As soon as his calcaneus slotted into place, Maiza stood with Ronny's help and gingerly put weight on his bare foot. His leg was completely bare from the knee down, but Maiza was far too preoccupied to bother with trivial matters like embarrassment and how his leg had yet to fully regain feeling.

"Ronny," he asked, urgently, "Has the Alveare been hit? Are the others safe?"

Ronny briefly closed his eyes, and then nodded. "The Family is safe. No one else has been hit – not yet, at least."

Good. Maiza tightened his grip on Ronny's shoulder. "Then let's go back and warn them. First the honey, and now this… There's no time to waste."

Ronny's eyes flashed, and when he raised his left hand he was holding Maiza's right shoe, perfectly intact. "Are you sure you want to show up clad in only one shoe? I could fix your trouser leg, you know. Your suit too, of course. It would be trivial."

Impatiently, Maiza snatched his shoe from Ronny's grasp and put in on, using Ronny for balance. "That's unimportant right now. I don't want to waste any more time than we already have."

"If you say so," Ronny sighed. As soon as Maiza had finished with his shoe, Ronny hooked his right arm under Maiza's left and said, "Walk with me."

They stepped forward, and with the next step their surroundings shifted from a minor Little Italy street to the back alley behind the Alveare, and pavement turned to stone underneath Maiza's feet. Maiza let go of Ronny and darted for the staircase that led to the downstairs cellar and the Martillos' meeting room.

"I told you that no harm has befallen the others," Ronny noted, at Maiza's back. "You're in such a rush… Well, no matter."

Maiza's shoulders tensed as he opened the cellar door, and then they relaxed. "I know. I can't help myself from worrying all the same. Harm notwithstanding, everyone needs to be on guard as soon as possible. We don't know what we're up against."

The two of them moved through the cellar, and found a few of their capos engaged in hushed conversation upon entering the downstairs meeting room.

"Ah, Ronny," said the nearest executive, turning to face the doorway. "And…Maiza! What is this?"

All eyes immediately turned to Maiza at the shock in the capo's voice. Maiza supposed he probably looked a sight, with his bullet-ridden clothes and half his trouser leg missing. Perhaps I should have let Ronny fix it up after all.

"Firo and the others are still upstairs," Ronny informed him. "I'll fetch them. The Don and Yaguruma are in the office."

The first capo who'd spoken nodded, tacitly volunteering to go update Molsa and Yaguruma of the situation. It was abundantly clear that there was a situation – what else could you call the contaiuolo showing up with his suit full of bullet holes if not that?

After Ronny and the first capo had gone, the other executives drew closer to Maiza with restrained concern in their eyes and questioning expressions. Had they been associates, they undoubtedly would have crowded around Maiza and blurted out those questions one after the other – but they were not, and Maiza was thankful for that. The sound of machine-gun fire still echoed in his ears; he would rather not have to deal with such clamors at that.

The trapdoor in the ceiling opened, and Firo dashed down the stairs – only to leap over the bannister on the fifth step, too impatient to descend them all the way. "Maiza," he cried, butting his way past the other executives to get a good look at his friend. His face paled immediately as soon as he took stock of Maiza's clothing, and his eyes widened upon spotting the unusual state of Maiza's trouser leg.

"Maiza," he repeated, fists clenched at his sides, "…What happened?"

"What do you think?" Maiza asked, but the purposeful brevity in his voice failed to lighten the mood. "Once everybody's here, we'll have a proper discussion."

The trapdoor opened again, this time to reveal Ennis, Randy, and Pezzo. Ronny brought up the group's rear, and as Randy and Pezzo descended the stairs they shouted out various indignant cries over Maiza's condition.

"Who's the bastard responsible for this, Maiza!"

"They won't get away with this, the lousy rats!"

"Gentlemen, please," Maiza implored, raising his hands for silence. "Let's all try to keep our heads. It won't do to lose them here."

When Molsa and Yaguruma arrived, Molsa took one look at Maiza and said to the capo accompanying him, "I see what you mean." He waved away the executives' respectful greetings and took a seat on the other side of the round table in the middle of the room. "Well, Maiza, let's not beat around the bush. We've all been informed of today's incident with the honey, but this…"

Maiza straightened his posture at Molsa's attention. "It happened just a few minutes ago. I was on my way home when a car drove by and its occupants gunned me down. I'm afraid I can't tell you anything useful about their appearances - all I could make out were that the perpetrators were young men, with a far older man accompanying them. They flung some sort of bomb behind me as a farewell gift. There was no sign of them when I came to."

Molsa wove his fingers together in front of him, the wrinkles on his face deepening as he considered Maiza's report. "Not much to go on. I would venture to say that your hit-and-run is connected to the poisoned honey, but we can't know for certain. Not yet, at any rate. We don't know who these people are, or what they're after."

