Gods and Monsters

by Supernova Dragon Cat

A few weeks shy of her 18th birthday, Sansa Stark has lived a charmed, quiet life. That is until one fateful night when her life is turned into a nightmare and she becomes entranced by a mysterious man, propelling her into the dark paradise of his world. Pulled deeper into the underworld of the crime syndicate of which he's both god and monster, can Sansa hold onto her innocence?

12. Chapter 12

Warnings: Graphic depictions of violence, language, and sexual content as well as the typical darkness you would expect from this story. There is also some dubcon elements in one scene (the beginning and end of this particular section are indicated by an * so you can skip if you would like).

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Gods and Monsters

Chapter 12

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Alberto Moriarti counted the chimes sounding from the grandfather clock as he quietly paced his office - the only true sanctuary within his own home. Twelve chimes he counted as he smoothed down the whiskers of his graying mustache with the pad of his thumb. Twelve. The witching hour.

The space of his office was humble, much smaller than Sandor's office, but Alberto had chosen this room because it contained a fireplace, something Sandor did not much care for. Even though the night was not particularly cool, Moriarti had lit a fire anyway, more for comfort than warmth and with the hope of chasing away the chill that had seeped deep into his tired bones. The pops and crackles of the fire seemed to soothe away the frayed ends of his nerves - that and the whiskey sour on which he was sipping.

The day had been long, and if it were not for one last task yet to be completed, the man would have long ago willingly surrendered himself to slumber and whatever nightmarish haunts awaited him in dreams.

When the clock had chimed at a quarter till eleven this morning, Moriarti had already been quite cognizant of the fact that he was running late for a lunch date with an old friend - an insufferable bastard who he had the profound misfortune of knowing since childhood. Since the age of seven, Alberto had put on an apparently compelling charade that he enjoyed this gentleman's company.

Time seemed to slip through Moriarti's hands, punctuated by both happiness and tragedy as is to be expected. It wasn't until his other friends - dear, kindred souls - started dropping like flies with disease or old age that Alberto finally took stock of his circle of companions and realized it was rapidly dwindling. By some irony of fate, the man with whom he had had lunch today was outliving all the rest, defiantly ensuring that he and Alberto would see one another to the grave.

With his wife, Francisca, having long ago passed, Alberto began to question his own mortality. No longer did the man fear death, but rather he feared a life devoid of the few souls he had come to love and cherish. Having expected to be survived by a large brood of children, grandchildren, and even great-grandchildren, Alberto found old age to not only be dreadfully boring, but unexpectedly lonely as well. And perhaps for that reason and that reason alone, he marked on his calendar lunch with a man who he had almost successfully rid himself of.

Never one to tolerate tardiness in himself or in others, Alberto had dashed to his car after becoming fully aware of the time. Even as he sped from the half-circle drive, the murder of crows circling the property did not escape him. They were a glaring oddity of the landscape, the arid desert hardly sufficient at sustaining them. He had thought of Mirabelle then - inexplicably and with a heaviness that burrowed deep into the pit of his stomach.

Alberto fancied himself a man of logic, and yet superstition held a particular and, at times, unnerving sway over him. Both logic and superstition, although polarized within him, had established a sort of equilibrium with one another over the years. However, it was the superstition Alberto played close to his chest, revealing this propensity of his to only a few treasured individuals.

With his appetite all but diminished by the time he arrived ten minutes late to his lunch, Alberto had remained quiet for most of the meal, picking at the more delectable bits and pieces of his cob salad while leaving the rest uneaten. Either unfazed or unaware, his lunch companion had talked incessantly as he was apt to do - the topics of his conversations having grown increasingly boring over the years.

From his vantage point in the restaurant, Alberto had seen a single crow picking at carrion on the road, hobbling out of the way as cars passed. It was his mother's voice, heavy with a thick Italian accent, he heard in his head - the way she counted crows and whispered beneath her breath with words both solemn and troubling:

One for sorrow, two's for mirth
three's a wedding, four's a birth
five for silver, six for gold
seven's a secret, never to be told.

If there was only one crow in sight, his mother would scour the sky for others, willing the omen away from sorrow towards something else. Fidgeting nervously in the restaurant booth, Alberto had done the same; all the while it was Mirabelle he thought of - laughing, singing, smiling, dancing; his Mirabelle, the only daughter he would ever have, even if she was not truly his own. Although pleasant visions, they resonated within him disconcertingly.

Why Mirabelle? Why her? The question rang out like an alarm in his mind as his thoughts seemed to be dictated by some force outside his own being, perhaps a premonition of sorts.

Dropping his fork to the plate with a clamorous crash, Alberto had lifted himself to his feet, his heart suddenly pounding in his chest as his fingers clumsily fumbled for his wallet.

"I beg your pardon, old friend, but I have to go. I fear something is terribly wrong," he had explained on a tremulous breath before pressing a twenty dollar bill to the table with a shaky hand.

In the car, Alberto had reached for his phone, his hands frantically roaming the center console, sliding between slender crevices with greedy fingers while his eyes steadied on the road. Patting his pockets in frustration only to find them empty, Alberto had finally come to the realization that in a rush to get out the door, he had left his phone on his office desk. Although he had sped down the highway well beyond the speed limit, the drive home - a mere thirty minutes - passed by at an agonizingly dawdling pace.

From the entrance of the gated community in which he lived, Alberto had seen the piercing brightness of flashing reds and blues somewhere down the street. That was when his prayers began, his pleading with God for it to be his neighbor's house. Perhaps the old woman next door had broken her hip again, or the little boy across the street was having another one of his seizures. With a sobering sense of reality clutching at his core, Alberto knew his prayers would not be answered, not today. And so he had hoped for the best, whatever that may mean: a minor scuffle with law enforcement or even a shake down by the feds.

As he had cautiously pulled the car into the half-circle drive, there were simply too many flashing lights to indicate something trivial had unfolded. The drive in front of his house was a veritable parking lot of emergency vehicles - ambulances, police cars, even a fire truck - all lit up like the Fourth of July in reds, whites, and blues. From across the street, neighbors had gathered, all spilling forth from their houses, peering with worried eyes towards whatever pandemonium had played out.

A man in uniform had approached his vehicle and tried to grimly usher Moriarti away, explaining that he needed to leave the premises of the property. With his throat drying up as if he had swallowed a fistful of sand, Alberto had fleetingly explained that this was his home and rushed up the driveway with no argument from the police officer.

He could have run, although there was nothing he could have done at that point. Instead, he had walked slowly, which to reflect on later, would seem like floating through a dream. Each face he passed, regardless of profession, all had the complete visage of being horrified, somber, and shaken. This was the aftermath of an emergency - the panic had quieted down, and now all that was left to do was pick up the pieces. One ambulance had pulled out of the drive, lights flashing and sirens blaring.

On the front steps, the Stark girl had been shaking; tears streamed down her face, and her breaths came gasping as she gulped for air. A young made man - Zulu was his name - held her in his arms, although he appeared no more composed than Sansa. Wide-eyed, the boy gazed off with a thousand-mile-away stare, appearing much like a shell-shocked soldier in the aftermath of battle.

It was Bronn he had heard though - screaming and wailing, begging and pleading, although to whom Alberto did not know; God perhaps or maybe the officers who were trying in vain to calm him. The man seemed transfixed on an ambulance, one that had been sealed shut and was going nowhere, at least not yet. 'Do something. Bring her back,' he had kept shouting as he gestured furiously with his arms towards the unmoving ambulance. 'Why aren't you doing anything?' he would then plead as no one seemed to make a move towards the object of his unwavering interest.

In hushed tones - reassuring yet firm - the men in uniform would speak to him, although Moriarti could not hear what they said. Whatever it was, it would elicit sobs as Bronn would turn once more towards the ambulance, staring at it as if it held his most prized possession. Alberto knew then. He was an observant man, and even if he wasn't, he still could have seen the affection that passed between Bronn and Mirabelle. Alberto knew. He knew Mirabelle was in that ambulance, and he knew the answers to all of Bronn's questions. They weren't doing anything because there was nothing to be done. Bronn had indeed lost his most prized possession.

It was then Alberto saw Sandor through the open doorway and on the far side of the foyer. Sitting with his back against the wall, knees pulled towards his chest and forearms resting on knees, he had been crying. Not the yowling wails as Bronn had, but in stifled sobs as he sat amongst the blood and gore, seeming to not care as it soaked into his clothing and stained his hands. The emergency workers seemed to delicately meander around him, leaving Sandor alone with his grief in a gesture of respect.

Before Alberto could go to him, a man introducing himself as the lead detective had ushered him to the periphery of the driveway. Once more, Mortiarti had felt like he was floating through a mist, his senses dull and slow to process all he was being told.

Mirabelle was gone and Thomas too. Vinny's injuries were grave, but he was still alive and on his way to a hospital.

All along, Alberto had known. Like a ripple in unsettled waters, he had known what was coming. Black wings portending sorrow had been picking at carrion on the road, and he had thought of Mirabelle. Alberto had wanted to crumble like all the rest of them. He wanted to shake as violently as Sansa Stark; he wanted numbness to take him as it had Zulu. He wanted to wail and plead as loudly as Bronn, and he wanted to silently sob his own sorrow amongst the sanguinary remains of his kin as Sandor was.

As the detective sympathetically waited for a response, Alberto had known why he was approached. Somehow he had been dubbed the one who would have to hold it all together when everything had suddenly began to pull apart. He gave what information he had and answered what questions he could. Roped off and filled with investigators carefully working around one another, his foyer had become a crime scene, although there was not much evidence to be found. It was before dark when the secondary responders arrived to clean up the mess of blood and gore and a half past ten before the house was voided of emergency workers completely.

The news of what happened had spread like wild fire through the ranks of the organization until every last soul associated with the Moriarti crime family seemed to know the horror that had unfolded today. Eventually, a handful of the more influential capos showed up at the house. Well into the night, Moriarti maintained himself while battling constantly with the desire to come undone.

Keep it together just a little while longer, he had reassured himself.

Alberto listened intently as he was informed of the accident that had occurred and the attempted hit on Sandor, which was narrowly missed. Some of the men raged, swearing that they wanted blood for blood. A few others silently shook their heads in disbelief, unable to make any coherent sense out of all that transpired. Regardless, they were united in their support, assured their allegiance and committed themselves to whatever retaliation was deemed necessary. At a half past eleven, the men all shook Moriarti's hand, offered their sincerest condolences, and retreated from his office.

It was then he had begun to pace, to occupy his mind and body until his final task of the day was done. He studied the many framed photographs which adorned one of his bookcase shelves. The faces of his past stared back at him. Many had passed away with age, some had sought a quieter existence with their own families, others did not survive the life of a made man. Regardless, each one had eventually paid the price for their involvement with the Moriarti family.

Feeling his luck was quickly running dry, Alberto had stepped down from his position as boss, something rather unheard of and met with varying degrees of shock and a fair bit of hostility when he named his successor. Put it away, old man. Hang up your hat before it's too late, he had told himself. All these years later, Alberto had considered himself lucky to have gone relatively unscathed during his tenure as boss of the Moriarti crime family. Only now did he come to realize that tragedy was not avoided altogether, but rather just delayed.

When a light rapping came at his door, Alberto spun away from the bookcase, startled despite the arrival of a much anticipated visitor. Smoothing down the front of his dress shirt, Alberto poised himself before calling out, his voice strained with growing fatigue.

"Yes, come in."

The door opened with a bit of hesitance, and the boy stepped in, eyes taking in the sight of the warm, dimly lit room. Carefully shutting the door behind him, Zulu stood with his arms at his side, swaying ever so slightly with nervousness.

"Sir," he greeted with a polite and timid nod of the head, although his eyes did not falter from Alberto.

Stepping forward, Moriarti shook the kid's hand in an effort to set him at ease. Although average in height and build, Zulu was a peculiar departure from most young made men who puffed out their chests and tended towards arrogance as a means of asserting themselves. Donning a sleeveless black shirt, Alberto could see that from shoulder to wrist each of the boy's arms were decorated with an array of tattoos carefully pieced together, creating sleeves of colorful pictures and symbols. With his head shaved on either side, a mass of thick black hair on top was smoothed back in a glossy quiff. If appearances were anything to go by, the boy didn't quite fit the bill as a young made man. Beyond that, he was quiet where the others were boisterous, respectful where others tested the limits of their superiors, and keenly observant where his peers were often obtusely unaware of their surroundings.

Observant in his own right, it hadn't taken long for Alberto to notice that Zulu was effectually shunned by his peers, excluded for one reason or another, perhaps because he didn't quite look like all the others, but more than likely because he did not have Italian blood running through his veins.

"I'm embarrassed to say I do not know your given name," Alberto began with a tired smile as he clutched the boy's hand. "Zulu may be a term of endearment amongst the men, but I wish to address you as your parents might have addressed you."

Returning the handshake with a firm squeeze, Zulu exhaled a mirthless laugh and lowered his eyes, the hurt already evident despite his attempt at discretion.

"My parents had their own terms of endearment for me, none of which are appropriate to repeat. Zulu works just fine by me."

Unwilling to force the issue, Alberto released the boy's hand and retreated to his office chair. He knew little of Zulu's past, only that the boy had no true family to call his own. Unlike many of the other made men who boasted long lineages of mafia connections, Zulu was a runaway, a drifter who had through Bronn's tutelage proven himself dependable and rather useful. That was yet another thing that set him apart from the others: the practicality and utility of his intelligence.

"Well then, Zulu, have a seat, please," Alberto gently urged with a nod of his head towards the wooden chair situated on the other side of his desk.

Wordlessly, Zulu seated himself while his amber-colored eyes seemed to gravitate towards the photographs that Alberto himself had been studying only moments ago. In silence, Moriarti watched the subtle movements of the boy's face as he took in the details of each picture.

"I served in Vietnam from 1965 to 1969," Alberto divulged after following Zulu's eyes to one picture in particular. Interestingly, it was a picture of Alberto and Sandor's father: arm in arm while smiling stupidly with standard issue cargo pants slung low on their hips, shirtless and with cigarettes hanging from their lips. "I was nineteen when I was sent over, part of the first wave of troops sent in to start the ground war. I couldn't legally drink a beer, but I was apparently old enough to hold a gun and wade through the jungle. I still have nightmares of the things I saw, the things I had to do."

Zulu let his eyes fall away from the photograph and drift back towards Alberto. The boy nodded his head, although Moriarti knew he, like so many others, could never possibly understand what it meant to live through war, to wake up in cold sweats while grasping for an M14 only to find it had been yet another dream decades after the fighting had ended.

"I took over the organization from my father in 1971 after spending two years trying to decompress the best I could," Alberto continued on, studying the sadness that seemed to color Zulu's countenance. "Sometimes I fear I stepped down at the wrong time, that I should I have handed off my legacy later than I did."

Allowing his voice to trail off, Alberto found himself speaking of fears he hadn't quite told anyone before. Fears, like superstitions, he played close to his chest, and yet Zulu quietly listened with an intentness others didn't often reserve for an old man's musings over regrets of the past. Clearing his throat, Alberto collected his senses and directed the course of the conversation back on track.

"You do know my place in all of this, don't you?" Alberto inquired.

"Yes, sir," Zulu nodded, eyes firmly planted on Alberto. "You're the Consigliere to Sandor."

Moriarti returned the boy's stare and offered a satisfied smile. Observant, indeed.

"It means "adviser"in Italian," Alberto informed while swirling the contents of the cocktail glass in his hand. "And as such, I advise him the best I can. I watch too. Just like you. You're perceptive, I can tell. I see things that perhaps Sandor misses or cannot see because it's too close. When you hold your hand in front of your eyes, all you see is darkness. You may not realize you have the power to stop the darkness by simply pulling your hand away. It's these sorts of things I strive to make him understand, to varying degrees of success."

Although his eyes were now down-turned and studying the melting ice in his glass, Alberto knew the boy was looking at him. No, watching him. If he had to guess, Zulu was likely to be wondering what the point of this was, but was too polite to out-and-out ask. Truly, Moriarti had not called the boy into his office to reminisce about his past and educate on the hierarchy of the organization.

Setting the glass down, Alberto scooted his chair closer to the desk and rested his arms against its wooden edge, hands clasped together as he met the boy's eyes.

"The other part of my responsibilities is to step in when the boss and underboss are indisposed. To say that Sandor and Bronn are indisposed at the current time is a gross understatement, as you can imagine."

Exhaling a breath, Zulu nodded his head as he settled back into his seat, finally releasing a bit of the intensity he held in his frame. Regardless, the room seemed to darken with Alberto's words, and a sudden chill seemed to pass through both men at once as they shuddered in unison.

"How is the Stark girl, Sansa, holding up?" Alberto asked, lowering his voice, although he couldn't quite say why.

A sort of vigilance seemed to overcome any lingering traces of hesitance Zulu had been holding onto. Intensity sparked within the depths of the boy's eyes, clear enough for Alberto to see even in the dimness of his office.

"She's shaken up pretty badly with everything that happened today," the boy informed matter-of-factly, perhaps in an effort to disguise a bit of his concern. "She's asleep now, went to bed about an hour ago."

