Chapter One

The young woman pulled up to the house. 'Jesse said he'd be waiting for me. That was only two weeks ago.' The girl thought as she turned off the engine to her Nissan 240sx. She stepped out of her car and walked up to the porch, sat on the front steps and waited. "Where are you Jess?" she wondered out loud as she waited for him.

She looked up from the ground when she felt someone watching her. She looked around and saw who was staring at her. She smiled slightly. She sighed when the person started to walk over. Her jaw dropped when she realized who it was.

"Leon?" she asked shocked. The shock was evident on her face as she stared at him.

"Angel, I thought it was you," he said stopping in front of her.

She stood up and gave him a hug. "It's so nice to see you again. I noticed that entire house watching me as I moved my stuff in a few weeks ago. I saw Jesse then, and he said he'd be waiting for me when I actually got settled. Speaking of Jesse, where the hell is the God of all Machines?"

"Angel, something happened a couple of days after the last time you talked to him. Tran, he…he rode by the house and shot it up and…." Leon trailed off. It still hurt not having Jesse around all the time.

"And….what Leon? C'mon. Tell me you lopsided fool." Angel pleaded. Leon just looked away from her and watched as the rest of the team walked over to them. "Leon," Angel said sternly. Leon's shocked eyes looked back into hers, "tell me, right now."

"I…I can't," he said defeatedly. The stinging in the side of his face made him rethink his decision and his promise to Jesse before he died. He grabbed her hands. "Don't you dare hit me again," he hissed.

"Then tell me where he is Leon. Tell me." Angel practically begged. She hated begging, especially for information about the only family she ever cared about. Well, he was her cousin by marriage but he was still family either way or not. She watched as Leon slowly began to crack.

"Don't do it Leon," the bald guy said.

"Yeah Leon. You promised Jesse you wouldn't," said a woman with waist-length black hair.

"We may not know who this chick is Leon, but you seem to know who it is. But you did promise Jesse," said a woman who seemed tough.

Angel listened to the people who continued to remind Leon of his promise to Jesse. She finally stopped listening and walked up the front steps and unlocked the front door. She saw something lying on the table just inside. She picked it up and read what the name was. It was for her. Her name was in Jesse's handwriting. She ripped open the envelope before reading.

This is what it said:

"Angel. Hey little cousin. I'm sorry I'm not there to meet you. I know I said I would be but then I didn't know that I was gunna get shot." Angel looked at Leon shocked and pissed. "Don't be mad at Leon for not saying anything to you about it. I made him promise not to. If you get this, I'm probably dead. No, scratch that. I am dead." Tears were starting to well up in Angel's eyes. "You get to have my dad's Jetta. Sure he wouldn't mind, though I doubt he could have a say in it anyway. Just remember I'll always love you and don't do anything stupid to yourself. I know you that well little cousin." Angel smiled slightly at that line. "Dom has agreed to let you work at the garage. And Mia has also agreed to let you work at the store when you can't handle the garage work during the week. There is no mortgage to your house. I made Dom promise to pay it off for me when he got back from Mexico. This is all that I can say before I go. Just remember little cousin, I love you and Leon has promised to take care of you." The people with Leon watched as Angel finished the letter that Jesse had had Mia write while he could still talk. The letter wasn't even in his handwriting.

"NOT FAIR!" Angel screamed a few minutes later. She ran from the foyer and up the stairs to the room that was claimed as hers. The door almost slammed but Leon caught it as it almost made contact with the doorjamb. She turned on Leon. "Get out, Leon. I want to be alone!" She threw a pillow at him. Leon caught the pillow and threw it behind him as he rushed forward and grabbed ahold of her. She looked up at him with tears spilling over the rims of her eyes. "Leon, please. Please let go." She murmured, barely audible to Leon's ears.

"No way Angel. I made a promise to a friend and I intend to keep this promise." Leon looked Angel in the eyes.

