"Masha," Red said with an enthusiasm Liz had grown quite accustomed to on the rare occasion she decided to poke her head out from her hotel room. Reddington was always happy to see her but she knew from the tense looks she got that he was the only one. Dembe didn't seem to hold much of an opinion, at least none he shared, and for that she was grateful. But besides the two men who found themselves featured most prominently in her life these days nobody else seemed pretty excited to see her.

"Morning," she said coldly, not bothering to give Reddington's guest the curtesy of a glance.

"Edgar you've met Masha," Red said with his usual superficial politeness. Liz had begun to understand his need on the formalities of good behavior. In Reddington's case it stemmed off the anger and violence that lurked just beneath the surface. It had taken her all of a week to see that he actually preferred people who attempted to be rude to him, that way he'd have an excuse to drop the pretense and unleash the beast.

Edgar, a skinny Hispanic man covered in tattoos, didn't look familiar to Liz. In all likelihood she and he had never met. This was another one of Reddington's games, making people uncomfortable by making them question themselves.

"I don't," Edgar began to mutter before Liz finally gave the man her undivided attention.

In the two months she'd been on the run with Reddington she'd scrubbed herself clean of Elizabeth Keen. Masha Rostova wasn't Elizabeth Keen in any way that actually counted. The only thing familiar about the two women was the way they looked. Elizabeth was a smiling suburban patriot. A decorated FBI agent and profiler. Masha was a criminal in the most basic sense of the word. She was a murderer, a spy, and a reputed terrorist. A woman, who according to the criminal underworld, was so dedicated to bringing about the demise of the United States and everything that it stood for that she'd joined the FBI, rose to its highest ranks and used its most prized investigative bureau to embarrass, hurt, and attempt to destroy it. Masha had murdered 14 CIA operatives, 1 United States Senator, and the United States Attorney General. Masha was a heartless monster who had no sympathy for anyone except for Raymond Reddington himself, and maybe Dembe.

Reddington had spread the story himself. A criminal needed a myth, he'd told her. Liz knew this was true but she hadn't commented at the time. Instead she'd dyed her brown hair blonde colored the tips jet black and taken to dressing in the most outlandish outfits that she could find. Black slacks or jeans and black tee-shirts and tank tops, always rounded out by two shoulder holsters holding chrome Sig Sauer 9mm pistols. Reddington called the guns ostentatious but Liz didn't mind. Masha was completely ostentatious.

"He doesn't remember me," Liz said without emotion. She'd mastered the art of speaking without giving away her feelings. Masha didn't have many opinions, and she had even fewer feelings.

Red happily kept talking. "You two met in Brooklyn two years ago. Masha, or Elizabeth Keen I guess, was part of a task force assigned to bring you and your brother to justice. Your brother foolishly took a shot at FBI agents and was killed at the scene. Masha here saw to it that YOU got away clean. The bureau doesn't even know what you look like, they never have in fact, your brother died for nothing. I warned you not to do business with those Armenians but you both insisted. I told you I couldn't protect you and you said you could protect yourselves. Masha did me a favor, against her better judgement I might add, by letting you slip through the cracks. She asked for nothing in return. So imagine my surprise when her face is plastered all over the TV and she needs YOU to return that favor by assisting her passage out of the United States, and you turn her down. She was even willing to pay Edgar, but your people told her a flat out NO."

Liz looked at Edgar without emotion. "Thanks for that by the way. Always nice to know who your friends are."

Edgar began to shake his head. "I wasn't aware of her assistance. If I had known I would have absolutely secured her transportation. One good turn and all."

Reddington only smiled. "Of course you would have. But putting that old business aside we need to speak about NEW business. I've just spoken with your importers, the Trust Corporation, they're ending your business association effective immediately. Rumor has it they've partnered up with the Valdez Cartel."

Edgar's face went white and Liz saw her opportunity to pounce. "I told you he didn't know."

