A/N: Oh my gosh, I really meant to have this up earlier, especially after all the supportive feedback I received in favour of continuing this. Unfortunately, life got in the way and I wanted to update my other story, All She Wanted before I focused on this. It took a lot longer than I expected, which inconsequently pushed this story on the back burner for way too long. Hopefully, nobody has been plotting my murder because of the wait and if you are please take into account that I'm really not an interesting enough person to kill - I would so not do well as a Dexter victim, they are always so much more witty in the face of death than I am.
Same rules apply as before, review if you want more.
Part 2
The mornings were still inconveniently chilly, just like yesterday, so Rachel had a fluffy black cardigan covering the white blouse she'd worn for work later on. Santana had gone with a patented leather jacket, this one cropped just below her chest, making her white V-Neck Tee more pronounced as it hugged the curves of her torso.
Their car was parked off to the side in the Garment District of Manhattan, an instrumental piece to Santana's plan. Rachel had tried to listen to the merits of such a position, or why Santana insisted on 'borrowing' a car from one of the many fashion forward employees working their way to five o'clock in a surrounding building, but she needed all of the empty calories in her still half full Soy Macchiato to entirely comprehend one of Santana's schemes of debauchery.
It had surprisingly taken them a fair bit of time—almost all of the day left after the detectives had left her home—to find out where Kurt Hummel was hiding. He was a trusted fence in their world and Rachel supposed he had to be crafty to be kind in his line of business. Still, they were better. It just took them a little longer than normal because he'd been shacked up in his boyfriend's studio, without seeing the light of day, for the sole purpose of hiding from them, well, more Santana.
But, they found him and Rachel was there to make sure Santana didn't do anything stupid. Brittany had made her promise—and get out of bed at the crack of dawn while Santana paced like a rabid panther in her living room—to make sure the Latina wasn't hauled away in handcuffs, or something worse.
"How long do we have to sit here?" Rachel sighed, while sipping from the extra large paper cup in her hands. The taste made her eyes roll back in pleasure every single time.
Santana shrugged, not taking her eyes off the large building a little ways down the street. "Until I'm sure that the place isn't under surveillance."
Rachel huffed because this was getting ludicrous. She'd missed the relaxing lilac scented bubble bath she'd planned for this morning for this. It was the only late start she ever afforded herself every month, preferring to burn the candle at both ends of the day whenever she could. It was all ruined now, though, in lieu of another vendetta Santana had dreamed up.
"Is Kurt really worth all this effort? We've been sitting in a stolen car for hours," Rachel sighed while she maneuvered her cup to her other hand to keep it warm. "I still don't see why we couldn't just rent one and I'm quite sure whatever he told them was frivolous anyway."
"Nobody rats on me and gets away with it, especially someone as worthless as, Hummel," Santana growled and Rachel couldn't help but admire the Latina's tenacity, even in her pre-macchiato delirium. "And you know that renting a car defeats the purpose of being criminals. Why pay when you can steal? Besides, this is more fun anyway. Loosen up, Berry."
Rachel gasped loudly, almost like she'd been told the most scandalous thing in the entire world, which to her it might have been. "I resent that remark. I'm extremely loose, definitely looser than the average woman. It's why I keep to a particularly strict Yoga regiment throughout the workweek. I assure you that my bad mood stems from the unfortunate set back to my night time skin care regiment because of the leather gloves we are forced to wear in a stolen vehicle."
"Yeah, you would," Santana murmured with a roll of her eyes.
"I just don't see why we can't deal with this like adults. We've been staking out a warehouse since before sunrise so you can intimidate somebody without police intervention. Really, Santana, it doesn't sound like you've thought this through at all. Kurt might've had his reasons for doing what he did or maybe it wasn't even him. We don't know for sure."
Except they did, but Rachel wasn't above ignoring the facts if it fit her purpose at the present time. Besides, people deserved the benefit of the doubt until proven guilty. Unfortunately, that was a code of ethics, Santana had yet to agree with.
"God, I'm not going to do anything that bad to him," Santana groaned with a shake of her head. "I don't need to. He'll flinch if I mention white after Labor Day and it was him, don't try to talk me out of it."
