Chapter 9

When our car finally passed the sixth miniature turret disguised as an elaborate wrought iron lamppost, I could make out more than a dozen luxury vehicles parked in the expansive driveway. I felt a growing curiosity overcome my anxiety-stricken heart, as I pressed my right shoulder up against the window.

At the end of the glossy, taupe-tiled road was an off-white Mediterranean villa placed regally against the lush backdrop of faultlessly green deciduous trees. Two deadly lampposts stood almost dutifully beside the sturdy black oak doors prepared to release a fatal rain of bullets on the next offender.

"The eight districts are here," Stone spoke up casually.

My head turned slightly to the left and I casted Stone a terse glare.

From what I could recall, the crime syndicate that Stone was a part of consisted of eight districts that spanned over four states. Stone was the head of District 1, which was the hub of extortion and embezzlement. District 2's leader was Canker, who was a fierce sixty-year-old covered in faded green tattoos. He, along with a handful of well-off white-collar workers, managed one of the nation's most successful underground fighting rings.

Then there was District 3, the District that operated out of residential suburbs. It specialized in recruitment, particularly of teenaged boys, and drug and human trafficking. My father and Uncle Robert had been associated with this District's drug and sex trade for five months before they were killed in that weathered warehouse seven years ago.

I could still vividly remember those frequent nighttime arguments that occurred on the other side of my door that was always left ajar so that the light could filter in to scare away the demon's, or oni, as my mother had called them, that stalked my childhood dreams. My mother, in her thickly accented English, would violently oppose my father from entering my room. My father, who radiated an alcoholic stench, as he often did, would say it would only be one night and that it would be safer here.

However, it always seemed that every night would be that "one night" and every night at around two AM, our penthouse would fill with my mother's frustrated sobbing and the heavy footsteps that accompanied a light scuffle. Then after several strenuous minutes, my mother's wailing would fade into the bathroom and my father would rouse me from my feigned slumber, telling me to sit in the living room for a while.

I would spend a good hour perched in a coffee brown leather recliner with my knees drawn up to my chin. I would watch the sparse dots of headlights curving through the mesh of dark streets and wonder if the rest of the world was asleep…

…wonder if there were other little girls gazing at the city with their mothers crying and their fathers smelling of hard liquor…

…wonder if these little girls sat on their recliners pondering when they would get to go back to sleep…

…as unfamiliar men loaded bags of cocaine underneath their beds.

"Kenshin Hideki is in town for the yearly inspection of his affiliates," one of our escorts explained, rousing me from my recollection. "The Boss took this as an opportunity to negotiate an alliance."

"This wasn't an overnight decision, was it?" Stone's voice adopted an intimidating rumble. "How long has this been kept from me?"

"Well, Mr. Stone, there has been-" the young man stammered.

"How long?" he demanded with his hand resting dangerously close to the holster of his revolver.

"Almost a year," the escort replied quickly.

"Is Kahn here then?" Stone asked.

The name chilled my blood immediately. I started tearing the American Eagle tags off Stone's new clothes in order to keep myself from releasing today's lunch all over the Mercedes' pricey leather interior.

"He hasn't been active since Trigs-" the guide faltered.

"Since his indiscretion," Stone finished his sentence coldly and, sliding his arm around me, I felt him brush my hair behind my ear. "He won't be present then."

My fists clenched the torn tags tightly, but my hands continued to quake.

Kahn is the son of the Boss…

The Boss must be aware of all the events that had transpired. Kahn must have told him the way I had so casually pressed the knife's blade against his neck; how I had been completely prepared to end both our lives.

I expelled the air through my nostrils roughly, which clearly exposed my trepidations, and dropped a fistful of tags into the cup holder.

"Do you know much about the Districts?" Stone's lips brushed across my right temple.

Instinctively, I swatted away his face. "More than I care to."

"The Districts are ordered in terms of rank," his sunflower-colored orbs held mine for a second before they preoccupied themselves with the deceivingly tranquil landscape.

I felt the car pull up and the escort that had been following us in Stone's Escalade speedily opened the doors for us to exit. I allowed Stone to help me out since my legs were succumbing to their chronic quivering. However, when both of my feet landed on solid ground, I brushed his hand aside and marched up to the front doors.

