Disclaimer: I do not own Burn Notice or any of its characters. This story is for entertainment only, and I'm not making a profit.


Chapter 1: Of Drug Dealers and Other Dangerous Men

The landlord did not look happy when he came out of the nightclub and saw my mom and I moving into the new apartment. Still, even though his name was even worse than mine (and seriously, what mother would be cruel enough to name their baby Oleg, even in Russia?), he didn't have any tattoos that I could see. That proved, according to a conversation I'd listened in on between some boys at the next lunch table over, that he had never done time in a Russian prison and so probably wasn't a member of the Russian Mafia. He certainly didn't look like one, with his creme-colored denim jacket and cowboy boots.

"You are moving in well, yes?" he asked, looking between Mom and I, his brows drawn together in a frown. "Sveta did not say you have family moving in with you when we talk yesterday."

My mother flushed, resting her box on the hood of the car, and I suddenly got the impression that if Mom and Sveta, Oleg's sister, hadn't mentioned me to our new landlord, it wasn't by accident. "I'm sorry, this is my daughter, Roxanne. Roxy, this is Mr. Shkelev."

"Hello, Mr. Sch…" I stumbled over the unfamiliar name and tried a second time. "Mr. Skelev?"

The man gave me a quick nod and smile in return, saying, "Oleg, please. Is simpler." He hesitated and sighed, raising his hands slightly. "Look, Allison…Mrs. Jacobs…"

"Mr. Shkelev," Mom broke in and pushed her box up further on the hood of the car. She rubbed her palms on her shorts, admitting, "Sveta sort of hinted that I shouldn't bring Roxanne's name up if I could avoid it because she said you probably wouldn't rent the apartment to us if I did. I shouldn't have listened to her. I know I still should have told you about Roxanne and I'm really very very sorry."

"Sveta…." Oleg closed his eyes, saying something under his breath in Russian for a few moments. Then he said to Mom, "Is nothing personal, you understand?"

"It is to us," I muttered, shifting from one foot to the next. It was bad enough that we were moving at all, and that it be a dump like this, where yet another landlord didn't even want us made it about ten times worse.

"Roxanne," my mother said sharply, giving me The Look before she turned back to Oleg. "Look, it was wrong for me to let you think that it was just me moving in, and I can't apologize enough for that, but please…" Her voice faltered and I could tell from the way it sounded that she was on the verge of crying—I'd heard that same hitch in her voice more times this past year than I cared to remember. She went on in a lower voice, "I've already turned in my key at the old place, and we didn't have the money to stay there another month anyway with the rent increase… we don't have anywhere else to go. Please. I promise you, she won't be any trouble at all, I swear." The pleading sound in her voice was almost embarrassing to hear, and I scuffed at the ground with the toe of my shoe.

"No, no, is not that I think you are trouble for me." Oleg shook his head, sighing, "I worry for trouble for you. We have trouble here in past, Sveta tell you this?"

Mom glanced quickly at me, before she said, "She told me about the drug dealer who used to live here, and about the gas pipe explosion in the upstairs apartment a couple of years ago, if that's what you meant?"

I blinked at that. "Wait, a drug dealer used to live in our apartment? And the place above us blew up?" This was the kind of information that was scary and exciting at the same time. Mostly exciting, I decided after a moment's consideration, cause the alternative was, well, pretty scary.

The Russian made a noise that sounded somewhere between a cough and a laugh, his eyes darting around. "Ha-ha yes, yes, gas leak. I almost forget this."

How the heck could anyone forget a gas leak that caused an explosion? "Was anyone hurt?" I asked with morbid curiosity, peering at the upstairs apartment. I didn't see any scorch marks or anything around the windows or door, so maybe it didn't do a lot of real damage.

"Nothing bad. Scratch here, bruise there. But then we repair and paint—is all better now, see? Good as new." Oleg's broad smile faded quickly from his face when he spoke again. "Mrs. Rogers, I… you understand this situation, yes? My club all night is boom-boom-boom with loud noise, every night. Is very hard for sleeping. And then the people who are coming here sometimes, to club, most not cause any problems, but some do. I don't want cause trouble for you." He paused, glancing from me to my mother to, strangely, the apartment upstairs, before saying in a quieter voice, "I worry, you see? I say I let you stay here but please… this place—this apartment—is not good place for family."

Mom bit her lip and told him again, "We don't have anywhere else to go."

I examined the toe of my shoe.

Our landlord said very distinctly, "B'lyad!" I had no clue what it meant, but was pretty certain that if I ever said it out loud and in English, I'd probably be grounded until I was thirty. Oleg sighed with something like defeat, saying, "You have my number, yes? You have any problem, you call." He seemed on the verge of adding something but shook his head and turned on his boot heel, walking away.

"We will," my mother said, and together we watched him go back into his club, before we went back to moving into our new apartment.