Rachel sighed and took a resigned sip from her cup. "Fine, but I want my objection to this ridiculous idea to be acknowledged."
Santana rolled her eyes. "Whatever, Berry."
Since they were young, Rachel always had to be the calm to Santana's chaos. The Latina lit fuses constantly, some simmered at a slow burn and were hardly noticeable until the inevitable bang, and then there were others—the more common ones—that were like whipping hand grenades at unsuspecting targets. It was just a lot of unnecessary carnage and over kill.
But, Rachel's always upbeat attitude—coupled with a truly impressive amount of eternal optimism for such a tiny person—was even more than Santana's naturally volatile way of life could handle. The girl's endless rants about the good in people, and her extremist views on how violence never solved anything, could beat even the most cynical to submission with the pain of a migraine.
It was why they worked, that and Rachel was the only one crazy enough to stand up to the intimidating package Santana Lopez put forth daily. They both hated to concede to each other and their arguments usually stemmed from that, not the dissention the tabloids were convinced was at fault.
Rachel sighed, while absently looking out to the window as a coffee laden intern stumbled passed, nearly dropping his poorly constructed cup tower all over a crack in the sidewalk.
The tiny brunette quickly looked back at her friend. "I just don't see why you insist on proving your street accreditation by gallivanting around town with a crowbar looking for a Lexus and threatening defenseless, albeit extremely grating, associates in the name of finding out more about the authorities that are trying to apprehend us."
Santana started clenching and unclenching the fist on her lap, clearly teetering on another angry outburst. It wouldn't be long until the Latina's control slipped and everything boiled over, so Rachel absently shook her cup, trying to judge how much of the beverage was left.
Not surprisingly, something as inconsequential as the sound of liquid sloshing against the sides of the cup was what sent Santana over the edge. The Latina's head whipped quickly over to look at Rachel, who bravely—or stupidly—stared back at her.
"Berry, seriously, it is too early for your spiels and ideals," the Latina growled, as her eyes started rapidly darkening with rage. "I'm two seconds away from shooting you and breaking into your apartment and setting fire to that damn piano that takes up way too much space!"
Rachel calmly took another sip from her cup, as she attempted to determine if Santana was serious or not. When she came to the conclusion that she wasn't—after all, Santana had always been more bark than bite, at least with her—Rachel decided to argue her point a little more.
"While at times I find myself admiring your dedication to defending all things violent, I must again insist that you refrain from using your fists, or in this case a can of gasoline and a lighter, and use your words instead. Besides, your threat just lands farce. I just don't understand why you'd break in when Brittany has a key."
When Santana looked about ready to light her on fire instead of the piano—face red, eyes dark and jaw clenched at what could only be a painful angle—Rachel decided that the last comment questioning the validity of her threat might've been a bit much.
"That's it," Santana snarled and reached down to her left ankle, looking for the small .22 caliber pistol she had strapped there no matter where she went.
Rachel smiled at her friend's proclivity, despite her claims of being deeply mysterious, defensive, withholding and emotionally locked down.
"I had Brittany take it from you before we left," the tiny brunette explained loftily. "We're already in a stolen car, it wouldn't be advantageous to push our luck with an unregistered firearm as well."
Santana started yelling in Spanish in retaliation, and Rachel caught maybe every other word—using the little knowledge she had from her high school language class—until finally the words became understandable.
"I can't take this anymore. I'll fuckin' risk it to get the hell out of here."
When the door slammed, shaking the entire frame of the car, Rachel smiled brightly and followed after her. Santana's strides were rather furious in their pace so Rachel begrudgingly started to jog in her heels in an attempt to catch up.
Santana was at the front door waiting for her, which Rachel smiled at gently. Since that day, almost a lifetime ago, when they first became friends and Santana promised to always be there for her, the Latina always had. She was the only person in Rachel's life, who hadn't ever let her down—no matter how much they didn't get along—and Rachel knew she didn't exactly make it easy.
"About freakin' time. You and Brittany need to stop buying shoes, especially when they're as ridiculous as those. I almost liked you better as a fashion reject in high school. At least when you wore penny loafers, you kept up."
