Her heels were unsteady as she walked by Sebastian's side, slightly behind Moriarty towards the helicopter. Her hands were shaking, something she was desperately trying to get under control, and her body language gave off waves of awkwardness the full time until she was stood chest to chest with a big man.

"Miss?" Katherine gave a sideways glance to Jim who stepped back, wrapping his hand around her wrist and eyeing the guy up. In a fight, the stranger would have won without a doubt, but this wasn't a battle of strength. It was a show of power when she was pushed even closer to the man.

Katherine swore she saw him smirking from where he stood to her left as the man's hands dragged over her suit, patting down her waist, arms and legs. Then he moved behind her and checked her back, reach around and down her chest and then over the back of her legs. Had she have only glanced at Jim in that moment, she would have seen the jealousy igniting in his eyes. But she missed it, only fixing her suit when she was declared 'clear'.

Moriarty was first to climb into the aircraft, then she gratefully received a hand from one of the strange men to be able to climb up and take the seat next to Jim, which he tugged her down into. Finally was Sebastian who took the seat opposite them and the three large men filed in after him, taking up the remaining seats.

The engines started without a word passing between any of them, Moriarty kept his face turned towards the window and watched as they lifted off the ground. The whole chopper vibrated and wobbled in the nighttime breeze but before she knew it, then were high in the sky and had started to move forward at a chillingly high speed.

It was the most surreal experience in Katherine's life. The glamour of it all...well almost. She sat next to an insanely powerful man who had just last night fucked her senseless well into the early morning. Across from them his personal sniper and body guard and beside her was some sort of MI5 agent wearing an ear piece. In a helicopter, in the middle of the night, heading God knows where. She felt special...almost...scared too...but special. Jim must have picked her for a reason but she'd leave it until they arrived at their destination to decide whether that was a good thing or not.

Katherine was lifted down out the helicopter by another man who had already been on the ground awaiting their arrival. He ever so gently placed her on the ground and let go of her waist, allowing her to then walk and stand by Sebastian's side. She was there as an employee, she wouldn't stand by Moriarty's side. Not unless he asked her too.

The engine was cut, sending a welcomed calmness over them, but then a man started to lead them in doors. She looked up at Sebastian but didn't get anything back. She was just a walking shell until they entered the house, walked through some soft of indoor garden, and entered a room where a man sat upon a couch waiting for them.

"Ah, Mr Moriarty." He was older than the man she had made up in her head. During the flight she'd pictured a young and stylish man, a one with a freshly shaven face and a modern haircut. But, while this man certainly did have money and show it well, he was in his mid forties and wore small sleek glasses which rested low on his nose. He did were a nice suit though, less high fashion then Jim's, yet he was young and could get away with it. This man didn't even need a good suit to show his wealth however, the house did all the talking for him. "I hope this all wasn't too much of a...inconvenience for you."

"Not at all, Charles." The use of his first name was the first power play, after this man had so politely been formal with Jim. "Your discretion is understandable." Katherine stood a few feet away from the interaction but even as the two very different men shook hands, she had felt the eyes on her. Foreign eyes she didn't want on her.

"I ensure you, your time will be refunded generously." They stepped away from one another, putting some space between them. Moriarty nodded at the hinting of his pay check, but then he followed the man's eye-line to Katherine. "And who is this, young lady?" From the angle of his body, the question was directed towards Moriarty but he held a hand up before an answer could be giving. Power play number two, the command of silencing the other. "No don't tell me, I know this face." Katherine's eyes had been watching him the whole time, but her face had been neutral. A small smile and bright eyes, just like what had been asked if her. His hand fell back to his side as he walked passed Jim and towards her, eyes scanning her form.

LUCY SCOTT

CLEANER

PORN PREFERENCE: NONE

FINANCES: UNKNOWN

FAMILY: DENIS SCOTT (FATHER)

LINDA SCOTT (MOTHER)

OFFICIALLY REGISTERED MISSING (SEE FILE)

WANTED SUSPECT FOR TWO ACCOUNTS OF MURDER (SEE FILE)

STATUS: UNIMPORTANT

PRESSURE POINT... SAMSON MURDERS

ABIGAIL SAMSON (SEE FILE)

PETER SAMSON (SEE FILE)

Moriarty wasn't far behind in following however and stepped up next to Charles. Her eyes moved from the stranger to the familiar face but there was nothing, not ever a smirk. Nothing could be read from those black eyes. And then, just when she though her nerve was going to snap, this man uttered two words which sent her heart skipping a beat.

"Lucy...yes..." It was a whisper at first, but grew stronger as his eyes ran up from her legs to her eyes. "Lucy Scott." Katherine swallowed hard and licked her dry lips nervously. How did he know? Moriarty had told him, he must have told him? Suddenly she was very aware of her surroundings. Why exactly had she been brought here and why exactly did she have to stay close to Moriarty. She guessed this was the man he had been talking about in the car and fought the urge to pull back when he tutted sarcastically. "Naughty naughty girl." She wanted to slap Jim, so much for her knew life. But then she looked at Jim and saw him burning holes into the back of this man's head. He looked furious, but entertained. Worried, yet delighted. He hadn't told him...then how did he know.