"Could they be after Maiza specifically?" Firo asked, his face still deathly white. "After all, he was the only one who got sick. And as far as we know, no one else in the Family's been hit."

Behind Molsa, Yaguruma harrumphed and folded his arms. "If they are after Maiza, or if they aren't – either way, it's a direct challenge to the Family, and one we will not stand for."

Molsa leaned back in his chair, the wood creaking under him. "Yaguruma, I want you to round up the associates later today and have them go on alert. Organize a few patrols, see if they can't ask around for information on those tommy-toting upstarts. I'll leave the associates in your hands alone."

"Of course."

"Now Maiza," Molsa continued, meeting Maiza's gaze, "What do you plan to do?"

"Nothing." Maiza turned his hat over and over in his hands. "I'll act the same as always."

Firo took a step forward, unable to stop himself from interrupting. "But, Maiza—!"

Maiza silenced him with a grimace. "How else can we proceed? The only way to know for sure if these men are after me is to wait it out. I won't have any escorts, any guards. All we can do is see where and at whom they strike next, and gather information in the meantime. Which means I don't want anybody doing anything reckless." He narrowed his eyes. "Understand?"

Firo bit his lip. "Understood."

Molsa cleared his throat, and Firo and Maiza turned to give him their attention. "If that's what you want, Maiza, then I have no qualms. But I can't condone total passivity from you, understand? Don't allow the situation to grow into something unmanageable for you."

Maiza's hands stilled. "I'll do my best."

Molsa nodded, and stood. "That's the end of it, then."

With the meeting thus concluded, and with Molsa returned to his office, the executives immediately fell into talking while Yaguruma went upstairs to round up the associates dawdling in the restaurant. Unable to tear his eyes away from Firo – now quietly conversing with Ennis – Maiza leaned in close to Ronny and asked, "He reacted rather strongly to the situation, don't you think? It's not as if I haven't been shot before…"

Ronny gave him a level look. "Precisely. You have been shot."

"…I don't follow."

"It's not the first time he's seen you in such a state," Ronny said gently, and a memory that was not Maiza's own flashed to the forefront of his mind – a capo's memory, of him diving in front of Szilard's machine gun while Firo ran, of him, and another of him standing in the back alley, his clothes riddled with holes. It was a little disconcerting to watch himself from another person's perspective, and Maiza frowned at his friend.

"Don't do that again without warning me first. But…I see what you're getting at, I think. I suppose I should have a talk with him."

"Perhaps." Ronny shrugged, and then gave Maiza a sly smile. "You should have, by the way."

Maiza furrowed his brows. "Should have what?"

"Let me fix your suit, I mean."

Mind-reading rascal. "It doesn't matter, now," Maiza replied, embarrassed. "And I have the means to replace the outfit, as it were."

The look Ronny gave him was positively arch. "You can't possibly be suggesting that you plan on returning home as you are, can you?"

"…You have a point."

"I often do," Ronny agreed, and with a snap of his fingers the holes in Maiza's suit repaired themselves, his trouser legs lengthened, and a sock reappeared over his right foot. "Better?"

Maiza gave his clothes a cursory once-over, and nodded sheepishly. "As if I could say otherwise."

"Of course you couldn't. Now, I've got to go retrieve the rest of the associates for Yaguruma, so I'll leave Firo in your hands." Ronny turned to face the stairs. "Take care."

I'll try.

No trouble greeted Maiza on his way home, and he slept through the night sans interruptions. Still, he kept an alert eye and ear out for it as he set out to work the next day, prepared to act should he spy a shadow or two from an upcoming alleyway, or another car hurtling down the street.

What he hadn't anticipated was Ronny calling his name from one of those alleyways.

"Maiza – over here, Maiza. Look up."

Look…up? Puzzled, Maiza stood at the entrance of the alleyway and raised his head.

Ronny stood on the opposite wall, next to a second third story window and perfectly perpendicular to the ground. Momentarily at a loss for words, Maiza inched closer and tried to recover as best he could. "Ronny…what on Earth are you doing?"

"I couldn't help but keep an eye on you," Ronny admitted, a lit cigarette appearing between his fingers. He took a drag from it, and a few flecks of ash fluttered down a few inches away from Maiza's face. "Take a look at this."

He knelt next to the window and reached inside it, pulling up an unconscious man by his shirt collar. "He took one look at me standing outside his window and passed out," Ronny remarked, and with one tug he removed some sort of sniper rifle from the man's grip so that he could show it off to Maiza. "A rather amateurish reaction for someone playing the role of a sniper, no? It seems that he intended to shoot you with a paralytic agent. A potent one, too."

