Disclaimer: I do not own the Fifty Shades Trilogy (nor would I want to) and no money is being made from the publication of this fic.

Summary: See Previous Chapters

Chapter Two

Tonight, they met for two reasons.

One was to discuss Christian Grey's newest Sub, one Anastasia Steele. The other was to support one of their number (the Twelfth, to be specific) Leila Williams whose husband, Geoff, had recently died in a car crash.

Leila had been a flighty girl when she met Christian, bored and rebellious, looking for nothing more than a bit of fun between the sheets, and the Sub Club had been so busy with the 'sudden death' of her immediate predecessor that they hadn't noticed in time to warn her away.

Leila's contract had lasted three months, until she left without looking back when Christian wanted to try a new rope-play trick without doing his research first, and was so worried about his reputation that he refused to let Leila call an ambulance when the suspension badly dislocated her arm.

The long drive to the hospital, without any form of painkiller or temporary splint, but with a lot of threats of the consequences if she told the doctors the truth, had done an excellent job of waking Leila up to Christian's true personality. Unfortunately, she tended to obsess over things, and when she felt, be it anger, love or sorrow, she felt with her whole being.

For someone in the BDSM community, this could be considered a blessing, because the best part of BDSM was to give yourself over completely to your emotions. For an ex-Sub of Christian Grey, who usually left the agreement cursing his very existence, it could be dangerous.

The Thirteenth and Leila's replacement, Melody, arguably the closest to her, shook her head as she spoke quietly. "Poor Leila isn't holding up well. They were coming back from a gynocologist appointment when a van T-boned them and raced off. Leila is convinced it was a set-up because an ex-Business Acquaintance of Christian's had just hired the firm Geoff works with."

Leila had met Geoff when the brother of her physical therapist picked his sister up from work, and the two had hit it off almost instantly. Geoff had just finished his training in Criminal Psychology, as a Law Firm Consultant, and when Leila eventually told him about her past with Christian, it set off a large number of red flags. He had left it alone at her insistence, but none of them would put it past Christain to organise a convenient 'accident'. Emily frowned, "What is your take on the matter?"

Melody matched her frown, looking genuinely worried. "She isn't thinking clearly, what with losing her husband and her baby in one shot, and she's furious. I'm concerned that she'll do something drastic. Maybe like Mei, maybe something else."

Emily's eyes sparked in alarm. Mei was the Fifth of their number, the second they couldn't save. Her mother had been white, but her father came from a very traditional Asian family. She had ended things with a shouting match, and Christian had sent one blackmail photo to a 'Revenge Porn' website, then sent her a text message with the link, threatening to send the same link to her family.

Mei had very publicly committed suicide, rather than face the perceived shame. It was a double tragedy, because when Emily contacted the family to offer condolences (and make sure they were safe), Mei's family were grieving, and going after the porn sites with a vengeance, trying to track down the person responsible. They wouldn't have held Mei responsible for anything more than a bad choice.

Fiona hushed them both as Leila walked in, though all of them could instantly see where Melody was coming from. Leila looked a wreck, her eyes red-rimmed and bloodshot from tears and lack of sleep, thin and pale from not mustering the energy to eat or take care of herself. Emily led her to a chair, an arm around the distraught woman's shoulders. "How are you holding up, Leila. We're all here for you, whatever you need."

Despite the gentle tone, Leila was angry and didn't care who knew it "I need 'Master' to get what's coming to him! He killed the only man I'll ever love! He made me lose my baby! I want him to pay! I want him exposed for the monster he is! I -"

She broke down into sobs again. The Fourteenth, Sally, currently six-months pregnant, waddled over and put her arms around the new widow, followed by Melody. "I know, sweetheart, but you can't do anything in this state. There'd be a good case for declaring you irrational or incompetent, and He would take it as obsession over him and do something about it."

Leila, who had never been the cleverest of individuals in the first place, brightened a little, wiping her tears. "Then if I threaten to castrate him with a wooden cooking spoon, he'll think that I'm just showing that I care."

The First, as Emily referred to herself in moments when she had to take charge, sighed expressively, managing not to roll her eyes as several of her sisters were. "No, honey, that's just a cherished fantasy of nearly everyone the bastard has interacted with."

The Seventh, Evelyn, huffed under her breath. "Classic new money entitled brat. Thinks his success is entirely his doing, completely ignoring the fact that the connections and influence of his rich adoptive parents are what got him started, and goes out of his way to wave his wealth in everyone's face, as casually as he can."

