"What the fuck."

Piper punctuated every syllable, but it was relief that flooded into her tone. She'd thought the worst when she'd been looking down the end of Alex's gun, having expected some facetious excuse or another that Alex had presumably come up with to retrieve her from the party. More humiliated than irate after their altercation, she was curiously unbalanced on where she stood with the importer, and if Alex was willing to put everything aside, she wasn't about to mention it first.

The importer cocked her head, as if off put by her reaction. "I know. Cesar's getting me back. I'm sorry." Alex actually looked repentant, then arched her brows the way she did when she was about to put her own spin on a situation. "It's just one cartel this time around."

"Do you think I care whether I die by a hail of bullets or just one?"

"Okay, listen, it's just a little bit more involved than you know," Alex held up her non-gun-toting hand peaceably. "Normally they wouldn't fuck with you, but it's revenge, not business. When the cartels started fighting over the supply chain, Kubra played both sides. Then we spent the last two years just getting one of them off our back, by helping them fuck over the other one. Again."

Piper had no words. "You asshole."

"It was all Kubra's idea. I suggested retiring."

"And I'm sure Kubra made heavy use of your particular talents to sew up that one," Piper noted, sotto voce. They were same talents she was currently benefiting from, but she abstained from mentioning that particular fact.

The brunette pulled in one corner of her mouth. "What can I say?"

Piper let out a heavy sigh and pinched the bridge of her nose. Alex was looking apprehensively between her and the door. This was the first time anything had visibly gotten a rise out of the importer, but she was still cracking jokes. The woman was a damned safe.

The gun caught the light briefly and Piper pulled herself solidly into the present. "I know a thing or two about grudges. It's fine, I have a plan."

"Already?"

"Trust me."

Brushing off Alex's dubious expression, Piper moved for the door, about to crack it open when it was pushed in forcibly and without warning, driving her shoulder hard into the wall.

It was a man with a tattoo on his neck. The cast of his face shifted from boredom to recognition, then fear as Alex aimed her weapon.

"Get the fuck out." The importer's voice was steady. The man retreated and she turned to Piper, abandoning the facade. "Shit shit shit shit. The cavalry's next. We gotta go."

"Hang on." Piper counted ten seconds and checked the hallway again. It was blessedly empty. She pulled back and side-eyed the firearm. "Let's go, and put that away. You're not shooting anyone tonight if I can help it."

She led Alex on a path away from the ballroom, slinking through a door marked 'Employees Only'. At the late hour, it was deserted, but the service hallways winded like a labyrinth.

"Where are we going?" Alex's fingertips landed momentarily on the back of Piper's arm.

"The kitchen. The chefs have got to be gone by now, and there's always a door out the back."

"What if it's locked?"

"What if it is?"

"This might surprise you, but I lack the lower body strength to kick down an industrial door."

"Then find consolation in the fact that I'm a little more creative than you are."

Alex was looking cranky, but something about sneaking around galvanized Piper. It took her back to a time when she was significantly less felonious and knew relatively little responsibility. There was also nothing like a field sobriety test that included a Mexican cartel out for her blood.

The kitchen door was indeed secured, with an electronic and fortunately, separate manual lock. Piper produced a set of lockpicks from her clutch, hands shaking in anticipation. Alex let out a long, low whistle and turned to watch the hallway.

The drumming of Piper's heart nearly drowned out the sound of the lock, and the fine work was far from muscle memory, her mind sluggishly recalling how much torque to apply and how to set the pins. In the distance, a door opened and came the sound of a footfall. It had only just registered with Piper when Alex reached back blindly, a hand landing on Piper's side as the other reached into her purse.

Piper cursed softly in Cantonese. Had it been seconds or minutes? Finally, the handle depressed and Alex hustled her through into pitch black. The next thing Piper knew was a rapid drop in temperature.

Alex had tugged her into the cold room. It seemed there had just been a massive delivery, because cardboard cartons claimed what little available space there was, and the brunette was pressing into her with barely a breath between them. Footsteps came past them and the back door opened, rendering Alex's very close, very tense face briefly visible in the flood of ambient light.

"Don't worry, it was a server. Smoke break, I think, but we gotta wait till he gets back."

The prospect of bodily injury hadn't crossed Piper's mind. She was appreciating the earthy and pleasantly spicy tones of the Alex's perfume, and the heat of her body in the overly conditioned room. Then the brunette breathed on her cheek and she was instantly rocketed back to sensation of Mendez's body and his revolting panting. She repressed a shudder.

"Fuckin' Mendez," Alex muttered, noticing—of course she would notice. "You aren't ruined forever, are you?"

"Not that I know of."

