Alex Vause took a draw of her cigarette and smiled coyly. The bar was smoky, and it was one of the things she loved the most about Paris. Back in the States there was no smoking in bars, here however, it was commonplace. There were few things in life that she enjoyed more than a whisky and a cigarette, surrounded by women with long flowing hair and short dresses.

She slowly removed her glasses and placed them on top of her head, pushing her dark brown hair out of her face. She raised her eyebrows as she looked across the bar at a blurry blonde with a thin face. With her glasses off, she could almost swear it was Piper.
Only, there was no possible way that it were, because she knew that Piper was back in California with a fiancé and an All-American Life, just like she had always wanted. She'd like to say that she wasn't still bitter about the breakup, but that'd be a lie. She was bitter, but there was no breakup. Piper just left in the middle of the night, hopped on a plane in Belgium and never came back.

Alex put her glasses back on and eyed the blonde across the bar. She was shorter than Piper, and her curly blonde hair sat on bony shoulders. Alex bit her lip and imagined herself tracing circles over those shoulders with her tongue, running her hands up and down her tiny hips. Her tongue pressed hard against her teeth, attempting to escape her mouth, and it was then that she was knocked out of her daydream as she realised that the blonde was eyeing her just as carefully.

The girl across the bar had thin lips and the kind of tan that only came from a life spent near the beach. Alex couldn't tear her eyes away in time; before she knew it the small blonde with the black shoulder bag was walking quickly toward her.

"Can I help you with something?" Alex asked, a flirtatious smile playing over her lips. The blonde raised her eyebrows. Alex lifted the glass of whisky to her lips and took a small sip, savouring the warmth that trickled down her throat. "You look a little young to be in here," she smiled, hoping above all else that the girl was of age.
"Actually, you can, Alex Vause," the blonde replied, with a bite to her words. "I've been looking for you for a long time," she said.

Alex butted out her cigarette and crossed her arms on the table in front of her.
"Well, looks like someone's done their homework," Alex said. "I usually make a girl cum before I share important details like names," she laughed. The blonde scowled.
"You sound confident… is that how you bypassed customs on your way into France?" She asked, flinging her bag onto the table with a thud. Alex played it cool, looking the blonde up and down.
"Did I now?" Alex laughed. "Well, that's it! You caught me! When you turn me into la police, please make sure they do a thorough internal search. I haven't had a good fingering in a while!"
The small blonde didn't look amused. She opened her bag and extracted a computer, which she placed on the table in front of them. She pulled it open and turned it toward Alex.

Alex did a double take when she saw a high quality image of herself walking past customs a few days earlier.
"God damn, I look fine, don't I?!" She threw her head back and laughed loudly. "So, you're a stalker? Is that what's going on here? Look, I lick a good pussy, but I'm just an average girl. You don't need to blackmail me, I'll do it for free."
The blonde smiled and flicked through a few more photos. Alex saw herself getting in a taxi, getting out of a taxi, exchanging her suitcase with Pyter Pertrovski, the Russian who had hired her to smuggle $180,000 into France in exchange for the three kilograms of heroin she was due to smuggle out in three days time.

It was the drug smuggling that had ruined her relationship with Piper. She'd only been starting out a decade ago when they first met. It had been enough to live lavishly and Alex had loved the thrill of it. It was exciting and glamorous. When Alex met Piper, it was in a bar much the same as this one, sans the smoke-filled air. Piper was fresh faced and fresh out of college when she sauntered into Joe's Bar in early 2004. She had been looking for work, but instead, Alex had bought her a drink and then made her shake violently with orgasm after orgasm for the rest of the night. That was all it took. A good climax was enough to turn any straight girl curious, at the very least.

The next eighteen months had been exciting; filled with exotic travels, all funded with the ever-increasing profits that Alex was dragging in whenever she'd drop off a suitcase lined with heroin, or pick up some cash. They had fucked in fancy hotels all around the world, swam in deserted beaches, driven German roads in fast sports cars. They had lived large, and crashed even harder.