As if reacting to my presence, the entrance parted, revealing a glinting black-and-gold foyer that was furnished only with a single round obsidian table that held a large clear bowl. After politely accepting a pair of wool slippers from an olive-skinned maid that had materialized before me, I took a few cautious steps into the house.

A closer inspection of the clear bowl made me clench my jaw. It was filled to the brim with various weapons, most of which were handguns. I even made out a machete at the bottom of the pile.

"Gangster etiquette," Stone said from behind me, as he dispensed his revolver into the bowl.

A bitter chortle almost escaped my lips. "I see."

He gave my satchel a reassuring pat. "More than half the guys here could probably kill you with a spoon."

And I didn't doubt it.

The gun in my bag seemed heavier before and I repositioned the strap to my other shoulder.

"Took you fucking long enough," Trigs voice filtered into the foyer. "Fucking Canker and his shitty old fuck stories. Two straight hours! Two straight fucking hours!"

I saw him round the corner and we both froze in place when we saw one another.

"Why the fuck are you here?" his face, which I noticed had a dark bruise on his right cheekbone, paled.

"What the hell happened to your arm?" I yelled, pointing at his arm sling. "And your face!"

Trigs disregarded my questions and glared at Stone. "You brought shit-for-brains?"

"Shit-for-brains," my eyes narrowed.

"We didn't have a choice," he responded flatly.

"You're shitting me," Trigs rubbed his eyes irritably with his working left hand. "For fuck's sake." He closed the distance between us and gripped my right shoulder tightly. "You don't leave me for a second. Do you understand? Not for a fucking second. Watch your mouth and be polite. This isn't our home and you're not the fucking queen of the world here."

I lifted both my hands up in front of his face and began to clap.

Trigs' eye twitched irritably. "What the hell are you doing?"

"Applauding you for thinking I actually give a shit about the feelings of murderers," I snarled.

"Crazy Angry Bitch," he furiously scratched at his head. "Okay, be my fucking guest and be all high-and-mighty."

I saw Stone pat Trigs' good shoulder and for a moment I saw his sunflower spheres darken before they took on their usual indifferent glaze.

"Stone!" a hearty bass voice rang from down the hallway.

He took a few steps towards the other room, but turned to say something over his shoulder. "Linne, just stay alive. You owe me that much."

And then he was swept into the alarmingly massive arms of a muscled man.

"Shit, it's been almost two years!"

"Caine," Stone greeted distantly.

Then a crowd of his fellow gang mates and the genuine feeling of excitement surged into the foyer. Men of all ages welcomed him with smiling faces, but only half a dozen of them appeared to be allowed to offer Stone a friendly pat. The others, however, simply hovered about four feet away and basked in the presence that was their revered Mr. Stone.

And suddenly I realized where Stone got his inflated ego and despised arrogance.

"Where does Stone stand compared to the Boss," and I swallowed the coarse lump lodged in my throat, "and Kahn."

Trigs steered me around Stone's adoring fan base and I found myself entering a second antechamber, which was occupied by another tan maid manning a stainless steel food trolley. "Under the Boss. Next to Kahn." His hand closed over my bicep and jerked me sharply towards him. "Look down."

Propelled by the urgency in his voice, I hastily concentrated on my obscured black figure reflecting off the immaculately polished granite tiles. "What now?"

A soft aged voice answered me. "Are you Japanese?"

I looked up and faced a vaguely nostalgic visage. "Half-Japanese, actually."

"Namae wa nandesu ka?" the Japanese man dressed in a loose fitting black suit asked me. What's your name?

"Watashi no namae wa Linne desu," I responded shakily and then, politely, I added, "Hajimemashite." My name is Linne. Nice to meet you.

The language tumbled off my tongue unevenly and left a bitter aftertaste. Every consonant and every vowel echoed in my mind and engraved images of my mother in her brighter days when smiling was less of a chore to her. Those days when her face was more animated and wasn't hidden beneath six-feet of soil.

"Ore wa Hideki-sama," he smiled and the years of accumulating crow's feet lined his eyes.

