Author's Note: Thanks to venividivici10andibliniy for the review. I also want to thank all of my readers, known and unknown, for sticking around so far, and I hope you enjoy the chapter.

Translations: 'Come i miei signori preferiti sono questa sera ?', is Italian for 'How are my favourite gentlemen this evening ?'

'Bene, salvo il fatto che ho rotto Smith, siamo bene, Persephone. Come stanno voi e Helen ?', is Italian for 'Well, besides the fact that I broke Smith, we're fine, Persephone. How're you and Helen ?'

'Infine lo avete rotto ? Che cosa pisciava egli sul pavimento o qualcos'altro ?' - 'You finally broke him ? What was he pissing on the floor or something else ?'

'Quanto fortunato per noi, destra, occhi di ghiaccio ?' - 'How lucky for us, right, ice eyes ?'


Fortunato (Lucky)

"Eleven, eleven pm. Not eleven thirty, even if it's only eleven o' one, you are grounded. Do you hear me ?"

As he and Max walked down the driveway, Smith chuckled and responded as he put an arm around Max's waist, "Yes, Father."

Max smothered his laughter into the long-sleeve of his black dress-shirt, before saying, "Dude, he's way too strict on you."

"I know he is, but, at least he cares."

At that, they all shook their heads at the sheer absurdity of the joke and they waved at Cole as they turned onto the sidewalk. Roughly fifteen minutes later, they were approaching the two-storey redbrick building with white, curling fluted arches over the single picture window and the two smaller upper windows. The Sogni Sanguinari sign was in cursive writing, the colors silver on black.

When he looked through the picture window, he saw that nothing had changed since the last time he'd been in it. The ceiling was still a night-time scene, at the center of which was a Blood Moon surrounded by breaking clouds, the walls at the top were silvered fading downward into black. Some of the wait staff in a silver/black uniform, with either a blood-red duster or trench coat over top, walked along the ceiling. The long black-haired and very pale-skinned Vlad 'let go' of the ceiling to land beside one of the mahogany tables, all of which were covered with a silver tablecloth.

'I wonder where Niobe is ? She must be up in the office or on an errand, unless she's still with Mrs. Jameson.'

When the vampire sensed his gaze the Sogni's head waiter, and head of security, looked up before he nodded toward the door with a faint smile; said smile showed fangs before they retracted. It reminded him of when he'd found Vlad with Niobe.

Flashback

It had taken him a long while to convince the Logo's Operator, Sparks, to tell him where Niobe was. 'I know it is only reasonable considering my previous identity, still Niobe could have died in that short amount of time.'

He un-holstered his gun as there was a faint sound from the alley, "Niobe ? Are you all right ?"

As he walked into the litter strewn alley, a body had just started fading and dissolving into the code. Someone with shoulder-length black-hair looked up from where they were crouched over Niobe's prone body - a vampire by the snake-like fangs and the way the eyes briefly shone green in the moonlight. Fresh blood gleamed where it had spilled across the alley floor.

The vampire's voice was quiet, but deep, "She will be, Cujo hit a vein in her neck and she still managed to beat him. Before she passed out, I asked her if she would rather die or become a vampire. Niobe chose the latter and I've given her my blood to start the conversion program."

Holstered the gun as he walked up to the vampire and rebel/future vampire, "Why did you not help her before ? Cujo was a werewolf was he not ?"

"Yes, he was. As for the reason I didn't help her I was supposed to meet her to deliver a packet of papers so that it would be decided if Zion wanted to ally with the Mistress. Ah, that is Persephone, the Merovingian's ex-wife. Anyway, I was waylaid by some of Cujo's werewolves, obviously the French-man doesn't want it to happen."

"Well, all the more reason to let it. I will give it to Neo, so that eventually it will reach Zion's council. When you see her tell Persephone that I am glad she finally acted on common sense."

"I will, hmm, it just surprises me that you're actually dating Neo."

Persephone's voice, husky and faintly accented, "Enough Vlad, let Smith get back to his dear love; we need to get Niobe somewhere comfortable before the conversion finishes and she wakes up."

He looked briefly at the pale-skinned and black-haired woman, the older A.I. just smiled slightly, "Go on, shoo.", and waved him away.

End Flashback

Max nudged him out of the memory and toward the door as he said, "C'mon, we've got to get in line before more people come."

They got inside and waited by the hostess/cashier area; they watched as Persephone in a tight, dark-red dress that was covered with a black and silver shawl, showed an elderly couple to the center table. When the pale-skinned woman walked up to them she called, "Come i miei signori preferiti sono questa sera ?"

Max smiled and replied, "Bene, salvo il fatto che ho rotto Smith, siamo bene, Persephone. Come stanno voi e Helen ?"

"Infine lo avete rotto ? Che cosa pisciava egli sul pavimento o qualcos'altro ?"

It made him roll his eyes as he straightened his cufflink and joked, "I have done neither in quite a while thank you, Persephone."

Persephone's lips twitched, "Of course, you haven't, Adrian.", and then she led them to the table beside the elderly couple's table.

A few minutes later, Miss. Malfoy in a uniform and red-duster with her hair in an even longer ponytail came up the aisle between the tables. The blond girl smiled briefly at him as she walked up to the physically older couple's table.