"Do you know why you're here, son?" Alberto probed after a heavy silence had settled between them.

"I imagine it has something to do with what happened today, sir," Zulu replied, his eyes narrowing with curiosity.

"It does. Today I observed something I find interesting: you being rather protective of Sansa, holding her tight in your arms as if she might fly away. And she clung to you in return."

While the words came even-toned from Moriarti's lips, perhaps even with an air of nonchalance, Zulu's eyes went wide nonetheless, and the boy swallowed hard.

"I meant no disrespect to you, Mr. Moriarti. Or anyone else for that matter," the boy spoke, nonplussed and struggling to keep his resolve, or so it seemed.

"I think you misunderstand, Zulu," Alberto corrected, eyes flickering towards one of the photographs on his shelf before finding their way back towards the boy. "Everything changed today, for all of us. Nothing will ever be the same. Troubled times are upon us, and I fear for what lies ahead. I will do everything in my power to keep this organization from coming undone at the seams. However, I learned long ago that I cannot control the actions of others, and therefore, I am afraid I'm powerless to stop whatever Sandor or Bronn might do in the days and weeks to come. All I can do - all any of us can do - is brace ourselves. The storm has only just begun."

With his chair swiveling back and forth in a slow arcing motion, Alberto lifted his gaze to gauge the boy's reaction. While concern began to pool in Zulu's eyes, he seemed to understand, to know all the unspoken implications hanging heavily in the silence.

"I called you here because I want to ask you to keep an eye on Sansa," Alberto conceded finally. "Heaven knows the last thing the girl needs is to get lost in the shuffle while we sort out what happened and who's responsible. We are all family in this organization, and we take care of our own. She is no exception to that. Don't smother her, but I want you to put those protective instincts to good use. I would like you to stay here. That is, of course, if you would like to. You can call this your home for the time being; stay here until everything settles down, whenever that might be."

"I can do that, sir," Zulu responded, bemused and a faint smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. "And thank you, Mr. Moriarti, for letting me stay here. I think I'd like that very much."

For possibly the first time since this morning, Alberto felt a smile creep across his own lips. There was something distinctly humble about Zulu, yet another trait that seemed to set the boy apart. If Alberto had to guess, Zulu expected very little out of life, and therefore, took what was given to him with a sincere form of gratitude and gratefulness.

Although he had suspected it before, Alberto came to realize there was something haunting about the kid as well. Certainly, some might find the Zulu's reserved watchfulness unnerving, but Alberto knew better than to dismiss it as sullenness. The boy had quietly stood by for so long, fading into the background to be constantly overlooked by the others who seemed to scramble for recognition and for their voice to be heard. Somehow, Zulu had begun to stand out despite his quiet nature.

"There's something Sansa told me tonight," Zulu spoke with unease. "Something about Vinny."

Intrigued, Alberto nodded his head in a gesture for the boy to continue on.

"Last night, she overheard a phone conversation he was having. She said it seemed as though he didn't want anyone to hear. He assured whoever he was talking to that she and Sandor would be together today. I know I was only made two years ago, and I'm still probably something of a turk, but I think Vinny was involved with the attempted hit."

Silent as he processed the information he was told, Alberto squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head. While his direct involvement with the capos was limited, Vinny's apparent loyalty to Sicilian tradition did not escape Alberto. In his own right, Vinny stood out amongst the men, many of whom had set aside the outdated modes of preserving tradition in favor of a liberal approach to the handling of mafia business. True to the Sicilian fashion, any qualms Vinny may have with Sandor would be handled with fatal actions, not words.

"Did she say anything else?" Alberto pressed.

"He took a phone call the other night, the night we were in Crescent City. Sansa said he stepped into the other room, and Mirabelle told her he was probably talking to his goomah."

Alberto nodded wordlessly, realizing now how convoluted the situation just might be. Settling a stare onto Zulu, Moriarti found the boy once more, staring back at him. He was watching, always watching. Obedient as ever, the kid was also waiting - for orders, for insight, for Alberto's thoughts on the matter. However, this wasn't the mindless sort of deference most of the men paid to their superiors. Zulu had connected the dots in his own mind, yet was too timid and respectful to reveal what he had come up with.

"What do you think?" Alberto asked, leaning forward over his desk as he watched Zulu in return.

The boy went wide-eyed, his mouth opening and closing a few times before any words formed on his lips.

"Wh-what…what do I think?" Zulu stammered, visibly caught off guard by the inquiry.

"Yes, I'm asking for your opinion, son," Alberto gently assured.

For a few moments, Zulu was silent as he seemed to gather his thoughts. When he finally spoke, it was with confidence - as though he had gone through it all enough times in his head that he was sure what he had come up with was logical and potentially right on the money.

"I think it's no coincidence that this all happened at the same time. What happened to Mirabelle and Thomas is somehow linked to the attempted hit on Sandor. They were meant to happen at the same time. The men pulling off the hit weren't going to kill Sandor or Sansa. They were too sloppy, too inexperienced."

While he hadn't yet gotten the full details of the attempted hit, Alberto understood well enough that it must have been botched in order for Sandor and Sansa to still be alive.

"They tied Sansa and Sandor up," Zulu continued, encouraged by Alberto's obvious interest in the matter. "If they were going to kill them, they wouldn't have done that. I think they were going to transport them, maybe deliver them to someone else."

"To someone who potentially wanted to carry out the hit themselves," Alberto added with a solemn nod of the head. "If whoever is behind this wanted Sansa Stark and Sandor Clegane dead, it would have happened. I think we both know that."

Zulu nodded his understanding, realizing for perhaps the first time how lucky he was to have walked away unscathed by the events of the afternoon.

"What about Vinny?" he questioned darkly, something hardening in his countenance.

Alberto weighed his words before speaking. All too easily, Vinny could become the sole target for vengeance, but Moriarti sensed the man was only a minor player in a much bigger picture.

"Vinny is laid up in the hospital right now in serious, but stable condition," Alberto finally offered. "If what Sansa heard is true, I have no doubt he is involved in some way. How deep, we won't know until he comes to and we talk to him."

Sucking in a deep breath and nodding, Zulu lowered his gaze to his hands folded in his lap. When he spoke again, Alberto, for the first time in the span of their conversation, saw fear in the boy's eyes.

"What do you think will happen with Sandor, Mr. Moriarti?"

While the boy's voice was steady, the words came heavy from his lips, the uncertainty lacing each syllable with hesitance and worry.

"More men will die before this is all said and done, Zulu," Alberto answered truthfully. Now was not the time for false reassurances, although he was sure Zulu would see through them anyway. "This could be our undoing. My concern now is to keep those not involved safe, including Sansa Stark."

Alberto had not quite answered the boy's question. Of this, he was fully aware. Taking a moment before continuing, his eyes flickered away from Zulu and back towards one of the pictures on his bookshelf. Moriarti's role was not quite as simple as being Sandor's Consigliere, and Alberto had come to realize Zulu seemed to recognize this.

"Sandor is like a son to me," he admitted quietly, though there was no shame in admitting it. In fact, he felt a swell of pride building within him to say the words out loud. "Regardless, he's dangerous - a loose cannon, more so now than ever before. In keeping an eye on Sansa, I need you to keep her away from him until he works through his demons. He's possessive of her, but do what you can. Don't let it be known that that's what you're doing; not to her and definitely not to him!"

With empathetic eyes, Zulu nodded his head and offered a forlorn smile which seemed to die on his lips almost as quickly as it had formed.

"I do believe it's time we retire. You must be tired and heavens know I am as well," Alberto softly spoke as he rose to his feet, his limbs aching in protest with his movements. Zulu followed suit and shook Alberto's hand before quietly retreating towards the door.

"Zulu," Alberto called out as the kid was about to step through the doorway. "If I thought you were a turk, I would have never asked to speak with you." Alberto paused as the boy's face was flooded with relief, or maybe disbelief, he couldn't quite tell. "You are family, son. And I meant it when I said we take care of our own. Goodnight."

"That means a lot of me, sir. Thank you," Zulu murmured, his eyes fracturing once more with immeasurable gratitude. Only then did it occur to Moriarti that perhaps this was the first time someone had ever claimed the boy as part of their family and promised the protection and closeness that goes along with it.

Long moments after the boy left, Alberto stayed at his desk, unmoving and silent, until he finally traversed the space between him and the photograph which had been beckoning him throughout the night. As he took the frame in hand, Moriarti studied Mirabelle's infectious smile, the way she had wrapped her arms around his neck and pressed the side of her face up against his. Even Sandor was smiling in the picture, something Mirabelle had told him he needed to do, if his memory served him. Sandwiched between Mirabelle and Sandor, Moriarti was smiling too - proud and joyful. They are not my own, but I love them all the same.

Although he may have never bounced her on his knee or checked for monsters under her bed, Alberto had come to love Mirabelle as a father loves a daughter. And the pain he felt was one of a parent losing a child, perhaps the most agonizing and cruel form of anguish God had ever inflicted upon man.

With his duties of the day finally done, Alberto clutched the picture frame tightly in his hands as his sorrow finally caught up with him. It was time to give up the ghost, to put aside his reserve and let himself unravel against the weight of his grief.

After all, it is our darkest hour - the witching hour of the soul - where we perhaps see ourselves for true and begin to understand just what we are made of: cowardice or bravery, righteousness or malice, good or evil, or perhaps various shades in between. The myriad of masks, which the world so falsely provides for us to cower behind, fall away and we are left with the nakedness of truth and an unobscured vision of ourselves, for better or for worse.

Alberto sat with his grief and cherished it because it was sacred. To dismiss the pain of loss - the exquisite pain crafted by the heavens above as a reminder we are much more than a body wandering a lonely rock floating through space - was to do her memory a tremendous disservice. For Mirabelle, he would relish the debilitating sense of sorrow until he could soak up her light once more. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, we are fashioned from stars, and to the stars we shall return, but not before we laugh, cry, sing, dance, love, and ultimately lose it all to gain something much greater, swapping the richness of emotion that is human life for an eternity wrapped among the cloak of the cosmos.

For now, he let himself come undone. He sunk to his knees and wept for all he had lost, all he had yet to lose. He cried for the senselessness of it all, for the cruelty, for his own mortality and the mortality of all that he loved. He cried until his body refused him anymore tears, until his head throbbed and his eyes became blurry. It was then he tiptoed to his bed and let sleep finally take him.

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Four days after he passed, Thomas was laid to rest in a quaint cemetery within a sleepy little desert town not far outside of Las Vegas. The young man was survived by his mother and a little sister. Scanning Thomas' family members seated on the other side of the casket, Sansa did not see a father figure amongst the closest of his kin. His mother gracefully dabbed at tears forming in the corners of her eyes, looking more disgusted by what had happened than truly anguished. His little sister, no older than twelve if Sansa had to guess, somberly stared at the casket in front of her, her world falling to pieces if her eyes betrayed what was in her heart.

Of the faces that made up the crowd of funeral goers, Sansa recognized only a dozen or so, many of whom had attended Alonzo's funeral. The rest were strangers to her, and yet more than a few had stared at her as if they knew who she was. The looks she received had ranged from genuinely curious to overtly antagonistic and all the various shades in between.

Even now, Sansa could feel a set of piercing eyes boring through her as she tried in earnest to maintain her composure and ignore the feeling of being watched. Faltering, she shifted her gaze towards the woman she had seen lingering around in the days after what was now called the Moriarti massacre. Like most of the others, the woman's face - tanned, caked with make-up, and sporting a severe scowl - had been unfamiliar to her. She was a tall woman, her body mostly legs, and her figure having had some obvious work done to it. Nobody's breasts sat unmoving like rocks against their chest unless a plastic surgeon had something to do with it. Bottle blonde hair, fake nails, and fake breasts, this woman was a fraud even in her own bronzed skin. On either side of her were two other women, equally as phony and appearing to be less attractive replicas of the woman currently staring daggers through Sansa.

Before the ceremony started, Sansa had almost immediately spotted the women as they made their way towards Thomas' funeral plot. Sporting short skirts and high heels, their attire was more befitting a night out on the town than a funeral. Appalled, Sansa had rolled her eyes and huffed out a laugh to herself, something that did not go unseen by the blonde haired woman. Zulu, who had hardly left her side since the incident, lowered his voice as he murmured in her ear.

'Prospective goomahs on the prowl. They're shameless.'

Zulu's words were laced with venom, and by the looks others were giving these women, he was not the only one who loathed the production they were making out of a funeral of all things. Regardless, some of the men looked upon the women appreciatively, their eyes narrowing with desire as their lips curled discreetly into smiles.

Turning her eyes away from the blonde haired woman, Sansa looked to Zulu and allowed herself her own discreet smile - not one of desire, but of her own sort of appreciation. In the long hours after they had stumbled upon the horror that had unfolded in the Moriarti mansion, Zulu had stayed with her, offering reassurances, although she had clearly detected the fear and distress in his own demeanor.

He was being strong for her. He didn't have to be. He owed her nothing and barely knew her besides. Still, he had stayed with her well into the night: offering her tissues, one right after the other, gently urging her to eat something, although she continually refused, and finally, sitting quietly next to her as she tearfully confessed Vinny's conversation she had overheard. Although his eyes had become heavy with dismay and he seemed to momentarily stop breathing, Zulu had quickly intuited Sansa's silent fears and swiftly assured her she was not to blame for what had happened to Thomas and Mirabelle. Try as he might, Zulu could not persuade her to believe otherwise, and Sansa, eventually, through the fatigue of crying, surrendered herself to sleep, fitful though it was.

When she awoke the next morning feeling as though a knife had been driven straight through her heart, Zulu was there, patiently waiting outside her bedroom door and escorting her to the kitchen for breakfast. Sansa had remained mostly quiet that day and undoubtedly was poor company for the boy. He stayed by her side anyway, never coercing her into conversation or seeming irritated by her muteness. When she needed space, he gave her space, and when she finally broke out of her shell, even if only momentarily, he was there to offer her distractions.

They played board games, had movie marathons, and made small talk. Zulu asked questions about her life, her family, and where she grew up. As Sansa recounted her childhood and spoke at length about her family and Portland, the boy listened intently and seemed to soak up her every word with wonder. When she reciprocated his inquiries, Sansa saw Zulu visibly tense, his eyes straining with what she could only call the undercurrents of grief. The understanding had been immediate, and Sansa let it go, never inquiring again.

Although reserved and shy, Sansa found there was something kindred about Zulu. He was a gentle soul yet so obviously scarred by the unspoken tragedies of his past, whatever they may be. She wanted to ask how he had gotten here, what twists and turns of fate brought him to this place in his life where he was a made man for a mafia crime syndicate. Something told her that if she pushed hard enough, Zulu would deny her hardly anything, not even the knowledge of his most guarded secrets. However, she knew better and owed him much more than manipulations to satisfy her own curiosity.

In the days after the incident, the house had become a circus of activity: made men and their families coming and going, all of them doing what little they could to offset the heaviness of tragedy. The Italian mothers were back on duty, resuming their places in the kitchen and filling it with somber small talk as they rolled out dough and tended to their pasta sauces. Morning, noon, and night, the house seemed to stir endlessly with a steady rotation of individuals associated with the Moriarti family.

Unlike the aftermath of Alonzo's death, Sansa found she could no longer go unnoticed by those who were arriving to pay their respects, both to the dead and the living. They knew her name, they knew her face, they knew her story. And they seemed to have passed judgment before they really knew her. Zulu's constant presence seemed to deflect a bit of the scrutiny she felt she was under, and for that she was grateful. Each day, a handful of new faces seemed to appear until the house was hardly empty for more than an hour at a time.

The face she had not seen, and the one she had constantly sought out, was Sandor's. During the day, he was undoubtedly preoccupied by the business at hand. By night, she did not know how he spent his time and imagined that was probably for the best. He hadn't come to her, and perhaps that was for the best too, although the bed she slept in felt cold and lonely without him in it. One afternoon, she had asked Zulu about Sandor, her voice quivering as she did so. The boy had turned to her and solemnly shook his head, indicating he knew no more than anyone else on how Sandor was faring. She had seen something else, though, stirring in Zulu's sympathetic eyes. Was it fear? No, it was something deeper, something resolute too. It mimicked a sincere sort of vexation and unease. Zulu had quickly changed the subject, and Sansa hadn't broached the topic since.

While Sansa had seen very little of Bronn, she had heard him often. From the kitchen, she could hear the man raging in the basement lounge. She never heard exactly the words he spoke, but his voice came in inexorable shouts, clamoring through the floorboards to meet her ears. Only after the man's bellowing demands dimenuendoed to a strained murmur did other voices, firm yet reassuring, begin to speak. At night, long after the house had finally stilled, Sansa would hear him in Mirabelle's room. With the headboard of the bed she slept in flush against the adjoining wall, Sansa would be awoken from shallow slumber by the muffled sounds of Bronn's voice.