My heart immediately soared to my throat and I could only nod. "Hideki-sama."

Kenshin Hideki. Yondaime, or the fourth head, of the Hideki Yakuza family, Kenshin Hideki had loyal followers all over Japan. It was said that many of his subordinates were teenagers. They referred to him fondly as Dono, or "Lord", as a significant amount of these kids were those he had "saved" from desolate and near death situations

I allowed my eyes to meet his half way and focused on the way his sparse charcoal eyebrows arched unevenly over his small ebony eyes.

This man, who ran some twisted wayward teen shelter, wasn't going to fool me.

"Trigs, please show Mr. Hideki to the formal dining room," commanded a hoarse male voice. "You'll have to excuse all the hustle and bustle, Mr. Hideki. A few have simply overstayed their welcome."

I shot a curt glance over my shoulder at the snarky speaker and came face-to-face with a pair of disturbingly familiar midnight blue eyes.

"Linne," Trigs hissed a tense warning.

"I enjoy the noise," Mr. Hideki exhaled a throaty chuckle. "It's very lively."

The man's lips tilted upwards in a smile, but his eyes made no inclination to follow suit. He exaggerated the placement of his left hand into his pocket and, as his mud brown suit jacket rose upwards with the movement of his arm, I caught a glimpse of a black handgun secured by a belt of the same color.

So the Boss didn't have to abide by common etiquette.

With the gun in my satchel feeling like it weighed as much as a sack of bricks, I contemplated the outcome of our possible gunfight.

"Trigs," the man in his late fifties raised his eyebrows instructively.

Trigs hesitated for a moment. His brash nature was what prevented him from adopting the detached persona that Stone and I wielded so effortlessly. The muscles around his mouth strained and I saw his eyebrows draw together. He watched me intensely for a second and I swear that for a moment he almost decided that he would rather kill me himself just to ease the tension.

"Go," I mouthed.

The expression on my face remained respectful and poised.

"Right this way, Mr. Hideki," Trigs inclined his head.

Mr. Hideki nodded slowly, but before he followed after his copper-haired guide he reached over and patted my arm lightly. "You're a very beautiful girl."

My eyes widened in surprise. "Oh, um, arigatou," I bowed slightly.

As I watched the short Japanese man, who was also accompanied by a quartet of stocky bodyguards of the same race, disappear past another doorway into what I suspected was probably another corridor that fed into this vast residential labyrinth, a laugh that was not unkind came from my right.

"Linne Dwyre," my name tumbled off the man's tongue in an irritating New York drawl. "I knew your father for the last few months of his life. He was an ox with a fox's intuition. Slippery bastard."

I did not feel obligated to reply and continued watching his thin lips move.

"How has Stone been treating you? You recently moved in with him last year, am I right?"

I offered him a stiff nod and tried to ignore my imagination as it played out graphic scenes of how Khan's father would slaughter me and, subsequently, drink my blood.

"Isn't it interesting how such little insignificant things can hold a grown man's attention?" he remarked casually. "Life never fails to surprise me."

Then he abruptly turned away and sauntered into the direction of where Trigs led Mr. Hideki.

What. The. Hell.

When I finally found the courage to peel my eyes away from the doorway that the Boss retreated into, I came face-to-face with a little boy barely more than four-years-old. He had round green eyes that had the same innocent, yet hollow, glow as those porcelain dolls that used to line the walls of my childhood room.

He wrinkled his button nose at me and pointed a pudgy index finger in my direction. "You're on my team."

I eased the crease between my brows.

I guess it couldn't be helped that I ran into the Boss. This was his home after all. I suppose I should be rejoicing since he hasn't decided to throw me headfirst into a wood chipper…

…yet.

However, facing this pint-sized dictator, I couldn't help but crack a tiny smile, despite my apprehension. "What are we playing?"

The sound of raucous laughter flooded into the second antechamber and my eyes, alert, darted to the entranceway.

I had almost forgotten about Stone and his adoring fan base.

"Hide, hide!" the little boy closed his fingers around my right palm and tugged me past a distressed looking maid, swerving into a corridor opposite the hallway which led to the formal dining room.