Both looked down at the Louboutins, Rachel and Brittany had bought last week before Santana ripped open the door.
Behind it was one long hallway, painted an off white with a couple dark blue doors on each side that lead to places unknown. Santana seemed to know where she was going through and she purposely strode into the hall, the heels of her boots echoing around them in the rather confining space.
Rachel quickly followed after her with a disgruntled look while she defended her shoes. "Oh, yes, and you buying an excessive amount of sports cars to keep in a temperature controlled warehouse, just so you can gaze at them like you do Brittany, is not ridiculous at all."
Santana whirled around to look at her. "Cars certainly get me more action than your closet full of shoes. Who has a smokin' hot dancer girlfriend and who is desperate enough to get weak in the knees for the cop trying to put us in jail?"
Rachel crossed her arms and huffed in annoyance at such an allegation against her character. "Please, if it wasn't for me, you'd still be sleeping around with half the women in New York." Rachel's voice then quickly lost its edge, almost coming out in a whisper. "Besides, I told you I'm not ready for anything serious."
Santana just nodded slightly and made an unintelligible noise in the back of her throat before whipping open the heavy door at the end of the hall.
Kurt Hummel wasn't hard to find, sitting in the exact middle of the room amongst an outlandish amount of satin and lace in a fitting hodgepodge of rainbow colours. His usually immaculate sandy brown hair was in extreme disarray—standing on end, almost like he'd stuck a fork in an electrical socket—and the naturally pale skin of his cheeks was red from over exertion. Various sketches were posted on giant bulletin boards set up strategically around the large loft space in between sowing machines and racks of clothes.
When Santana walked further into the room, the echo of her heels caused his head to snap up and fabric flew in the air around him as he jumped to his feet.
"Hummel, you look like one of the Keebler elves. Does that shirt even come in men's?" Santana barked, the sharp tone to her voice put everybody on edge.
Rachel supposed the evergreen long-sleeved sweater and the dark, almost burgundy red bow tie, kind of did make him look overly festive. He had layered the sweater with a light salmon dress shirt to take the edge off the complimentary colours, but Santana probably wasn't so interested in that.
"Excuse me! This is Italian knit!" he screeched, his face pinched in an almost comical outrage until he seemed to realize who he was dealing with. "Um…is there something…I can do for you?"
"Yeah," Santana growled, taking a couple more steps toward him, so she was centimetres away from his fabric circle. "You can start by telling us exactly what you told the cops about us."
"Darling," he laughed loudly while his eyes scanned the room, probably looking for an escape route. "I would never do such a thing. I cannot—"
"Lie again," Santana taunted evenly—like the calm before the storm—while she reached behind her back and pulled out another gun from underneath her shirt, "and I'll shoot you."
"What!" Rachel yelled, her heels rapidly clicking against the hardwood as she approached. "Where did you get that? I specifically told Brittany to check everywhere before we left." She then turned to Kurt, who was staring at the gun with wide eyes. "I'm sorry, she's not going to shoot you. We just need to know what you said for—"
"Berry," Santana yelled, turning towards the tiny brunette who had come up on her side. "Stay out of this. For once in your life, get your ginormous nose out of my business."
Rachel gasped loudly and a hand immediately flew up to inspect her face. "It's not that big…I mean I know it is a little bigger than most but I find that it perfectly celebrates my heritage as a strong Jew—"
"Hummel," Santana interrupted icily and Rachel uncharacteristically kept quiet, even though being cut off was one of her top five pet peeves. "You got three seconds to give it up and if you don't, you will not like the alternative."
She raised the gun level to his head to emphasize her point. Kurt quickly looked to Rachel for help and the tiny brunette just shifted her gaze away with a small frown. It was the tone of Santana's voice and Rachel knew she couldn't do anything, regardless of how she felt.
It was just a canon in their friendship—when Santana was like this, Rachel didn't ask questions. Despite all her bravado, Santana would never really harm a person, unless she felt it was necessary, and she felt it was this time. Kurt talking to the police directly endangered the people Santana cared about, so this retaliation wasn't at all surprising. Rachel just hoped Kurt listened because at least then, there might be a chance of talking Santana out of whatever she was planning on doing.
