Alex looked through the scope of the McManus, a highly powerful and surprisingly easy-to-buy sniper rifle. His target was Hector Lopez, leader of the Carnales. Alex was going to enjoy killing this bastard, the very idiot that ordered the hit on Luz, and he wasn't about to let that insult go unanswered. It was true that Hector didn't know that trying to kill Luz would incite the wrath of Zeus but still, the dirtbag couldn't be allowed to walk around anymore. He had already killed off the Carnales guards on the cargo ship and now his crosshairs were right over Hector's head. When the Cartel showed up, it would look more like a nice and easy betrayal than an assassination. Alex was humming along to the song My Band from D12 that was playing in his ears as he watched the Cartel walk up to Hector.

"All because I'm the lead singer of…" Alex took the shot and killed Hector with one perfectly placed bullet. "… my band." He continued to hum along with the song as he silently stepped back to the edge of the roof he was standing on. Slowing his descent down to the ground Alex held onto the brick wall with his claw until his boots hit the pavement. He could hear the shouts of confusion and anger. The sounds quickly escalated and gave way to those of gunfire. Alex smiled at the whole event, while it might have been a little anticlimactic it was no less satisfying. He started walking back to his car, thinking about Hector's death. Alex felt no remorse in it, he had attack Luz, and for better or worse for her, she was now part of his Hive. As a Viral Being, his hive was his family, and something he would never allow was for someone to hurt said family. Now, all that was left was Angelo. With Hector dead and Victor gone, the hermanito had little in the way of holding on to the Carnales. Alex knew the best and easiest way to finish the gang off was to bribe and threaten the rest. The only thing Angelo could do was use the threat and resources of the Colombians as a reason to keep the gang together. If he was smart, the deal wouldn't wind up completely ruined by Alex's actions, and Angelo would sacrifice some of the profit margin to the Cartel to keep them interested. Alex knew that wasn't the case and that Angelo wouldn't keep a cool head. The man's brother was just killed, his woman taken from him, and his gang stampeding to join up with the enemy, and considering Angelo's already hot temper it was clear to Alex just how the battered gang leader would react. Alex got in the driver side of his car and, with a smile on his face, texted Luz that the bastard was dead. Luz responded with a picture of herself with nothing on but some whipped cream with the caption reading "Good, I got dinner ready."

"Oh yes… I knew she'd be fun." Alex laughed as he closed his car door.

The next morning Alex was driving to the church. He had gotten a text from Julius saying to meet him, Dex, and Troy there as soon as he could. Luz was cutely disappointed in Alex's leaving but as expected followed his wishes. He had felt worried when he left, something seemed off about Luz's strain. It didn't hold the mutation instinct that caused the strain to change in the face of near death, but something still felt strange ever since he had saved her. Deciding to look into it when he returned to the hotel, Alex walked through the doors of the church and walked over to Julius, Troy and Dex. Julius was in the process of lecturing Dex on the concept of the chain of command.

"Julius, I don't see what the big deal is." Dex said trying to defend his actions.

"The deal is that you tried to talk to the Colombians without me." Julius was not happy at Dex's overstepping of his station since Dex was to handle the Carnales and not the Cartel.

"Someone want to fill me in on what happened?" Alex said as he jumped onto one of the overturned pews.

"And you… where the hell have you been for the past few days, the Carnales are getting desperate and I need everyone that can fight in case they try something stupid."

"Don't worry, I got pictures." Alex smiled as he pulled out his phone and brought up one of the several revealing and erotic photos of Luz he had sent to Angelo for no other reason than to piss him off.

"Is…. is that who I think it is?" Dex asked wide eyed.

"Damn straight it is." Alex said, quite proud.

"Damn." Both Dex and Troy said together. Alex looked at Julius expecting something similar to Dex and Troy reaction through a bit more restrained. But what he saw instead was Julius' normal "You're going to explain this now" face.

"So I seduced Angelo's plaything, all it will do is just make Angelo even more unstable. Is it so bad that I get to have a little fun at his expense?" Alex said, smiling and raising his eyebrows as he tried to sound as innocent as he could. Julius just sighed. He knew why Alex did this, but the reasons weren't the problem, it was how the man could do it so quickly and effectively.

"What will happen to her once the Carnales are finished off, did you think of that, playa?"

"Yes I did, and I fully intend to keep her. I put in a lot of effort to… you're going to be mad when I use the word indoctrinate, aren't you?" Julius just sighed again while rubbing his forehead.