Charles made an attempt to move again, but Jim stopped him by speaking up. "Not anymore." He darted his eyes between her and the man, smugly watching his little project and the smile all he enjoyed doing business with...for the most part. The man became interested instantly and smiled at Katherine, laughing. "You'd be wise to remember that, and keep it to yourself."

"Oh?" She forced a smirk as he raised and eyebrow and questioned Moriarty again while she stood there like a lemon. It was hard, listening to people talk about her so openly in front of her face and not being able to do anything about it. It knocked her off the pedestal she'd mounted herself on due to Moriarty's treatment and money. It sent her rolling back down the hill, colliding heads with Lucy Scott. "Then in what way should I edit my files?"

"Katherine Reine. She works for me now." Possessiveness was heavily laced through Moriarty's tone.

"Let me introduce myself. Charles Augustus Magnussen." The man held out a hand to her then and pulled his lips into a tight smile. "Nice to meet you, Katherine." She placed her hand in his and swallowed again. His hand was wet with sweat, Katherine fought a shiver as well as a frown of disgust as he raised her knuckles to his lips.

"The pleasure is all mine." Katherine surprised herself, Moriarty and Magnussen by how soft but uniquely strong her voice was. Like silk falling through the air. And she reeked of elegance, her head even nodding to acknowledge his greeting. But then he must have gathered all of the information he needed, that's what Moriarty figured, because Magnussen let her go and turned back to Jim.

"Should we get down to business, Mr Moriarty?" Without another word being spoken, Magnussen turned him back on them and headed towards a corridor. Katherine couldn't let out a sigh of relief but even if she had been allowed she doubted it would even do anything to relieve the tension in her. But the only mans back retreated to lead them away, Jim looked at her for only a second with his hands buried in his pockets, and he pulled an over dramatic cringed expression. Baring his teeth while pouting his lips and widening his eyes in shock, it only lasted a second before it melted into a casual smile and he fell into step ahead of her.

Good to know he was still on her side. It was also nice to know he was looking out for her, at least that's what he had implied. But he barely looked at her, barely even made a note of her existence while they walked a long corridor to a conference room and even when she took the seat to his left, across from Magnussen. That where they sat, Sebastian and another man stationed outside the closed door as the three of them sat together in an artificially lit room underground.

The men began talking. Magnussen smirking and causing Moriarty's temperature to rise. Moriarty making a remark about his business and Magnussen shrinking back. Neither man knew who was in charge. Neither could win and both were never going to settle as being the user. It was like watching two wannabe alpha-males battling with complicated sentences, statistics and puns. Her mind wasn't listening, not completely anyway. She was far too busy ignoring the man's inquisitive stares and wondering what exactly she was supposed to be doing. Sat there like a useless piece of meat, Katherine could have got up and walked out and nothing would be lost.

But she couldn't. So she was forced to sit there and wait for her to become of use.

"Katherine." Her ears perked up and she looked at Moriarty but he was still talking to Magnussen. "She's proved herself to be capable." Something automatically made her sitting higher in her seat and her eyes focused on Moriarty's hands which danced across the table as he talked. "I think she has the skills." God how she wished she had been truly listening.

"A person with the right skills is easy to acquire Jim." Magnussen's eyes turned on Katherine then. "But a person you can trust is entirely different." Her body stiffened, heels digging into the ground and her hands tightly whinging around each other under the table. "Do you trust Katherine Reine? Or better yet...do you trust Lucy Scott?" It obviously meant something to Moriarty which it didn't to her as his jaw straightened and he leant forward, drawing small circles on the tabletop.

"I'd trust her with this." Moriarty nodded slowly, poking his cheek with his tongue. "You can ask her anything you like yourself, that's why I brought her with me on this lovely morning."

"Showing off your assets?" Magnussen's shoulders jittered as he laughed.

"Quite so." His Irish drawl sang in a chipper, amused way, before dropping back into a dead pan and emotionless murmur. "But you don't have to agree Charles. I can give you someone else, or no one at all and you can do it yourself...your choice." The silence which followed was tense. They literally stared each other down and Katherine looked at each of them for a few moments, moving between them and wondering whether she should speak for herself. But no, it wasn't the right time. So she lay low and waited.

"Miss Reine?" His accent, something was off about it. British but mixed with something else. Katherine looked up, quirked a brow and smiled at the man. She looked confident, however, her head never quite stayed still as she sat always nodding or fidgeting in some way. A lick of her lips, a hard swallow, blinking too much.

"Yes?" She spoke much like she had before, but even stronger as she sat so near to Jim. He said he'd protect her, and she said she trusted him.

"What are these skills your..." He paused and looked Moriarty over in the same way he seemed to do to everyone. Her especially. "...employer mentions?" If the heat behind Moriarty's eyes were a fire she would be getting burned. Something had sparked his temper before he looked to her and nodded, giving her permission to answer. But before she could, Magnussen saw a chance to push another set of buttons. "Ah, obedience. Well...I do like that." Jim tilted his hand forward and swung it around to turn on Magnussen.

