This is just a little something I came up while writing "Blood on Diamonds" out of my Caprica City Crime Series. Just something cute in this rather serious AU.

It is chronologically before "An Assassin's Creed" and "Blood on Diamonds".

Didclaimer: I don't own BSG

An Assassin's Joy

Laura was really asking herself whether her clients wanted to mock her. Employing the top-notch intelligencer of Caprica City to find out if one's wife was cheating? Really? Any halfway capable PI could do that! But on the other hand, not every patron was a member of the mafia who wanted "the other man" killed as soon as it was confirmed. Her contact had told her that the wife was behaving weirdly, spending less time at home, making sure nobody could trace where she was going and definitely using her credit card more than she used to. Of course the first thing the "Red Rose" had done was checking what had been bought. New clothes, mainly expensive lingerie, champagne, chocolate, kaviar - everything for a luxurious date with a secret lover. Or rather several dates. Travel arrangements to a five star liner including first class flights. A weird regular payment that was not marked but hilariously high, the woman still had to find out what that was used for. Personally, the assassin didn't give a frak about the underworld guys' personal lives, only if they interfered with her job. Or of they were her job, like right now. It payed well though, she had to admit that.

What was most important, Laura had found out the wife had tried to get new passports for herself and an unknown gentleman. The pictures had not been submitted yet though, so the Red Rose had no idea what the lover could look like. However as she was shadowing the other woman for two days as well as monitoring her calls, there was no sign of a lover but according to her husband, she still was bitchy and on edge at home.

Then, on the second day, the intelligencer followed her to an old empty-looking warehouse. Laura hid across the street behind a car, keeping an eye on the scene. A black SUV arrived, when the three bulky men got out, the assassin grinned in amusement. Those guys were weapon dealers, selling first class gear, not cheap but worth it. A treat she indulged in from time to time, so she had made their acquaintance. Actually not really. She usually didn't meet personally with business partners of this sort but let them leave stuff somewhere in hiding places while she delivered the money unseen. If they screwed her over...well, then they payed in blood. And this gang had payed a couple of times until they had understood better to take her deals seriously.

When the crew went inside, the question was just whether they wanted to sell something to the woman or whether they wanted to finish her. The second scenario would be unfortunate, it would probably taint Laura's reputation a bit as the wife should stay basically unharmed. So Laura crept closer to the building and found a backdoor she could use to slip through.

It was dark inside and damp, but at least she could understand the voices. Apparently they were discussing the price of a gun the woman wanted to buy, a very expensive thing, and finally came to an agreement. From her research the intelligencer knew that the lady didn't have a firearm license, that was probably why she bought the weapon on the street. Also those were kind of untraceable. But did she want to kill someone or simply defend herself?

To Laura's surprise the woman didn't make her way back to her apartment or to any apartment at all, she rather dumped the gun in a locker at public library. Charming. Would someone pick it up? Keeping an eye on it for the next couple of hours would likely turn out to be a waste of time, so the assassin decided to hack into the surveillance system later and get the feeds. For now she was hot on her victim's heels who apparently still had something to do. She was driving through the whole city up to a very high class living area, where all the rich and famous people lived. Maybe her lover was a TV star or something like that, who knew?

When the lady's car stopped in front of a beautiful white villa with a black roof and a onyx-coloured porch opening up to the garden (seriously, who used this colour? It just looked weird!) Laura surpressed a snort. She knew exactly who was living there, the house had been part of a reality tv-show that she had watched lately while painting her finger nails. It belonged to one of Caprica's most famous strippers, who had made millions performing for the high society of this planet. Now she even worked has a testimonial for certain designers - it was a crazy world. Maybe she was a friend and this meeting she would surely witness in a couple of minutes would be completely harmless, but nevertheless Laura was going to check it out.

The car was parked in a side street so she had to walk a couple of meters. Carefully the assassin avoided cameras until she could press her back to the wall of the mansion and peak through the windows from time to time. After the third try, she got lucky. Through the free spaces in the blinds, she could see something like a gym and two women training in it - definitely her target and the stripper. They were pole dancing and Laura had to admit that the mafia wife did a terrific job at it. She seemed to have a lot of practice already, and a lot of ambition as well. Suddenly something started to make sense - the unmarked regular payments, they probably had covered these dancing lessons.

"Naughty girl!" she smirked, then she decided to stay for a bit and try to eavesdrop if possible.

It turned out that the voices were very understandable once the two women had opened the window to let some fresh air into the room.

