5 years earlier

A tiny bell rang as Lovino pushed open the door to the quaint little market. The limited space was lined with several aisles filled with assorted food items, many from Europe and the Middle East. The back wall contained a small enclave underneath a large sign advertising the halal meats that were laid out in a cooled glass display below. Behind the meat counter stood a man, tall and scruffy with tan skin. He looked up at the sound of the bell and flashed the two entering men a fake smile.

"Lovino, Antonio," he called out with shaky friendliness, "What can I get for you? I just got a new supply of lamb, fresh as can be! I can give you a special discount…"

While Antonio took to browsing through the aisles, Lovino marched straight to the back, his glare permeating through the man. "Cut the shit, Sadiq," he growled, "Where the fuck is our money?"

Sadiq held his hands up. "I promise I'll have it soon, I just need a few more days."

Lovino slammed his hand on the counter. "You don't get to decide when you get to pay us! The deal is every month, on the seventh! What day is it, Antonio?"

"The tenth," he answered from across the store.

"It's the tenth, Sadiq, and you still haven't paid us."

"Lovino, please, the freezer in the back went out and I had to get it repaired. That's why I'm late. I'm not trying to get out of anything, I'm just short right now. Just tell your grandfather to give me a little more time."

Lovino slammed his hands down again. "I don't answer to my grandfather! If I say you pay me on the seventh, you pay me on the seventh! Not the eighth, not the ninth, AND NOT THE FUCKING TENTH!"

Sadiq was staring at him wide-eyed, not daring to move a muscle as Lovino shouted up at him. Antonio continued to walk up and down the store, completely disinterested in what was going on.

"Did you think you could get out of paying me? Just blow me off like I don't fucking matter?"

"No, I…"

"WE MADE A DEAL, SADIQ! We told you we'd protect this shitty little shop as long as you kept up the payments."

"I know, I just…"

"If you've gone and decided you're not going to pay us anymore, then we don't need to keep up our end of the deal."

Sadiq clasped his hands together and shook his head rapidly. "Please, Lovino, don't do it. I can have the money by tomorrow. By tonight even!"

'I know you're going to have the money, but this is for thinking you can get away with ignoring the terms of our agreement." Keeping his eyes fixed to the shopkeeper, Lovino called out the name of his bodyguard.

Without hesitation, Antonio lifted up his leg and kicked down the row of shelves in front of him. The deafening crash drowned out the sound of Sadiq's shout. Lovino scowled as another shelf was knocked over, then another. Sadiq ran out from behind the meat counter, clearly caught between trying to stop Antonio and trying to protect his store, but either way, he was too late. After just a few moments of cacophony, the shop was silent besides its owner's angry string of Turkish swear words.

Lovino began walking towards the door, careful to avoid the broken glass and garbage that now littered the floor. Antonio made a move to join him, stepping around the crouched shape of Sadiq attempting to pick up the mess. Lovino grabbed the handle of the door and pulled, the little bell ringing out once more, then stopped when he heard Sadiq's heated voice.

"You're a fucking coward," he yelled.

Lovino let go of the door handle, letting it close again. "What did you say to me?"

"You heard me! You're a fucking coward! All of you mob guys are! You go and get together and pick on everyone you wouldn't dare try to take on one on one." Sadiq was still crouching, his body perpendicular to the door, and his arms full of food that hadn't been ruined. He glanced up to shoot Lovino a glare. "Fuck you! Fuck all of you!" He held up his hand to flip them off before looking back down to the floor.

Lovino felt his face heat up as he stood there gritting his teeth. Something inside him snapped. He bent down to grab an unbroken glass bottle from the ground. He didn't know what the bottle contained, just that it felt heavy as his hand slid comfortably around its neck. Time seemed to slow down as he rushed forward, his shoes crunching down on littered packages. Sadiq had barely turned his head before Lovino had smashed the bottle over the back of it.

Lovino couldn't hear himself tell Antonio to hold Sadiq down. He couldn't see. He couldn't think. It was like he was on autopilot. Through his own eyes, he watched himself march behind the meat counter and grab a butcher knife. It was huge and shiny and Lovino could see his furious eyes reflected on the side, but he didn't recognize himself. He approached the other two men, one laying face-down on the filthy floor and the other on top of him, his knee digging into his back and hands gripping his wrists.