"Paralytic?" That was new. That was utterly different from a bullet – depending on where he was shot, and how many bullets, Maiza could regenerate somewhat quickly. He wasn't sure exactly how his immortal body would handle a paralytic agent, but the salient issue here was the shift in the shooter's intent (assuming that he was affiliated with those behind the honeypot and shooting incidents).

Using a paralytic agent meant capture, not kill. You didn't blow down a man with tommy guns if you didn't want to kill him. And you didn't shoot a man with a paralytic agent if you didn't want to capture him without a struggle (or, he supposed, put one out of commission for a while). But if whomever these men were wanted to capture him, then why didn't they simply scoop him off the pavement yesterday after gunning him down? To see how fast it took him to regenerate?

"Your mind is as sharp as ever, I see," Ronny said. Startled from his thoughts, Maiza looked upward once more to see his friend walking down the wall toward him. "At any rate, I'd venture to say that this proves whomever's behind this is after you specifically – and I'd have said that even if I hadn't read the other man's mind. Unfortunately, that's about the only useful information anybody's going to glean from him."

Ronny stepped off the wall and onto the ground, taking one last drag of his cigarette. It winked out of existence with his next exhale of smoke.

"He was, shall we say, very indirectly ordered to shoot you, without being told what for or who you were. The orders were passed down some sort of chain of command, since the man who gave him the orders apparently had no idea why you needed to be shot in the first place, nor what would happen to you afterwards. If the purpose was to capture you like you hypothesized, then your would-be collectors might be nearby—"

"Ronny!" Maiza held up his hands in a beseeching effort to get Ronny to shut up for one second of his life. Ronny did so begrudgingly. "Ronny, I appreciate your efforts, but you do realize that you're getting in my way, don't you?"

Ronny blinked owlishly at him, a little ruffled. "And you realize that my abilities would make figuring out who's responsible a far easier task than you seem to think it ought to be, surely."

Maiza gave the chiamatore a patient, strained smile. "Be that as it may, I would rather you refrain from interfering for the time being. You stepped in today with the best of intentions, I'm sure, but I think it would be more fruitful plan of action if I dealt with these pursuers directly on my own, at least at first. After all, they appear to be after me, so the best way to attract them would be to move on my own."

"…If I hadn't been here, you would have been shot," Ronny countered, a little waspish.

"And possibly captured, I know," Maiza acknowledged. "I just don't see that as a worst case scenario, that's all. In fact, that might be the best way for us to figure out what these men aim to accomplish. So please, don't act so cavalierly."

Ronny was silent for a moment. "All right," he said, finally. "You're asking me to trust you, and I'll do my best to respect that. But as a Martillo, I can't say that I won't do what I can to protect my fellow camorrista from unnecessary danger."

"I wouldn't ask you to," Maiza reassured him, and then glanced up toward the window. "But what should we do about the sniper?"

Ronny tapped the tip of his shoe against the ground, a satisfied expression warming his face. "Since he didn't know anything, I've just now taken the liberty of depositing him on the police department's front doorstep, along with his rifle. He's a petty criminal as it is, but I imagine they won't take kindly to his firearm possession in their vicinity."

"Ah."

Maiza and Ronny stared at each other, and broke out into chuckles.

"Well, now," Ronny coughed, once the humor subsided. "You did say you wanted to move on your own, but would you object to my accompanying you the rest of the way to the office? Just this once."

Maiza lips twitched into a wry smile. "If it'll appease you. Just this once."

The two of them exited the alley, and resumed course for the Alveare, tipping their hats to a lady who happened to be passing by. As they walked, Maiza found that he was more pleasantly grateful than anything else that he'd agreed to Ronny accompanying him.

It was nice, of course, to spend the daily commute to work in the company of a friend, but he had to admit that Ronny's presence was a reassuring physical reminder of the support he had from his fellow Martillos. Even as the years ticked by, it still astonished him how unbelievably good the Family had been to him, and how they honestly cared for him.

Again, he recalled the memory of Szilard in the Alveare – but it was his own memory now, not the one Ronny had shown him. He'd stood, helpless, bleeding profusely – and the Martillo executives had cried murder and come to his defense, shouting for him to just stay alive while they bore down upon Szilard with guns blazing and hatred in their bones.

I don't deserve them, Maiza mused, his grip tightening on his briefcase. But I have them, nonetheless, and they have me. That poisoned honey could have hurt them – I won't forgive those responsible. And I won't stand to see the Family in danger again because of me. One way or another, I'll end this.

There was a good chance that Ronny had read his thoughts just now – from the 'pleasantly grateful' bit to 'I don't deserve them' – but Maiza decided that he didn't mind if Ronny had.

Just this once.