- Chapter Seven -

Smoke Will Kill You

"You sure you want that guy around your kid?"

Rubbing his hands together to keep the blood flowing, the brunette made it no secret that he was staring at the marks on the woman's slender neck. Culturally and climatically appropriate as they were, Bai could wear all the cheongsams and turtlenecks in the world and it still wouldn't be enough to hide the truth. Only the dimmest of the dimmest of the Shoreline goons would fall for the ruse that the barely visible bruises were just overzealous lovebites, but he knew better. Okay, so maybe he hadn't been there first hand to witness what they did to one another, but he'd seen more than enough evidence to connect the dots.

With the two being who they were, he wanted to write it off and just say that whatever they got up to in their spare time was their own business. From how the newly released con understood it, by that point in time the two underworld associates had known each other since before the multi-billionaire could drink legally, so to say that they knew the other's worst possible sides was an understatement. Simply put, Rafe should have known better than to touch dry ice, and by all rights she should have known the consequences of playing with fire.

Exhaling a cloud of smoke into the crisp air, there was a lot on his mind at that particular moment. Avery's treasure, why they hadn't turned up a damn thing when he was right about Scotland, his little brother. Those were almost all he ever thought about, but being so close to the businessman, it was a insurmountable task to keep his mind on his own life at all times. For one thing the other man just made it a challenge, and for another Rafe's little girl was almost always around. As such it should have been shocking to no one that having a child on a dig site was high on the list of things he'd wanted to point out as not being the wisest decision in the world. Whatever, it was only their own kid they were putting at risk.

Plum silk already in order, the dark haired woman smoothed out the embroidered hem and acted as if she had no clue that he was ogling the uncovered bit of her throat. Pretending was something she did often, yet there was no escaping the blemish that was regrettably too high for any collar to hide. Ordinarily they had been able to hide away their secrets, but that was the difference between agreeing to being dominated and being genuinely threatened with violence. Often times the line had been so thin as to disappear entirely - it was part of the attraction to loving such a volatile man - but when his hands clasped her throat, there had been nothing sexual about it.

"You brought this on yourself." The baby crying from the lavender bassinet had made him look over just as she began to lose her fight, but instead of letting go he only held on tighter. This was FOR the little girl. The dark gleam in his eyes made it obvious that he would have done it, gone all the way, yet he stopped short of murdering the mother of his daughter. Maybe it was because Daniella started to wail louder than before, maybe it was because he reconsidered being a single parent. Whatever was behind it, he stood up from kneeling over the woman, straighted his smoldering grey button down, and turned away. "Deal with her."

"Rafe is... Rafe." Tail between her legs days after the fact, it was obvious that she wasn't half as concerned with having to leave her daughter behind as she had been a week ago. It wasn't confidence in her position but the fear of inflaming the repercussions. Aloof as she tried to make herself sound, the look in her cobalt eyes betrayed what was lurking below the surface.

Occupying the workspace as well as a residence up the road some miles, the makeshift city of tents hugging the west wing of the cathedral billowed in the salty draft. Clustered close against the chill of the morning, the twosome were seated nearest the exit; Bai was waiting for a helicopter that would fly her to the airport, and Sam was just killing time. Never too far from sight, the rugrat was under a large tarp opposite the entrance. They were both watching the soon-to-be-owner of the known universe with the kid.

It was no mystery that she considered her present company to be a natural born troublemaker and therefore assumed that his line of questioning was the same exact thing he'd grown up hearing from nuns and concerned fathers alike. Leering at the one from Panama with the purest form of venom in her gaze, Bai couldn't see what made any of it his business.

All it took for Samuel to make his point was to gander at the reminder of what Rafe was capable of. He supposed that the beautiful part about traveling is who the hell cared what anyone looked like in a crowded airport.

"Who else would watch her while I'm in Beijing?" Scrutinizing Rafe with weary eyes that only a protective guardian could have, Bai sighed to herself. There was no question that she had messed up royally, but so far the multi-billionaire was pulling his punches. How much longer that would last was anyone's guess, and she shuddered to think of what it was all building towards.

Remark not meant to be rhetorical, it was aimed at the ticket burning a hole in the back of his pocket. Just between them for the time being, on the outside it would have sounded like she was referring to having to accept that Shoreline would be a part of her daughter's life. Technically under a trial period still, there were more than enough minions lurking around to lend a hand if Knot somehow ended up loosing the unofficial position as Daniella's babysitter. Brother to brother, Sam knew that the reason he was so good with the kid was because he had a younger sibling of his own, or had had one at some point. Paramilitary lieutenant aside, there surely had to have been at least a few others among the ranks that had some kind of experience with children. But they weren't talking about that.