Red looked at her and shrugged. "I owe you five dollars," he said before turning his attention back to Edgar. "You my friend will be effectively out of business in a month. Feel free to do your own due diligence of course and come back to me when you're finished."

Edgar, who Liz knew now to be Edgar Ochoa, of the infamous Ochoa brothers, leaned back in his chair. "What brought this on? Business has been good. Payments have been on time, always on time. The price they ask, I pay. Very little haggling."

Reddington shrugged. "I haven't the foggiest idea what they're up to," he said with a shrug. A rare truth from a man so steeped in mysteries and lies.

"They're making a move," Liz said not bothering to look up from the pitcher of orange juice she was pouring herself. "Criminals only end business arrangements for a couple of reasons. Lack of trust, they're about to get caught, they're not making enough money, or they want to hang their own shingle."

Red nodded his acceptance. "She's probably right I imagine. The Trust Corporation prides itself on having its hands in everything and if they're aligning with Valdez they must be getting something BIG out of it. You trust one another I assume, nobody has killed anyone yet, you said yourself you've always paid on time. I couldn't imagine any police agency, FBI, Interpol or otherwise even knows about them so that only leaves door number four."

Liz sipped her juice. "Valdez is probably dead. I had a guy in the FBI who was trying to get in my pants, and he basically admitted to me in so many words that Delta Force found the old man in Greece and put him away. The cartel has been running on fumes over there ever since, nobody in the organization even knows what happened to him, which is how you've been able to gain so much ground. They have no central leadership. Trust probably figured it out, or set it up even, and will slip right in. Instead of getting 20% from you, they'll take the entire 100% from Valdez. It's basically what they do on Wall Street already. Now instead of screwing over some house wife in Tampa they're doing it to YOU."

Reddington shrugged. "Never trust Wall Street Edgar. Those guys are what's wrong with the world. At least people like You, Me, and Masha, have a code. We keep our word and we don't screw each other over. If you say we have a deal, then we have a deal. Until one of us calls the other one up and informs them the deal is off. It's nice and clean. It's surely not what those idiots in Hollywood portray, machine gun fights on loading docks."

Liz finally laughed, well snickered, Masha didn't laugh. "Or knife fights in bathhouses."

Edgar laughed. "I've never actually been to a bathhouse."

Red nodded. "I have. They're big in Russia. Cultural thing I guess."

"Another thing the Americans stole from me," Liz said before walking away and pouring her orange juice on the floor.

Red gave Edgar sympathetic eyes but stopped short of rolling them. "She's still a bit sensitive about the whole failed plot to take down the government thing. Give her some time and she'll be up to some new scheme before we know it. Until then Dembe and I are giving her a wide berth." He looked down at the spilled Orange juice. "And investing in good cleaning products."

"So what can we do about the Trust Corporation," Edgar asked. Liz could still feel his eyes on her as she disappeared around a corner.

"Give me a few days to make a few inquiries on your behalf. I'll get to the bottom of this, trust me."
~~~~~~

"Masha," Reddington said with unexpected enthusiasm as Liz finally remerged from her room. Liz was back in her hoodie but had rounded off the outfit with furry slippers. She'd been spending lots of time in her hotel room but as of five minutes ago she was getting stir crazy.

"Red," she said still using her Masha voice. According to Tom, Masha should always be center stage. Liz was gone forever. Or at least for the immediate future.

"We have business."

Liz's eyebrows raised. "WE," she asked with interest. Despite being on the run together Red very rarely brought her into his business.

"Of course WE. We're in business together Masha."

Liz snickered. "Are we? You've left me out of absolutely everything."

Red finally smiled. "Yes I have. You tend to make people nervous. Even more so than Dembe. Anyone who can kill the US Attorney General, then escape from the FBI by getting into the Russian embassy, THEN effectively escape from THEM all after causing an International incident will make anyone a bit nervous. You can bring governments to the brink of war Masha, you'll surely intimidate some gun runner from Minsk."

Liz seemed to understand. "And you need someone intimidated."

Red laughed. "As a matter of fact I do Masha. I need someone very intimidated."

"Let me find my shoes," she said with a monotone voice that was becoming all the more comfortable.

Red looked down at her feet and shrugged. "You should wear those. It will confuse the hell out of them."

Liz looked over at Dembe who only offered an approving nod.

"Well, let's go."
~~~~~~~~~~