"You know what, I'm going to ignore your mumbo-jumbo because I got bigger worries right now." Julius looked back at Dex. "Tell me everything you know about the Cartel." Dex led Julius and Alex over to the nearby table. Dex took out a picture of a chubby balding elderly man.

"This is Orejuela." Troy said as Julius and Alex looked over the picture.

"And he's the mouth piece for the Colombians?" Alex asked, feigning ignorance.

"Yeah." Dex answered.

"And he's in Stilwater?" Julius asked.

"Yup." Dex answered again.

"Interesting." Julius said as he thought over the what Dex had tried to do. It was a good plan, but Dex was merely a 3rd Street Saint lieutenant and as such didn't have the authority to make such a deal. "Where were the two of you lookin' for this guy?"

"Around the normal places a drug lord would be, strip clubs." Troy answered.

"Alright, let's go buy this drug lord a lap dance." Alex said, fairly excited at this plan.

"Now hold up. I'm going to meet with him, alone, Troy, you're goin' to come as back up but the two of you stay here. I don't want to come back with the church painted red." Julius said as he started walking out. Troy just gave back a shrug and a slightly sympathetic look and after one last glance at Alex's phone followed Julius out of the church.

"Well that's just great!" Dex said as he kicked over a chair.

"What's the big deal, so Julius meets with the Cartel's guy. He is the boss." Alex said, his voice had changed from the light and friendly he had when he walked into something a bit more serious and had hint of malice. Alex had come to respect Julius, the man was straightforward, the fact that that all he wanted was for the Saints to conquer the city for the sole purpose of ending the violence of the constant gang wars that plagued Stilwater was plain to see. Dex, on the other hand…. it was harder to get a read on what it was Dex wanted. He couldn't tell if it was money, power, respect, but he could tell it was something else than Julius' noble goals.

"Listen, I know that Julius is the boss but that doesn't mean he needs to do everything. He put me in charge of the Carnales and the Colombians are working with the Carnales."

"There's a difference between a street gang like the Carnales and an international drug cartel." Alex said stoically. "Julius knows this, right now he's going to this guy to work out some kind of deal just to get us started with working with them. We're not going to get any offers until we prove we're worth the time."

"Worth the time?! We're about to put the Los Carnales in the ground… shit! Now Troy has me saying it." Alex held back the laughter at Dex's loss of composure.

"Right there, that's why Julius didn't want you meeting the Colombians. Arrogance, the downfall of even the mightiest of kings."

"Shit man, what are you, a philosopher or somethin'?" There was a long quiet that hung in the church. "You know man… there's always been somethin' not right about you. I never said anythin' because you always seemed like Johnny, there's something not right about him so I just thought you two were the same. But… Johnny would never talk like that, hell Johnny doesn't even know what the word philosopher means." Dex said as he walked around Alex, internally unsure why he was making this a big deal but for some reason his mind just couldn't get over all the clues laid out in front of him.

"I went to college remember, I'm a lot smarter then…"

"-yeah but that's the other thing." Dex said interrupting Alex. "Why would someone with your rep be a gangbanger. It doesn't add up. You act like Johnny most of the time, but your past says you should never be like that." Alex's senses began studying Dex closely, his heartrate was steady and he wasn't sweating, so the undercover bioweapon was sure he hadn't caught on to the truth. If he had the slightest inkling, then his body should be showing some form of fear.

"Does any of this really matter, I'm loyal. I'm on your side."

"Are you? Julius seems to trust you but he might be falling for your act." Dex said walking up Alex and poking his shoulder, only for his hand to be nonchalantly pushed away.

"What would I have to gain by lying?" Alex wasn't even remotely concerned about what Dex thought, he had shown the Saints nothing but loyalty. He knew Dex was by far the smartest of the Saints other than himself and Julius, so he knew that Dex would never bring this up to his boss when all he had were bad feelings. To do any real damage, he'd need something solid, and there wasn't any because Alex wasn't a traitor and there certainly wasn't any proof that Dex could get a hold of that would suggest that the man standing in front of him was anything more than what he had said he was. Dex was smart, but he wasn't "private eye" or "hacker" smart, and Alex's friends and family member would never betray him.

"I would say you might be a cop, but since you were there when the Saints were started I really don't think that's possible. A spy for the other players, that'd be more likely, but since no one has ever seen you before, there's not really much for that." Dex maneuvered back to the other side of the table as he tried to put some distance between him and Alex. He really didn't want to get into a fight, the man was already a legend for his oneshots and he had seen what he could do to people barehanded when the guy first join the Saints. Dex watched as Alex just sighed.

