Chapter one : Waterfront

He was standing by the docks like he always did every time they met. He was looking out into the water, his black hair flowing loosely with the wind. He turned to look and smiled at Alex D.

"Why, hello darling!" he said to her, his voice tantalising. She walked over towards him. Before she could say anything he pressed his lips against hers. His lips felt a bit dry against her soft lips, but she didn't mind. She was happy as long as he was always with her. They both pulled away at the same time.

"Mmm, you smell nice Alex."

"But I'm not wearing any perfume."

"Doesn't matter, you always smell nice to me," he said whilst pulling her into an embrace.

"Tong will kill me if he sees me with you," she said sounding worried.

"Why?" he said sounding confused.

"Because Tong believes I killed your brother, when in fact it was an Illuminati commando."

"Really," his voice turning cold, releasing her from his embrace, walking over to the dockside.

"It's the truth, I saw it myself!"

"Then why didn't you help him?" he yelled almost violently. He turned to her.

"I couldn't, I was injured!"

"Funny, you didn't have a single scratch on you when I found you, when I came to!" he said sounding suspicious.

"I…I…" Alex stuttered.

"I knew it! I knew you were the one who killed him!" he said very violently while punching her hard in the face, making her fall to the ground. He walked over to Alex and crouched down beside her. "Why did you kill him?" he said very emotionally, tears streaming from his eyes, "He was our brother! Did you think he was going to get in the way of our love?"

"He…he attacked me," Alex said weakly, "It was out of self defence, I didn't want to kill him!"

"Oh, really? Oh, I'm sorry! It was wrong for me to smack you like that. Here, let me help you up," he said while helping her up.

"I…forgive…you."

"Please let me make it up to you!"

He leaned forward and started kissing her neck while caressing her face, his hands slipping down to her arms trying to remove her jacket.

"N…not here," she said trying to push him away, but he wouldn't budge.

"Please let it be here now. I'm yours, no one else's!" he said shoving her hard onto the ground. He leaned down forcing her to kiss him.

"Stop…Just stop it!" she screamed.

"No! I want to take you here, right here! I'm yours and you're mine, we don't belong to anyone! No one!" he shouted violently. He pulled out an army knife and started cutting into her clothes down the middle while accidentally nicking her skin. She struggled a bit trying to break free of his grasp but he was too heavy. As he was about to reach her abdomen a buzzing sound rang so loudly it made him stop, then both screamed. Alex D woke up in a cold sweat. She turned to see the buzzing sound was in fact her alarm clock. She slammed her fist down hard on it breaking it. Another nightmare, another day.

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It had been three years since she had betrayed her brothers and joined the Illuminati. She had tried to convince herself at the time it was the right decision but the truth was it had only been a half-hearted decision. She remembered her pitiful attempt to convince Paul to betray JC. He had been justified in being angry with her, he had even had the right to attack her. Do you remember how guilty you felt when you had to kill them in cold blood? She stared at her bedroom window, nothing really had changed since she joined the Illuminati except they had more power. Tarsus was still the same except the goals were different. QueeQueg's and Pequod's were still bitter rivals even though she had told two QueeQueg's managers, one in Trier, one in Cairo that QueeQueg's and Pequod's were owned by the same mysterious entity called J. She remembered what the manager in Trier had said, "Next you're going to tell me the WTO and the Order are run by the same people!" Ironically in fact they had been.

After the incident on Liberty Island the Illuminati had made her one of the new secret masters and given her three places to live. There was a castle in England, a huge house in the Arcology in Cairo and a huge penthouse in Tokyo. She liked the penthouse in Tokyo the best, it had the best view and she felt safer in it. It had the best security system money could buy - gold level security beams, security bots, turrets and cameras, bullet-proof windows. The house in Cairo did have the gold lasers and the bullet-proof windows but no cameras or turrets and security bots. While the castle had cameras and turrets but no special windows. The original stained glass windows had been kept in to look authentic. She would have to buy the extra security for the other places. But she had too much time on her hands and she couldn't sometimes be bothered. Why bother spending so much money on the other two properties when you hardly ever stay there?

She remembered the first month after Liberty Island. She had the first of those nightmares then. One of her brothers - it was always the same one - stood by the docks. At first he would act as if they were lovers, saying how beautiful she was and how he was always happy to see her, more than anything in the world. The next thing she knew he would turn ultra violent saying how he hated her for ruining everything and killing their brother. Then he would turn all sweet again and act like nothing had happened. Then he would try to rape her but before he even got the chance to she would always wake up. Because nothing really special happened between us, we just kissed once and he died in my arms. It was like a novel the way he had died in her arms, except she was the one who had killed him. And now you're in love with him. Sometimes she used to see him when he wasn't really there. This guy asked her to dance, she couldn't remember his name, but for the whole dance she only saw his face not the person she was dancing with. His body flowed with the music perfectly, his eyes were looking in hers, only hers, his hair moved around like it was liquid, the whole dance felt like a dream, a beautiful dream, one she'd never have in real life after what she had done. She could hear other people talking saying how much in love they must be.

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Tatsumi ran down the alleyway away from an AeroSecurity Bot who was shooting at him.

"You've got the wrong person! I was the one being attacked not them!" yelled Tatsumi.

"Terminating threat now," answered the bot continuing to fire. Tatsumi tried to dodge the bullets as much as he could but then a bullet hit him in the lower calf and he fell to the ground. Just play dead, he'll think you're dead and then leave you alone! The bot circled Tatsumi as he laid still.

"Threat still alive. Terminating now." The bot was about to fire a few more shots when it fell to the ground as if it had been hit by an EMP grenade or something similar. Tatsumi struggled to get up but he was losing blood. He could only crawl. He crawled until he was out in the open street and then he collapsed, everything was so blurry to him. Then a woman walked up towards him asking if he was alright. As he was about to answer everything went black.

A/N: Chapter two coming soon