Together we stumbled into a coat closet and I watched as he struggled the door shut. We sat cross-legged on the floor with jacket hems brushing our heads. The four-year-old then snapped on a tiny yellow flashlight, which revealed his round, determined face in the midst of the obscurity.

"Whom are we hiding from?" I whispered.

I knew exactly whom I was hiding from. I wasn't prepared to face all those accusing eyes that cursed me for apparently keeping their beloved Mr. Stone all to myself.

"Shh," he hissed and pressed his ear to the door.

I watched the little boy with his face flushed with excitement and his brows set in a resolute line. I rested my cheek on my right fist and tilted my head upwards to stare into a near darkness of fabric and leather. It was in this moment that I remembered that this wasn't the first time I had sought refuge in a stuffy closet.

Somewhere in the blackness there was a low whirring and the clanking of what I presumed to be the washing machine's mechanism acting up. However, it gradually began to be difficult to actually differentiate between the running appliances in the laundry room next door and the scraping of something pressing up against the wooden closet door.

"It doesn't bother me," I reminded my eleven-year-old self, as I pulled my knees up against my chest and buried my tear-moistened face into my hands. "It doesn't bother me."

There was another thud and a chorus of laughter sent a chill down my spine. I rubbed a defeated hand down my arm in an attempt to coax the goose bumps, and an impending sob, back down.

"You'll be trapped in there forever," a young female voice sneered, "because no one cares enough to find you."

"Too bad your parents are dead," her accomplice cackled and somewhere between the rumble of the washing machine and the pounding of my heart, I heard the light jangle of their matching friendship bracelets.

"This is boring," the first girl grumbled. "Let's go play outside."

Too bad your parents are dead.

Sixteen months.

Only sixteen months separated me from the haunting scene of my father lying lifelessly in a pool of his own ruby blood with my mother taking a similar position only a few feet away.

I suppose the normal, and healthy, response for a preteen girl would be to sob and mourn for months. I could have transformed into a colorless piece of cellophane, so two-dimensional, so transparent, and simply drifted from one place to another for as long as my heart remained beating. I could have scorned this life for robbing me of the two most important individuals to me. I could have spent years imprisoned in my room and no one would have blamed me.

Because I was lost…

Because I was lonely…

Because I was suffering…

But then I realized that life's twisted conventions were simply a waste of time.

If I was still drawing breath then, even as painful as it was, I could at least be a little productive.

To me there wasn't much to grieve about since if I were my mother's child then it wouldn't be difficult to follow suit. It was just a matter of time before I would stare into those lifeless almond eyes again. It was just a matter of when I'd do it.

"Linne!" I heard an impatient male voice calling for me. "Where the hell did she- the fuck? A chair?"

Then someone threw the door open and Trigs stood in a beam of sunlight that engulfed both him and I.

"How did you get in here?" he ran an annoyed hand through his copper hair. "It was those damn O'Reilly kids, wasn't it?"

"They told me Marlon still owed their family money and that if Mr. Stone hadn't taken me in Mr. O'Reilly would have sold me," my hands bunched into two fists in my lap.

Although, it wasn't until I was fourteen before I truly understood what Mr. O'Reilly would have done.

"Marlon?" Trigs dropped onto the ground and rested an arm across his raised right knee. "You mean your dad."

"But he's dead," I looked at him pointedly.

"Doesn't mean he's not still your father," the solemn expression that accompanied this sentence frightened me.

"Sometimes I wish he hadn't been," I directed my shameful gaze to the rose carpet.

Then Trigs did something that surprised me, and probably him as well. He grabbed me into a loose embrace and rested a gentle hand on my head.

"Hey, you're a smart girl," he said in a tone that I then could not comprehend. "Grow up and be useful. That's all you need to do."

"Okay," that was all I could say because I felt the burning of my ears and throat that were indicators of the tears that were to follow swiftly afterwards.

He put me at arm's length and suddenly flipped my sleeveless arms over, exposing my wrists. Trigs ran a curious thumb over the faded pink lines and then over the thickest cut that was still a fresh crimson hue. I withdrew my arms, embarrassed.