"I don't have to prove anything." Alex said, making it clear he had stopped taking Dex seriously. Alex turned to the left exit. "If the Carnales attack and you live through it, you can explain to Julius that you lost because you drove me off with your groundless accusations." He said as he walked out of the church. Dex waited until he was sure Alex had left before smiling.

'Glad he doesn't know that I do have something on him.' Dex thought as he sat down and kicked his feet up on the table.

James Heller look out across the city of Stilwater, his arms crossed over his chest as he remembered the day that he had first started working with his current employers. He had just gotten back from his tour in the Marines and had been approached by three men in suits. Two of them looked almost the same with cropped black hair, pale skin, dark black shades covering their eyes, and blue ties, stereotypical G-men. The third had graying hair and equally gray eyes, with a gold tie making him stand out from the group. The third man handed James a file and a suitcase filled with cash, saying that his duty to his country was over and his duty to humanity was now being called on. James would have just ignored the man weren't it for the fact he now held in his hand enough money to make sure his wife and daughter would never need to worry about anything ever again.

Heller only asked two questions, what did they want him to do and would he see his family again. The man answered this by saying that he would be placed on a team of what he referred to as "Unique Assets," and that when not on the job he could do as he please. To Heller this seemed too good to be true. So he asked what would be this team's objective.

The man once again answered, though this time he seemed a bit happier to do so. Heller had begun to noticed that the other two men seemed to show no emotion at all, but the third he could tell was quite pleased by Heller's attitude. The man answered Heller's question by saying that the team acted as a recon and action squad, they would be given certain targets and tasked to observe, report, and if need be act on their acquired information. This action might be to eliminate the target or to bring them into the fold.

Heller was about to ask who the men represented, but the third man held up his hand to stop him. The mystery man said that they were simply the ones who kept at bay those that might do harm to humanity without meaning to or knowledge of. This answer gave Heller more questions than any real answers, but he could tell that this was some kind of black ops shit, stuff that would normally irritate him but before he could voice this opinion he was surprised by the sight of the third man chuckling. The man said that he sought Heller out not only because the man was truly exceptional but also because he despised the secrets of the world. The man told Heller that those very same secrets were kept by himself and those like him, but they needed men like Heller to remind them that there are people out there that deserve the truth and there are people out there that can handle the truth, and James Heller was one of the few people that resided in both.

That had been two years ago. Since then he had been told and shown things that he had never and still didn't care to know about. But he smiled at that, because that was the very reason why he had been hired. Heller walked back into the main cabin of the small ship that was taking him and most of his team to Stilwater.

Alex was riding the elevator back up to his hotel room, his mind drifting towards the Carnales Villa. He liked it, it was a really nice place and being owned by criminals he knew he could take it fairly easily and quietly. He was happy that he could leave the dirty rundown apartment and move to somewhere that clearly wasn't infested with rats and cockroaches. Alex sighed as the elevator chimed to signal that he had reached his floor. He needed to look into Luz's strain, it was still bugging him. But the second he stepped out of the elevator he felt something strange within the Hive Mind. The small light that was Luz was moving even closer to him. He knew what this meant, Luz was now growing even more dependent on his presence. Alex wasn't expecting this and was beginning to worry. If the strain within her caused her to become even a little more dependent on him then she wouldn't be able to live for more than a few hours with him. He quickly entered fully into the Hive Mind, moving all his focus and mind to Luz's strain. He now saw the problem, unlike most of the other Blacklight strain that appeared in the Hive Mind Luz's didn't completely dominate her, it worked within her. But now that was changing, the strain had fully developed and now was starting to grow more toward the normal Blacklight behavior. Alex could think of a few way this might have been caused, but the only one that he felt could work was that when he healed her it caused the strain to, in simple terms, jumpstart. The proximity to Alex's master strain had always accelerated Luz's strain's growth and when Alex's strain was in direct contact it must have induced this new development. It took him a few hours of standing completely still and focusing all his mind to manipulating the strain to prevent this unintended effect. Thankfully Alex didn't care in the slightest who saw him like this as several that passed by him on the way to the elevator had stopped to stare at the strange man just standing unresponsive to anyone. This ordeal was highly uncomfortable for Alex, to change the very nature of a Blacklight strain was something he had never tried before and it required him to connect his own conscious and subconscious to Luz's strain. The connection was a strange two-way street as the two parts of his mind interacted with the virus.

This was the only way he knew how to do this, and he hated where that knowledge came from: Elisabeth Greene's own memories. Once he had finished his task he let out a loud groan, he felt awful for using something he learned from… her. What was worse was the damage that most certainly was caused to Luz. He had successfully saved her from becoming a mindless drone with no thought or reason, but he knew that the strain had accessed his subconscious for far too long and there was no telling what it might have done to Luz's mind in the last few hours.