But the way Alex had pitched it—Piper hadn't even thought anything of it at the time—had that been what Alex meant when she'd bend Piper to her wishes while Piper believed she'd done it all willingly? The span of one evening and she was already losing track of the number of victims to Alex's deception. On the other hand, the woman had been unnecessarily fierce with Mendez, and the way she'd behaved towards Piper in the hotel room—

"Did you case the place before we got here?"

Relieved to be distracted from her thoughts, Piper pressed futilely closer to shelves at her back. "I looked at the floor plan beside the fire extinguisher. I have a very good memory."

"Handy." Alex dipped her head contemplatively. "Sorry I come with so much baggage."

"Is that what you're calling it?" Piper teased, and the brunette looked up, a small smile returning to her lips. "I was expecting trouble. Either way, I'm pushing someone else out. This is just a little more James Bond than I prefer."

"Just when I had you pegged," Alex smirked. It was almost beginning to feel stuffy. A door slammed nearby, wafting in cigarette smoke. The importer eased off Piper to get a better view. "We're up."

They spilled out onto a quiet residential street overlooking the harbour. The single red cherry of a finished cigarette was dying on the asphalt. Piper rotated her neck, attempting to dislodge the past five minutes.

"That was refreshing," Alex commented, oblivious. "Don't we need a getaway vehicle?"

"Yes." Piper came to and looked down the street, searching.

"Aren't you going to call your bodyguards?"

"I don't know where they are. We can't afford to wait around." She spotted an older model Nissan and started walking towards it. "You said this would be a field trip."

A pair of heels clicked after her. "Never believe anything I say."

"I don't. Come here and be my lookout. Hold my bag."

The brunette took it wordlessly, looking no less than stunned as she kept apace with Piper. With a grin, Piper whipped a slim jim out of the pouch.

Alex's reaction was immediate. "Holy shit."

"I didn't just start out giving orders," Piper explained. "Stand here." She pointed to the area behind her, then slipped the tool between the window and the frame.

Alex shielded her with her body. "But in your clutch?"

"Preparation is key." The door unlocked with a satisfying tick. Piper climbed in and reached over to unlatch the passenger's door. "Get in. There's a light in the bag."

There was a child's seat in the back of the car, a dark but identifiable shape. Piper stared at it, petrified, until cold gust of air announced Alex's appearance on the passenger's seat. She sounded a little breathless, but gamely pointed Piper's penlight at the driver's side. The clutch yielded a multi-tool, and Piper unscrewed the cover on the steering column, going through the paces of hot wiring a car.

"Aren't you Mary fucking Poppins. What else have you got in there?" Alex was pressed flat against the back of the seat with a hand in her hair.

"Snacks. Are you hungry?"

Alex laughed in disbelief. "Are you serious?"

Piper tossed the leather accessory back into Alex's lap and stripped a wire. "Give it to me straight: is there an entire cartel out for us?"

"No. They're too busy trying revive the business back home after what Kubra and I did to them. Poppy farmers to extort and shit. They aren't about to send an army." Alex pulled out a granola bar and tore the wrapper with her teeth. "Want some?"

"Keep it. We're not going anywhere until we know what your rat knows."

"Shit. I was hoping to knock a few heads, make sure everyone's on the same page. I'm not really the conference call type."

"We might have time." Piper leaned back, dusted off her hands, and started the car. "Who does Cesar know?"

"I don't make powerful enemies. Cesar didn't exactly make a lot of friends selling oregano. He's been pushed out. No one's talking to him... unless there's a leak on your side."

"That's impossi—" Piper's denial died on her lips when a face—formerly consigned to oblivion—reappeared at the forefront of her mind. "Fuck."

"Fuck," Alex echoed. "What'd you do them?"

"It's not like that." Piper skidded through a clumsy turn, thoughts torn between past and present. "Alright, like I said, I used live here. The triad has a crew of ex-pats here. We have a safe houses."

"Doesn't the rat know about those?"

"You'd have to be pretty high up to know about this one."

"You're one of those?"

"Stop."

"Fine. Who's the rat?" The brunette had latched on, like a pitbull.

Piper bit the inside of her mouth. "I excommunicated someone a long time ago. He's still around dealing, but I never thought he'd snitch. But now it all makes sense."

"Wait, you don't kill them?"

"We're not a bunch of brutes, okay?"

"You're not a brute. At all."

Piper glanced away from the road. The importer's face was mostly in shadow, but the look of desire was unmistakeable. Her own body's response was immediate. She squeezed the steering wheel until it squeaked.

"I'm sorry about earlier," fell out of her mouth, without the requisite forethought. "I was definitely being uncivilized then."

Alex was looking at her like she knew. "I'm an asshole," the brunette relented. "It's not like I've drawn you different picture. Tell you what—I'll call it even if you tell me what you've got on me."

