- Chapter One -

The Heiress

Management was definitely going to kick him out by morning. They were already less than thrilled by the volume of foot traffic on his floor, not to mention that the sheets were hardly ever out of the wash. Could he help it if his partner's contact had harbored a lasting grudge or that the sheets just so happened to be the only thing handy to keep from bleeding out? In his mind he was no more responsible for that then he had any say in whether or not he always had the means to pay them on the spot. Chain and staff alike were compensated in the end, and despite the occasional gunfight he liked to picture himself an otherwise ideal guest. Unless he completely snapped and murdered the assholes next door that fancied themselves the next Stones.

Sleep probably wasn't going to come that night anyways, but his neighbors were determined to quash any remaining vestiges of hope. Ordinarily when slumber proved elusive the brunette would grab a book and brush up on his history, however there were too many external distractions to focus tonight. For the wistful and the night owls the bar was always an option, but by four in the morning nearly everyone nearby had already closed shop.

His little brother - who was more cut out for the home life it would seem - had suggested once that he get some fresh air when things became too much to handle. That was sound advice passed down the ages and through a quipy mouthpiece, but he wasn't much in the mood for wandering aimlessly at the moment. In part it made him dwell on all the things he didn't have.

Eternally sage and much more up his ally when the bike was the shop, there was always Victor's advice: find a warm body to spend the time with. As a man that had lost nearly two decades of his life in a Panamanian clink, that was a path that didn't bear a second thought. And on the bright side of calling out for a friend, paid company meant a pillow with a pulse that would speak as much or as little as he wanted.

Deciding on a course of action to keep from finding a new reason to end up back in prison, the man pulled himself from the leather couch in the sizable living space. The plush vanilla towel around his waist threatened to loosen at the motion, but it ultimately held for the time being. Shower now rendered partially redundant, it wasn't like the cover was going to need to stay on much longer.

Skin still wet from the twenty minute distraction, the adventurer thumbed through the rainbow of sticky notes by the corded room phone. While most would have questioned why there were numbers manually written down in an era of smart phones, he noted that the receiver was stuck down with adhesive. Folks were petty enough to steal anything that wasn't bolted down, however there was neither sport nor gain from such trivial lifts. Locating the number of the most reliable service he knew, the man was just about to place the call when there was a knock on the door.

Who the hell would that be at this time? The sounds of partying had yet to abate, so it wasn't anyone with an apology for him. True it could have been any number of individuals that wanted him to pay for this or that, but most of them wouldn't have bothered to knock first. Maybe there was one person that came to mind, but her beef was more with Victor. Grabbing the gun from the holster hanging from the coat rack and hiding it just behind the door, the grizzled former convict cautiously opened the door.

Blue eyes like a storming sea in the winter and dark coffee curls tousled by a panicked flight met his gaze through the crack. Crochet and cut to ribbons, the top typical of the current fashion left no mistake that the uninvited guest was of a feminine nature (thank you whoever made it okay for even the most modest of girls to show a little skin!). Not quite able to place who she reminded him of, this girl didn't look old enough to scratch twenty by the tooth.

"Please..." Trembling due to the rain soaking through the thin fabric of her sweater, she looked about ready to collapse. "I'm looking for someone."

Aware that this could have just been a ploy to get him once his guard was down, there was something about the uncertainty in her face that reminded him of his little brother the first time he had taught him to climb. He lowered the gun but didn't drop it fully. "Alright, who sent you? 'Cuz it's not even my birthday."

"..." Not even a nervous titter. This must have been serious business and not just a case of a cute tourist that could barely speak the language lost in the rain. Too bad, those were some of his favorite kinds of movies rare as they were.

Placing the gun down on the end table by the entrance, he opened the door more than a sliver. Empty-handed and clothes too tight to hide anything bigger than a knife, it was safe to assume that he wouldn't die in just a towel. At least not today. Much less proficient at sizing up someone discreetly, the young lady was studying his face and doing her best to not blush at his state of undress. Add a few years on the kid, and he could have had some real fun with this one.

"What, do you not like jokes?" So much for levity. "Okay, just let me get dressed and then you can tell me what magic artifact or illegal treasure you need me to steal." Women usually only came to him for one of two reasons, so it was safe to assume that this one was no different. Technically it was only the one thing so far, but there was a first time for everything.