The Fourth, Ekaterina, laughed softly. "That's a bit rich coming from you, Miss Old World Money. Leila has a point, though. Grey is so convinced that he can do anything that he probably won't try to involve the police, but it might get Ana to get the heck out of there when he gets too controlling of her."

Evelyn and Katya, as her friends knew her, were close friends, despite being polar opposites. Evelyn was a natural blonde, who had been going through a brunette stage when she met Christian, and was the great-granddaughter of an Austrian Baron, who had seen the writing on the wall and fled to America during the rise of Hitler. Katya was from Eastern Europe, her parents migrating to the States for work when she was two, with the fair skin and dark colouring stereotypical of that region. Evelyn had the haughty manner of an aristocrat, while Katya flowed with whatever life threw her way.

The Sixth, Maria, frowned lightly. She was friends with a friend of Ana's, Jose, and currently their ear on the ground. "I don't know about that. I've been talking to some mutual friends, and my initial impression is that Ana is delusional, a serious gold-digger, thicker than a centuries-old redwood, or so desperate for attention that she'll put up with anything."

Maria was the nicest and most generous person most of them knew, and such harsh criticism was enough to make even Leila stop what she was doing and stare. The Ninth, Sophie, the most analytical of the group, broke the silence. "Coming from you, that's saying a lot. Your reasoning?"

Maria sighed, ticking off points on her fingers as the Tenth, Christina, sat down next to her. "She somehow hasn't noticed the two boys who have done everything short of wearing sandwich boards to show that they're interested, or just ignores them, but is utterly devastated that Christian might not be interested. She sees nothing wrong with him tracking her phone, or having her followed, or taking her home while she's passed out drunk. Heck, she almost seems to see it as romantic."

Wow, that was bad. Christina was the first to react. "How do you know?"

Maria closed her eyes. "This next bit might be triggering for some of us. My friend Jose knows Ana, and they and some friends went out to celebrate their graduation. Ana usually doesn't drink, so the alcohol hit her hard. She went out to get some fresh air, after a phone call from Christian, and Jose followed her out just in case. He'd had a bit too much liquid courage, and tried to kiss her, since it's a bit hard to misinterpret that as friendship, but he tripped, and accidentally grabbed something he shouldn't when he tried to catch himself."

Fiona winced and placed a hand on Sophie's shoulder. Sophie was another one who had discovered that Christian was really bad with safe words. "Go on."

Maria shrugged. "Well, she pushed him away and threw up everything she'd eaten or drunk that night, then thirty seconds later, Christian arrives, knocks Jose out, and when he wakes up, no-one had any idea when Ana was. He spent the rest of the night and most of the day frantically trying to call her, left about a hundred messages, and found out what happened two days from Ana's room-mate. The room-mate has her doubts about Christian, too, but Ana isn't listening to her, either."

When multiple friends warned you away from someone, most people listened. When someone tracked your phone without your permission, and took you to his home while you were unconcious instead of ducking inside and telling your friends that you had passed out, anyone sensible would have called the police. Leila frowned, momentarily focused on something other than her grief. "Has she signed the contract yet? If she has doubts, we might have a window of opportunity."

Maria shrugged. "If he's offered her a contract, Ana hasn't mentioned anything about it to her friends. We may have to send someone to talk to her in person."

Leila stood up. "I'll go. I want to talk to Christian's security detail, anyway, and I need something to distract me."

Sally frowned. "Make sure you have some means of protecting yourself before you go. None of us want to see you hurt."

Emily considered the situation as the other women looked to her. Trying to help someone who didn't want to be helped was always a risky business, and it might come down to a choice between helping the wilfully blind and protecting the rest of them. The choice, and the responsibility for the consequences, was Emily's. "We have to at least try, but not at the expense of our own safety."

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A/N: Just to be clear, I am not a rape apologist, but Jose randomly assaulting Ana seemed more like a set-up for Christian to swoop in and be the Hero than something Jose would have reasonably done, and both of them were heavily drunk at the time, which can dull perceptions.

Anyway, I'll be hopping over the pond to Italy tonight, so don't expect me to post anything for at least two weeks. We'll see how things stand when I get back.

For those following my other stories, 'A SCA Girl in Middle-Earth', 'Reintroduction', 'A Friend In Need', 'War and Peace' and 'Striking Back' have also been updated.

Constructive criticism is much appreciated, but random flaming will be ignored.

To the reviewer who told me to publish my own work so I could have other people tell me how much I suck and see how it feels: I'm waiting to get the story back from the person editing it, and saving up for publishing costs. Thanks for the encouragement.

Thanks,

Nat