Perhaps in death Mirabelle came to him in the form of dreams or maybe visions, Sansa could not say for sure. What she knew was that Bronn was speaking to Mirabelle - to her memory, to the room that was emptied of her, to whatever broken pieces of the love they shared that remained solely with him now. On the other side of the wall, Sansa quietly listened as the man eventually submitted to his grief by way of muffled sobs. Only once did she hear the words he spoke, and it had been enough for her to know that every night he spoke those same words, a mantra of heartache to the love that had left him.

'What am I supposed to do here all alone? What am I supposed to do in a world without you, Mirabelle?'

Upon hearing those words - so very desperate and afflicted by mourning - Sansa too had shed tears. She cried for Mirabelle, a woman she had only known for a short time, but had touched her life all the same. She cried for Bronn, one more lost soul with nothing left to anchor him as the storms set in. And for Sandor too, who had lost all and was drifting away from her now.

Night after night, this went on, and Sansa found that each time she heard Bronn descend into sorrow, she too felt tears sting her eyes before falling down her cheeks. She wondered if Bronn would ever know that just on the other side of the wall, she wept with him, for him. He wasn't alone, not truly.

After the crying would stop and the house settled into stillness again, Sansa would lie awake and alone in bed, agonizing over everything that had transpired and wondering endlessly if she could have somehow stopped it. It always started from the beginning: her dismissal of Vinny's conversation, the way Mirabelle had seemed to sense death was coming for her, the look of sheer heartbreak which colored Sandor's normally stoic demeanor as Sansa coldly returned his mother's necklace and declared she wanted nothing from him, not anymore.

'Take it. I don't want it. I don't want any of this.'

Even before the words had left her lips, Sansa knew the harm they would do, the way in which they would cut him to the bone and bleed him dry. She had said them anyway and regretted it almost immediately. The field had been leveled between them, both having committed egregious sins of the heart against the other. There was no happiness, no sweetness of vindication to be found in wounding him to the same extent he had wounded her. In the end, her heart ached not only for all the damage he had done, but for the pain she had so obviously and carelessly inflicted upon him as well.

Perhaps that was why love is dangerous - the concurrent knowledge of one another's endearing nuances and most debilitating vulnerabilities. To strike at the revealed weakness is a betrayal which cuts the deepest and bleeds the longest. They were both guilty of that crime against the bond they shared and the connection they forged. Only now, she knew he needed her the most. The only thing he had ever truly loved was ripped from him, mercilessly and with a cruelty that still threatened to destroy him. From the inside out, Sandor was falling apart. She didn't need to see him or speak to him to know that. Something in the way the world around her seemed to darken and fall silent echoed whatever turmoil was besieging him.

Besides, she had heard whispers of it, passing murmurs of the Italian mothers, or sometimes bits and pieces of hushed conversations between some of the men as they came and went. Sandor was slipping away, withdrawing into himself and shutting out anyone who tried to reach him.

If only she could take it all away, share the burden of his pain. She could be strong for him as he had been strong for her. When nightmares plagued him in the midnight hour, she would hold him close to quiet the silent screams. She would soothe away his hurts and kiss away the tears. Yes, she could be strong. For him and for her, she could be strong.

Sansa's thoughts disintegrated as the final words were spoken over Thomas' grave: words about love and hope, holding light in our hearts when the entire world had seemed to grow black. There is no light. Only darkness, she thought almost bitterly as her eyes once more captured a glimpse of Thomas' sister crying pitifully in her mother's arms.

Situated near the edge of the crowd and remaining firmly rooted where she was, Sansa watched as the mourners cleared away, one after the other as they all passed Thomas' casket one last time, murmuring words softly through barely moving lips, and then retreated towards their vehicles.

As a group of men and women in front of her shuffled away, Sansa caught sight of Sandor, statuesque and standing still in his spot. Arriving late, he must have hidden himself in the back of the crowd. She knew because she had looked for him as each person arrived and in all the faces of those who had already gathered around the funeral plot to pay their respects.

Although dressed in a pressed suit and with the long tendrils of his hair pulled back away from his face, Sandor was clothed in every bit of his grief; his face was gaunt and his skin ashen, dark circles had settled beneath his eyes, betraying the fact that he had scarcely slept in the past few days. He looked as though he were only a shell of himself - outwardly whole, but inwardly breaking apart and eroding away. With his hands clasped in front of him, he studied Thomas' casket with his jaw firmly set and his mouth contorting to a frown. The worst was yet to come, Sandor seemed to know, and Sansa did too. In this very moment, he seemed to understand that in a few short days, he would be laying his sister to rest. He would be the one to sit right before her casket with devastation written across his face.

Unbidden, Sansa felt the tears beginning to pool in her eyes, the vision of him slowly becoming bleary. In an instant, she let it all come undone: every scrap of stubbornness she had held onto prior to Mirabelle's death, every inner promise to steel herself against this man who had affected her so deeply, every inch of icy aloofness she had encapsulated herself in to keep him out. It all dissolved away, and in its place a sort of frenzy began - the maddening desire to go to him, to make it all stop, to end the suffering and ease away his pain.

"Come on, Miss Sansa. I'll take you back to the car," she faintly heard Zulu say, although she was hardly listening. The boy might as well have been a thousand miles away and trying to speak to her, his voice lost in the distance. Although Zulu gently took her by the arm and made a move to lead her back to the car, Sansa stood transfixed and unmoving.

Sandor's eyes had been drawn towards her and as she met his stare, he seemed to pull in a breath. His chin tipped up ever so slightly and his body went rigid, as if he were clinging to whatever scraps of composure he had left within him.

Sandor had once broken her heart with words, and yet it was what she saw, or rather what she didn't see, in his eyes which stole her breath and ripped her heart open anew. He was gone. The man she knew, the man she had felt herself growing to love, was gone, and perhaps the most disturbing thing of all was that there was nothing in his place - only emptiness and a darkened void of what he once was.

He was dead behind the eyes; where there had once been a burning intensity, now there was only darkness and resignation.

With just a look, Sansa at once understood all the whispers she had heard, the solemn secrets spoken in the past few days. The voices replayed in her mind: 'He won't talk to anyone. Not even Alberto.' 'No one has seen him. I hear he's been in a whiskey-induced coma since it happened.' 'This is the calm before the storm. Just you wait. He's going to go off the deep end and it ain't going to be pretty. In fact, I doubt he ever bounces back.' The words had worried her and set her perpetually ill at ease, yet what she saw now frightened her more than the collective murmurs of his men.

Sandor was unreachable. It was as if she were looking at him through glass, seeing him plain as day, but knowing the futility of trying to reach him now. He was too far away, too far gone. He had slipped away to some secret place within himself, a place where he could be alone in his suffering. Sansa wanted to follow him there, but she did not know the way, and even if she did, the darkness he found himself in now could easily consume her as well.

Doubtless, he had seen the tears in her eyes, yet he remained taciturn and stared at her vacantly before settling his gaze elsewhere. Seemingly manifesting from thin air, the blonde haired woman hesitantly approached him, although her eyes narrowed onto him with a lascivious intensity. When she fell in by his side, Sansa watched as the woman lightly rested her hand on Sandor's bicep and lifted herself on her toes to whisper something in his ear. The woman suddenly donned a sympathetic gaze as Sandor settled his eyes towards her and nodded his head solemnly in reply to whatever the woman had said, his countenance rigid and enduring in its impassivity.

Perhaps that's how he is occupying his time. Sansa's cheeks flushed with warmth as the thought invaded her mind, disturbing what small semblance of calm she had found in the past days and creating a wake of turbulent ruminations on the matter. However, the thoughts were quickly replaced with shame: shame at how she had acted towards him and shame at how somewhere within her she felt the smolder of jealousy rising even though she had spurned the man.

"My dear," a voice resonated next to her. Turning her head, Sansa found Alberto Moriarti had quietly approached her, consternation coloring the aged features of his face. "I had wondered if you would do me the pleasure of riding back with me."

The man's eyes steadied on her, although not in an unkind manner, but adamant nonetheless. It was clear the man would not be taking no for answer even though Sansa was not disposed to refuse him. She hardly knew the man. To her right, Zulu shifted on his feet, and for a fleeting moment, Moriarti's gaze shifted to the boy. Whatever unspoken words passed between them prompted Zulu to bid both Moriarti and Sansa farewell before he strode off towards the row of vehicles parked along the cemetery road.

"Yes, thank you," Sansa finally replied after Zulu had left. "I would like that very much."

Offering Sansa his arm for purchase, Moriarti led the way from Thomas' funeral plot in slow, purposeful steps. The man was dressed in a fine suit, the fabric feeling silken beneath Sansa's fingers as she took his arm. He smelled faintly like cigar smoke and Old Spice or something like it - something overtly masculine yet defying his age.

"I had hoped to seek you out sooner," Alberto intoned on a velveteen voice, smooth and pleasing in the way the words flowed from his lips. "These past few days have been rather hectic, as you can imagine."

Sansa nodded by way of reply as she focused her steps down the hill towards the road below, careful not to twist her ankle on divots in the ground.

"How are you holding up, Sansa?" Alberto inquired quizzically after a bit of silence had passed between them.

"I'm fine. Thank you," Sansa responded, a bit too quickly she realized after she said the words.

Alberto seemed to notice as he led her towards an S-class Mercedes and opened the back door for her. Sansa settled into the spacious backseat and watched as Moriarti circled around, climbing in to sit in the space next to her. The driver of the vehicle remained silent, the only sound filling the car the voice of a sports commentator murmuring through the speakers at a low volume.

Moriarti leveled a stare at Sansa before speaking again, his voice deliberate once more, but not ungentle.

"I want you to speak freely with me, dear girl," Alberto urged. "I asked because I truly want to know, not because I wish to make small talk."

The sincerity she found in his voice was what beckoned Sansa to settle her gaze on the man, and when she did, she found the same measure of sincerity peering through his tired eyes. Much like the rest of him, the man's eyes seemed to have grayed a bit with time and age, perhaps even sorrow, too, if she was reading him correctly.

"It's been difficult," Sansa offered truthfully before letting her lips curl into the faintest of smiles. "Zulu has been very kind to me, though."

The man did not answer, but instead continued to study her. He seemed to have not heard the words she spoke, but instead took to weighing whatever it was he saw in her demeanor. After another heady interruption of silence, Moriarti spoke.

"I suspect you hold yourself partially responsible for what happened." His words came artless and even.

Tilting her head, Sansa now found it was she who was studying him. She wanted to be wary and vigilant with what she told him. Her eyes sought out traces of malice on his part. Perhaps this was a trap of some kind; he would allow her to tie herself up in knots over her own words, effectually entrapping herself so he wouldn't have to. Yet, when she looked upon him, Sansa found him to be ingenuous and staring placidly at her.

"I know about Vinny and what you overheard," Alberto spoke again when Sansa let the conversation fall silent once more.

Zulu told him. Alberto is well aware that Zulu spends his time with me. The unspoken exchange between Zulu and Alberto no longer seemed inconsequential in Sansa's mind. Letting her eyes fall to her hands in her lap, Sansa realized now what this was about. Perhaps she did have a part to play in what had happened; not intentionally, of course, but others had paid the price for her silence.

Cold and bony hands encircled her own as Alberto's fingers clasped her gingerly.

"My darling girl, none of this is your fault, and if anyone - made men, the women, anyone - tries to convince you otherwise, I want you tell me."

Hardly believing the words she had just heard, Sansa lifted an incredulous stare towards the man and found, once more, genuineness in the way he regarded her.

"If I had said something, though, maybe -"

"Maybe this wouldn't have happened?" Moriarti interjected abruptly. "If someone wanted you and Sandor dead, they would have made it happen, regardless. I know how these things work. If you had said something, perhaps things would not have worked out the way they did. Perhaps you would not have landed in the hands of inexperienced hit men, men who botched the job, and in effect, saved you and Sandor from a certain death."

Sansa hadn't considered that notion. It seemed to her that much of what had transpired could have been prevented if she had revealed what she had heard from Vinny. Of course, it was more complicated than that, yet the worries still lingered in the back of her mind.

"What about Mirabelle and Thomas?" she queried on something like a whisper, fearful now for what the answer might be.

"No, Sansa," Alberto asserted without so much as a cadence of breath. "That is not your burden to bear, sweet girl. I'm afraid that their demise was inevitable as much as it was planned."

Nodding her head, Sansa felt tendrils of relief spread through her, and a bit of the tension she had held onto for the past few days seemed to flee. She wondered, though, if Sandor saw things that way. Certainly if Alberto knew about her conversation with Vinny, Sandor must too, and perhaps he now blamed her for what happened to Mirabelle. Gazing out the window, she saw that Sandor was retreating from Thomas' funeral plot now, the blonde woman giggling at his side, although he remained stoic as ever.

"A woman by the name of Josephine will be coming to you today," Moriarti broke in, a savior to the heaviness of Sansa's thoughts. "I've instructed her to take your measurements, inquire about your favorite colors and styles of dress, and to purchase clothing, under garments, shoes, and whatever else your heart desires. While you are staying with us, you shall have your own belongings. It is unseemly for you to have to wear a dead woman's clothing."

Returning her gaze back to Alberto, Sansa allowed a smile to form on her lips.

"Thank you, Mr. Moriarti. That is very kind and thoughtful of you. I appreciate it very much."

The man returned her smile and chuckled in satisfaction at her response. His mirth was short lived and replaced with a somberness Sansa couldn't quite place in him.

"You want to go home, don't you?" he inquired forthrightly and with an unequivocal sense of growing concern.

Biting her bottom lip, Sansa measured her words, although not entirely sure why she felt the need to do so. It had little to do with residual cautiousness towards Alberto. Of course, she wanted to go home. However, the answer to the question was no longer as simple as it used to be.

"I want to see my father again," she answered honestly. "I want him to know that I'm okay and taken care of."

"Taken care of," Moriarti scoffed on an exhaled breath. "You've been kidnapped twice, once by a psychopath who battered you mercilessly and once by Sandor's brother who would have done god-knows-what to you. And that's not including the attempted kidnapping in Vegas. You survived a car accident and a botched hit. I'd hardly say you've been taken care of."

"I'm sorry," Sansa began, feeling as though she may have offended the man in some way and more than a bit startled by the fissures in his normally serene demeanor. "I didn't mean to -"

"There is no need for you to apologize, Ms. Stark," Alberto interjected, sensing a bit of Sansa's distress. "I only meant to say that this has all gotten out of hand. I should have stepped in sooner. After the incident at the Royce party, I was there when Sandor gave the orders to have you retrieved and brought to him. I didn't question him, although I didn't quite understand what use he had for the district attorney's daughter. Of course, now I find that situation, terrifying as it may have been for you, serendipitous nonetheless."

"Serendipitous because Sandor sending Leon after me ultimately saved my life," Sansa responded almost automatically and with a mindless nod of the head. I would've been dead four times over if it weren't for him. After nights spent lying awake in bed, Sansa had reached that conclusion fairly quickly and cursed herself for not understanding that sooner.

"In a word, yes," Alberto continued. "Your reason for coming here in the first place and for still being here now is because your protection is of the utmost importance to him. However, his desire to protect you has translated into keeping you close to him and not letting you out of his sight. While I can understand his reasons for doing this, it has also put you in danger as well."

Sansa toiled over his words, not quite understanding what the man was getting at. Was she supposed to stay away from Sandor and not let him near her in case it might put her in danger again? Alberto himself had, only moments ago, said that if someone wanted to hurt her or Sandor, they would find a way. If that were the case, she was safer with him than not.

"Vinny told me I need to be a stand up girl. I know what he meant, Mr. Moriarti," Sansa spoke as she leveled a stare at the man, her eyes searching his in earnest. "Even if I am to go home, my father will want to know what happened, both as my dad and as the district attorney. I know what will happen to me if I say anything to him or anyone else about what has happened and what I've seen regarding your organization."

"My role is to advise Sandor. I no longer make decisions about the goings-on of the organization. I simply give my input," the man responded without missing a beat. It was clear enough he was skirting around the issue.

"And what would you advise in that situation, Mr. Moriarti? A situation where I'm a liability to the organization?" Sansa asked before glancing out the window. Sandor and the blonde haired bimbo had made it down the hill and were now climbing into a car together. She felt her stomach lurch at the sight, but held her composure.

Averting her eyes back towards Moriarti, Sansa found that he had followed her stare out the window and had observed what had captured her attention. She didn't doubt that he had somehow puzzled out her reaction to it as well.

"I would remind him that we look out for our own, but you are one of our own, Ms. Stark. Whether you see it that way or not, you are a part of us now. My only wish is that you begin to understand that. You aren't our prisoner or hostage. For all intents and purposes, Sandor is the King of this organization, and he wants you to be his Queen. Despite all that has transpired, the Moriarti family has protected you from the true monsters who wish you harm. We have accepted you as one of our own, and we take care of our family."

Moriarti was staring levelly at Sansa now, his eyes boring into her as if to make sure his words stuck. He wants you to be his Queen. There was something powerful not only in those words, but in the way Alberto had spoken them. Try as she might, Sansa could not dismiss their implications or the weight which they carried with them.

"I've known Sandor since he was younger than you are now," Alberto continued. "I've watched him make mistakes, prevail, falter, triumph, and now suffer. The night you left with Nestor Royce, I knew he felt things for you he hadn't felt before, not for anyone or anything. He never said as much, but I know him well enough to know the affect you've have on him."