Timid, perhaps by recent experience or possibly just by nature, she somehow had found enough strength to nod meekly in agreement. Complain as much she would want to - though why one would want to deny themselves was beyond him - being naked was just too much of distraction for anyone. Speaking of air drying, it seemed that they were standing there for an inordinate amount of time. He'd say that his time was valuable, but at this point the intrigue was just enough to silence the unmistakable sounds of fireworks a number over.

In the vein of stating her purpose and getting the ball rolling, the kid tapped deeper into the recesses of human capability and politely inquired in her softest indoor voice, "Sam Drake?"

"The only one I know of." At some point Sam would have to ask her how exactly someone as clean as her had come across his name.

Had this girl not appeared to be a minor, he would have been generous enough to toss her the towel off his body and show her what she was missing out on. Instead he deemed the little mouse to be of no immediate danger and showed her inside to the recently stocked towel closet and the living room. "Just sit tight while I go make myself less offensive to your delicate constitution." Abashed, she had taken the towel from the cubbyhole and wrapped herself in it before sitting down as instructed.

Once pants and an old shirt had been applied, the man sat down in the armchair opposite his potential client. Now that they were drying after getting damp from the weather, the limp curls in her face were returning to their originally flat shape. Able to see her eyes more clearly now, he was certain that he had encountered their like before, however he was still failing to put a name to Eve-x. He also noted that her shaking had calmed but had not yet fully come to a stop.

"So?" The floor was all hers.

For just a second he thought that she was there for a little after all when she reached inside the top of her v-neck and pulled out an old envelope. Handing it over, the first thing that he noticed was that it had been written in a hurry - blood dotted the corner like a grim stamp from death. On a closer inspection, the material wasn't quite as aged as he thought - it was just colored to appear that way.

Opening the letter as the girl watched with curiosity etched into her face and every movement, Sam felt a trace of guilt that it had taken the signature to actually be able to remember the name of the woman that resembled this child so strongly. Scanning the contents to see the fresh gore that had smeared further during transport, he only felt worse for how he remembered the woman. But it was long enough ago that he could only conjure up so much remorse.

Faint imprint of regal flower fall on the personal paper as recognizable as the bi-lingual heading at the bottom of the page, the second thing to jog his memory was the jasmine perfume that lingered to the snowy pulp parchment. The rain should have been more than enough to overpower it, yet there was more than a hint left. Bai. Wen Bai (as she was introduced) had written this by hand, the little white bi-sexual herself. Man, that joke had not aged well. Because it was such a gem to begin with.

Supposedly some kind of a legendary monster in the business world (Sam had never seen her in action, but Rafe hadn't been stupid enough to get rid of something that still could have been used to his own benefit), the last he'd heard she'd been running the show. That was hardly different than his tenure in Scotland before Shoreline - or rather Nadine - had become a major presence. History with Rafe aside, at least when the better part of the night had been spent bent over a desk, Sam had put a smile on the woman's face. Apparently there had been more going on behind closed doors than anyone had realized, looking at the kid sitting across from him now.

'Time is Short. I fear that they're on to me. If they can get the proof they need to support their claim, I have failed. Please, I am begging you from my heart to save my daughter and save the company I have fought so hard for! She needs to live, she is -'

Scarlet obscured the document in places as if the author were bleeding out from internal wounds, but the ink was dark enough to show through some of the stains. Like the really important part that said it'd be worth his time to get involved.

'If you do this, there will be a reward with your name on it. It may not be as substantial as the Gunsway heist promised to be, but it should be enough for future investments.'

Glory and the sweet promise of being the first to uncover something the world had forgotten was the dream of any adventurer, but he wasn't prepared to just pass up the opportunity for easy money. A babysitting gig wasn't ideal, but being between jobs Victor would have skinned him alive for rejecting the chance and offending a future client. Anyways, if things got too hairy with the kid he could always call Nathan for tips.

Mindful that Bai was nowhere to be seen and that the girl seemed to be alone, he asked with as much gentleness as he could muster, "What happened to your mother?"

"Mama..." words caught in her throat, the girl couldn't answer.