Alex walked to his penthouse, he was a little hesitant to open the door but knew that whatever was waiting for him on the other side would not go away. He sighed and braced himself for whatever could be on the other side as he opened the door. What he saw actually made him feel confused, he didn't see Luz anywhere. He had expected the strain to take his subconscious thought about what a sex slave should act like and imprint that on Luz or something like that, but when Alex walked in he couldn't see Luz. Even more confused, Alex wandered the penthouse looking for her but couldn't find her. When he walked through the door to bedroom he found himself pulled back and turned around. The next thing he knew Luz was passionately kissing his upper body.

"Welcome back love." She said in seductively heated tone that surprised Alex, but not enough to make him stop kissing back. Alex was genuinely confused at this, she wasn't changed at all. "So you did it? You killed that bastard Hector?" Luz excitedly said as they slowly moved toward the bed.

"Yeah, he'll never be able to hurt anyone ever…"

"What was it like?" Luz interrupted Alex. He looked back into the eager eyes of Luz and that's when he began to get the faintest idea of what happened. "How was it to kill that bastard, did you shoot him, plant an explosive, find him in a dark ally and cut into…"

"Whoa… slow down." Alex said as he slightly pulled away with a savage grin on his face. "You're getting off on the idea of me killing Hector?"

"What?! No! that would be wrong." Luz said this but Alex knew that the way her body was reacting said something else.

"But it's true. And you know… I love it!" Alex voice turned rough and excited. "You might be as psychotic as myself." Alex moved forward and once again the two were interlocked in an intense kiss. The two once again fell back into the ecstasy of each other, moving back onto the bed. "And for the record, I shot him." Alex said as he threw his shirt off. The two continued on, and all through their carnal activities he continued to test his theory, that Luz had become just as mentally twisted as himself. He continued to regale her of all of kills, his stories growing more gruesome the more he told. To his surprise and eternal delight, this only increased Luz's arousal. This got to the point where Alex told her about what he was just to tell the truly horrific stories, and to his joy the sight of his claws only caused Luz to become more enthralled with him. By the end of their fun Alex understood completely what he had done, and couldn't care in the slightest about the woman he had erased because now she was someone else entirely. "That… I have to… say… was fun indeed." Alex said his breath labored and heavy.

"And who says it has to end?" Luz asked her finger lazily going over Alex's muscular chest, a smile fixed on her face as she laid on top of Alex under their bed's sheets.

"As much as I hate to say it… I do… don't give me that look. After all, the grand finale is in sight."

"Angelo..." Luz said, fully happy with the idea of Angelo dying. "Can I do it love, I want to be the one to kill him."

"Why of course, I'm a sucker for poetic justice, and after that's all taken care of we can move into that Villa of his and fuck in every room we can find."

"Looking forward to it." Luz said before leaning back in for another kiss.

"Dex! Alex!" Julius shouted as he walked back into the church with Troy behind him.

"They aren't here right now." Dana answered as she worked on her laptop in one of the pews.

"Well where are they?" Julius said, his anger clear from his tone.

"Dex was talking shit about Alex's loyalty and it pissed him off, and since he couldn't solve it his normal way he just pouted and left. Pretty sure he went back to his new girlfriend."

"Well that's just great, I need them if I'm going to get back all the drugs the cops seized at the docks." Julius was worried, he didn't have to big a window of opportunity, it was only a matter of time before either Angelo, King, or the Rollerz made their own move on the Colombians.

"Done." Dana said plainly.

"Done what?" Troy asked, but Julius had a pretty good idea.

"The drugs will be on a truck to the airport ready for pickup at eight thirty tonight. The Stilwater police have some of the worst firewalls I have seen, faking an evidence transfer order was easy." Dana didn't really care about the Saints, but she always enjoyed messing with law enforcement.

"Damn, I'll call Orejuela and tell him the news." Julius said walking away from Dana and Troy, this was the best news he had gotten this week.

"So uh… how'd you do that?" Troy asked as he slowly walked over to Dana.

"Why… you don't seem like the techy type." Dana replied rudely.

"No I'm not, but my idea involved a car blowing up… and this… is um…"

"Better?"

"Yeah."

"Are you a cop?" Dana just asked as bluntly as she could, not even looking up from her screen.

"What?" Troy was seriously shocked at this.

"You just got this cop thing about you… and your hair just belongs in some cheesy eighties buddy cop show."