The Trust Corporation was on the center of Wall Street and despite being on the FBI's most wanted list Red didn't seem very concerned about being identified. His comfort and ease made Liz comfortable herself which only seemed to build on the Masha Rostova mythos.

The Trust Corporation's New York headquarters was a nondescript 40 story skyscraper made of glass and steel that held over 1.5 million square feet of office space. Trust had bought the building in 2001 for a half a billion dollars. Money that didn't even make a dent in their cash reserves. Especially considering according to Reddington they had their hands deep in criminal enterprises all over the globe. They were the premier bank of choice for criminals around the world. They were responsible for laundering money for drug lords, war lords, terrorists, dictators, everyone. And now according to Reddington a small account worth upwards of 30 million dollars that belonged to Masha Restova.

"So what do I do exactly?" Liz asked as they walked right into the front door of the building without a care in the world. The whole place just kept on moving as if they weren't even there. Red to his credit didn't look out of place. She on the other hand looked silly in her jeans, hoodie and furry slippers.

"Anything you want. You don't have to say anything. Just your presence will be enough. Trust me, they'll be so nervous that you're actually here, you won't have to do a damn thing. I'll do the rest."

Liz's response was just to shrug and Red only smiled his response.
~~~~~~~~~~

"I was at the Kyivskyi Vokzal in the Ukraine and a man was selling ice cream cones in front of the building. It had to be -20°F outside but he had a line around the corner. And when I say it was cold outside, I mean it was COLD. I literally had icicles hanging from my eye lashes and Dembe actually put on a hat. For the life of me I didn't understand what was going on. I mean I love ice cream as much as the next guy but this was just ridiculous. Still I was intrigued, so I actually stood in line to see what all the fuss was about. I waited fifteen minutes in the freezing cold and when I finally got to the guy selling the stuff he only had vanilla. And the ice cream wasn't even very good. Still the guy was making a killing. He was bringing in 5000 Ukraine Hryvnia a day from that little cart, which is about 200 American dollars. He'd been doing this for years. He was about 60 years old, and he had a home that was paid for, and had sent his daughter to the University, she it seems was a lawyer who graduated with no student loans whatsoever. I asked him what his secret was and he just shrugged. He'd been working the same spot for fifty years and his father had worked the same spot for fifty years before hand. This, it seems, was his secret. Stability. Parents had been bringing their children for the ice cream for a hundred years, and they in turn would bring their children, and on and on and on. Nostalgia. The ice cream isn't that good but its ice cream and when you're a kid you don't know the difference. You just want it. So these people who had eaten this stuff sees it still being sold, they have a wave of nostalgia and they say what the heck, and it takes them back to being children. Other shlubs like me see all these people in line buying ice cream and we want to see what the fuss is about and we stand in line. This happens every day. This old guy is cleaning up out there. He's making about 70 grand a year selling Ice cream for a few hours a day. Sure he has to work every single day but only for a few hours. I was fascinated by the thought of it and I began to think about ways he could up his profit margins, or better yet open my own shingle. A buck is a buck right?"

Liz sighed with obvious disgust and Red looked at her with approval. "See Masha here gets it, don't you Masha?"

Liz shook her head. She'd been pacing the back of the room like a mad woman, not saying anything and not stopping. The man behind the desk had been listening to Red talk but his eyes had been on her. His attention had been alternating from her face to her feet since they'd walked into the room. Red had been right, it had been disconcerting.

"Big ideas. Let's figure out a way to squeeze more money out of it. Can't leave well enough alone. Am I warm?"