"-sure you can't do better than him?" the teacher was just asking, probably refering to the woman's lover.

"No!" she whined, "he is all I ever wanted. Handsome and hot and a great lover..."

While the women started to loose themselves in tales of the lady's sexual experience, Laura had to surpress a gag reflex. That was definitely more information than she had signed up for! Not that she was closed-up or anything, but she really didn't need that word-porn she was currently getting, thank you very much. Trying to think about fluffy white sheep on green meadows under clear blue skies instead of two people getting it on like crazy, she kept her place on the wall until she could here the client was preparing to leave. Shortly before the door opened, Laura was already driving off in her car and then parked again one street down, ready to tail again at the first opportunity.

It was getting dark quickly now, the Caprica night creeping out of the dark alleys to go hunting for prey. She tried to keep some distance between hers and the other car which proved difficult in the thick traffic - she nearly lost the lead a couple of times. Laura followed the woman into a poorer area, less cars on the road, less people wandering around. They knew it was safer to stick to their own four walls at night. Suddenly, her target slammed the foot on the break for no apparent reason, making her car slide sideways over the street and block the way through.

"What a bitch!" cried the Red Rose, trying to stop the car before they would crash.

She succeeded, but twenty centimetres more and her lovely car would have been damaged. Furious, she jumped out and ran over to her victim's car, opening the driver's door and dragging the woman out. Hand on her throat, manicured fingers tightened around her windpipe, she pressed her against the car. Luck for her, there were no street lights here and the skyscrapers swallowed any natural light there might have been from the stars.

"What do you think you are doing woman?" she hissed in a voice that barely sounded like her own.

The other one could only gurgle in reponse so the Red Rose loosened her grip just a little bit. She still might have to kill the woman anyway, but something told her that she should wait with it.

"You have been following me! Who sent you?"

Laura shrugged as well as one can while keeping the other one firmly in her grasp. It really seemed as if she would kill her sooner rather than later, so what woud be the hurt in telling her?

"Your husband. Who is pissed that you have been cheating," she growled.

"Cheating?" The mafia lady really had the nerve to look confused for a moment. And then to look utterly pissed off. "Cheating?! I am working my frakking ass off to get in shape for our wedding anniversary and making such an effort for organizing everything to surprise him and that bastard doesn't even trust me?"

Only years of experience kept the Red Rose from letting her poker face slip at that revelation. Her excellent instincs were screaming that the woman was telling the truth. She didn't know who she was more annoyed about, the man for recruiting her in the first place or herself for not considering that option. Slowly, she let go of the other one.

"Alright, I get it. And if it makes you happy - I know he cares a lot about you. That's why he is so jealous. So better don't mess that up. I would hate to have to kill you."

With a slow, predatory grin, though not visible in the night, the assassin slipped back into her car and drove off, not looking back. The next day she informed her client that everything had been taken care of. Naturately she still listened to the woman's calls and checked the surveillance feed of the library - just to be sure. But there were no secret calls and nobody collected the gun until the lady took it out at the morning of the anniversary. The fake passport had been completed with a photo of the mafia boss, everything was backing up the statement.

So it was no surise that, when Laura stood in the big crowd in front of the gates of Caprica Spaceport, she saw the couple hand in hand. A sincere smile flickered over her face, it was nice if you didn't have to kill people and destroy lives every day. Unseen she disappeared into the crowd again. Today, she would take the afternoon off.

When Bill Adama came to work the next morning, he firstly didn't trust his eyes. An envelope had been thrown into the letter box, his name on it. Not handwritten but printed, the white expensive paper strongly smelling of roses. Of course he had a suspicion who this might be from right away as he opened the envelope. A simple note fell out, only with an address written on it and signed white "Red Rose". What game was the intelligencer playing? It could be very well a trap, he thought. Only twenty minutes later, a whole police escort was leaving, arriving at the destination soon afterwards. But there was no sign of the assassin, only a searched criminal blindfolded and bound to a pillar with a big red ribbon like a present. As if to mock them, rose petals had been scattered all around the old building. When the men and women came carefully closer to pick up the perpetrator, they saw another note on the floor.

"As you were unable to do so, I decided to do your job. You're welcome."

Shaking his head, the police officer picked up the note to let it check for fingerprints later. He was already sure there would be none.

Kilometres away, Laura was still laying in bed, marvelling about her latest coup. She had been in such a good mood that she had decided to help the police a bit. The guy she had delivered to them had been an asshole. Also she had reminded the underworld not to mess with her. After all, she could make or break you in one night.

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