"Don't do that anymore, okay? No one's blaming you for anything," and with a strong grip, he pulled me up off the ground. "The O'Reilly girls are playing with their dolls, you want me to step on their dollhouse?"

I nodded.

"All right let's go teach those b-bitc- stupid girls a lesson," he pulled up the hem of his t-shirt and mopped the salty droplets off my cheeks. "There. You don't want to look like an idiot."

And we started down the hallway with my tiny hand in his warm, rough one.

"Trigs."

"Hm?"

"What's a ginger?"

"Why?"

"Mr. O'Reilly said you were that 'dumbass ginger'."

"Let's step on his face while we're at it, then."

A weak tugging at my satchel strap hauled me back to reality and I turned my attention towards the small figure next to me.

"It's my dad," his eyes glinted eagerly. "Let's scare him!"

At first I smiled and nodded, but as I slowly focused on what was occurring outside our private little haven, I realized that someone was desperately bawling.

"Nathan!" a young woman screamed.

"Sorry, Knuckles," a man with a thick Australian accent caused a tightness in my chest. "Can't have you becoming a sorry case, ya?"

"Please, don't hurt him! I promise I won't see him again! Please!"

"Denise, shut the hell up," a third, but considerably weaker, voice spoke up. "You're not going anywhere."

"Still conscious, are ya?" the sound of flesh on flesh immediately brought me to my feet and I burst out of the closet.

"Surprise, daddy!" the little boy scrambled past me and gripped Erwin's neon red dress pants.

"Daddy?" I took a step back.

"Linne?"

"Denise?" I stared into the terrified swollen eyes of my APUS classmate, Denise Lai.

This was a sight that I had, unfortunately, been acquainted with during last week's class debate.

"Oh, the mixed broad!" Erwin dropped the bruised young man's motionless body into a heap at his feet. "I see you've met Mitchell, my boy."

"Linne, what are you doing here?" Denise choked out and it was only then that I saw that her wrists were bound by wheat brown rope.

"Yeah, Linne," the hefty Australian man chortled. "Are you planning to shoot me in front of my four-year-old?"

I finally looked down at my outstretched arms and saw that my two hands were clutching a charcoal handgun with my right index finger wrapped around the trigger.

"Just get out of here," the Chinese girl hissed as bravely as she could, but her choppy exhale revealed her fear. "This has nothing to do with you."

"You're going to tell me what's going on here," I commanded no one in particular.

"Well, are ya gonna put down that gun first, sweetheart?" Erwin smirked.

"Hello, I'm Linne, I treat myself like a fucking martyr! I think that by mouthing off every fucking scum of society that we'll achieve world peace! But welcome to reality, Linne! Shit happens and you just need to deal with it."

Stone's reproachful words resounded clearly in my head, but they only drove me to grip the gun tighter.

I redirected the aim of my gun from the left side of Erwin's chest to his son's forehead. "No."

An unanticipated grin appeared on the bulky Australian's bearded face. "I'm starting to see your appeal."

Mitchell stared up at me, his innocent leaf green orbs reminding me of my own childhood naivety. His clueless expression tugged at my morality. He was only four, so he couldn't possibly know the potential outcomes of this situation…could he?

I wasn't actually planning on shooting him. There was no way Linne Dwyre could put a bullet through a human being, let alone a young child. I refused to be my father's daughter. I refused to be a scum of society.

Of course, Erwin didn't know that.

With a click, a bullet entered into the chamber of the pistol.

"Tell me everything," I ordered and looked sternly from Denise to Erwin.

NOTE: =] Are you thinking what I'm thinking? AN UPDATE THAT DIDN'T TAKE A WHOLE YEAR. (Heh heh...muh bad!) Also, check out my profile for a story relevant (kinda...) POLL! And look out for a We of Stockholm update in the near future! =) I'm also changing or taking off the titles to my chapters because...they're just not pleasing me...kthxbai!

2ND NOTE: For those who are wondering, "LG" is the abbreviated form of "Little Girl" which can be used negatively to refer to a young girl. Also, a "mix" or a "mixed person" is someone who is made up of two or more different ethnicities. In Linne's case, she is half Irish and half Japanese. Any questions, concerns, queries? Feel free to message me or leave a review!