Sansa couldn't quite tell if there was something accusatory in his voice or if his resolve was simply fracturing. Regardless, he seemed somber now, and his words came less assured.

"Why are you telling me this, Mr. Moriarti?" Sansa asked, her voice sounding childlike and small as it caught in her throat.

"You've changed something in him, Sansa. You've made him a better man, and now I fear for that man. I fear that he cannot be saved, not from himself at least."

Moriarti no longer met her eyes, but instead had dropped his stare to his lap, and his breaths seemed to come deep and labored. His somberness seemed to have found its place, and Sansa understood that the fear he had just spoken of was real.

The fear she saw in Alberto Moriarti conjured up Sansa's own realization at what he was saying, or rather, asking of her. 'Save him. Bring him back,' he might as well have said. That was the subtext to his words, the silent plea which he was too proud to vocalize plainly.

Sansa said nothing as the car slowly pulled forward and meandered through the cemetery.

I will be strong. For him and for me, I will be strong, she thought as she stared out the window in silence.

---

The blonde was sitting in the passenger seat of his car, lipstick staining the cigarette on which she was taking delicate pulls and releasing through pouted lips - an illusion to make them appear bigger than what they were, as if the collagen wasn't enough.

"You want one?" she asked, smoke billowing from her mouth and her eyebrow cocked suggestively. He had been staring at her and not in the way she probably hoped. Although she came around every so often and let him fuck her into the ground any which way he pleased, Sandor still wasn't quite sure he knew her name. Rebecca? Rachel? It didn't matter to him anyway.

"No," Sandor responded curtly, his eyes drifting back towards the road ahead.

"Suit yourself," the woman replied with a shrug of the shoulders while dangling the cigarette out the window to ash it.

That was the extent of their conversation on the drive back to Moriarti's. Neither of them seemed interested in small talk, and for that, Sandor was thankful. He didn't know if he could stomach the obligatory question and answer session consisting of what each of them had been up to for the past few months since their last encounter. It was rather obvious what had been transpiring in Sandor's life, and that didn't require discussion. Furthermore, he didn't care how this woman spent her time, no more than he cared to find out what her name was.

When he saw her sauntering up to him after Thomas' funeral, Sandor knew immediately what she was after. She sure as shit wasn't there to pay her respects to a man she hardly knew. When she had all but spread her legs for him right in front of Thomas' casket, Sandor understood what she was offering him and that she was offering it to him now, no strings attached. She had murmured something about being sorry for his loss into his ear, although he saw through that quick enough. She wasn't sorry for shit. She was sorry she hadn't come around sooner to let him fuck her.

She had told him she needed a ride, the innuendo transparent as she had licked her bottom lip and measured his reaction with a sultry gaze. Her shit-for-brains friends had conveniently bailed on her, leaving her stranded to find her own way back to wherever it was she had come from.

Parked in the half-circle drive of Moriarti's, Sandor sat silently as he turned the car off and pulled the key from the ignition. They were the first to arrive back here. Sandor had made sure of that and only now took the time to acknowledge why it had been so important in the first place. The last thing he needed, or wanted for that matter, was for Sansa to see him taking this broad to bed. It was pathetic, and he knew it; Sansa had already made it quite clear she wanted nothing to do with him, and yet here he was, trying to shield her from what he was about to do.

Before he could agonize over it any further, the woman's hand was massaging small circles at the back of his neck and she had turned to face him, leaning forward slightly so that her tits were spilling out over the top of her low cut dress.

"Come on," she whispered in his ear, her tongue flickering warmly against his ear lobe. "Let's get you inside."

Lifting his eyes, Sandor stared in the rear view mirror. Although the drive was empty now, it wouldn't be that way for much longer. Sandor gave a slight nod of his head and slowly removed himself from the car. Taking his hand with her face beaming in devious delight, the blonde led the way inside, waggling her ass as he followed her up the stairs and down the hall to his bedroom.

He had thought the gnawing anxiety he felt might cease as soon as their indiscretion could be safely hidden behind closed doors. Instead, Sandor felt it intensify at his core, proliferating in the pit of his stomach and making him nauseous despite being sober for the first time in days. The blonde tossed her purse on his nightstand and settled herself on the edge of his bed, patting the spot next to her before pulling the straps of her dress down over her shoulders.

Once more, Sandor found himself staring at her. He had once found her attractive back when her hair was a natural shade of brown, her skin was less orange, and her tits, although smaller then, didn't look like misshapen bean bags. Now, she was a run down version of what she used to be, which even back then wasn't anything to write home about. You're not Sansa, he thought with a shake of the head before closing his eyes, hiding in the darkness and hoping the woman might be gone when he opened them.

When he did reopen his eyes, the woman was up from the bed and pacing towards him in slow, purposeful steps. Standing in front of him, she pushed her dress down over the swell of her breasts and the curve of her hips, letting it pool at her feet before stepping forward to press against him. Although she stared up at him with lust flashing wild in her gaze, Sandor couldn't look at her. Even something as simple as eye contact in this moment seemed too intimate, and intimacy with this woman would be the ultimate sacrilege against Sansa, the insult to injury.

He tried in earnest to push the thoughts of Sansa away. The girl doesn't want you anymore. You don't owe her anything, he tried to , there would be nothing intimate about this. It was sex and nothing more. He would push the blonde, whatever her name was, down into the bed and pound her from behind until he felt the pressure and sweetness of his own release come in bursts. Afterwards, he would throw her out much like he always did. Besides, Sandor had drunk himself into a stupor the past four days, and that hadn't been enough to keep him together. He reckoned he needed to fuck.

He had thought to go to Sansa, but something told him to fight the urge to sneak into her bedroom at night. She was too delicate, too pure. Even in a half-maddened state of mind, Sandor knew better than to sully the only beautiful thing left in his life. He knew he would end up hurting her, destroying what little grace he had retained in her eyes, if any. However, he wasn't delusional enough to actually think he'd be sparing Sansa by fucking this broad. If anything, it would only hurt her worse.

Seeing her today had felt like a punch to the gut. She was a vision, as she always was, but in the days he had spent without her, Sandor had somehow diminished her beauty in his mind, perhaps as a way to make the loss of her easier to cope with. She had looked at him, not with the icy reserve and disgusted disappointment as she had before, but with sympathy and concern he had never expected to see in her again. It would have been easier for her to despise him. He could have let her go and understood she was better off that way, but her external beauty was not the only thing Sandor had diminished in their time apart. He had underestimated her ability to forgive, her penchant for sympathy and understanding in others, and the tremendous light that existed within her, the one which seemed to illuminate everything with her grace and purity of heart. Sansa Stark was stunning, inside as well as out, and Sandor felt ashamed to have, even momentarily and in miniscule amounts, forgotten any of this.

With an insistent tug, the blonde was pulling him towards the bed, and Sandor found he was now following her lead. He put up no fight as she unbuttoned his shirt and pushed it open. He gave no signs of protest as she pushed him back on the bed and straddled him while removing her pink, lacy bra. Grinding against his half-hardened cock, the woman guided his hands to cup her breasts.

"That's right. Isn't that nice?" the woman moaned as she unbuckled his belt and slid her hand down his pants to cup his package.

Leaning forward, she went to kiss him, but Sandor abruptly turned his head away so that her lips landed awkwardly on his cheek. For a moment, the woman froze in what he imagined was disbelief and affront. Rising slowly as she pulled her hand free from his pants, the blonde glared at him with her eyes hardening to frustration and disappointment.

"What's wrong?" she demanded with a huff, settling her hands on her hips.

You're not Sansa.

Although he didn't say it out loud, the woman nodded her head as if she had heard him anyway. Lifting herself from off of his lap, she plopped down next to him, seemingly perplexed that any man might reject her in this way.

Pushing himself to the edge of the bed, Sandor rested his head in his hands while his elbows rested on his knees. Fucking hell, I can't do this. I can't.

The woman would be pissed, no doubt about that, but she would get over it. She'd set her sights on one of his other men, and they would take the bait, maybe even making her a goomah after a while. For Sansa, though, this would be unforgivable, and Sandor knew it would be something she wouldn't likely get over so easily. An empty release with this broad wasn't worth the heaps of damage control that would need to be done. With what little was left between him and Sansa, he had the choice to save it or destroy it. He had chosen to save it, and she had thrown it, quite literally, back in his face. Regardless, he couldn't bring himself to hurt her in this way.

Sandor turned towards the woman, ready and resolved to tell her to put her clothes on and leave. With the curtains drawn shut, her chest was a moving shadow in the dimness of his room, rising and falling rhythmically as she ran one of her hands through the strands of her straw-like hair.

Lying on her side, head propped up in her hand, she was facing him and clearly showcasing her half-naked body, for all the good it did. Before he could say anything, she slinked her arm across the bed and narrowed her eyes, drunk with desire, at him. With her other hand, the woman pushed her panties halfway down her thighs and reached between her legs to rub circles over her swollen clit, soft moans mingling with the slick sounds of her wetness.

"Mmm, I was hoping you would give me a hand," she purred, her voice husky and dark. "And maybe even more than that."

Although her eyes had fluttered closed as she continued the ministrations between her legs, Sandor glowered at her, feeling the heat in his blood rising and not with lust, as she so clearly hoped it would be.

"I'm not giving you shit. Get dressed and go. I won't tell you twice," he grumbled as he pushed himself from the bed and paced across the room to retrieve the half-empty whiskey bottle on his dresser. Facing a large mirror adjacent to the dresser, Sandor could see the reflection of the woman glaring at him as she abruptly sat up, her eyes glazing over with anger as her naked chest heaved.

"Fuck you!" she shouted and immediately scrambled from the bed. Rolling his eyes, Sandor took a swig from the bottle of Johnnie Walker and waited for her to leave. He could see the woman shuffling across the room with obvious agitation, snatching up the pieces of her clothing as she went.

"Your dick has gone as soft as you have," she seethed as she put on her bra with an unattractive scowl painted across her face. "You were always a lousy fucking lay anyhow," she continued beneath her breath, although Sandor heard her just fine.

Inhaling deeply, Sandor felt his anger slowly rising, boiling his blood as it coursed through his veins. She was playing at a dangerous game. He had been waiting for a release of all his anger towards the world, ready to uncage the beast that roamed restless within him.

Turning towards the woman now, Sandor felt his fingers curl into a tight fist. She was still ranting as she pulled her dress over her head and then stopped her movements abruptly after pulling it down over her breasts. Even in the haziness of light, Sandor could see the scornful smile playing across her lips.

"It's that tart, isn't it? That red-headed girl?" she all but snarled at Sandor, both hands on her bony hips as she apparently waited for a response. The bitch would have to get used to disappointment. She wasn't getting an answer from him, no more than she was getting an orgasm.

Throwing her head back, the woman burst into mocking laughter before speaking once more.

"What is she? Twelve? You mean to tell me you've got yourself all tied up into knots over some fucking teenage girl. Does she even know what to do with your dick?"

In two long strides, Sandor was in front of the woman, the fingers of his free hand wrapping tightly around her upper arm. Ignoring her squeals of pain, Sandor lowered his face in front of hers until his eyes - irate as he fumed - were at a level with hers.

"Get the fuck out," he growled in her face as she squirmed feebly within his grasp. Pushing her backwards away from him, the woman stumbled to the ground with a whimper. When she regained herself and stood up, she scrambled for her purse on the nightstand.

"Enjoy your twelve-year-old girl hand jobs, you fucking sick piece of shit. When you want a real woman to fuck, give me a call," she taunted bitterly as she blew him a kiss. "I'll be sure to tell the little tart you send your regards," she added over her shoulder before scurrying towards the door, implicitly understanding exactly how to burrow beneath his skin and ignite his anger.

The thought of this woman being anywhere near Sansa sent shockwaves of rage pulsing through Sandor's being, his vision blurring to a red haze and rendering him incoherent as he was on the woman faster than she could make it to the door. Grabbing her by the hair, Sandor dragged her back to the bed and wrapped both of his hands around her throat, pressing her into the mattress with his weight on top of her.

Sandor squeezed his hands tight around her throat and watched as the woman's eyes widened in terror. With soft choking sounds, the woman's mouth fell open, although it was clear she was gaining no breath in doing so. Even as her fists beat against his chest, Sandor continued to squeeze, relishing the feel of the bones at the back of her neck popping with the steady force. His singular focus was on hurting her. Somehow, he had convinced himself that watching the light leave her eyes would take it all away: pain, confusion, rage, suffering. It would all flee him if he slowly squeezed the life out of the woman beneath him, the woman whose name he didn't even know. Her death would sanctify his life, purging it of all his afflictions.

And so Sandor kept squeezing, watching intently and with some sort of sick fascination at how the woman's fight for her life was slowly becoming weaker with each passing moment. Eventually, her eyes softened a bit, and her fists fell to her side. You'll kill her if you don't stop, a voice sounded from somewhere in the back of his mind, delicately piercing through the deliberateness of what he had tasked himself to do. As if his movements were dictated by some force outside himself, Sandor released his hands from the woman's neck and let his weight fall to the floor, reeling as he went. The woman gulped down air with an almost violent sort of urgency, grasping at her chest as she began to sob.

"Get out! Get the fuck out," Sandor bellowed, his mind racing with images of Mirabelle's near-mutilated body and broken face. His hands were trembling, and he barely took notice as the woman fled from the room with tears streaming down her face.

For a moment, infinitesimal as it was, Sandor understood the pleasure Gregor took in watching someone die. In that fleeting moment, he wanted to inflict pain and feasted on the fear he saw pooling in the woman's dying eyes. He would have kept going if not for the manifestation of that part of himself which separated him from his brother. You'll kill her if you don't stop, the voice had said. It was the same voice that had stopped him from putting a bullet in E.Z.'s head.

Sandor doubted very much that Gregor had this same internal voice of conscience. However, that thread of humanity which separated the Clegane brothers was thinning. Sandor feared the day it would snap and he and Gregor would be brothers for true - akin in blood, violence, and a shared monstrosity.

Sandor had killed people before and made jests that it was the sweetest satisfaction to wield a weapon and condemn someone, anyone, to die. Buried beneath those words, though, was a man who venerated life. Death by his hand had only been a means to various ends, chief among them an outlet for the incessant plague of fury that had burdened him for so long. If he could wish away that anger, find the ultimate antidote, he would, and perhaps he could leave behind the constant need to manage and maintain the affliction of wrath.

Sandor felt his stomach churn, although its contents were limited. As the visions of Mirabelle returned to him now, Sandor scrambled across the floor on hands and knees towards the liquor bottle, the contents of which had partially spilled out onto the carpet. With trembling hands, he brought the bottle to his lips and took greedy pulls until he had emptied the bottle. Tossing it aside, he crawled into his bed, his body swaying slightly with inebriation as he went.

Closing his eyes, he saw her again. He could almost hear her voice. Sandor clutched at the sheets of his bed, fisting the fabric as he gritted his teeth. Make it stop. Make it fucking stop. Over and over, he pleaded in his head, writhing against the sheets and twisting them about his body as he endured the images of his sister. He waited in torment until the alcohol settled in his blood, and he eventually fell into the darkness behind his eyes.

He never quite dreamed of her. The visions he saw behind his eyes were not fully fledged in the way that dreams were. He did not find himself in places he once knew, carrying on conversations as he might in his waking life. Instead, what haunted him in the hours spent in unconsciousness was emptier but no less horrifying. He saw his sister in the darkness, and she was always younger. Mirabelle had grown into a woman, but within her was always a child - lost, scared, and alone. 'You failed me. I needed you,' she would cry in tears of thick crimson, her life's blood. Even if he never saw her face, he always heard the words she spoke and understood they were true.

During the days, he stewed on those words, letting them fester and rot within him, and they poisoned his conscious mind. He thought to somehow escape them in sleep or in a drunken stupor, and for awhile that had been sufficient. But now those thoughts seeped into the time he spent drifting in the blackened abyss behind his eyes. They took on a life of their own and proliferated when he abandoned them by distracting himself. Always they waited until he fell asleep once more, and they came back with a fury. 'You failed her. She needed you and you failed her. Look what you did.'

The taunts grew worse and more verbose, abusive perhaps, as the nights and days wore on. With them now came the image of Mirabelle in her death - bloody and no longer beautiful, a mess of gore. Her corpse spoke to him, still crying those tears of blood, but it was her voice speaking to him always. She said awful things to him, words which absorbed into his very soul, so that he may carry them with him to his own grave. He drank to drown them away, and the more he drank, the worse those words became until he'd awake gasping for breath and clinging to the empty space next to him.

A few times he had awoken calling for Sansa, certain that he was screaming her name. Instead, he found her name coming from his lips as a whisper, his throat dry and his tongue barely able to form the syllables needed to call out to her. She wouldn't come anyway, he had told himself. He had failed her too. Now with that realization, her voice joined the choir in his nights of torment. She, too, reminded him of his failures and how she wanted nothing from him, not anymore. From somewhere high above, Sansa Stark perched herself just out of his reach, a little bird singing a song of his undoing.