'I knew they would give her a job. I wonder if she's staying with them as well ?'

Max wondered, "Who is she, Ad ?"

"Oh, I forgot to tell you about her. That Max is Miss. Malfoy, I met her in the cafeteria line this morning after the cashier was being rude and insulting her for something she had no control over."

Max's face was marred by a frown, "That's horrible, I hope you told her that."

"Trust me, I did and funnily enough, no one contradicted me on it."

After Miss. Malfoy finished with the other couple, she moved over to their table. Miss. Malfoy's light-brown eyes looked over them as he introduced Max, before the new waitress took their drink order, leaving menus behind. It was only because Max needed a refresher course that they kept the menus.

While the, compared to Miss. Malfoy, slightly darker blond was looking through said menu one of the ladies beside them asked, "Mr. Smith, wasn't it ?"

He looked over at the tan-skinned and hazel-eyed woman, "Yes, ma'am, can I help you with something ?"

The woman raised her eyebrows before looking at her partner, "Can you believe it, Ethel ? There are some people with manners yet. Ah, anyway, I'm Mary, I was wondering did you know Miss. Malfoy's father ?"

"No, I did not, but my son Cole knew him. Apparently, he was a very hard worker."

"Oh, he was, Miss. Malfoy has quite the shoes to fill, but she's off to a good start don't you think ?"

"Yes, she seems very capable and quite at ease."

His gaze darted to Vlad as the vampire approached their tables, Vlad wore a red trench coat with black-sleeves and a silver-hem that denoted his higher position. "I know you haven't received anything yet, but I wanted to find out how she's doing at the tables so far."

It amounted roughly to, "She's doing incredibly well for her first day on the job. You can hardly tell she's partially deaf."

At the far table beside Mary and Ethel's a man piped up, "Why're you letting her work ? She'll mess everybody up and slow you down, she shouldn't even have a job."

The brown-haired woman beside the man hissed, "Shut up, she's not slowing them down and it doesn't look like she's going to at all."

"She'll fuck it up just you watch."

The woman stood up to leave, "God, you're an asshole. I don't even know why Rose set me up with you."

When she went to walk away, her date grabbed her forearm hard enough for her to yelp, "Let go of me !"

"No ! You don't walk away from me like that you stupid bitch."

People who had been eating stopped to look at the commotion, as he thought, 'He really should not have done that.'

Vlad snarled and stalked up to the man in full fury, "Let her go. Right. Now."

"Oh yeah ? Make me."

Vlad grabbed the man's wrist and yanked his hand off the woman's arm before turning and slamming the man face first into the floor. Said angry vampire then growled, "If I ever hear of you doing something like that again, I. Will. Kill. You. Now get the Hell out of this restauraunt."

Vlad released the man before two other vampires, one blond and the other black-haired, dragged and threw the man outside. Miss. Malfoy spoke up from between the tables startling even himself, "That started because of me ?"

He looked over at the girl to see her holding the tray of drinks and looking dizzy, Max took it from her and put it on the table so she wouldn't drop it. Ethel pulled Miss. Malfoy to sit down in a chair beside her.

Persephone spoke up from where she now stood beside Vlad, "No, Uri, it wasn't your fault, you're doing a fine job. Now, Ms. Keller is there anything my staff or I can do for you to make up for how much of a bigoted prick your date was being ?"

Ms. Keller shook her head and walked over to Miss. Malfoy, "It really wasn't your fault, sweetie. My friend Rose mentioned he was a bit bigoted, but I didn't think he was that opinionated about it. You just forget about that asshole and keep doing a good job."

Miss. Malfoy looked over at himself and Max, both of them nodded in agreement, as they took their drinks, then passed Ethel and Mary their own drinks. After that the rest of the evening went smoothly, at the end of the night between Max and his along with the others table Miss. Malfoy had forty dollars worth of tips for her service.

Some time later, when they entered the house Cole, who stood by the mahogany staircase, muttered, "Eleven o' two, both of you are grounded."

Max mock-whined looking at the light-wooded floor, as Hai barked, "B-but, I want a cookie."

Cole folded his arms over his chest with his best combination father/teacher glare, "No, you can have one tomorrow."

"I want one now."

He interjected with, "You can be my cookie."

The blond gave him a confused look, before bursting out laughing, "Did you really just say that ?"

"Yes, you're sweet and too much of you is bad for me, besides cookies need love like everything does."

While Cole was puzzled, they were laughing so hard they had to lean against the closet to stay upright.

Max gasped, "I…will never…be able… to look at Sati straight again."

"Technically you never could."

"Oh shut up already, you're killing me. Wait, everything's going dark, I-I think I'm dying for the fourth time."

As the blond mock-swooned he caught his sunny life, "Oh no, whatever shall I do ? I know I shall take you to our room and start resuscitation."

Cole gagged, "I'm leaving before I hear anymore, c'mon on Hai.", as he walked past them and opened the door; Hai gave a growling-bark as he followed Cole outside.

The door thudded closed, he grinned, "Well, it seems we have the house to ourselves."

Max opened his eyes, murmuring, "Indeed we do. Quanto fortunato per noi, destra, occhi di ghiaccio ?"

As he replied, "Ja.", the pale-pink lips twitched into a sultry smile.