"Rafe just threatened to take the kid away from you because one of your business partners reneged on a deal. If he even suspected-"

Curt, she cut him off before he could give any more validity to her fears. "He doesn't know. Rafe has no reason to doubt my loyalty. Or yours." It was odd, given how much she really didn't like him as a person, but somehow the businesswoman knew that she was going to miss the one from Panama once he was out of the picture. Not much, but she knew that when Rafe had gotten everything out of the convict that he possibly could, a tiny part of her would miss their conversations. "You're welcome."

Call it morbid curiosity, but Sam wanted to question what her plan would be if she was wrong about that. Shady and a complete scoundrel, the businessman had a certain way about him (not that she needed to be reminded of that fact). All the same, he wanted to know how she planned on circumventing the unforeseeable, how she found the secret to immortality behind a desk. Better yet he wanted to ask why she didn't share her discoveries with the world (for a generous fee at that), but she was clearly not in much of a confessional frame of mind. Bai never would earn that habit hanging in the back of her closet at the rate she was going. Part of him was beginning to doubt that she had ever intended to turn to God.

Instead of pose questions that he knew would never be answered, the brunette took another deep breath around the cigarette hanging crookedly out of his lips and tried to imagine how the girl would grow up with Rafe as her father. Circling back around to his own master plan, once he was in the clear and able to bring Nathan in on the hunt, their success just might help to humble the businessman-turned-adventurer. If not... "I see a lot of black in her future."

"Better than a prison smock."

Unsurprisingly there was no trace of remorse to be found when it came to her little one. Sam would say that he doubted even the baby daddy was immune to her maternal fury, however that was evidence he'd seen first-hand: Rafe's entire torso was a god-dammed war zone. Heart a map of lacerations, the skin around it fading to a dull maroon tinted with the ugliest shade of yellow-green, the damage only got worse the farther south you went. A little higher up, the right side of the multi-millionaire's face was still sporting the badge of honor from where the digital clock had been been smashed. Whatever had happened in London and spilled over to home, neither had escape unscathed.

"My little Daniella will be better than me, she has to be." On a lot of levels that would be a tall order for the kid, but in other areas the bar hadn't exactly been set all that high. Best case scenario, the kid ended up taking after the one and only Nadine Ross. Sam shuddered at that thought as he finished his cigarette.

Coughing a little too pointedly, she waved away the drifting cloud of ash carried by the breeze. Under the circumstances it was easier to vilify a habit no less worse than what she used to do herself than to acknowledge that Rafe was smiling while he read to his daughter. He was as far from perfect as you could get (especially when he was angered, and boy did she push him beyond his threshold), yet all the same the two genuinely seemed happy. Daniella loved her daddy, and he was finally warming up to her after months of avoiding being in the same room as the new born.

Lighter shining silver and white in the watery sun when he removed it from his jacket, the expert on pirate lore and other history also took out another cigarette from the pack. Rolling it between his forefinger and thumb as he contemplated putting it back, Sam smirked when baby Dells made Rafe drop the report he was attempting to get through. Whatever else he was, it was enduring to watch the other man with his daughter in moments like these.

Perhaps the most demanding submissive to live, the woman made it clear that he'd had enough by snapping his property in half and tossing the remains into the snow. The only sound between the two for a long stretch him flicking the dial, once it had been ignited she had glowered at the limp stick of nicotine as if it had personally offended her before ripping it clean out of his mouth. Luckily for her that wasn't his last one.

Unfazed and unamused, the brunette pulled out a replacement. "That's another cigarette you owe me."

"What are you even doing talking to me anyways?" It was no secret that Sam would run his mouth to just about everyone, so there was nothing suspicious about the two conversing in public. With Bai the aggression was less to protect their lie and merely boiled down to her being that prickly towards the ex-con. "We aren't friends."

Perhaps they weren't, but conversing with the imported businesswoman was still loads better than the alternatives. Generally speaking most of the guys from Shoreline were down to play cards when they weren't on duty, but if caught on the job they'd be more like to tell him to piss off. Regardless of shifts, they only ever seemed to have the same three topics preprogrammed into their systems. Bai could be spiteful, but at least there was diversity.