Having been unceremoniously stirred from an unexpected nap in the library, a certain book sprawled open across her lap, the girl couldn't get the image of her mother out of her mind. Mama was always so put together and on top of everything, but in that instant there was fear in her eyes that turned the ocean into a glassy smoke as uncertain as the future. Blood was dribbling from the corner of her mouth as if she'd been in a fight, and her pretty plumb lipstick was smeared down her chin. She also might have been missing a tooth, but the girl had been too alarmed to really look.

Strange to think that just that afternoon everything had been rigidly scheduled and boring as always. Come home from school, get a snack and promptly run around the corner for an hour of community service before the chauffeur would collect her and take her to whatever class her mom had selected. She'd remember thinking once that while she'd appreciate the fruit of all that effort as an adult, right now she just wanted to hang out with friends. Not that anyone actually wanted to be her friend when her mother didn't make the time to pencil it in.

Nevertheless she was still determined to get her mom to relax enough for them to say that they had spent at least some quality time together. Mama was always too preoccupied putting terror into her rivals to let her hair down, both literally or figuratively. Frankly every time she thought about it, the young woman concluded that it was a mystery how her mother'd ever have the time to get pregnant in the first place. Surely her father must have been a truly remarkable person.

Knocking softly on the open door of the home office, she inclined her head politely before beginning, "Mama, do you want to send Teegan home early and make dinner ourselves? I researched easy recipes we could do ourselves."

Adding that she had gone the extra mile to have a plan managed to impress her mother enough to look up from the desk for just a moment, but there was no immediate answer forthcoming. That must have meant that she intended to lecture her daughter on wasting school time for personal pursuits. How she had known that the google search was done at school was just another example of her frighting near-omnipotence.

Jotting down a quick note on a piece of scratch paper, the woman adjusted her glasses before they could slide down her nose. "You know I'm too busy with this merger, Daniella. If you really want to justify this game, Teegan can try your little recipe after you finish your homework, but tonight we're having stew." Stew sounded normal, but Daniella doubted that it was particularly common for the everyman to have oyster as a starring ingredient.

"Whatever." Hurt as she was that her attempt to bond had been rebuffed and belittled, the young woman rolled her head to the side and nodded defiantly. "I'll be in the dinning room at seven then, so you can plan your meal around mine. In the meantime I'll just go to the library. Maybe re-read another ancient tome on etiquette and the expectations of a woman. From the 12th century." Seen but not heard, that was the mantra back then was it not?

Mama never spoke of her daughter's father, but it was clear from the pained look in her eyes that the girl sounded just like him. Spitefully taking pride in that fact, the teen liked to imagine that her mother's throat would constrict at the thought every time the older woman would pretend to be reading a memo. In her head, mama would wax poetic about how her child would never understand that she was utterly incapable of admitting certain truths about her past, and the fantasy would continue into an unspoken apology for why she was so strict and often shut her down the way she did.

But she would never know if that was her mother's truth or not, so that meant suffering the continuation of the callous pattern. "Have fun with that sweet."

Daniella had stormed out and indeed sought solace in the one place that could comfort her. Several of the leather-bound volumes may have been authored by disreputable scoundrels, but at least the information was always there to give all its time freely. It didn't hurt any that the scattered divans were as comfortable as a cloud and tailored to let the mind recreate the various passages. Today she planed on inhabiting the navy cathedra under the window; with a view of the wooded path to the river at the edge of the estate, it was the easiest place to let her mind wander far from her first-class woes.

Arranged alphabetically by genre and interspersed with useless decor and impractical artworks, the journey to her goal entailed doubling around the ceiling-to-floor lava lamp in the middle of the room and crossing through the sparsely furnished romance nook. Watching the pigments swirl in a dance that would never end was calming, but not enough. Large as the room was, the girl could have found the book she wanted even if she had been blindfolded.

A General History of the Robberies and Murders of the Most Notorious Pyrates. It was a first edition to boot. Though Mama had never approved of her little one reading most adventures (as if she had some kind of heart condition or would get ideas), she would never dream of taking away a gift. As a matter of fact, in addition to being a comfort the manuscript was actually the first present Daniella remembered ever getting.

Mama had always said that her father wasted his life on Henry Avery, but just having a copy made her feel closer to him. Re-reading entire sections that she could have quoted by heart until she fell asleep, the last thing she thought before drifting off was wondering if he would have read her this same book as a bedtime story.