When a gentle nudging came, saving him from his sleep, Sandor found himself in complete darkness, the sun having long since set. He wasn't quite sure what day it was. It wouldn't have surprised him to find that he had slept through several days undisturbed yet feeling hardly rested.

"Boss," a whisper met his ear. "Boss, wake up."

Sandor grumbled in response, his head pounding and his limbs stiff as he tried in vain to stretch.

"Leave me the fuck alone," he managed on a dry rasp before reaching through the darkness towards his night stand drawer and the gun tucked inside.

"Alberto requested you in the lounge. It's important," the voice spoke again, sounding like Go-Go if Sandor had to place it.

"He can handle it without me. Now get the fuck out of here. I could have blown your brains out and still have half a mind to anyway."

Sandor brought a hand up to his face and pinched the bridge of his nose. Right now, a fistful of aspirin would do quite nice with a bottle of Jack Daniels. With his eyes adjusting to the darkness, Sandor could see Go-Go's form still hovering next to the edge of the bed, shifting ever so slightly from side to side as he prepared himself to stand his ground.

"It's about the guy who attempted the hit on you and Sansa, the one you kept alive. We're starting to get him to talk. Alberto didn't think it'd be right to exclude you from this particular…activity."

Fully roused, Sandor propped himself up on his elbows and sucked in a deep breath. He had forgotten about that man. Somehow, that particular incident had been trumped in his mind, no longer seeming important. However, he knew there was a definite and probable possibility that his and Sansa's attempted hit was connected to what happened to Mirabelle, Thomas, and Vinny. The problem was he hadn't been sober or in his right mind long enough to contemplate the matter.

Sandor sat up with a groan and threw his legs over the side of the bed, resting his elbows on his knees and running both hands over his face until his head stopped spinning.

"Alright. I'll be down there in a second," Sandor growled before getting up and retrieving a fresh T-shirt from his drawer. Apparently satisfied by Sandor's compliance, Go-Go retreated from the room as Sandor slipped on a pair of shoes and pulled his hair back from his face. Even without looking in the mirror, he knew with a certainty he looked like shit, and with even more certainty, he knew he didn't give a fuck.

As he retreated from his bedroom, Sandor could tell it was late. The house was eerily quiet and cast in shadows, the light of a pale full moon pouring in through the windows. Working his way down the stairs and through the kitchen, Sandor caught a glimpse of the time. It was a half past one in the morning. When Sandor approached the door which led to the basement, he felt his body tense. He had hardly spoken to anyone in the past four days, only Alberto when the old man came to inquire about Mirabelle's funeral arrangements.

'I will happily take care of the arrangements, but I thought to seek out your input, if you wish to contribute it. Though, I can understand if it's too painful.' The old man had come to him in a fleeting moment where Sandor was coming down off of one hangover and about to commence his next binge.

'Make it beautiful for her. I don't fucking care what it costs, just make it beautiful,' was all Sandor had said, the conversation, short as it was, enough to make him spiral into a deeper circle of hell than the one he had previously been in.

Retreating down the steps, Sandor could hear the pained squeals of a man. The sounds of interrogation. He was happy his men didn't wait for him to start the process of questioning the fucker. He didn't quite know he had the patience to endure the back and forth of an interrogation, the gradual breaking of someone's will through threats and torture.

As he pushed through the door at the bottom of the steps and stepped into the dimly lit open area of the lounge, the din of the room quieted to hushed murmurs. A dozen or so men were present, all capos with the exception of Alberto who stood in the back of the room. Even in the low light, Sandor could see how some of them paled, eyes widening slightly at the sight of him. Surely, he looked like the dead resurrected, and as such, many appeared as if they were seeing a ghost.

The man that had been kept alive was bound to a chair, blood caked around the corners of his mouth and running down his chin in steams. A handful of his teeth were scattered about the floor. As he shifted a petrified stare towards him, Sandor could see that one of his eyes was swollen shut and was seeping fluid, tears maybe. Upon seeing Sandor looming within the room, the man squeezed his good eye shut and began murmuring pleas as he writhed within the chair.

Situated in front of the bound man was Dorin, a man only a few years old than Sandor who was known for his peculiar eccentricities of the macabre sort. Of average build and a shorter than average height, the man held a quiet, reserved demeanor, speaking only when necessary and when he felt he had something meaningful to contribute to the conversation. The rest of the time he seemed to observe his surroundings, intuiting things no one else seemed to pick up on. Beyond that, he had a penchant and talent for mind fucking people. Although only an associate of the Moriarti, he was ruthless, had a stomach for torture, and therefore was the go-to man for interrogations. He understood how to read people, get into their heads, figure out what made them tick and what made them talk. When that wasn't enough, he'd use force, whatever force necessary. The man wasn't a brute, but he sure as hell knew how to make people sing the truth.

As Sandor walked closer, he could see the bound man's cock and balls were hanging out of his pants, his scrotum having been sliced down the middle with a fine cut. Sandor winced at the sight while Dorin smiled, pleased at his work. Clearly, Dorin had puzzled out this man's most prized possession, the thing he would not part with and the thing that would make him talk if threatened.

"Open your eyes and watch death approach you," Dorin spoke on an even toned voice, one which held the remnants of an accent Sandor was not familiar with, although he knew it wasn't Italian. Bewitched or something of the sort, the bound man obeyed and looked up at Sandor with a flush of terror pooling in his good eye. Dorin smiled once more before craning his head up towards Sandor.

"This man has much to tell. I can see it in him," Dorin intoned, sending a chill up Sandor's spine. He trusted Dorin, but there was something unsettling about the man. It was as if he knew everyone's secrets just by looking at them and saw things no one should be privy to. Finding himself growing increasingly uncomfortable, he looked away.

Shifting to the side so that Sandor could crouch before the man, Dorin slipped the blade of his small knife beneath the bound man's scrotum at the base of his cock, the silent threat hanging over his blade. The man whimpered at that, tears streaming down his cheeks as he once more squeezed his eyes shut.

"Speak the truth," Dorin whispered in the man's ear. "Sandor Clegane and I share a common talent for sniffing out lies. You wouldn't want to be caught telling one."

The bound man sucked in a shaky breath, and his lips moved, but no words came out, only soft gurgling sounds as if all that he wished to speak died in his throat.

"Speak," Dorin hissed as he pushed the knife harder against the man's ball sack.

"Who do you work for? The Severelli?" Sandor demanded before the man managed words.

"N-n-no," the man sputtered, fresh blood streaming from his lips. "One of y-your men hired me and my m-men for the job."

"Tell him who," Dorin snapped with agitation and annoyance growing in his normally tepid voice. The man opened his one eye and settled it on Sandor, an act meant to inspire some sort of mercy, although it was lost on Sandor.

"Vinny," he offered, his composure only fleetingly intact. "He gave me the details of the day, the direction you'd be traveling in, what car you drove, and what I was supposed to do with you and the girl. I swear I don't know anything else. He never said why he wanted you or the girl."

Vinny. No. Not Vinny. Sandor felt as though the wind had been knocked out of him as he sat back on his knees. His interactions with Vinny had been strained in the days before everything went to shit, but nothing would have prepared him for the blow he felt by this sort of betrayal. Alberto seemed to stir behind him, sensing the burden he now felt. Vinny, the man he had once considered like a brother to him, was as good as dead now.

The bound man pressed his lips together and swallowed hard, his one-eyed stare imploring Sandor to find truth in his words. When Sandor did not reply right away, the man began to cry again, defeated sobs blubbering from his bloody lips.

"And what exactly were you supposed to do with me and the Stark girl?" Sandor growled after a long interruption of silence.

"Bring you to Moriarti's. He said someone else would take it from there. He didn't tell me who."

The man was a pitiful sight; he reeked of his own excrement and clearly had been scarcely fed since being here. Beyond that, he didn't quite understand where he was either.

Lowering his eyes as he worked over the man's words, Sandor silently shook his head as he remembered his conversation with Vinny on the car ride to the motel. 'I don't know, boss. I would ask Marco, but no one's heard from him.' Sandor was willing to bet that Vinny had heard from Marco. The words he spoke had been too vitriolic, and the inclusion of Marco's name in that conversation was now raising red flags. We were all supposed to die. And Vinny was the one who set us up.

"What about Mirabelle?" Sandor seethed as he settled a murderous glare towards the bound man.

"I…I don't kn-know who that is," he stammered, clearly fearing what he saw stirring beneath Sandor's eyes.

"It's my fucking sister!" Sandor roared as he sprung to his feet and allowed his face to hover mere inches from the bound man's. "Did they tell you they were going to cut her open and bleed her out?"

With his eyes squeezed shut once more, the man frantically shook his head as the words came spewing out of his mouth which was contorted in fear and pain. Dorin was now pushing the blade harder up against the man's scrotum, blood trickling down his knife.

"No! P-p-please! I-I- I don't know anything about that. I was only supposed to bring you and the girl to Moriarti's. I don't know anything else. Please. I told you. I don't know."

"Did they tell you to fondle Sansa, or did you come up with that on your own?" Sandor raged, his breath coming in heaving bursts from his chest as he remembered the bound man's grimy hands roaming over Sansa's form.

The man let out a mewling sound as he sobbed once more. His mouth opened and closed, but he could not form his words. Instead, he continued to whimper.

Sandor turned towards Dorin who was staring intently at the man, his eyes narrowed in focus with his knife still poised in place.

"Take his cock and balls. He won't need either where he's going."

Dorin shifted his eyes, glistening and an eerie shade of green, up towards Sandor, his mouth curling ever so slightly at one corner before he slowly turned his stare back towards the bound man who began screaming and writhing within his bindings.

"NO! Please. Don't!" Sandor heard as he turned away to face Alberto. Two capos stepped forward to hold the man still as Dorin set in with his blade. The other men averted their eyes in equal measures of discomfort and disgust.

"As soon as Vinny comes to, we're paying him a visit," Sandor spoke loud enough for all to hear. Alberto solemnly nodded his head before casting Sandor a sympathetic gaze and disappearing towards the private alcove.

The bound man's piercing screams were stifled as he was gagged, but even still, his anguished moans and squeals filled the basement lounge. Turning around, Sandor saw the task had been completed, and Dorin was placidly wiping his blade in methodical strokes with a small terrycloth towel.

"Let him bleed out, and then clean up the mess," Sandor grumbled to no one in particular. Out of the periphery of his vision he saw a few of the men nod their heads in agreement.

As Sandor cast a glance around the room, he noticed for the first time that Bronn was not among them, the lack of his presence somehow alarming. He had thought to ask Alberto about it, but the old man was quietly smoking a cigar in the alcove and quite obviously adrift in his own thoughts. Sandor left the man to his cigar and thoughts and retreated upstairs. With each step, he felt the weight of exhaustion set in, although he had slept through most of the day and night. Before turning the corner from the kitchen to head towards the main stair case, his eyes were drawn towards the balcony outside the great room. It was there he saw Bronn outside, his forearms resting against the balcony railing and a trance-like stare cast out towards the desert unfolded in front of him.

For a moment, Sandor watched through the darkness, battling himself over whether or not to go to Bronn. Like all the others, Sandor had not sought him out and now felt a slow pang of guilt reverberate through him for having shunned Bronn. Clearly, the man was suffering just as much as he was, although at a different sort of loss.

With that thought, Sandor made his way out to the balcony and settled himself next to Bronn, who seemed hardly roused from his thoughts as Sandor stood by his side. Instead, Bronn stared off into the darkness of night, his hands cupping an object, although Sandor could not quite make out what it was.

In silence, they stood next to one another, neither saying a word. What was there to be said? Everything perhaps, but nothing because no words, no matter how heartfelt and sincere, would bring her back. And so they stood in silence.

Out of the corner of his eye, Sandor saw Bronn's hands open, and when he shifted his stare down to the object, Sandor saw a diamond ring encased in a small black box.

"I had been waiting for a time when you and I were alone to ask your permission to propose to her," Bronn finally spoke, matter-of-factly yet with grief lining his words.

Sandor sucked in a deep breath and slowly let his eyes close as the words washed over him. This was, undoubtedly, the insult to injury for Bronn. How long had the man been carrying around a ring, waiting for the right moment to solidify all that Mirabelle was to him? When he opened his eyes, he stared down at the ring - its delicate band of small, sparkling diamonds which offset a larger, square cut gem with its own perimeter of small diamonds. It was so distinctly "Mirabelle", and Sandor knew she would have loved it.

"I should have been with her," Bronn sniffled, his voice beginning to crack. "I knew I should have been with her. I'd probably be dead too, but I don't fucking care. At least, she wouldn't have been alone."

Sandor's mouth opened, but no words came. He didn't know how to comfort Bronn. He hardly knew how to manage his own grief, let alone someone else's. Sucking in a deep breath, Bronn tucked the ring back into his pocket and leveled his blood-shot eyes on Sandor.

"I want out," he declared flatly, his gaze never wavering.

"Bronn-" Sandor began as he shook his head, trying to understand the convoluted mess that was his life now. This was yet another punch to the gut. One right after the other.

"I'll help you find who did this, and we'll make them pay, but when it's done, I want out," Bronn interrupted before Sandor could continue.

Sandor felt his anger rising, although it was a petulant sort of anger. He couldn't truly blame Bronn for wanting to leave. However, he felt the sting of the man's words, and it came as a dull pain of abandonment. They were supposed to be in this together until the end. The man took oaths just like Sandor did, but it was just as much a promise to each other as it was to the organization. Neither of them had much family to call their own, so they were to be each other's family.

"What are you going to do?" Sandor queried curtly as he stared back at Bronn.

"I don't know and I don't care," Bronn shook his head. "I just want out." After a moment of silence passed between them, Bronn's eyes found Sandor's, and this time when he spoke, his words weren't so definitive. Instead, they seemed to be imploring Sandor and searching for reassurance.

"Don't you get sick of this shit?"

Sandor nodded in reply. Not a day passed where he didn't wonder why this was all worth it or if it was even worth it at all. He had carved out his niche in the world with blood and violence, feeding the beast of wrath within him while doing so. Whatever appeal it once had, however small, was fading, and yet Sandor had taken oaths, perhaps the only oaths he would ever take in his life. He couldn't leave and especially not now.

"If you need out, there's nothing I can do to stop you," Sandor replied, resigned as he acquiesced to what Bronn so clearly needed.

"No. There's not," the man quietly confirmed as his eyes wandered back to stare at the desert beyond.

"I would have said yes," Sandor conceded as he turned to face Bronn.

"What?" the man muttered, confusion cast upon his countenance.

"You asking Mirabelle to marry you, I would have said yes," Sandor spoke truthfully and without reserve. "You're a brother to me. You don't have to share my blood or marry into my family to be my brother."

Biting his bottom lip hard, Bronn nodded his head, blinking back the tears that were glistening in his eyes.

"I know, Sandor. I know," he exhaled as the tears finally broke free. In a rare moment of affection, the men embraced, their own connection solidified in their shared sorrow. Although it would pain him to see the man leave his life, Sandor would let him go if that was what Bronn needed. The unspoken oath of brotherhood between them seemed to trump the ritual oaths they both had made to the Moriarti organization.

---

Biting her bottom lip to keep it from pouting, Sansa stared at her misshapen cannolis. They hadn't fried up into nice cylindrical shapes like Carmelita's had, but instead, many had popped open, and now the filling was melting slightly out the ends in rivulets of ricotta. Still, they turned out better than the first batch she had attempted. Regardless, Zulu happily chomped on the salvageable cannolis while sitting at the counter, eager to devour the trials and errors of her efforts at authentic Italian cooking.

"Miss Sansa, your cannolis were fantastic as always," the boy declared with a contented smile as he stood up from his seat and dusted the crumbs from his lap.

Smiling in return, Sansa shook her head as Zulu moved behind her to dunk his plate into the sink full of hot, soapy water.

"You lie. They look like tacos," Sansa laughed as she cast a disappointed glance towards what was left of her confectionary monstrosities.

"Yeah, but they taste like cannolis, and that's all that matters," Zulu replied before tipping his head to her and jaunting off towards the basement to join up with the rest of the men.

Retying the strings of her apron and situating it in front of her new button down blouse and skirt, Sansa set about washing the few dishes which remained in the sink as the dishwasher hummed beside her.

In the days after Thomas' funeral, Sansa had continued to marinate on her conversation with Alberto, his words sinking in further and seeming more perplexing with each passing day. The man had spoken deliberately and measured his words carefully, yet it was his unspoken words which both confused and resonated with Sansa the most. 'I fear that he cannot be saved, not from himself at least.' There was a warning behind those words, and if taken at face value, it would seem that Alberto was counseling Sansa to leave well enough alone when it came to Sandor. However, that certainly did not explain the silent pleading she had seen gleaming in Alberto's eyes; the way in which he had surrendered to helplessness and was imploring Sansa to help Sandor, if she could. Seemingly, he was a man at odds with himself.