"I…" Kurt stumbled backwards, further into his pile of fabric, with fearful eyes. "My bodyguards will be back at any moment. You should really leave before then."
Santana slowly shook her head with a smug smirk on her face. "Sorry, Hummel, but no. You really think I got to be where I am by making stupid mistakes like not knowing you have boy toys with automatics? They're a little held up at the moment, Brittany's really good at that."
Kurt's face paled considerably and he again pleadingly looked at Rachel. The tiny brunette just shook her head and said, "Just tell us please."
He looked back and forth between the two women, swallowing nervously. "I…I didn't want to. You have to know that I had no choice. They were threatening Emilio's line and I love him and—"
"I don't care why you did it," Santana said dangerously. "I want to know what you said."
Kurt nodded quickly, desperately trying to appease the volatile Latina staring him down murderously through a barrel of a gun. "They had me on a deal I did last year. They told me if I told them about you, they'd let me go and my name's all over Emilio's business financially and I couldn't risk an arrest. It would ruin him."
Santana rolled her eyes, clearly aggravated by the guy's rambling. "What did they want to know?"
"They were really interested in your music company and I told them I didn't have any idea about it, besides liking some of your artists," Kurt explained quickly, while Rachel preened at the compliment to their musical talent. "Then they asked me about that Matisse I fenced for you last year. They had no proof about it, I got the impression they were going off second hand information of rumours—"
"You know who this source is?" Santana questioned gruffly, but she stopped pointing the gun at him so he promptly answered in hopes it would stay that way.
"They didn't say," when the hand with the gun twitched, Kurt hurried to add, "but, it could be the girl that flipped on me. Mercedes, she was a referral. I don't know anything else."
Santana glanced at Rachel, who just subtly shook her head. "And the jewelry store?"
"They needed something to drop the charges. I told them I heard you were behind it, that's it. I swear," Kurt said earnestly, looking back and forth between the women again, desperate for them to believe him.
Santana stared at him for a moment longer, before shrugging her shoulders. "You're lucky Berry likes you because I really wanted to shoot you. You should thank her, don't you think?"
Kurt quickly looked to Rachel with wide relieved eyes. "Uh…thank you."
The pint-sized brunette beamed brightly in response. "You're welcome. Anything for a fan of our label."
Santana shook her head, clearly bemused by the statement. "Lets go, Berry," she sighed before turning back to Kurt and waving the gun in his face again. "If there's a next time, even her pathological need for attention won't help you."
Kurt furiously nodded.
As the girls made their way out, Rachel kept glancing nervously at Santana. She was always a little off-kilter after seeing that side of her friend. Rachel naturally avoided confrontation—preferring to grin and bear it until the conflict ended—unless she was bantering with Santana, since their arguments always stemmed from some place of twisted affection.
But, when things got bad, like today, Santana took over and Rachel let her. She knew the only reason Kurt was alive right now was because she was there and the dark tint to Santana's eyes could only mean the Latina wasn't done.
"What are we doing now?" Rachel asked timidly with an almost resigned slump to her shoulders.
This was Santana's wheelhouse, playing the game and making sure they never got caught. Rachel planned the heists and with a big one coming up, she knew she'd have to reluctantly follow along with whatever Santana wanted.
The Latina looked at her with a small mischievous smirk and she said, "You're making a phone call."
It took a moment for Rachel to connect the dots and when she did she quickly looked away guiltily. "Well, actually, it's kind of advantageous that you brought such a circumstance up…"
Santana's eyes narrowed before she threw her hands up in exasperation. "Oh my God, call Brittany. I need a drink."
"Santana, it's not even noon," Rachel exclaimed incredulously with a diminutive shake of her head. "You know, that is a glaringly obvious sign of an underlying alcoholic condition. I think it would be beneficial for you to talk to someone. I'm told the first step to recovery is admittance of a problem."
Santana just growled and angrily stomped toward the car. Rachel followed leisurely after her with a small smile on her face.