One of the few advantages of moving eight times in seven years is that you tend to be a lot more selective about the things you feel are worth keeping. "When in doubt, throw out," is what Mom says both before and after each move. Moving into furnished apartments makes things even easier. I've gotten to the point where I can fit the entire contents of my bedroom room (well, not including my clothes) into one large box and a backpack. Of course, it helps that, unlike most girls my age, I'm not dragging around an enormous collection of stuffed animals, Barbie dolls, Beanie Babies, or Breyer horse figurines. I've found that my stamp collection is far more portable—a large binder does the trick. Just don't tell anyone below the age of thirty about it, because they'll think you're lame.

By two pm, I'd had enough of unpacking boxes. Mom had just left to go grocery shopping, and I was bored. So I went out into the courtyard and started bouncing a tennis ball off the metal plating that was on our front door. Each time the ball hit, it made a surprisingly loud metallic 'thwang' sound. I'd tried bouncing it off the walls on either side of the door but the quiet 'pop' of the ball hitting the stucco wasn't nearly as satisfying.

I heard the rumble of a car's engine turning in and turned to watch as a black car slowly pulled into the courtyard. It was one of those old cars from way before I was born that looked like it came right off the cover of Hot Rod magazine. Sleek and shiny, it was very cool looking. The owner? Not so much.

The man stared at me over the steering wheel as he shut off the car and then opened the door to climb out. He was tall and kind of skinny, with spiky black hair, tan pants and a green shirt with a popped up collar. And by green, I don't mean mint green, or forest green-I mean more along the lines of Crayola crayon green. Or maybe mile-marker green. To top it off, he had some serious gold bling around his neck and on his wrist.

I went back to looking at the car. It hurt less.

Oleg and Mom had both mentioned a drug dealer that lived here, but I'd gotten the impression that he wasn't around any more. It'd explain where he got the money for the car—though you'd think he'd be able to afford better clothes at least. Still, as my friend Megan says, "Just cause someone has money, that don't mean they have taste." Then again, if he had money, that didn't explain why he was living here instead of someplace nicer, like say Key Biscayne. Maybe they'd run him out because of his taste in fashion, though.

Peeking at him again, I changed my mind about him being the drug dealer. I knew of at least three people at our old apartment complex who were rumored to be dealers, and none of them dressed like this. They'd stick out like a sore thumb when the cops came around. Hoodies and saggy jeans were more along their line.

So he was just some guy with tacky taste. Mile-marker man looked around and then back at me. "Are you waiting for someone?"

I squinted at him, hoping it'd help block some of the glare from his shirt. No such luck. "Kind of," I answered vaguely. I wasn't really waiting for her, but Mom would be back from the store soon. Gesturing toward his car with my tennis ball, I asked, "You're not going to leave that parked right there, are you?"

His eyebrows drew downward at the question and he frowned. "I live here."

"So do I," I replied, tossing the ball from one hand to the other.

"Realllly," he said with a broad smile, one big and unexpected enough that I wasn't really sure if it was real or fake.

Even so, I smiled back without thinking about it. He really had a very nice smile, and now that my attention was drawn to his face and not that preschool primary green shirt, I saw that he had bluish grey eyes. He actually was quite handsome, for an older guy. "Yes, Mom and I moved in this morning," I found myself saying.

"This morning?" He glanced around the courtyard again and back at me. "And you're already finished?"

"Yeah, well, we don't really have a lot of stuff to move," I shrugged, feeling kind of embarrassed by the fact that we didn't own a lot of things. And the things we did own were more about being useful than being nice things. I bounced my tennis ball off the door a couple of times.

"That's not necessarily a bad thing. I'm in favor of anything that makes moving easier," he said.

I thought he might just be saying that to be polite, but when I looked at him, he seemed pretty sincere about it. Over his shoulder, I saw Oleg coming around the edge of the gate.

"Westen," the landlord called, somehow managing to make the name sound like it started with both a V and a W.

That big smile reappeared on the man's face, and seeing it a second time, I was definitely starting to think that it was more fake than real. It was still a nice smile, though. "Oleg. I was just saying 'Hi' to my new neighbor," he said, turning toward the Russian.

Oleg cleared his throat, glancing at me and giving me a brief nod of greeting. "I try to call you, but I think maybe you have problem with phone? No one answers."

Westen tilted his head a touch and grinned, "Well, you know what kind of luck I typically have with cell phones. I had to get a new one."

Darting a quick look at me, Oleg started talking again, but in Russian this time.

I didn't understand a word he was saying, but this Westen guy did, because he held up his hand and then asked something in the same language. Oleg spoke for a few moments in response, and I am pretty sure from how he gestured at our new apartment now and again that he was explaining the circumstances of my mom and I moving in. That seemed really weird to me, because I was positive that Oleg owned the club and the property. I remember Mom being very specific about that when she told me we were moving. So why would the landlord have to explain anything to a guy who was just another renter, like us?