"Give me his hand," ordered Lovino. Antonio looked at him with confusion, but complied, pulling out Sadiq's right arm. Sadiq begged them to stop, his face smashed against the linoleum. His cries turned to anguished wails as Lovino lined the knife up to his middle finger.

Lovino saw the shiny metal pressed against flesh, and somewhere inside of him, a tiny voice protested what he was about to do.

With one swift movement, Lovino chopped off the finger.

It made a horrible crunch that cut through the air and snapped Lovino out of his blinding rage. He threw down the knife as if it were burning him and backed away from the screaming man in a poorly masked panic.

"Come on," he said to Antonio, trying to keep his voice from wavering, "Let's get out of here."

From then on, no matter how hard he tried to forget it, Lovino would never be able to get that sound out of his head.

For the entirety of the ride from the casino, Lovino had his face buried into the fuzzy collar of Amelia's bomber jacket. When she assured him that they had reached their destination, he looked up and groaned at the the irritating yellow arches that stood proudly over the building.

"Why did you take me to McDonald's?"

Amelia shrugged. "I'm hungry. Plus, we needed somewhere private to talk."

Lovino eyed the crowded dining area as they pushed open the front doors. "You call this private?"

"It's a chain, Lovino." She stopped mid-eyeroll to glance at him with curiosity. "Do you go by Lovino, or do you have a nickname, like Vin or something?"

"Lovino," he grunted.

"Oh, cool. Me too. I mean, I don't go by Lovino, I go by Amelia, unless I'm in hiding." She laughed. "Anyway, as I was saying, chains are the safest place you can go if you want privacy." She gestured towards the tired cashier. "Take her, for example. She's probably been working for hours now, constantly serving a never ending stream of customers. Yet, if you went up and asked her to identify any of them, she wouldn't be able to do it, because she's served hundreds of people today alone." She turned to wave her hand at the dining area. "Meanwhile, not a single person in here is on the lookout for former mafia members, because this place answers to their corporate office, not any of the crime syndicates. Plus, no one gives a shit about what the guy sitting in the next table over at McDonald's is talking about. It's all about hiding in plain sight."

Lovino had a feeling she had a lot of time to think about this.

"Couldn't you have picked somewhere with halfway decent food at least?"

"Hey, the food here is...okay."

Lovino raised his eyebrows.

"I mean, it's not the best, but that's not really the point, is it?" Amelia huffed. "What gives you the right to be all judgy anyway? Are you some sort of fast food expert?"

"I have a bachelor's degree in restaurant management that I used to get a job managing a successful Italian restaurant."

"Oh what, like a Pizza Hut?"

Lovino's attempts to remain impassive at the teasing remark must have failed, as Amelia let out a barking laugh.

"Oh my god, really? I was totally joking!"

"No, not really!"

"It's okay! There's no shame in it, Pizza Hut is good. I used to order from them all the time."

To Lovino's relief the subject was dropped when the reached to front of the line. Despite the less than savory menu items, Lovino couldn't ignore the fact that he hadn't eaten since early that morning, so he took up Amelia's offer for a hamburger. He felt a little embarrassed at the prospect of letting a lady pay for his meal, but it wasn't a date and he really needed to save the small amount of cash he had.

Food in hand, they sat across from each other at an empty booth. As Amelia picked up an exceptionally long fry with her three remaining fingers, Lovino tried not to stare at the scarred lumps on her hand where the other two ought to be.

"So," Amelia began, her mouth half full, "You got a last name, Lovino, or are you going for like a Liberace thing?"

"Vargas," he answered curtly, "Lovino Vargas."

Her eyebrows shot up. "Vargas as in the mob boss?"

"He's my grandfather."

"The murdered grandfather?"

Lovino nodded.

Amelia sat back in her chair and ran her hand through her hair. "Oh, jeez, that's...I thought you were just...well that explains a little."

"What does it explain?"

"Well, I'm sure you're aware of how these 'gang war' things function, right?"