Red laughed. "You're boiling hot. See Marcus, if I opened up an actual ice cream parlor it likely wouldn't make a dime during the winter. Nobody wants ice cream when it's cold outside. It's completely crazy. In fact most ice cream parlors actually close when it's cold outside. Me opening up my own shop doesn't make sense. I don't know the first thing about selling ice cream, and I don't have the built in community connections that the old man has. I just saw money being thrown around on Ice cream and figured HEY, if that old idiot can do it, surely I can too."

Liz shook her head. "You'd have to move to the Ukraine. You'd need vendors. You'd have to get up every morning and stand outside in the cold. You'd have to learn all about the ice cream business. And my guess is you'd try and jazz things up because you don't know what you're doing, and before you know it you're out of business."

"That's if the old man doesn't kill you first for taking food off his table. Because in the real world, away from this ivory tower of yours hidden behind MBA's and profit loss statements, people kill one another over money. In the real world if you steal from people, they grab a gun and they put a bullet in your head. And Marcus that's just the ice cream business. Drugs is much nastier."

Marcus began to shake his head. "Now I don't know what you've heard Raymond but," he said before Red cut him off.

"Marcus I represent interested parties. Parties who've heard about your little expansion into the drug business. They're concerned because drugs mean drug sentences and drug sentences means informants. Informants mean cops, and cops mean the government and the government means property seizures. See where I'm going here?"

Marcus began to shake his head. "I don't know what you think you know but."

Liz decided Masha had heard enough. "Hey," she said with icy indifference. "How much C4 do you think it'll take to bring this building down? I figure a few pounds at 11am. You're all criminals so there won't be much outrage. You forget that. You won't get a monument, or a pin. You're not a hero Marcus, nobody is going to care. And when the government opens an investigation into Trust for drug trafficking, and they seize your assets. Seize MY assets. Take every dollar I have because YOU stupid bastards are trying to start your own drug cartel. I will come back and blow this place to kingdom come. And then I'll kill every member of the board, and you remind them that all their billions won't be able to save them from me. But YOU. You'll die first Marcus. I will come to your house and I'll cut you open like a turkey on Thanksgiving."

Red was watching with his usual half smirk when Liz piped down and continued to pace the floor. "You have to forgive Masha, she's on vacation. Well at least she was until you guys started dealing drugs. She was at the spa with a tiny oriental woman working on her toes, I know it seems racist but I didn't hire her, and she gets a call. She calls me and I convince her not to put her work boots back on. See she's on vacation. But if she's not on vacation then she's working. And if she's working people get nervous. You see, somebody is probably already going to die because she came here. The second she walked through your front door somebody's ticket got punched. The world is watching Marcus. The world is watching and dangerous people with lots of money invested with you just saw the most wanted person on the planet walk through your front door. They heard that SHE has an account with your firm and stands to lose everything. And if she loses everything, outside of the normal course of doing business that is, she's going to be angry. And they'd do anything to prevent her from becoming angry. As I suspect YOU will. So what I need you to do is get on the phone Marcus. Get on the phone and call your board of directors and tell them that you're out of the drug business. Maybe call Ochoa. He'd be more than happy to take on the extra business. In fact you can even increase your profit margins without actually taking on the extra risk. This is a win/win situation Marcus."

Marcus looked like he was going to vomit and Liz fought the urge to smile. Masha didn't smile.

"Buck up," Red said as he stood up and head towards the door. "It's not YOU who's going to die."

Liz snickered. "At least not TODAY," she said. Before she left she walked over to Marcus' desk grabbed his fancy six dollar coffee and poured it all over his nice rug. When she walked out the door Red only gave Marcus a shrug.

"Relax, coffee is easy to clean. Not like blood for instance, that makes a terrible mess."