I eyed the Crayon man again very carefully from under my eyelashes. Yes, he still had tacky taste in fashion, but now I saw that he was more lean than skinny, and while his arms didn't bulge grossly with muscles like some body-builder's, he worked out on a regular basis. No tattoos that I could see (again, ruling out the Russian Mafia theory despite his apparent fluency in the language) but he had scars here and there, on his forehead and especially on the side of his right eye, like he'd been in quite a few fights.

Daring to examine at his green shirt again, I noticed for the first time that it had a pair of white pinstripes stretching horizontally around his chest. I studied them for a moment with a frown, trying to decide whether or not it made the shirt look better or worse. Could anything really improve on such an ugly get up?

The man ducked his chin, looking down at his chest as well. "Have I got something on my shirt?"

I flushed when I realized I'd been caught staring, I shook my head from side to side. "No, no, it's just... green. Really, really green." I couldn't quite stop myself from curling my lip.

He knitted his brows together and said almost defensively, "These are my work clothes."

"I'd quit," I stated without thinking.

Oleg grinned at that and told him, "Hopefully this job, it ends soon. I agree with girl, this not such good color for you, I think." His smile faded a little and he spoke a few more words in Russian.

Westen gave me a hard stare, like it was my fault that he was wearing such an ugly shirt, and then sighed and nodded to whatever Oleg was saying with something like resignation. "Da," he said. "I'll tell Sam and Fi."

The landlord looked at me and then at our front door. "Your mother is not home?"

"She had to run to the store, she should be back any time now," I explained and then looked pointedly at the large black car in the courtyard. "Of course it'll be quite a long walk carrying the groceries in from the street…."

The tall man smiled that definitely fake smile again and was on the verge of saying something when a cell phone rang. He reached into his pocket, glanced at the face and grimaced when he saw who was calling. "Why don't I park my car on the street where it won't be in anyone's way?" he said dryly, and then flipped open his phone to answer it. "Hi, Mom…. Ha, well, I had a little accident with the old phone while I was on a job, I had to get a new one. Let me guess, Fi gave you the number?"

Oleg and I watched as he walked toward his car and got in, started it up and backed out the gate. He must have changed his mind about parking because he suddenly slammed the car into drive and burned about twenty feet of rubber roaring off down the street.

The Russian man looked at me and smiled awkwardly. "You move in good? Everything is good?"

"Oh yeah, just peachy," I replied, wondering what the heck had just happened with our neighbor. He hadn't seemed all that upset about us moving in. Surprised, yes, and even mildly annoyed, but not as angry as his departure indicated. "Oleg, can I ask you a question?"

"Yes, yes, of course. What is it?"

"You and mom were talking about a problem with a drug dealer, right? That wasn't him, was it?" I asked worriedly.

He blinked and then laughed in my face. "Drug dealer? No no, he is not drug dealer. Is true, one lived here yes, but he is gone now. He was, ah, how you say? Persuaded to leave?" He waggled his eyebrows, giving the impression that there was a significant portion of the 'persuading' part he was leaving out.

Even so, I breathed a sigh of relief, "Ok, good. So this Westen guy has got some bizarre taste in clothing and he's a little bit strange, but he's not dangerous."

Oleg got a really strange look on his face, raising his hand to rub the back of his neck nervously. "Ha-ha. Michael Westen is good man. Very good man. But dangerous? No no, not so dangerous, not for you." He gave me a very reassuring smile, and he probably hadn't meant to do it, but he put the barest emphasis on the word 'you'.

I stared at him for a moment, repeating his words to myself, and then I asked slowly, "What do you mean, 'not for you'? You mean like, you, like my mom and I? He's not dangerous to us in particular, but he is dangerous for some people? Is that what you meant?"

He gaped for a moment and then waved his hands, already edging away from me and toward the club before I could ask any more questions. "Ah, my English, sometimes is not so good. I think I say words wrong. I go back to club now. Many things doing for tonight."

He was lying like a rug. I knew it, and so did he, but I also knew there was no way I'd be able to get anything more out of him on the subject of Michael Westen, unless I found it out for myself.

That was all right. School didn't start for another two weeks, and it wasn't like I had anything better to do.


Author's Notes: A couple of notes. The outfit Michael is wearing when he meets Roxanne can be seen in episode 'Fearless Leader' from Season 3 Episode 4 (Thanks to Woodnote for noticing my mental blooper and helping me correct it), but the events that take place in this chapter deliberately are not linked to any particular episode or season. Thanks to Marwolv for the beta-ing and Sicarius for the help with talking like a Russian when writing in English. I'd been toying around with this story idea for a while. I knew I wanted it from the POV of someone who moved in downstairs from Michael, but the how and who of it was more difficult. I hope you enjoy the end result, and please review! I feed on them like they are yummy doublestuf oreos.