"I mean, in an objective sense...look, I've been out of the loop for a while now, so I don't have much of an idea of who's fighting who and why."

"That makes two of us. Which is why I told you I can't really help."

Lovino felt like all the air had been let out of him, but a wave of desperation perked him up again.

"What about those two people you knew from the casino? You said they worked for Ivan Braginsky?"

"They do. Or at least they did when I worked for him."

"You worked for him?"

"Yeah, but that was a while ago."

"How long is a while?"

"About two and a half years. I don't even know if they're still doing it."

"Then what was all that 'we gotta get out of here' crap?"

Amelia's face darkened considerably. "Look, man, I don't know about you, but I know exactly what happens to people that piss Ivan off, so there's no way in hell I'm taking any chances. If he's is the one who killed your grandfather, I'd say it would be a pretty big coincidence for Gilbert and Elizabeta to be poking around places you've been seen if they aren't connected."

"I don't even know if it was him!"

"Then what is this all based on? What even happened?"

Lovino took a deep breath and started from the beginning. "I live out of town, and I have for a while, but I came to visit last night. Today, my grandfather was speaking at some Italian pride rally, and he was shot in the head. I didn't see who did it. A bunch of other mob guys were shot too, one after the other. I got out of there and tried to go home, but it was being watched, so I went to Wang Yao because I heard he was on good terms with my grandfather. He told me Ivan Braginsky was probably who did it because they've been fighting or something. Then your friend told me to come find you, and that's it." He let out a tired sigh. "I just...I don't want to be a part of all this. I'm just trying to find my brother."

"Your brother?" Amelia echoed softly.

"Yeah, Feliciano. He's the whole reason I came here. I didn't see him at the rally and I was afraid he was killed, but Wang said he wasn't one of the dead bodies, so he either escaped or…" Lovino paused to force down the lump in his throat. "I'm not looking for retaliation or anything. I really don't give a shit who killed my grandfather, he probably deserved it. I just need to make sure my little brother's safe."

"Okay, I'll help."

"What?"

"I said I'll help you. Find your brother, I mean. In any way I can."

"Really? But you said you couldn't do anything."

Amelia scoffed in mild offence. "Well maybe I can't do a lot, but I'd like to think I'm better than nothing."

"That's not what I mean...Look, you have to realize I'm feeling pretty fucking stuck right now. I have no idea where he could be. I haven't lived here in years."

"Well, where did he used to hang out when you did live here?"

"I left when he was fifteen. He pretty much split his time between the high school art room and the front steps of our house."

Amelia hummed. "Well, let's try to think this through. Best case scenario, he found a safe house to lay low in."

"Worst case scenario, he's dead in a fucking ditch somewhere."

"No, worst case scenario, Ivan kidnapped him."

"How is this helping us?"

"Listen, if he's hiding out, then you don't have to worry, it's just a matter of finding out where he could be."

"How am I supposed to do that when everyone I know in this fucking city is missing or dead."

"I don't know yet, but at least he'll be safe in the meantime. I'm sure he'd try to contact you, right?"

Lovino knew he would, if he was in any position to. "So what are you saying? You expect me to just sit around waiting for Feliciano to call?"

"No, because there's a chance that he's not hiding out. But the problem is, we don't know for sure who's targeting your family."

"I thought we established it was Braginsky, with what Wang said and the whole thing at the casino?"

"No offense, but your grandfather was a crime boss. I can't help but think he might have made more than one enemy."

Lovino conceded with a shrug.

"Plus, I told you, I don't know if Gilbert and Elizabeta still work for Ivan. Look, I'm not saying it's not a possibility, I just think we should get a little more information before barging into Ivan's house and demanding he hand over your brother."

"What more information do we need?"

"We could start by figuring out who killed your grandfather to begin with. After that, we can go from there."

It sounded like as good a plan as any if not for the fact that Lovino had no idea how he was going to do that.

"Who do I look like, Sherlock fucking Holmes?"

Amelia chuckled. "Dude, you don't have to be a detective, you just have to know a detective."

"Yeah? Well I don't happen to know any detectives."

"Well, luckily for us, I do."