As a matter of fact, just last week they'd gotten into a nap-long debate about whether or not Napoleon was a visionary or a dick. Prior to that, their most memorable back-and-forth was about the ability of men and women being friends; suffice it to say that that one had left an emotional scar. Flying footwear aside, he was going to miss having a fellow intellectual who could hold their own - good thing he was about to be reunited with his little brother.

"Alright, you don't need to get hurtful." Waving her on, he savored the feel of the wind on his face, the crunch of the gravel that followed you no matter how many times you picked at the bottom of your shoes. Scotland was a great change of pace after all of those years in Panama, but it would be nice to take some time apart.

Tsking through her teeth with a roll of her heartless oceanic eyes, she perked up at the sudden and piercing wails of her daughter. Carried and amplified by the shrill air, the needy sobs were just enough to let it be known that the tiny tot was in need of either a bottle or a change. More likely to silence the shrieks than out of concern for the girl's general wellbeing, Rafe had quickly obliged and placed one of those little burping rags over his shoulder. Watching the woman watching the businessman with their progeny, Sam could see the hearts and stars shining in the woman's eyes as if it were for the first time.

Sic semper erat, et sic semper erit. Thus has it always been, and thus shall it ever be. The cycle the consenting adults had found themselves in was almost enough to make one feel sorry for them. Almost.

"Did anyone ever tell you you need help? Like clinical help, with a shrink and everything."

He could have pressed the issue by adding her penchant for choosing to involve herself with psychopaths and other miscreants, however that would have been mean spirited. Usually they had that kind of rapport, yet as this would likely be the last time they saw each other he chose to be sympathetic to the fact that she was turning greener the more she thought about stepping foot onto a plane. If by some fluke they were ever reunited, he swore to himself that he wouldn't take it so easy, regardless of the circumstances.

Equally aware that this could have been it, she gazed at the convict in solemn contemplation. High class through and through, ending up among old money made sense, yet the one from Panama wasn't quite as bad as she liked to put off. Dare she even go so far as to admit that while his ilk may have been beneath deserving a second glance, he could have been good for Daniella. In his own way. But that didn't mean that she liked him as a person.

Actually, in these final moments, it occurred to her that she'd never acknowledged the one of his best days. "I never did thank you."

"For?" In his head, Sam liked to think that she had a softer spot for him than she cared to own up to. Bai would never cop to anything indicating that they were alright in each other's books, so he was very much for hearing her say the words. As for what she had to be grateful for, he had no doubt in his mind.

Immediately regretting broaching the topic, she rolled her eyes at his assery. "Way to ruin it. I was going to thank you for coming back for me when that tower collapsed, but now I just don't think I can muster up the strength. It's just too painful to talk about." The only hurtful part of that ordeal was having to face Rafe after he had written her fate off as a lost cause. Screaming it to the heavens for everyone in the country to hear, in hindsight that was not the way she had envisioned telling Rafe that she was pregnant, but nothing about that day had gone according to anyone's plan. "But thanks."

Flashing a mischievous smirk - the same kind that had gotten her into trouble before - the brunette shrugged it off as if it had been no big deal. It was close enough for him to count this as a victory. "What kind of a monster would leave an innocent woman to die like that?" In all seriousness, dying of asphyxiation was not a fate he'd wish on his worst enemy. "Didn't anyone ever tell you that heroics are the best way to keep in shape?"

Or die.

"Got a light?" Coming over to join the unlikely duo on the bench, the mullet himself ignored Bai (as usual) and spoke directly to Sam. Understandable given her obvious disdain for the habit, as well as the combination of her status and vocal opinion of the PMC, but it was still rude. Then again, no one had ever accused Orca of having manners.

Clearing her throat and pushing her glasses back up the bridge of her nose, the businesswoman did her utmost to ignore the fact that her hand had been that close to brushing against the ex-con. Blaming the moment for getting to be a bit much, she reminded herself that if by some astronomical chance Rafe were to peer in their direction he might have came to certain conclusions. Inaccurate conclusions at this juncture, but not entirely unfounded.

If only he understood that at the end of the day, her heart beat only for one.

Hindered by natural delay, by the time that the shuttle had arrived there was practically only time for the luggage to be stored and nothing more. A trait that made him love her even more, Sam remembered that his own mother always had planned an extra few minutes before any venture just so she could say goodbye to her sons. It pissed their dad off to no end, but Samuel stopped caring what that asshole had to say long before his little brother was out of diapers. A different creature altogether, Bai had just left with a sad look over shoulder but no grander farewell than that. It could have been because parting from her little one was the cause of too much bitter sorrow, but the truth was probably someplace in the middle.