It hadn't taken Sansa long to decipher that Zulu's continued presence was no coincidence. Her daily goings-on weren't so stimulating as to warrant the boy spending the vast majority of his time with her. She had deduced that someone, Alberto more than likely, had tasked him with keeping a watchful eye on her. Her initial thought was that she was being monitored closely perhaps as an evaluation of her trustworthiness, considering she had failed to inform on Vinny's phone conversation. When her questions about Sandor continued to go unanswered and when her requests to speak with him were rebuffed with a myriad of excuses, Sansa began to understand the purpose of it all. Zulu was meant to be a distraction for her, but board games and movie marathons could only occupy her for so long. Surely, Moriarti must understand that sooner or later Sansa would want to know what was going on with Sandor.

'Sandor is the King of this organization and he wants you to be his Queen,' Alberto had said. Not so long ago, Sansa would have been captivated by the whimsy of those words, enchanted into a picture-perfect fantasy where the Queen of Sandor Clegane's world would have the power to stop the madness and eradicate the darkness.

The girl in her wanted to be enraptured by those thoughts and swept up in the naïve fantasy. However, Moriarti's words held little power except in her own imagination. The power came with what she did with Alberto's counsel, and Sansa was surprised to find that she felt more empowered than anything. She was not a hostage here. That was plain to see. Furthermore, she wasn't just some random girl anymore, the district attorney's daughter, caught up in unfortunate circumstances and biding her time until she got to go home. Inexplicably, she was now a part of this too, forever marked by all she had experienced in her time under Sandor's protection. Others could like it or not, but Sandor had chosen Sansa, and she had chosen him too. The heart wants what it wants, and she would not go back on that now, not after all they had been through.

And perhaps that was the crux of all that Alberto had said to her. The man himself did not have all the answers and was visibly shaken to envision what lay ahead for all of them in the coming weeks and months. However, he did not abide by the belief that Sansa was powerless in all of this. If anything, he revered her ability to affect Sandor, for better or for worse, and was entreating her to rise to the occasion. Rise she did - emboldened and empowered to do what she could.

Sansa no longer cared if some of the made men sniggered at her or if their wives cut judgmental looks towards her. She was not content to melt away, defeated and despondent, by all that had happened. I can be strong. For him and for me, I can be strong. Although Sandor had shut himself away, inaccessible even to Alberto, a day would come when he might need a bit of her strength, as she had once needed his, and it would do well for her to be there for him when that day came. Beyond that, there was surely something she could do instead of mope around with Zulu trailing after her.

With these thoughts in mind, Sansa had made her way into the kitchen and approached the eldest of the Italian mothers, a woman by the name of Carmelita who Sansa had met after Alonzo's passing. Traversing an apparent language barrier, Sansa had offered her company and help in the kitchen. With all the men coming and going, there was a small army to feed, and another set of hands would be welcome, or so Sansa suspected. Her suspicions had been correct, and Carmelita had warmly accepted Sansa into the kitchen, setting her immediately to work at the more menial tasks such as peeling and chopping vegetables.

It was a pleasant departure from the turbulence of Sansa's thoughts, and it helped to establish a sort of routine. Sansa listened as the Italian mother's bustled about, speaking half of the time in English and the other half in Italian. They had taught her a few phrases of their mother tongue each day and encouraged Sansa to practice as she rolled out pasta dough or tended to some other task. They even taught her their favorite Italian songs, old standards from pre-war Italy they had learned from their own mothers. At first, Sansa would sing along with them as she learned the words, but eventually their voices would fall away, and they would listen placidly and with tears hanging in their eyes as Sansa sang. She never quite understood what moved them to emotion but imagined it was the words she sang and perhaps the voice she sang them in.

Even Zulu would sit, seemingly mesmerized, as Sansa sang while she worked. Something in the way he looked at her had changed, and as soon as it did, Zulu began spending less time in the kitchen with her and more time with the other made men. At the end of the day, though, he would always come and join her for dinner, eager to gobble up whatever she had tried her hand at that day. Afterwards, he would engage her in shy conversation until he escorted her up to her bedroom where he would wish her a good night's rest before heading off to his own room.

Tonight would be different. Although Zulu hadn't out-and-out told her, Sansa deciphered the fact that the boy had been included in a meeting of Sandor's men. Whether Sandor himself invited Zulu or if it was Alberto, she did not know, but the boy had been positively glowing when he modestly informed Sansa that he would miss dinner with her because he had business to attend to. With the time nearing 9:00 pm as she finished the last of the dishes, Sansa planned on calling it an early evening anyway.

Carmelita fell in next to Sansa's side, picking up a dish and toweling it dry as she cast Sansa a knowing look.

"Sansa, you daydream of man you love," the woman ventured in slightly broken English.

Momentarily, Sansa thought that Carmelita misunderstood, that the woman had somehow mistaken her interactions with Zulu for something more than what they were. When she went to politely correct the woman, Sansa saw the sympathy gleaming in Carmelita's wizened eyes and knew that the woman was referring to Sandor.

"I can always tell when woman daydream of man she love because she most beautiful when daydream of this man," Carmelita continued as she tucked away the dry dishes into various cabinets and drawers.

The Italian mothers didn't miss much, and they had the tendency of filling their days with gossip. Surely, some of what they spoke in Italian had to do with her and Sandor. It was no secret by now that they were involved with one another.

"Thank you, Carmelita," Sansa replied with a soft smile and a shake of the head. "I'm just zoning out is all."

"Zoning out?" the woman repeated, mystified by the phrase if her confused expression was anything to go by.

"I was daydreaming," Sansa clarified with a giggle.

Resting her hands on Sansa's shoulders, Carmelita gave a gentle squeeze.

"He will come to you, tesoro. He will find way back to you."

Sansa bit her lip as she watched the woman upend a bowl of rising dough onto the floured surface of the countertop. Was it that obvious that Sandor was so far away from her, from everyone now, that even Carmelita could see it? Or maybe it was what she saw in Sansa that gave it away - the heartache at not being able to reach him even though he resided under the same roof as her, slept in the bedroom across the hall.

"I hear phrase that say, 'A man heart is in his stomach,'" Carmelita added wistfully as she lifted her eyes to the ceiling in thought while kneading the dough.

"A way to a man's heart is through his stomach," Sansa corrected with a small laugh and a waning smile.

"Ah yes! You make lovely ossobuco, Sansa," Carmelita beamed as she dusted off her hands on her apron and walked towards the fridge. "You bring him ossobuco and he will daydream of you too." Without another word, Carmelita began pulling out containers of the left over braised veal shanks, gremolata, and risotto.

As the woman began piling a generous portion onto a plate and placed it in the microwave, Sansa felt her stomach begin to tie in knots.

"I don't know. I don't even know where to find him," Sansa protested, flustered and imagining that Sandor was undoubtedly in attendance at the same meeting Zulu had scurried off to. Certainly, she wasn't about to interrupt that.

With her nervousness growing more profound with each passing minute, Sansa watched as Carmelita delicately arranged the plate of food on a serving tray along with a half glass of merlot, a few of Sansa's misshapen cannolis, and the appropriate silverware.

"Go now, child. You find his heart," Carmelita urged as she handed Sansa the tray and shooed her out of the kitchen with a well-meaning smile.

For many moments, Sansa stood in the darkness of the foyer, wondering in which direction she was even supposed to go. Gasping, she realized she was standing in the same spot where Mirabelle's broken body had been laid out; the spot where Sandor and Bronn loomed over the woman's bloodied form with their anguish and devastation echoing throughout the foyer.

Terrified and suddenly feeling sick to her stomach, Sansa fled up the stairs as quickly as she could without spilling the contents of the tray, each of her steps careful yet hurried as she made her way towards the only place she could think of to seek Sandor out. If he wasn't with his men, he would likely be in his office. In her first days here, Sansa's curiosity had compelled her towards the third floor, seeking out whatever mysteries remained up there. She had careened into Sandor in the hallway and knew now that his office was on the third floor, although she still had never stepped foot in it.

Sansa sucked in a deep breath as she reached the third floor and made her way down the pitch black hallway towards the office at the end. It all felt forbidden, and perhaps that was what compelled her now to seek him out. And for the first time in a long time, she knew to fear him, and yet that intrinsic knowledge wasn't enough to force her to turn back. What she felt in her heart remained incongruous and at odds with the thoughts tumbling wild about her mind.

As she approached his office door, the dinnerware on the tray began to rattle in time with the shaking of her hands. Gripping it firmly in one arm, Sansa brought her other hand up to knock on the door, the softness of her rapping a product of her hesitation. When no answer came, Sansa thought to turn away and return to the kitchen. A part of her wished defeat in this particular endeavor, and she imagined the relief she might feel upon returning downstairs unsuccessful. Rather than turn away though, Sansa's hand - trembling and now clammy with a layer of sweat - reached for the door knob, and with only a gentle push, she was finding her way into the darkness of the office.

With the blinds of the windows behind Sandor's desk open, the light of the waning moon illuminated the room in soft light and guided her steps towards his desk. If anything, she could leave the tray along with a note and go. When he returned from his meeting, the food would undoubtedly be cold, but what it represented - a peace offering and something to lift his spirits - would remain intact. As she approached through the darkness, Sansa could see his chair was turned towards the window, and he was in it; the top of his head was visible over the back of the chair as it swiveled ever so slightly from left to right.

The beating of her heart in her own hears was deafening, and Sansa was certain he must hear it along with the clattering of the dishes on the tray. Both undoubtedly indicated he was not alone in the room, and yet he did not turn around to see her approaching.

"Sandor," Sansa finally managed, her voice sounding frightened and small. The swiveling of the chair stopped abruptly before slowly turning towards her. Sandor's form was nothing more than a silhouette, only certain aspects of his features visible in the dimness of light and the sight sending cold tremors through Sansa's body as she began to shake.

You have to be strong. For him and for you, be strong.

Pulling in a deep breath and steadying her hands the best she could, Sansa carefully traversed the remaining distance and set the tray down on his desk, happy to be rid of the thing and amazed she hadn't dropped it.

"I thought you might be hungry, so I brought you something to eat," she informed nervously, wringing her hands together as she shifted uncomfortably from side to side. Even in the darkness, she knew he was staring at her. Unlike his shadowed form, she was cast in the lunar light pouring in through the window, her visage entirely visible to him. The unmistakable heaviness which accompanied the intensity of his stare pressed against her, stifling her breath until it came ragged through parted lips.

"Sansa," he murmured before holding out one hand to her. His voice was a weak rasp, languid and sounding frail. For anything about Sandor to seem frail was an odd thing, and to hear him thus was simultaneously disarming and perplexing. Sansa circled around his desk and came to stand in front of him as he turned his chair to meet her approach. Even from where she stood, Sansa could smell the alcohol on him, and when her eyes shifted towards his desk she saw a bottle of whiskey sitting next to a half-empty cocktail glass.

Sansa's attention was pulled back towards Sandor as his hands settled on her waist, and he coerced her towards him with a steady yet gentle force. Standing between his legs as he stared up at her, Sansa rested her hands on his shoulders, her fingers entwining in the strands of his hair.

"You should eat something," she all but whispered to him, her words a caress.

"Eat something," he scoffed on an exhaled breath.

Nestling his face against her stomach and breathing in deeply, Sandor began working his lips in soft kisses up towards the bareness of her chest afforded by her button down shirt. One of his hands settled at her cheek, and as he craned his neck up, Sandor urged her towards him until their lips met.

Unbidden, Sansa's lips parted for him as she wrapped her arms around his neck, soaking up the warmth of his embrace. His tongue worked in circles around hers, each pass tasting like whiskey and becoming more urgent than the last. Like a man starved, he feasted on her lips, licking and nibbling with satisfied groans.

"I've thought about you," he whispered against her mouth as he pulled away ever so slightly. Sansa's eyes fluttered open as his lips began grazing the skin of her cheek and down to her neck where he started in again with hungry nips and kisses.

"I've thought about you too," Sansa replied timidly. His touch - gentle yet deliberate - felt divine, and yet her mind remained ill at ease and hesitant to give in entirely. "I've been worried about you too," she added, hoping it might slow his ministrations as her body went stiff within his hands.

"Don't lie to me, Sansa," he grumbled against her throat as his tongue worked in smooth circles over her collar bone and down towards the crease of her cleavage. "You want nothing to do with me. Said so yourself."

Sansa's mouth fell open, agape as she thought of what she might say. There was so much left unsaid between them; words thick with regret and fraught with a need for forgiveness. However, those words seemed to flee her now. Managing anyhow, Sansa lowered her eyes despite the darkness, shame pulling her gaze away from him now.

"No. It's not that. I just…" Sucking in a deep breath, Sansa struggled with whether or not to free the words from the tip of her tongue. "I just thought that you and the blonde haired woman from the funeral…" Sandor pulled slightly away from her, although his grip on her waist remained firm.

"You want to know if I fucked her," he stated matter-of-factly and with a faint amount of amusement in his voice. Sansa could not see the humor in the situation and instead felt as though she had perhaps overstepped her bounds in some way. Her cheeks burned both with embarrassment as well as fear of whatever truth he might offer her now. He would not lie to her, she could be sure of that, and perhaps that was what scared her the most and beckoned her heart to begin thrumming loudly in her chest once more.

"It's really none of my business," Sansa responded, steeling herself and steadying the tremor of her voice the best she could. Without her consent, the emergence of tears stung her eyes, and Sansa shifted her gaze towards the window before they threatened to break free.

"No. I didn't sleep with her, Sansa," Sandor responded quietly, his hands smoothing up and down her back in tender motions. An inaudible sigh of relief broke from Sansa's lips. She had expected him to perhaps get angry with her, to tell her that she was no longer privy to knowledge of how or with whom he spent his time. Or worse, he might have confessed all that transpired with him and the blonde haired woman - hard and heavy truths which would shatter her heart, the one which wasn't supposed to belong to him anymore. She had fallen silent, and Sandor seemed to notice. Leaning forward, he brushed his lips against hers in a soft kiss.

"Do you know why I didn't?" he whispered against her mouth, his hands settling on her hips now. He didn't wait for her to respond to his question and instead offered a different sort of truth before her mind could come up with her own answers to his inquiry. "Because she wasn't you."

* Moving from her hips, Sandor's hands slowly navigated up the smooth bareness of her thighs as they settled beneath her skirt. A small gasp escaped her lips as two of his fingers hooked beneath the band of her underwear, pushing it aside as they dipped into the emerging wetness between her legs.

"Sandor, I think-" Sansa began on a tremulous breath, hoping to speak what was in her own heart before this all went too far, but was stopped short as he slipped one long finger inside of her.

With his thumb spreading the wetness up to her clit in slow and pleasurable circles, Sansa felt the words die on her lips once more. Some part of her knew she should tell him to stop, that this wasn't the way to amend all that had been broken between them. However, her body betrayed her as she writhed beneath his touch, wanting more as he deftly reached all the spots that made her hum with moans of pleasure. Another flush of wetness pooled between her legs, and Sansa was sure Sandor felt it as his own stifled moan broke from his lips.

Abruptly and in one fluid motion, Sandor pulled his hand from beneath her skirt and stood up from his chair. Sighing in equal measures of relief and disappointment, Sansa looked up at Sandor, wide eyed and a bit confused as she waited for him to say something. Instead, he ducked down and captured her lips in a kiss, slow and sensuous, as his fingers made quick work of the buttons at the front of her shirt. Sansa froze in his grasp when he lifted her by the waist and settled her on top of his desk, hurriedly pushing aside stacks of papers and various office supplies as he gently laid her down.

Carefully, he spread her legs and settled himself between them, gazing down as her skirt fell to expose the expanse of her thighs. Sansa's chest rose and fell with each frantic breath, drawing his attention now to her breasts. Resting one hand on either side of her head, Sandor eased himself down on top of her, pressing a soft kiss to her lips as she stilled beneath him.

"I'm not going to hurt you," he assured as he stroked her cheek with the back of his fingers before pushing down the fabric of her bra down to free her breasts.

Although her eyes were squeezed shut, Sansa nodded her head and felt him kneading her bare breasts. Once more, her body and mind battled over what was right. She could stop him now before it went too far, but if she searched herself, Sansa knew that wasn't quite what she wanted. She wanted to be close to him again, to have everything as it was before. She wanted to fall asleep in his arms at night and wake up to him in the morning. She wanted him to be the one she dined with in the evening, the one with whom she spent her days.

Sansa felt the warmth of Sandor's tongue swirling around each of her nipples in turn until they hardened to taut buds. His moistened lips ran lower still as he trailed doting kisses down her bare stomach until he stopped at the top of her skirt.

With his hands running down the outside of her thighs, Sandor stood up, and Sansa felt as he hooked his fingers beneath her underwear at the sides of her hips. With her own body dictating her motions, Sansa lifted her bottom up slightly from the desk so that he could pull her underwear free from beneath her. She watched him as he pulled the panties down her legs in a smooth, unhurried motion, his form imposing as he loomed over her. She should have been scared and thought perhaps she was stupid for not fearing him now. However, his motions - assured and so obviously eager with want- were thrilling and somehow erotic despite the danger of it all. He said he won't hurt me, Sansa reminded herself as her inner voice - prudish and chiding - called for a stop to all of this. Soaked with wetness between her legs, Sansa ached for his touch again - the weight of his body on top of hers and his fingers moving through the slickness between her folds.