"No I'm not a cop."

"That's what a cop would say."

"Well what would someone who's not a cop say?"

"They'd say they are a cop but in a jokey way. Don't get me wrong, I honestly don't care, just know that Alex would kill you if he found out… even if you were in the middle of the station that wouldn't be enough to save you." Dana said with all the casualness of someone discussing the weather as she continued to work on her computer. She could feel Troy think over his options on what to do. When she finally looked up he was gone.

The next morning Alex, Dex and Julius were in a strip club finalizing the deal between the Cartel and the Saints. The first two weren't talking as much, which was good since Alex had been torn from the arms of his lover and Dex had been kicked awake from a drunken sleep. Julius had made it very clear that whatever happened between the two of them would be put to rest and to make up. Dex was still wary of Alex, but agreed to shake hands and get back to work. Alex on the other hand only appeared to be willing to work again, he knew that Dex still had doubts and would continue to watch him.

Alex had both the memories of drug dealers and successful businessmen, he could tell from watching the two men negotiate that Julius was getting the better end of the deal. Alex thought that maybe it was because Orejuela wanted to make a new deal quickly due to the unexpected fall of the Carnales, or maybe he was impressed by the Saint's ability to cause said fall. More likely both.

"Mr. Little, I think we can do business." Orejuela said as he shook Julius' hand.

"I'm glad we could work things out." Julius replied, his tone respectful.

"So how exactly would you like to move forward?" At that moment the door to the parking lot was kicked open and Angelo burst through, a rifle in his hand.

"You'll die for what you did to my brother, hijo de puta!" Angelo raged.

"I wonder if he means us or Manuel?" Dex joked before they all ducked for cover as Angelo spread down a hail of bullets. The four of them returned fire as Angelo scurried back to his car. Alex was about to run after him but stopped. He knew exactly where he was going and already had a plan.

Later that day, just as the sun began to dip under the water Alex stood in front of the gates to the Carnales' Vila. He smiled as Luz leaned in closer to his body, his arm already around her waist. With his other hand he brought up his phone to send a text to all of the Carnales he had in his pocket. The gates opened within minutes and five freshly turned Carnales stood at attention in front of them.

"How nice, but can we kill them as well?" Luz asked, the gangbangers visibly disturbed by her comment.

"You're just itching for blood aren't you… well, we could…" The former Carnales looked at Alex with disbelieving eyes. "… but that would dilute the meaning of tonight." The gangbangers sighed at this.

"Oh very well." The two of them walked up the driveway with three of their new men following while the other two stood guard. They quickly reached the front door and waited for it open. It soon did with another bought Carnales opening it for them.

"Angelo is in his room sir, he has no idea that you're here or that he lost our support." The man said as Alex and Luz nodded and walked through.

"Good, tell everyone to leave. None of you want to be here when this goes down." Alex said with a bloodthirsty grin that made the gangbanger go pale with fear but just made Luz even more excited. The former Carnales nodded and rounded up the rest of the men as they all left to stand guard outside. The two walked up the stairs until they were at the door of Angelo's room. They could hear Angelo on the phone, his voice was frantic as he bought tickets to Mexico. "The coward is running away."

"What did I ever see in the fool?"

"Doesn't matter." Alex kicked the door down and before Angelo could react Alex had his hand around his throat. "Hello." Alex held the man in the air while Luz just watched with almost childlike wonder. "Don't bother calling for help, your men seem to have lost their minds. For some reason they think that they work for me. I for one am not going to ruin their fantasy." Alex joked but Angelo had nothing but fire in his eyes. "Now here's the thing, you're going to die but the worst part of that isn't that you're going to die… no no no… it's that you're going to die at the hands of someone you once loved." It was at this moment that Alex pushed Angelo into a chair and extended his viral tissue over the man until it locked him in.

"What the hell is this?! What the hell are you?!" Angelo then looked over to Luz. "Luz, what are you doing?! Help me!" Luz walked over to Angelo and slapped him. "Agh! Big mistake puta!' She just slapped him again, this time drawing a little blood. She stared at the little drops of blood on her finger. Angelo was clearly frightened by the look in her eye but Alex just smiled as she licked the blood off her finger.

"I bribed one of the guards and he told me the most wonderful bit of information." Alex said turning to Angelo. "He said that your brother threatened to cut your dick off if you made the deal with the Colombians to fall through. Well… The Carnales are as of this morning not working with the Colombians." Alex said as he handed a knife to Luz and the viral tissue covering Angelo's lower half receded though keeping his legs restrained. "I think we should make good on that threat."