Left alone with one of Shoreline's finest - Jesus, Sam could barely even think that and keep a straight face - the ex-con took another long drag in silence. It was only a matter of time now before his path took him back to his little brother, and just a little bit longer after that they'd be counting their four hundred million. Until then, he'd just have to play his cards right and keep Nathan too preoccupied with the mission to dig into his Alcázar story. Sam wasn't worried though - Nathan lived for adventure and was probably just itching for his next big lead. Fifteen years was a steep price to pay, but he was certain that it would be well worth it after they had discovered Avery's treasure. Together.

"Samuel." Abandoning his effort to make the baby pay attention to the trade reports he was reviewing, the multi-billionaire flagged down the ex-con. Holding the child securely in the crook of his elbow as they worked in the heated tent, the crook began to bounce the baby on his knee. To show her approval, baby Dells gurgled spit bubbles as she gazed up at her father. Okay, so maybe the rich asshole wasn't as terrible with the kid as given credit for. "Come here for a minute."

Only mildly surprised to be called over by Rafe once Bai was gone, he was glad of the excuse to be rid of Orca. The mercenary had bummed one too many smokes from the expert without the slightest indicator that he would pay him back, and Drake was down to the last few in the pack. Not that it would matter for much longer, but there was still the principle of the thing.

"Your old lady owes me another cigarette." Playing cute, the skilled adventurer pulled up a spot on the edge of the card table being used as a desk. It wobbled slightly beneath his weight, but he knew from experience that it would hold. Whomever had purchased the furniture did a good job selecting the sturdy stuff and deserved a bonus. He also noticed that Rafe didn't care for Bai being identified in such strong terms, but after their most recent tiff that made sense.

Rafe juggled the tot around to the other leg as he gazed up from the charts and schematics on the table. Glinting in the light so that they looked much darker than normal, the younger man considered the expert. For a moment the thief thought that the shorter man was going to tear into him for smoking around the baby, although he never had before. Finally someone wasn't on his case about the dangers of smoking, and of course it had to be the sleaze of the criminal underworld. Or would it have been more appropriate to call him the big cheese? Observing the new father unconsciously smiling as he smelled the wisp of dark tuft atop the baby's head, he had to wonder about the semantics.

Brought down by the mention of baby mama, the patron saint of stupidity (he had to have been, to not see what Sam was scheming) shook his head and grit his teeth at what one of the papers was telling him. "I'll add it to the list of her offenses." Saving the document to be handled later, the icy-eyed thief set the dossier aside and reached over to his partner to let him know that he was being given his full attention. Steely fingers curling around his wrist, Drake's stomach fluttered nervously with the sensation that this was a trap. "I trust she wasn't too hard on you otherwise?"

What was this, kindergarten? Like Sam was going to narc the woman out, especially understanding what was at stake for her. Instead he simply shrugged her refusal to be friends off as her loss, which it was. The brunette knew that he may not have been perfect, but if he was in your corner, he was in your corner till the end. "Eh, some people just have problems with ex-cons."

Nodding his head as if he were reconciling something in his head, Rafe stopped bouncing his daughter, "Is that right? Hmm," whatever was on his mind seemed to be quite pressing, but the elder Drake wasn't sure that he wanted to delve deeper down that rabbit hole. Filled with the all-too-familiar feeling of knowing that he had no real choice in the matter, all Sam could do was brace himself. "You just can't trust some people, even if you want to. Can you believe that I actually wanted to trust her?" Laughing as if there was something funny about any of this, he resumed bouncing the baby when she began to fidget.

Uneasy, Sam took his hand back so that he could put out his cigarette and crushed it beneath his heel. "What am I doing here, Rafe?"

Lucid, the younger of the two men stated what he thought to be the truth, "We're friends, aren't we Samuel?" Free thanks to the multi-billionaire and intimately acquainted with his associate's grip on reality, the ex-con wasn't about to answer that if he could help it, but thankfully for him the other man wasn't about to give him that opportunity. "Bai's been with someone else."

Keeping calm and collected as to not rouse suspicion, Drake inquired as if he had had no idea and chuckled slightly at the thought, "What? I know that Miss Uptight likes to dress like she's all business, but that one's only got eyes for you. You should have seen the way she was looking at you when you were burping the rugrat today." Graduating from kindergarten to sixth grade, frankly the brunette would have been more surprised if Bai didn't have crates full of journals dedicated entirely to her possessive boyfriend.

"Bullshit." Rafe shook his head once more, but the two tempests seated in front of Sam could have passed for different men. "I saw her."