"Why? Why did you promise? You…you could've said that you'd try instead of out right promising. You could've just tried." Angel sobbed into Leon's chest as his arms pulled her tighter against him.

"Remember when I promised I'd love you until the day I died?" Leon asked a couple hours later. They were lying down on Angel's bed.

She nodded. "Yeah, and then you called one day out of the blue and told me you had found someone else to love. That had hurt a lot Leon. It really did." She looked at him sidelong.

"I know. Jesse nearly took my balls off for it too. Dom had to practically fly Jesse to where ever you were living in order to calm him down." Leon smiled at the memory of Jesse trying to kill him with a butcher knife.

"Yeah it was funny how Jesse acted like an older brother especially when I came to visit. He especially watched when me and you were together." Leon laughed along with Angel. She snuggled closer to Leon. "I've missed you Leon." Angel murmured as she began to drift off. It had been a long day, for everyone involved.

After making sure she wouldn't wake up, Leon slipped off the bed. He looked back at her once before pinning the note on the door before opening it and leaving, making sure to close it silently behind him. Once downstairs he made sure all the windows and doors were locked before leaving and closing the door behind him. As he walked into the Torretto household, he was nearly bowled over by Vince and Dom. Letty and Mia were sitting in the living room, watching.

"Well, who is she?" Vince asked excitedly. Leon just looked at him and shook his head.

"You don't remember? She nearly knocked you over with her fist two years back." Leon said pushing past his friends and entering the living room. Dom and Vince followed.

"How'd she take it Leon?" Dom asked as he took his seat next to Letty once more.

Leon shrugged. "As good as expected I guess." Leon didn't look at anyone after that as everyone was sitting within the tension-filled room.

Next door Angel was awakening from unconsciousness. "Where the hell?" Angel looked around and then she remembered the events of that day. She groaned as she got up off the bed. She spotted the note from Leon as she was about to open her bedroom door. "Leon." She shook her head going down the stairs. "Now what am I supposed to do with this big house? It's just me living here." When she opened her front door she found the entirety of the street racing world of Los Angeles on her doorstep. Her mouth dropped open with shock. Leon approached her and gently pushed her jaw up.

"That's not very becoming Angel." He whispered in her ear as he stood in front of her. Angel glowered.

"Oh yeah, since when, Le?" Angel crossed her arms over her chest and arched an eyebrow wryly.

The people out front laughed at Leon and Angel chuckled as she shook her head slightly. "Come on in then, if you're coming." She turned and walked back upstairs to change real quick. Once inside her room, Angel sighed dejectedly. She didn't want to live by herself, but she had to, in order to trust again – she just had to. Besides, she promised her parents before they died that she would trust others, even if she didn't know them that well. 'GAH! I hated them for all their pep talks and shit. Yet here I am following avidly given advice and their courage is what keeps me going.' She had just sat down on her bed when a knock at the door sounded. "Come on!" she called as she began to put her combat boots on. The door swung open to reveal Leon with a sly little grin on his face. She looked up just in time to see a flash of light then spots faithfully appeared in front of her. "Damn it all to Hell and back Leon! You are so dead. When the spots go away," she added as an afterthought and only muttered to herself. As she finished lacing up her left boot she could hear her music floating up the stairs. "Shit!" she bolted out the door and hurried down the stairs and stopped short.

She was in the middle of the living room with people she didn't know surrounding her and…applauding. She groaned inwardly. "Leon," she growled dangerously. "You had better run while you still can." Leon only smiled and took off out the front door. "I am so gunna kill him." She headed for the door but someone stepped in front of her. She arched an eyebrow curiously.

"I wouldn't kill Leon just yet if I were you." The man's voice was like her Nissan's tires crunching gravel beneath them.