Returning to the present, the girl shivered once more beneath the towel in the stranger's hotel room. "When she woke me up, Mama dragged me from the house and out into the rain without an umbrella." The kid had the look of someone that would never dream of leaving the house without one on days that were only slightly cloudy. "When she put me in the car, she made me promise that I would find Sam Drake and give him the letter. I... I have no clue what's happening, but I think... I think something bad happened to her... There was a loud bang, but it was too dark to see! I wanted to go back for her... I..."

Rambling herself into a circle, Sam put a comforting hand on her knee. Considering her age, he would have preferred it be her shoulder or someplace just as safe, but the broken bird seemed frightened enough to take too much sudden movement as a threat. Sobbing so hard that actual tears started to stream down her cheeks, the girl fell forward and hugged his knees with all the strength she had left. It reminded him of his last days in Scotland before seeking his little brother out.

Doing his utmost to simultaneously remember and not think about the time that he and Victor had celebrated a job well done with girls that ended up being a hair too young, the dashing ex-con patted her back awkwardly. It was an honest mistake, but the situation was more than enough to stick with him. Not to mention that it was an especially poignant eye-opener now that he had a young niece.

"There there, don't cry."

In all the wide world, a girl crying was probably the thing Sam was least prepared to deal with. Sure there had been tears when he'd broken up with a girl, but this was on a whole other level and like nothing else he'd encountered before. Well, almost nothing else. When their mother exited their lives, he had had an obligation to his little brother to protect him and make him feel better, to prove that just because their mom wasn't around anymore didn't mean that he'd be left alone forever by everyone he knew and loved. It was a promise he meant to keep until the grave. The real grave.

But how could he do even a fraction of that for a girl he was only just now meeting?

Squeezing his legs tighter and tighter until he thought that he'd never be able to feel anything in them ever again, she continued to mourn for her mother with almost no consideration for anything else. Unable to withstand the pain that came just before the dead sensation any longer, Sam couldn't help but to shake the blood back into his limbs. Questioning the wording to himself, the jostling broke through to the girl on some level, because the next thing either of them knew she had reached out for the arm of the wingback to use it to stand up. Far too tremulous for the effort after everything she'd been through, the girl missed her mark and ended up collapsing to the carpet. The poor thing was too distraught to even curl into the fetal position, though she clearly wanted to.

I've been there too kid. "Hey," bending down into a half-crouch to help pick her up off the floor, Sam's fist instinct was to get her back up despite having no clue what the next step would be, "come on. Your mom wouldn't want you hanging around on the floor, now would she?" Ironic words with how many times he'd seen Bai willing to get dirty, but that wasn't something any child needed to ever hear about their parent.

Longing for comfort in her grief, he was only mildly surprised that the teen had taken his gesture and somehow evolved it into cradling herself in his arms. Innocent as it was, for one thing he didn't even want to think about how she sitting on him, and for another it seemed unlikely that a girl as posh as this was the kind to touch a stranger with this much ease and familiarity. Fair enough this was a different time, and he didn't know this girl from Adam (or would it be Eve?), but the way she hesitated when making contact spoke volumes.

After what was probably more than one hundred and fifty minutes of him rubbing her back as she wept, Sam noticed that the girl had fallen asleep. Scaling vertical walls with the most minimal of gear and surviving collapsing bridges was a real bitch, but the effort of lugging her to the couch without disturbing her was a whole different kind of problem. The chivalrous thing to do would have been to carry her to the bed, but he wasn't going to take that risk for one thing. For another, he'd just spent three hours in silence with a complete stranger with nothing better to do than watch the sun coming up behind her head. He wasn't kind enough to take her more than five feet, but neither was he enough of a monster to shut her out after losing her mother.

Grabbing the second pillow from the bed and deftly slipping it beneath her head, fumbling enough to illicit an unintelligible mutter, he went to back to the bed. Laying there without bothering to change out of clothes, he was grateful that the youngsters the room over had partied themselves out. Geez, if he was calling those punks youngsters...

Well unless he was mistaken and Bai had completely lied to him, it was only a matter of time before he was rich enough to rent out the surrounding rooms for the next few months. Although if he had connected the dots correctly, caring for the heiress to the Adler fortune all but guaranteed Sam could buy this whole franchise of hotels out if he wanted to.