When Alex convinced her to carry a suitcase full of cash into Belgium, it all became to real for Piper. Of course she had enjoyed the spoils of Alex's riches but when it came down to the crunch, she couldn't handle getting involved. For awhile Alex had been pissed off, but in time she had come to realise her own selfishness. She should never have forced Piper to take that bag; she should never have gotten her involved in the first place. She knew that Piper thought she cared more about the business than she did the woman she loved, but it wasn't true. Alex had never loved someone as intensely as she loved Piper, and she hadn't since she had woken that frosty morning in a hotel in Brussels to find Piper and her belongings gone. All that remained was a letter written in a rushed version of Piper's handwriting that explained that she couldn't do it anymore; she couldn't handle the fear, the criminality of it, lying to her family, and the intensity of their relationship.

Now, here she was, in a bar in Paris, with this little blonde shit about to turn her world upside down, but all she could do was smile. The blonde looked like Piper, and she bet the blonde sounded the same when she came as well. At least, she hoped so.
"Look, I don't know what you think you know, but are these photos supposed to mean something?" Alex asked, pushing her glasses onto her head.
"That's strange, because I'm pretty sure you know what I'm talking about," said the girl, as she flicked through a few more photos. Alex opening a bag, counting cash, Petrovski on a hotel room surveillance camera checking the lining of the bag for his precious heroin, a photo of the track marks on Alex's arms as she handed cash over to a waiter in a Parisian cafe.
"Who are you?" Alex asked, attempting to seem amused.
"Veronica Mars," said the blonde, closing her computer with a thud. Alex smiled, and touched her hand.
"Well, Veronica Mars, if I'm going to be arrested, we might as well have a little fun," she smiled. Veronica shook her hand away.
"I'm not interested in you," she said. Alex chuckled.
"Not yet," she replied.
"I didn't mean it like that," Veronica flushed red. "I'm not interested in having you arrested," she corrected herself. Alex looked down the bridge of her nose, sliding her glasses down onto her face.
"What are you interested in?" Alex asked.
"Dick Casablancas Senior, I know he's the one who fronts this whole operation from the Cayman Islands, and I know that you know when he flies in and out of the States. All I want is times and places, and you can continue being a junkie for all I care." Veronica said, clasping her hands on the table.
Alex laughed. "I'm not a junkie, sweetheart," she said. It was Veronica's turn to chuckle.
"Whatever helps you sleep at night," she said. Alex shook her head.

The day Piper left was the day she had first jammed a needle into her forearm, filled with the liquid gold No. 4 she had become so used to carrying but never touching. The euphoria had been so wonderful that she had forgotten about Piper for several hazy days, and before she knew it, she was using every day, without skipping a beat.

Rehab had done wonders, and she'd been clean for almost a year now, preferring to traffic the drugs rather than inject them. Her drugs of choice these days where coffee, nicotine, and whisky. That was all the euphoria she needed, though, sometimes she longed for the chance to forget about Piper as she once had.

"I've never heard of Dick Casablancas, so you're barking up the wrong tree, kid," she smiled. She wasn't lying. She'd never heard of Dick Casablancas, but that wasn't unusual. In this business, people weren't very upfront with full names.
"This doesn't have to be hard, Alex." Veronica said, shaking her head gently. "This guy has done a lot of bad things, and I'm going to stop him with or without your help. I'd rather not turn you into the police myself, but if I have to, one call will seal the deal," Veronica said, removing her phone from the pocket of her tight jeans and placing it on the table.
"So, let me get this straight, you think that I'm trafficking drugs, and you want me to help you take down the ringleader of this supposed international drug cartel?" Alex stifled a laugh. "Well, that's the cutest thing I've ever heard." Alex smiled.
"Okay then, make it hard, that just makes it all the more fun for me," Veronica said, a look of anger spreading over her face.
"Look, kid, don't you think that if you turn me into the cops that this "drug cartel" you're so hung up on catching, might just catch a whiff of it and close the whole thing down?" Alex asked. "Then you lose your villain, and a lot of wealthy people lose their business. If I were you, I'd be careful about who's toes I might be stepping on," she said.
Veronica hesitated just long enough for Alex to know that she was right.
"See?" Alex said, touching her hand. "Maybe we can help each other out after all?"