"Unh- hunh" she said indifferently. "He messed with me, my turn." She pushed her way past the man and out the front door. She looked around and saw that Leon's Canary Yellow Skyline was gone. "Why that little son of a bitch." She shook her head then unconsciously traced the scar that wound its way up her left arm. Her fingers found her one of many tattoos, which happened to be her favorite out of all the ones she had gotten. It was a black rose with its petals wide open in bloom and it was slightly raised. The tribal ring at the head of the rose's stem, just below the flower head, had the word "fin" hidden within. 'Fin. It is finished. How ironic. My favorite saying in the world and it is ironic to the life I'm living now.' She shook her head as she turned to go back inside.

The sound of a motorcycle made her stop. She turned around and saw a yellow and black Ninja 260 roaring towards her house. She rolled her eyes at how the rider rode his bike. Too tense. The rider stopped in front of her house. As he got off his bike, the rider took off his helmet and set it on the seat. By this time, Angel was breathing hard from pure rage.

"Son of a bitch. Why the hell are you here Tran?" She called from the porch.

He glanced in her direction. "To apologize." He sounded calm, but he was far from it.

Angel snorted derisively. "Bullshit. You knew Jesse was my cousin and you also knew that you and your lousy cousin would be asking for whatever came ya'll's way." Angel jumped off the porch and once she landed, headed over to Johnny Tran. She was like a tiger in its natural habitat, dangerous and liable to kill. She stalked her prey as a tiger or a wolf might. She smiled a cold smile as she advanced on Tran. "You see Johnny, when you mess with my family or their friends you become lower than the dirt I walk on. Therefore you are not worthy of the beat down you are about to receive on behalf of my cousin Tran." Angel was now face to face to Johnny Tran. With the added height her combat boots provided her, she and Tran were nose to nose. "You see Johnny, that when you hurt someone it comes back to yourself ten times what you did to the last person you ever hurt. And from what I have gathered since the last time I was here, you have a hurt a lot of people Tran. I think I have some things that may belong to you."

Johnny Tran, to say the least, was intimidated and terrified of the woman before him. He looked around frantically for someone to help him. He found no one willing enough in all the faces that he looked upon and pleaded for help. He saw no sympathy in the eyes of the very people he talked down to and raced against. His own family kicked him out of his house and made him take of his himself from then on when they found out that he had killed someone. Of course, it really didn't matter that Lance had fired shots off too, but the repercussions never bounded back as hard on Lance as they did on Tran.

"What the hell do you want me to say Dragon? I'll never do anything to harm your family or their friends?" Tran copped an attitude.

Angel swung and landed a good punch to his nose. Tran grabbed his nose as Angel did an undercut to his stomach. She continued to beat the shit out of him until she was pulled off. Angel whirled around and swung at the same time but the attack never landed. Her arm was caught in the air not even two inches from the target's face. Her eyes widened when she realized it was Leon who had pulled her off of Tran.

"Leon, you just saved his ass," Angel said in a low growl. Leon just looked at her before shaking his head.

"No, I saved you." The reply was simple, but not entirely correct. Leon looked over at Tran. "You better get out of here Tran before I let her go at you again." Tran nodded.

"I wouldn't show your face around the races any more Tran, or your precious rep goes down the proverbial drain." Angel couldn't help but add her two cents. Tran answered in a glare before taking off back the way he had come. After Tran was gone, Angel and Leon faced each other as the other racers began to disperse from her home. Angel's right hand slapped Leon across his face. "How dare you. You had no right, he deserved it Le! Like…." Leon grabbed her hands roughly.

"What did I say about slapping me Dragon?" Angel looked away. "That's what I thought. Now, what the hell were you thinking? Beating Tran? What's happened to the girl and then the woman I love?" Leon's voice was soft as he said the last sentence.

"I don't know. Le, did you just say…love?" Angel's eyes held hope in them and such innocence to mask her inner turmoil.

Leon smiled. "Yes, I did say it.

a/n: listen up everybody. I'm back and in full force. This fic may be better than my last ones so…review review review! Thanx! xangelx