"Just the paper trail," Piper started, recalling the facts. "You grew up with a single mother in South Bronx. Kubra was dealing to your father when you found him. You moved to the Upper East Side shortly after. The rest is history, I suspect."

She also knew Alex's deadbeat of a father figure in question had made a passing appearance in the tabloids as dead from heroin overdose, around the same time Alex's mother settled into a nice little townhouse in Tribeca. There was nothing to really say about it between strangers—or whatever they were—and broaching the topic of family was something Piper was very unwilling to do.

The importer exhaled gustily. "You could write my obituary."

"With any luck, it won't come to that."

"Retirement's looking pretty good right about now, huh?"

"No kidding."

"So." Alex adopted a casual pose with an elbow propped against the car door. "What would you do? Cancun with topless men serving you cosmos? Peace corps?"

Piper stared off into the road. "I honestly don't know."

"They say if you aren't planning the future, you've given up."

"Well, Alex, if you were to take away anything at all from the night we just had," Piper bit back, the preachy 'among-other-things' going unspoken, "the life expectancy in our line of work isn't remarkable."

"Or you could choke to death on your non-fat quinoa bagel tomorrow. It's a toss-up."

"You're just a well of optimism."

"Even heroin importers have dreams."

"And what might those be?"

"That's awfully personal."

Piper breathed deeply, opened her mouth, and twisted toward Alex to give her a piece of her mind. The importer had been dogging her with questions all night and would still throw something so paltry her way. But something made her hold her tongue—the way Alex's eyes were alight with playful anticipation, possibly—or that she was unsure if she was more afraid to find that there was something of substance underneath the levity, or that there was nothing.

Alex remained oddly quiet after Piper declined to respond. Exhaustion had set in by the time she parked the Nissan in an alleyway just off Main Street. The car would have to be disposed of. Piper texted her guards as they emerged onto the street and were waylaid by the night's rowdy last call crowd. Amid catcalls and lewd comments, Alex wordlessly grabbed her wrist and shouldered through the crowd. Piper suspected the look on the importer's face precluded any retaliation.

The safe house was a small, unassuming bachelor flat situated above a shawarma joint. Despite its unkempt exterior, the inside was snugly domestic, inlaid with warm, recessed lighting and patterned textiles. On the fridge, a small red square of Chinese calligraphy was affixed with a magnet. Piper contemplated its promise of good luck with some scepticism.

From where she poured herself a glass of water, she could see through to the den, where Alex was sprawled on the futon with a forearm over her eyes. It was as if someone had cut the puppeteer's strings for the night. She wondered if the brunette tired of the constant, but ultimately vacuous stream of banter.

Flirt and play keep-away. It seemed to her Alex knew nothing else.

"I need to make some calls," Piper said, standing at the entryway of the kitchen, mind already swirling with what had to be done. "Track down my rat, get in touch with..."

"Your shoulder."

"What?" Piper started and craned her neck. The earlier impact in the washroom was beginning to produce a heavily saturated starburst of blue and purple. It was then the adrenaline receded and she also began to notice the throb of her feet, the cramp in her neck, the nicks on her hands where she'd fumbled with the tools in her haste...

"Let me." Alex got up and went into the kitchen, directing Piper towards the couch with a prod as she passed.

Seated, Piper could hear the fridge's ice dispenser running, and the importer rummaging in the cupboards. On the coffee table, their possessions lay in a meagre pile. Alex's purse was still unzipped.

The brunette returned hefting a ziploc of ice wrapped in a dishtowel. Instead of offering it, she sat down, put a cool hand in the crook of Piper's elbow, and applied it gently.

"Thank you," Piper offered, for lack of anything else coming to mind.

"I'll find Cesar. I'm not sure what I'll do to him, but I'll find that bastard."

"What you'll do to him? Don't tell me the gun is for show."

"I kick ass at the range but I haven't graduated to live targets yet, okay?" The importer admitted, some unexpected sheepishness leaking through. "What about your rat?"

Piper hesitated, dredging up a different version of herself. There was nothing else left to her, and what had to be done could not be ill-conceived. "We can't let them stay. If it makes you feel any better, it won't be your finger pulling the trigger. But the whole point of a grudge is that it's illogical. They won't stop until they ruin us, or worse."

Alex delayed, the bag of ice crinkling. "Self-defense, right?"

Piper felt her mouth turn up, but her skin crawled uncomfortably. "Isn't it always?"

The brunette let it sink in. She wasn't smirking down at Piper for once. "You're more than what I thought you were."

"Look the way I do in my world, Alex, you get very good at surviving."

They exchanged wan smiles and Piper brought up the image of Alex holding her clutch with no small amount of satisfaction. In a roundabout way, Alex really did how to flatter a woman.