"I've listened to people before." Katherine was in so much of a rush to speak before Moriarty took his first bite, that she didn't realise how utterly stupid it sounded. "I mean...I was sent on a job to listen in on someone. Find out some information. Make sure they were telling the truth." That was better, she just had to keep her breathing steady. "I think I blend in better than any big man in a nice suit. I've worked on murder scenes and crime scenes, with blood and bodies. I can cover up evidence better than others I so believe."

"A wonderful secretary too." She must have done something right cause Jim's eyes had glazed over and he was smirking to himself.

"Yes, that too." She found herself chuckling to herself, utterly uplifted by his suddenly casualness. "I've acquired the skill of conversational Russian recently too. Should that be needed." This time Jim laughed aloud and looked to Katherine, sending her a knowing smirk that that was just one giant fib.

"Am I missing a joke Mr Moriarty?" Magnussen's smugness dropped and he watched the pair in front of him with practised scrutiny.

"No." Jim shook his head, silencing his amusement and Katherine's instantaneously. "No...sorry." The silence hovered over them awkwardly for a few seconds until Charles' attention returned to the woman and he got their conversation back on track.

"And what if none of those skills are what I need?"

"I can learn the ones you do need." A little bit of improvisation, that's all she needed. Spontaneous acting and a slowly spreading smile which seemed to be drawing the man in. But there was something brewing, something being calculated in his head, she could see it coming.

"Abigail Samson." The words fell on her like a tonne of bricks. "How did she die?" The top of her cleavage, exposed by her suit jacket, rose and fell with her considerably deeper breathes. She didn't know what to say or whether to even answer, and the second she went to silently ask Moriarty for a clue she was stopped. "No, look at me. How did she die Katherine?" He was right there beside her but she felt totally cut off from Moriarty. Her body grew cold and her persona started to slip, everything she was didn't belong to her anymore. The suit wasn't hers and the nails and hair were hers. She wasn't Katherine anymore and she was taken back to the master bedroom in that townhouse with the gun lying in her hand.

"I shot her, twice." Lucy fell into a gaze, the glossed table becoming very interesting in that moment. "Once in the hip and once in the shoulder I believe." Low and casual, that's what her voice sounded like now. No more smoothness...no more silliness...boring.

"And her husband? Peter Samson wasn't it, Moriarty?" Magnussen threw a dirty smirk across the table at Jim who was too busy watching how the young woman beside him had change. It was fascinating, entertaining almost. He would step in but he was too interested in how she'd climb out of it herself. If she would get out of it herself. "A very powerful man, frighteningly so. I've traded with him myself." He was scaring her, both men could see it in the way she was slowly hunching into a ball. "How did he die?"

"I shot him in the chest. He died instantly." Magnussen's so called 'pressure points' we're doing their job as she sunk even more into the seat and the whisper was barely audible from across the table.

"I suppose that sent a lot of people coming after you?" Moriarty was completely still. Magnussen wasn't just doing this to test Katherine, he was doing it to try and get to Moriarty. His one pressure point, his business...his work. Everything the disgusting, sweating old man was saying, was threatening to send her back to how she was when he'd first picked her up. Undoing everything he'd build up in her for his advantage, sending him all the way back to the beginning. "Tell me Jim, what would happen if those people knew Miss Reine was hiding by your side?"

"It would make no difference, they still wouldn't get to her." He wouldn't allow the blackmailing shark to win, and in the long term it would only make Katherine think he cared. Her knight in shining armour coming to the rescue once again. He said what he did to try and make her feel safe, feel untouchable. And it worked.

"Is that what he's told you Katherine? That you're safe with him?" Katherine looked up and pushed herself to sit up in the high backed chair. Her eyes narrowed, her heels hit against the wood floor loudly as she recrossed her legs and she ran a tongue slowly across her blood red lips.

"I'm safe because of Mr Moriarty. Not with him." In that moment she'd never been more honestly beautiful to him. She was fast becoming everything he wanted and more, she kept proving herself and he was being drawn to her. Jim hadn't expected her to do as well as she had tonight, he'd give her a treat once they were home.

By the look on Magnussen's face, he too was impressed by her come back. He laughed and linked his hands on the table top. "Tell me. Do you think you could follow someone? Through London wherever they go? Into bars, restaurants, hotels? Find something worth writing about them, for me?"

"I'd do my best. I doubt I'd return empty handed." She shouldn't have wanted to work for this sleazy, sticky, slime ball of a man but she did just so she could prove herself to him. With just a few carefully selected words, she had crumpled back into a little girl but she wouldn't allow it. She was a better person now, she had a life she appreciated and could live with. Katherine wanted to grow more into what she had the potential for and some rich stranger wasn't going to knock that out of her.

"May I speak to you privately Jim." He sat back in his seat with a smile and Moriarty agreed by giving Katherine and nodding gesture towards the only door in the room.

"Go wait outside with Mr Moran, Katherine." She stood without so much as a smile to Charles Magnussen and walked out the room, shutting the door behind her. She didn't look at Sebastian or any of the other men, she didn't make a noise or give any sort of reaction. What she did do was stand so Sebastion was on her left and wait. If only she knew that would be the last she'd see of Mr Magnussen for now, then she might have just cracked a smile.