Somehow sensing this, Sandor let the panties fall to the floor and gently gripped her by the knees as he spread her legs open. Even in the darkness, Sansa could tell he was casting an appreciative gaze about her body, ready and wanting for his touch. Slipping a finger inside of her once more, Sandor curled it as he stroked inside of her at that exquisite place she was never quite able to reach herself. Letting her head drop back and her eyes flutter shut, Sansa's body went limp, her limbs all simultaneously releasing the tension they had previously held.

Starting at her knee, Sandor traced his lips down the inside of her thigh, dawdling in lingering kisses and licks towards the hand working between her legs. When his lips reached the end and his cheek was flush with his hand, Sandor stopped and pulled out of her, his mouth hovering just slightly above her wetness spread before him. Sansa could feel each of his panting breaths warm between her legs until he moved closer, his lips pressing against her slit.

With an exploratory swipe of his tongue, Sandor gave a gentle lick between her folds, and urged on by the breathy moan that escaped her lips, ran the tip of his tongue in tight circles over her clit, interrupted every now and then as he sucked gently on the nub of flesh.

With a shudder moving through her, Sansa arched into him, her legs falling open even further as he thrust two fingers into her, stroking her from within as his tongue eagerly lapped at the wetness and teased her clit with flickering movements. With her heart racing and body humming, Sansa lifted her head slightly, marveling at the sight of him between her legs and riding each wave of pleasure with whimpering cries escaping her lips.

Sandor's tongue eagerly took the place of his fingers as he pulled them from Sansa and settled his hands on her hips, stilling her uncontrolled writhing. His tongue worked against her entrance, licking with soft passes before shallowly submerging into her as the pad of his thumb pressed gently against her clit. Looking down once more, Sansa saw Sandor was looking up at her, his eyes devilishly taking in the sight of her panting and moaning on increasingly labored breaths. Once more, he seemed to intuit what she wanted as two fingers slid back inside of her and his tongue reclaimed her clit with a delicate lick.

As the rhythm of Sandor's movements increased in speed, Sansa felt the surmounting pressure between her legs and buried her hands within the strands of his hair as her head fell back against the desk with a thud. The momentary throbbing of pain at the back of her head was eclipsed by the sudden release of pressure between her legs which was quickly followed by a frenzy of rapturous euphoria reverberating as a shock through her body.

As Sansa went limp and sighed out the final wave of her release, Sandor lifted himself from between her legs as he licked his lips, panting as he lowered himself on top of her and pressed his mouth to hers. As her lips parted against his, Sandor immediately deepened the kiss, and Sansa willingly obliged, although she was a bit scandalized at the taste of herself which lingered on his tongue. Wrapping her arms around his neck, Sansa pulled Sandor closer to her but was met with some resistance, as his hand had reached down between them and he fumbled with the zipper of his pants.

Before Sansa could protest, Sandor had already pulled the hardened length of his manhood free from his pants. With her eyes wide and staring up at him uncertainly, Sandor gazed back at her, the lust gleaming in his eyes and clear as day despite the dimness of the room.

In slow, fluid movements, Sandor bucked his hips against her, his cock settling between her folds and sliding up and down the soaking wetness there. Sansa let out a gasp as Sandor guided the head of his cock to circle around her entrance.

"Little bird, I can make you feel good," he murmured as he began running his tongue down her neck, terminating in kisses when he reached her collarbone and working back up to her lips. "And you can make me feel good too," he moaned breathlessly as he rocked into her, his hips moving against her as he began sliding the tip of his manhood up and down her slit.

"Sandor," was all Sansa could manage as she began to tremble beneath him, terrified she had let this all go too far and that he might not stop now. Before she could say much more, he interrupted, smoothing her hair away from the sides of her face with as much gentleness as she had ever seen in him.

"I want you, Sansa," he whispered before softly pressing his lips to hers. "I've wanted you. Only you." Once more, the tip of his hardness was pressing against her entrance, but this time she felt the pinching of pressure as he waited for her consent, the smallest traces of encouragement.

"No," Sansa breathed with a shake of her head, her voice quivering.

"Sansa," he murmured, his voice pleading and his lips brushing against hers as the pressure increased between her legs.

"No!" Sansa cried, her hands now pushing against his shoulders, although she didn't have to push much at all. He was already off of her, chest heaving as he mumbled curses beneath his breath and he rubbed his hands hard over his face. Tucking himself back into his pants and falling into his chair, Sandor rested his elbows on his knees and cradled his face in his hands, his body seeming to tremble as he pulled in shaky breaths.

* Standing up, Sansa buttoned her shirt up and smoothed down her skirt before tugging on the pull chain of the tiffany lamp situated at the corner of his desk. As the orb of light illuminated the space between them, she was now afforded a complete vision of him for the first time and saw what he had been trying to hide in the darkness.

As he settled back in his chair, Sansa could see his eyes no longer held a resigned emptiness nor had he barricaded himself behind the visage of numbness. To look upon him now was to see the face of suffering; his eyes were swollen and red, the mark of tears not long ago shed, and even now his lip seemed to quiver as his eyebrows were drawn together in an expression of both grief and embarrassment at being seen like this. Sorrow had clearly caught up to him, seizing him with a vengeance that was externally visible.

"My God. Look at me," Sansa breathed as she stepped towards him and caressed both of his cheeks with the palms of her hands. He stilled beneath her touch and swallowed hard but refused to meet her insistent and worried stare. "You're scaring me, Sandor. Please look at me."

At that, he squeezed his eyes shut and gave a small, almost indiscernible shake of his head. It was too much to ask of him, she knew. The man had prided himself as a pillar of strength, indestructible and impervious to the human condition. He had fashioned himself as such by mortaring away all the cracks in his façade until he was impassible - stoic as stone unless provoked into wrath and rage.

Leaning forward, Sansa wrapped her arms around his neck and pressed her cheek against his before murmuring into his ear.

"Let me help, or if not me, let someone help. Please. You can't go on like this."

For a moment, she felt his body - rigid and trembling - soften a bit in her arms, and she thought he might relent. Pulling away, Sansa rested her hands on his shoulders, and although his stare was still cast away from her, she could see the hurt brimming in his eyes and the faint glinting of moisture pooling there.

If he looked at her, it would all fall apart. For her and for him, it would fall apart and she didn't know if she had the strength to hold it all together on her own. He must've known because he steadied his gaze further away from her, but still she saw he was already coming undone, his world crumbling around him. Somehow the rage had fled, and Sansa saw what existed beneath it: a good man who had lost all; watched it slip through his hands, powerless to stop it. A man who had suffered so profoundly in this life and had only wanted a little light in all the darkness, something to hold onto. It was so little to ask, and yet the heavens had denied him. Unmasked and stripped bare, Sansa saw him for who he was. He hadn't willingly showed her this, but she saw it all the same.

Chin tipped up and head held high, Sandor's eyes remained at some invisible point in the darkness beyond his desk. His chest heaved as his breaths deepened, and he bit his bottom lip hard. Sansa knew he was scrambling to put it together again and make himself appear whole to her.

"I don't need your fucking help, girl. I didn't say I needed you. I said I wanted you. There's a difference."

If Sandor meant to find strength and truth in his own words, then it was his voice which betrayed him, rendering him a liar as it faltered with a quivering and weakened timbre. Whatever unyielding resoluteness he hoped to pack behind those words was lost. Moving one step closer to him, Sansa reached to cup his cheek but was stopped short as his hand flew up and encircled her wrist.

When his gaze snapped towards her, Sansa saw the anger returning to his eyes, battling the pain to fill him with a different kind of torment. Shoving her hand away, Sandor's eyes flickered across the desk until narrowing on the bottle of whiskey that had been pushed aside.

Somehow finding her strength, Sansa moved away from him and snatched up his glass of whiskey before upending its contents into the small waste bin next to his desk. Before he could reach for it, Sansa grabbed the bottle of whiskey. Clutching the bottle to her chest, Sansa turned towards Sandor and steadied her eyes on him.

Maybe others would let him continue down this path, either too afraid to stand in his way or to deny him anything in his state of bereavement. He can rage at me all he wants, but enough is enough.

"No more," Sansa asserted, her voice strong and determined now. "This has to stop," she added a bit softer.

As Sandor considered her with a furious glare, she thought he meant to say something, but instead his voice erupted into low, sardonic laughter. It sounded more akin to a growl and resuscitated Sansa's fear of him. Ducking down, she snatched up her underwear on the floor and retreated away from his desk in quickened paces. By the time Sansa had made it halfway across the room, she heard Sandor fly from his chair and his fists pound on his desk.

"Go on! Go run back to the kid," he raged before giving the tray of food a violent shove, sending it careening off his desk as plates broke and cannolis scattered across the floor. "You think I don't know that Zulu's been up your ass since all of this happened? Is he up your cunt too? Wait, don't tell me. He needs you too."

She knew she should have left without turning around. She should have slipped from his office without response and shut the door behind her, leaving him to his fury. However, it was the way in which his voice broke off that startled Sansa: the pain that reverberated through the vitriol of his words and the fear she heard behind it all, the fear that he might lose her too.

Turning around before she reached the door, she saw Sandor standing behind his desk, his eyes searching her out in earnest through the darkness. She had seen him enraged before, knew all too well what that looked like on him, but that wasn't what she found when she turned to him. Instead, he was defeated, a man no longer willing to fight against all that besieged him. He had conjured up words meant to wound her, to cut her so that she might hurt in the same way that he was hurting now. They could suffer together at all the pain, real and imagined. Endlessly they could go on like this - hurting one another and separating to lick their wounds before coming back for more, but to what end?

No more. This has to stop.

"No, Sandor," Sansa spoke, entreating her words to find him in the darkness and gentle the rage, soothe away the pain. "You're the only one. The only one I see. The only one I want." In the end, it was she who now felt defeated, her voice forlorn and routed.

Having seen enough, Sansa lowered her eyes and left before it all came undone completely. With quickened steps, she retreated down the hall and all but ran down the steps when she reached them. As she turned the corner of the landing separating the second and third floors, Sansa had hardly seen Zulu coming up the stairs until she was careening into him. Holding his hands out to steady her on the step above him, the boy gave a nervous laugh before looking up at her with a relieved smile.

"Zulu," Sansa exhaled as she clutched her chest, certain the boy had been on a mission to give her a heart attack.

"They said you went to talk to Sandor," Zulu explained, his eyes surveying her and seeming to grow alarmed as he puzzled out her distress. "So I was coming to look for-"

His words stopped short as Zulu's stare landed on the items Sansa was clutching in her hands. Casting his gaze away, Zulu bit his bottom lip as his countenance now seemed to fracture with disappointment and hurt. Mortified, Sansa tucked the hand holding her panties behind her back and tried to summon an explanation. When nothing came, Zulu looked up towards the third floor, his eyes wide with disbelief and anger.

"Did he hurt you?" the boy demanded, putting more force behind his voice than Sansa had ever heard in him before. Before Sansa had time to answer, Zulu moved forward, trying his best to work past her in some gallant effort to fight whatever battle he thought she needed him for.

"No," Sansa shook her head adamantly as her arm flew out to block Zulu's path. "I'm fine. It's fine," she reassured with a weak smile. Nodding his head in understanding, Zulu lowered his gaze but not before Sansa saw the pain and defeat in his eyes.

"Zulu." Sansa tried to reach out to him, but he would not look at her and instead began working his way back down the stairs.

"I'll take you back to your room, Miss Sansa," was all he said, and Sansa trailed a few steps behind him, wishing there was something she might say to ease whatever disappointment now resided within him. When they reached her door, Zulu tipped his head to her, his gaze still downcast.

"Good night, Miss Sansa," he muttered politely before turning to leave.

"Zulu, please," Sansa called after him. "I'm sorry," she added, not knowing what exactly she was apologizing for or what else to say. For a moment, Zulu said nothing but instead shook his head as he stared at the ground.

"You would tell me if he hurt you, right?" he asked with a fair amount of hesitance as he finally met Sansa's eyes. Full of concern and perhaps regret, he seemed to be pleading with her. "If he ever laid a hand on you in any way you didn't want, you would tell me?"

Sansa met his insistent stare and nodded her head firmly, truthfully.

"I would tell you," she spoke quietly, her voice falling to a hush in the darkness. "He hasn't hurt me. He wouldn't hurt me."

Although Zulu nodded his head before turning away, Sansa knew he didn't believe her, wouldn't allow himself to. She didn't know what he believed in, but it was plain to see it wasn't the idea of her and Sandor together.

Once safely behind her bedroom door, Sansa readied herself for bed and crawled in between the sheets. For one hour or perhaps more - she couldn't quite tell for sure - Sansa lay awake, staring at the ceiling before thrashing about as she tried to find a comfortable position and waited for sleep to take her. It never did, and instead she found that her only companion in the darkness of night was her own troubled thoughts.

Sandor wouldn't hurt me. He wouldn't. Sansa wondered if she believed her own words, although she imagined she did. True, he had hurt her in some ways, but she never honestly believed he would ever hurt her in any serious or permanent way. However, to an outsider looking in such as Zulu, Sansa knew the picture of her coupling with Sandor was painted in different hues - dangerous and something to approach with concern and caution. Even more cause for concern might be the way in which Sansa was unwilling, now, to leave him and abandon him alone in his suffering.

Some would call it naïveté, that she was a young girl inexperienced in love and blind to the cruelty of the world. They might think she hadn't lived long enough to know how a broken heart changes you and that you heal from it a bit harder, calcified to wariness and cynicism with each break. Some might look upon her and think 'That poor girl. This is nothing but the whimsies of young love. She thinks she can save him. Bless her heart.' Well-meaning as the words may be, Sansa could almost hear the condescension and see the judgment in others' eyes.

She knew little of how the logistics of love worked, but she knew it didn't flee at the first signs of hardship. Steady and strong was the love she envisioned because only then can it be called true. Others could call it foolishness, and they could warn her she was offering herself up to the flames, likely to be burned.

Perhaps there may be a shred of truth in all of it. She had once been naïve, had once been blind and more than likely foolish. But what many might fail to see is that it was, for all those reasons, why she was the best equipped to help him and to love him. Sansa's heart had not grown bitter, and she was not a hardened cynic who no longer believed that love held a mysterious sort of power - a power which could chase away darkness even from the most blackened of hearts.

She didn't care what the others would think of her; they could scoff, they could condescend, they could worry after her endlessly and try to school her into their ways of thinking. Sansa didn't care because her own heart had already decided what needed to be done. I must be strong. For him and for me, I have to be.

Closing her eyes, Sansa prayed. Not to any god, but to him, to Sandor.

I don't know where you've gone to, and I don't know if I can reach you there. But I will follow you through the depths of your own darkness, the personal hell of suffering you find yourself in. Perhaps you won't see me through the darkness, but you will feel me there. I will wade through the rage, weather the wrath, and suffer the sorrow. Even if it destroys me, I will stay by your side. I will bring you back.

---

His office was a mess by the time he was done: books pulled from shelves, papers ripped to shreds and strewn about, broken shards from the various trinkets Mirabelle had decorated the room with, gaping holes in the wall, and pieces of colored glass from the lamp glinting in the serene moonlight. It was madness amongst beauty. Sandor was left alone in darkness, sitting in the middle of the floor as he pulled in deep breaths to calm himself and released them in huffs.

He was sober by the time Sansa left - delirious and reeling despite having all his faculties about him. He much preferred the haze of drunkenness; the way the world would blur together and the details never quite seemed to matter anymore. Everything faded to black then, and he found he much preferred the darkness too.

Exchanging one vice for another, he had wanted to take Sansa right there on his desk - to plunge inside the warm wetness between her legs and watch her face contort in pleasure as he brought her to yet another climax. It was the only way he knew to get closer to her, and that was what he had wanted, really - an intimacy he knew he couldn't get and didn't want from anyone else. For the umpteenth time, Sandor licked his lips at the thought, although the taste of her sweetness had long since left.

If she had known he was hanging on by a thread, she might have thought twice about coming to him. He had refused to meet with his men, a meeting which was meant to solidify where they go from here and to begin paving the road forward as a unified whole. Instead, Sandor had hid away as some part of his consciousness began enumerating all the ways he could have saved his sister, the choices he could have made and the paths he should have chosen which would ultimately culminate in her being alive today.

'You could have killed Gregor when you had the chance. Why didn't you?' his mind taunted, and somehow he felt weak against it. You could have protected her the same way you protected Sansa, refusing to let her out of your sight. You shouldn't have let Mirabelle get in a car with Vinny. You knew Vinny was no good. Why didn't you stop it? You could have stopped it. Why didn't you? She's dead because of you. You might as well have killed her yourself.

Seeking sanctuary at the bottom of a Jack Daniels bottle, Sandor had meant to wash all the thoughts away on a sea of whiskey, to drown them out until the black behind his eyes welcomed him with a numbed embrace. It did little to stop the madness, and if anything, it only made things worse by amplifying the wretchedness he felt. 'Put a bullet through your head and be done with it,' had been the last thought he had had before Sansa came to him. If only she could have known all the ways in which she saved him. Mirthlessly, he laughed at the thought, morbid though it was.

