usually something she does. But that look in his eyes is what she's after. The look that reveals to her without fail how much he loves her.

Idris is all smiles. "How was the trip?"

"Tiring. The guy behind me wouldn't stop screaming at his phone."

"I don't see why you won't just go with one of the escorts."

"And what happens when my family catches me in a collectible car?" Josi asks. "Might as well tell them I took part in a heist."

Idris considers this a good point. "Maybe it's time I met them."

Josi's face grows sour, but she sweeps it up with great speed and presents to him a smile instead, as though she were actually thrilled at the suggestion. Somehow she's managed to keep that possibility from happening in the while they've been together. Idris under her family's roof is the stuff of her nightmares.

"Maybe." Josi tells him, then thinks up strategies to move the conversation along before any further plans are made.

Luckily, a distraction is brought to her. The door flies open, and in walks the capo Six and a couple of his men. They have with them a man who looks to be on the brink of death from the beating he's been put through. His clothes are battered, face swollen, and the blood has taken up what's left of his face.

There's another such victim with them, except this one's body has been covered with a plastic bag from the abdomen up, so Josi can't tell much. They have both been tied down by ropes, and from the look on the bloodied man's face, this is their funeral.

"We caught him trying to flee the city." Says Six, his Boston accent ever so thick. He orders a guard of his to force the bloodied man up to his knees who seems to still cling to his life despite his grim fate.

"Please. . ." He begins, his eyes prickling with tears. "I have a family, Idris! I know I messed up, but I swear I'll pay you back. Please, just let me go."

Josi almost tells him not to bother, because there was never any use pleading with Idris. Once his mind has been set, it won't change. Unless you look like Josita Cade. In that case, you can seduce him. It always works.

This man, however, has no chance. Idris fetches from his pocket a cigar, then with his lighter, leans back against his seat and fires up the stick. "Tell you what, Johnny. I'll let you go."

The fear wears off like a foul mood, but the desperation still remains. Clearly, he has regained his hope. "Really?"

Idris motions for Six to hand him a gun. Then he tosses it to Johnny, as though it were a toy. "If you shoot that person next to you, you're a free man."

As soon as his hands are untied, he grabs the gun. Josi knows he's desperate to save himself. After all, how can he pass up on an offer this sweet? Kill some stranger he's never met before; gain his freedom. So Johnny pulls the safety back and shoots at the second captive without even thinking. A relief so great washes over him, Josi can see his shoulders deflate. He's done his job. He's upheld his own end of the bargain.

And how Idris chooses to repay him comes as no surprise to everybody else but Johnny. Idris orders for the bag to be removed from the dead body, and what Johnny finds to be his ticket to freedom is his gagged wife with a bullet to her chest.

Josi sighs, as such a conclusion was expected. Meanwhile, Johnny doesn't seem to have gotten over the shock. He reaches for his wife's body, perhaps hoping that she will jolt to life and forgive him for what he's done to her. No such miracle will happen though. Then he begins sobbing, because now reality has hit him. He buried a bullet in his own wife.

It soon turns to rage. Rage at Idris for having tricked him. "YOU FUCKING BASTARD!" He grabs the gun and aims at Idris, but is granted no time to carry out the mission because Six is there to prevent him. There's a loud bang from his gun. And then there's nothing.

Idris sighs, already exhausted from the confrontation. He turns and gives Josi a smile. "Let's get out of here."

Josi peels her eyes off the dead bodies and looks at Idris with a face that holds no expression. Then she smiles. Slowly. Vaguely. "Okay."

Idris ushers her towards the exit, but turns to Six with one last message before he leaves. "Tell Kasper to come see me as soon as possible."

"Of course."

Now the couple exit, but not before Josi steals one last glance at the grotesque bodies.

_______________________________________