Her presence had ignited a sort of frenzy within him. He wanted her in a way he had never wanted another person before. He wanted all of her - wanted to cling to her, wanted to plead with her to make it stop and to fix everything that was broken within him. He had said he didn't need her, and that had been a boldfaced lie, one she had seen plain as day. Yet it was the kindness she had offered him, the selflessness and genuine concern she had regarded him with which had beckoned him to lose control. And he would have too. He would have fucked it all up, ruining the only good thing left in his life if it wasn't for the last thing she had said to him.

'You're the only one. The only one I see. The only one I want.'

With those words - sweetly spoken and possessing a rawness which affirmed their truth - Sandor had truly come undone and thanked every fucking god in existence she hadn't been around to see it. It was pain masquerading as rage which overtook him after she left. He destroyed anything he could get his hands on, broke all the beautiful things around him until his knuckles were bleeding and the mania slowed to a halt, leaving him out of breath and finally subdued to a temporary calm.

Clever little thing that she was, Sansa had taken with her the last of his booze, understanding all the ways he had been self-medicating at the expense of his own sanity and, perhaps, his liver too. You can't save me from that tonight, little bird.

Pushing himself up from the vestiges of his unraveling, Sandor carefully stepped over pieces of glass and broken furniture until he reached the door of his office. The bar in the basement was fully stocked with just about every top-shelf liquor imaginable. While he wouldn't find a replacement bottle of Jack down there, he was sure to find something better, Johnnie perhaps.

When he reached the first floor, Sandor could see from the foyer that the lights were still on in the kitchen, and he could hear the hushed murmurings of conversation. He had half expected to find the women well into their wine cups and still loitering about. Instead, he found his capos perched about the room, leaning against countertops or standing with their arms crossed about their chests and appearing heavy in thought. Marco was conveniently missing from the group, a lost cause it would seem.

Prominent amongst the men were Bronn and Alberto, appearing to share the weight of the world between them. As Sandor approached, his men gave silent nods of respect and cleared the way so that he could stand at the center of the room.

"Louisa called. Vinny came to," Bronn informed somberly and as if he were reading a death sentence. For all intents and purposes, he was. Vinny was on borrowed time, and to look around the room, the others knew it as well.

Made men turned rat here and there, some finding the criminal underworld not what they expected and saw this path as the only way out. Vinny's brand of treachery was different, though. The man hadn't, at least to Sandor's knowledge, cooperated with the Feds. What he had done was worse. He had led Mirabelle and Thomas to certain death, turned on his own kind in the most despicable way.

Blood for blood. Someone needs to pay. Vinny would be for starters. It didn't matter if the man had a wife and kid. Louisa and Briella would weep for him at a funeral by themselves. Perhaps then they would realize the piece of shit they were putting into the ground was a traitor and deserved what he got.

When Sandor's gaze landed on Alberto, the man's lips drew together in a thin line as he cast a furtive glance towards Bronn before lowering his eyes altogether.

"What aren't you telling me?" Sandor demanded as his gaze flickered between the two men.

"Vinny awoke right after visiting hours were over, but the nurse on duty let Louisa see him anyway," Alberto answered, his hands folded in front of him yet appeared to shake ever so slightly. "When I talked to her, she seemed to be concerned and upset. As she was leaving the hospital, she saw a group of men loitering around on the same floor as Vinny's room. Something about it didn't seem right, she said. The men appeared to be waiting for something or someone."

"Our men?" Although his words were posed as a question, Sandor already knew the answer. The capos knew better than to go to Vinny first and without his consent.

"No," Alberto shook his head. "She didn't recognize them, but she did describe one of them as tall, much taller than you, and built like a brick wall. The man stuck out by his sheer size alone."

"Gregor."

As the sound of his brother's name left his lips, something seemed to break free within Sandor, and the deluge of mania returned, quickly reaching a fever pitch. He had already known that Gregor murdered their sister. Only a monster could have slaughtered her with such violence and brutality, simultaneously manifesting both Sandor and Mirabelle's greatest fears.

Rushing from the room in pounding strides, Sandor made for the front door as Bronn called out after him. All the restlessness and rage he had felt stirring within him was now funneled towards a singular focus, and with that focus came a renewed purpose, hinged on a need for violence and thirst for vengeance. There was hell to pay, and Sandor wasn't going to wait another moment to collect on that debt.

"Sandor, we can't go in there without a plan," Bronn called out behind him as he struggled to keep pace.

The man's effort was lost as Sandor pushed through the front door and continued down the front steps, taking them two at a time before barreling down the half-circle drive towards his car.

"Sandor, stop!" Bronn bellowed once more, out of breath both from exasperation and exertion at trying to keep up. It was the way Bronn said his name, tinged with hurt, which ultimately made Sandor stop short of his car and turn around to face the man.

"We do this together, you and me," Bronn nearly pleaded as his eyes matched Sandor's in an intent stare.

Sandor looked away, fearing that his resolve might ultimately be sullied by guilt; guilt at what was now beginning to feel like a betrayal to the brotherhood he shared with Bronn. Turning away lest he faltered, Sandor fumbled for the key fob in his pocket as he paced towards the passenger side door of the car. In the glove box, he retrieved his .45 Glock, checking the ammo before tossing it on the passenger seat.

"What are you going to do? Run in and blow his brains out?" Bronn hollered as Sandor slammed the car door shut and finally turned to look at him once more. "He's in a fucking hospital for Christ's sake," Bronn reasoned in earnest. "This needs to be discreet and after we get everything out of him. It'd be best to wait until morning."

"Vinny brought Mirabelle here, like a lamb to the slaughter, and you want me towait?" Sandor seethed as his hand flew up to gesture towards the mansion.

"Get on board, or get out of my way," he added, spiteful, when Bronn remained silent. Shaking his head, Bronn took slow steps backwards away from Sandor before turning around altogether and heading back inside. Sandor didn't disagree on much with Bronn, and perhaps this was the first time they had ever truly disagreed on how a matter got settled. Although they seemed worlds apart, it was clear Sandor and Bronn both shared in a mutual disappointment in the other.

Slipping into the car, Sandor turned the engine and sped from the half-circle drive. A part of him knew Bronn had the right of it in theory. Despite Bronn's logic and reasoning, though, Sandor had already convinced himself that his suffering - this invading weakness of grief - was a sickness which needed to be bled from him through the wounds of others.

Anguish had violated his existence when it came to court the anger which had already been there. Together, sorrow and rage proliferated to an all-consuming suffering, a force that was devouring him whole. Fiber by fiber, Sandor was becoming a different being altogether - a monster for true who would hurt others before ultimately hurting himself.

He saw this as an opportunity to cast out his silent tormentor and draw out the poison of this affliction through retribution. Vinny would die, and Sandor would no longer suffer this sorrow, or so he reasoned.

By the time he reached the desert highway heading south towards Las Vegas, Sandor noticed a pair of headlights hovering in his rear-view mirror. His eyes flickered to the Glock sitting in the passenger seat before narrowing once more towards his would-be pursuer.

The car behind him frantically kept pace as Sandor navigated the twists and turns of the desert road at a reckless speed. When the highway finally straightened out into a long expanse, Sandor pressed down hard on the acceleration to put distance between himself and the other car. Steadily, the car behind seemed to be gaining on him despite his speed.

Studying the rear-view mirror, Sandor saw but the one pair of headlights, a single car racing after him in the dead of night. Agitation began to thrum within him until it mounted into anger. He wanted to be left alone in his pursuit and thought that that had been made quite clear. Whoever was trailing behind him, though, seemed to match his resolve with just as much fervor.

Gritting his teeth, Sandor let off the acceleration before pulling off to the side of the road. The car came to a screeching halt as he slammed on the brakes and reached across the seat to snatch up his Glock before it careened to the floorboard. Watching through the rear-view mirror, Sandor saw the pursuing car begin to slow its approach, although the distance between them had not been enough to allow for the car to stop in time. Instead, it barreled past him before swerving onto the side of the road and skidding to a halt some thirty feet ahead of him.

Without a second thought, Sandor kicked open the door of his car and sprung out, his gun raised as he clutched it tightly in his hand. He approached the pursuing car, its taillights glowing red through the plumes of dust and sand billowing around him.

Each step was sure footed as Sandor neared closer, the thought of being afraid fleeing him as his eyes frantically searched through the darkness for his pursuer. He hoped it was Gregor, and prayed beneath his breath that he would find his brother lurking amongst the shadows on the side of the desert highway. The last time he had come face to face with his brother, Sandor had missed the opportunity to murder Gregor and put an end to it, once and for all. It had been a grievous mistake, one which had cost Mirabelle her life.

With the thought fueling his rage, Sandor quickened his steps towards the car with a maddening curiosity at who had been chasing him through the night. The dust had settled by the time he reached the driver's side door. Steadying his gun towards the car, Sandor went to yank the door open, but was stopped as it was pushed open from the inside.

Arms raised as soon as he saw the .45 shoved in his face, Alberto slowly lifted himself from the car. Sandor steadied his eyes on the old man. Of course, it would be Moriarti, coming to rescue him from making some foolhardy mistake which might bring shame to the organization. The man should have known better than taking on an orphaned kid full of unbridled and unresolved rage and making him his successor. Sandor wondered if Moriarti regretted it, if the old man had taken stock of his life and found but that one glaring mistake, a misstep which had ultimately only brought him misery.

With bitter thoughts dictating his movements, Sandor stepped forward and pressed the gun to Alberto's forehead, his eyes carefully gauging the man's reaction.

"Put the gun down," Alberto sighed as he lowered his hands to his sides. The man did not fear death, it would seem, but he didn't quite welcome it in the same way Sandor had come to in the past few days. His was a resigned sort of courtship with the only promise life ever made good on - the fact that it would come to an eventual end. He was an old man with no family. He had lived his life and wasn't afraid to die.

"Get back in the car and go," Sandor asserted, his hand descending into an unbidden trembling as Moriarti seemed to stare right through him. "I mean it, old man," Sandor growled, pushing the gun harder against Alberto's forehead. Could he do it? Could he actually turn on the man who had taken him in? Sandor didn't quite know what exactly he was capable of anymore. He had done many egregious things in his life and shuddered at the thought of what else he might be forced, or worse, choose to do.

"If you mean it, then shoot me, Sandor. Pull the trigger and shoot me," Alberto insisted without hesitation. If anything, the man sounded tired, as if he were reasoning with a child and no longer possessed the will to put up a fight. "Go on. Shoot me. Is that what's going to make you feel better? Is that what's going to make this all go away?"

Moriarti's eyes did not falter, no more than his voice did. It was unnerving, and Sandor hated the way the man was staring at him with eyes seeming to see all. He felt exposed and vulnerable beneath the weight of the man's gaze. His jaw clenched as he squeezed the gun tighter in his hand, trying in vain to stop its shaking. Sensing Sandor's unease, Moriarti dropped his gaze to the ground at his feet, lifting his hands up in acquiescence as he did.

"Son, put the gun down and follow me back-"

He had heard Moriarti call him 'son' before, but never quite in this way. It wasn't spoken as a term of endearment for a man younger than him. It was spoken the way a father would speak to his own flesh and blood. Once more, Sandor felt yet another break within him, and this time it released a long forgotten sorrow.

"I had a father and my brother murdered him. And now Mirabelle too. I'm not your fucking son," Sandor fumed, full of venom and spite.

As soon as the words left Sandor's mouth, Alberto snapped an infuriated glare towards him. Shocked into silence at such an abrupt change in the man's normally placid demeanor, Sandor watched as Alberto's thin and bony body began to quiver in what seemed uncontrolled tremors. His hands, usually folded gently in front of him, curled into fists so tight, Sandor was certain the man would draw blood from his palms.

"You are a son to me!" Moriarti screamed into the night, his eyes now as wide as they were wild and a fearsome sight to behold, even for Sandor who wrote the book on rage. "And Mirabelle a daughter." Alberto slammed a fist against the trunk of the car, the sound punctuating his words with angry emphasis. "I've lost one child, and I don't want to lose another."

Thunderstruck, all Sandor could do was stare at the man, only now seeing that he, too, was suffering, and his eyes held all the heaviness of pain one would expect from a parent who lost a child. It hadn't even occurred to Sandor that Moriarti was grieving too. So lost in his own heartache, he had barely recognized it in others.

"Your death wish isn't going to bring your sister back." Alberto continued, his voice and his countenance now fractured with grief. His ferocity had waned, and now his eyes seemed to glisten with the threat of tears.

"She's not coming back, Sandor," Moriarti cried as the tears broke free and spilled over the man's wrinkled cheeks. "You can drink yourself into an early grave, you can run out and get yourself killed, and still your sister is not coming back."

Without realizing it, the gun in Sandor's hand had lowered as his arms fell to his side. Closing his eyes, he saw her; not in her death, but in her life. His baby sister was beautiful again, put back together somehow. Within him, another break came as he felt Moriarti's hands rest heavily upon his shoulders.

"She's not coming back," the man all but whispered. "You must understand. She's not coming back."

Moriarti's words, softly spoken, pounded through Sandor's head as they hammered away at the barricades of grief. With each word, the blows seemed to come harder, and Sandor felt pieces of his resolve breaking away. He would soon shatter against the weight of it all.

"Mirabelle is gone, Sandor. She's gone."

Yet another blow, and now he felt it all falling to pieces. He had sought destruction as a means of healing, and yet it was him who was destroyed in the end, the barriers against all the pain tumbling around him.

"Shut the fuck up!" he roared, his eyes flying open as he pushed Moriarti away from him. The man went tumbling backwards, his fall broken as he stumbled into the car.

"Just stop," Sandor shouted, although the charade of rage was over, unmasked to reveal unmarred anguish.

"Stop it," he pleaded with a whimper as his vision refracted through the emergence of tears. "Please. Stop it. Make it stop."

That was the final break before the release. The sobs came like thrashing waves, breaking through his body as his shoulders shook and chest heaved. Too weak to stand against it any longer, Sandor fell to his hands and knees. The tears he shed were not silent as they had been before. Instead, his sorrow came in wails which broke free from his lips as the tears patted the ground beneath him.

In an instant, Moriarti was on his knees beside him, pulling Sandor into his arms and cradling him against his chest.

"Let it out," Alberto encouraged with a tight embrace. "Just let it out."

With his face buried against the man's chest, Sandor did exactly that for the first time since Mirabelle's body was taken away in an ambulance, his sister lost to him forever. His screaming sobs were muffled as Moriarti held onto him with a strength Sandor had underestimated in the man. Eventually, the tears slowed, more from exhaustion than mitigation of grief, and Alberto released his hold. Side by side, the men sat with their backs pressed up against the side of the car.

"What do I do?" Sandor sniffled, his voice lowered to a rasp. "What am I supposed to do?"

It wasn't a question posed for his consigliere. It was a question for the man who had become a second father to him; a man who took him and his sister under his protection and raised them as his own, a man who, undoubtedly, saved Sandor from himself so many years ago and had saved him once more this very night. Moriarti understood.

They weren't colleagues tied to the same organization. They weren't brothers bonded through the oaths each of them took. They were father and son - not bonded by blood, but by life and by death.

Turning a warm gaze towards Sandor, Moriarti answered, assured and with a vernacular as to suggest Sandor was not alone in this. They had suffered together and would rise again together.

"First, we bury your sister - lay our Mirabelle to rest - and then we go to the mattresses. War is coming."

---

Mafia dictionary

Consigliere: The third man in line in the hierarchy of a family's leadership, beneath the boss and underboss. Traditionally, he is meant to be an impartial party who can give unbiased advice to the boss. However, in the American mafia, especially in the later half of the 20th century, the consiglieri tended towards being a less impartial party and, in some cases, ordered hits and orchestrated murders of soldiers (made men) and even bosses.

Turk: Short for young turk; a young, inexperienced made man

Associate: An individual who works for the mafia, but is not an initiated member.

Tesoro: An Italian term of endearment, meaning "my treasure".

Go to the mattresses: War between rival families. During this time, the made men and their families move to one location for their protection (safety in numbers). Because sleeping situations are limited with everyone in such close quarters, mattresses would be thrown on the floors for people to sleep on. To "go to the mattresses" or to "hit the mattresses" implies war because it is assumed that everyone will be staying in a "safe house" for the duration of the "war".

Song List

Ch. 12

"Why Don't You Do It For Me" The 22-20's

"Bang Bang" Nancy Sinatra

"Afraid" The Neighborhood

"Gone Away" The Offspring

---

A/N: A tremendous thank you to mendedheart and criminal intent for beta'ing this! It's quite an undertaking and it would take longer to get updates out if not for these lovely ladies! They deserve top-notch praise :)

I also cannot thank all you readers enough for the enormous amount of support you give this story. I was certain I'd receive backlash for the events of last chapter, but I was met with nothing but love.

As always, reviews are lovely and very much appreciated. I adore hearing your thoughts, opinions, and reactions to the events of each chapter. It warms my heart and gives me lots of things to think about as I start shaping the next update.

More than likely, this will be the last update of 2013. Happy holidays and a marvelous New Year!