(Alrighty, chapter 3 up at long last! Better late than never, hmmm?

Actually... I hate this chapter. I think it's probably the worst thing I have ever written. I don't know what happened. I just haven't been able to focus. I'll probably come back and edit the hell out of this chapter, just to make it acceptable. No worries, though! Next chapter is Robin and then the intros will be done for a while and I can actually move on with the story XD.

Anyway, feel free to read and review. There's no need to tell me how bad it is, though: I already know.)

Chapter 3: Footsteps to Follow

Agent Black knew he was in trouble. His quarry had somehow managed to escape his sight, and by doing so took the feeble advantage of surprise he had scrounged up early in the encounter. For nearly a full hour he had been stationed on the backyard porch, peering diligently through the glass of the slightly ajar door, waiting patiently for the perfect opportunity to strike.

When he thought he had it he found his victim sitting alone in the living room, leaning back against the plush sofa with his eyes toward the ceiling in an effort to relax after a long day of 'business' meetings and visits from various lookouts, enforcers and bodyguards. Black had moved in slowly, staying near the wall. He was a small guy, able to slip in and out of places without being caught. It was one of things he was known for, in fact, and he was quite proud of the reputation.

A lot of good it was doing him now, crouched as he was with his back against the corner created by the wall beneath a set of stairs and the one with the door he had used to gain entrance to the plush house, his heart pounding in his ears and his hands white as they gripped the gun in anxious patience. His target had received a final, unaccounted for visitor that day, and that threw Black's well laid assassination plan into chaos.

The butterfly that beat its wings and created this hurricane of an occupational disaster was a woman, and not the one his target was supposedly married to. The two had gone up the stairs, whispering and laughing together in a secretive, adulterous way: as if they imagined the walls alive with recorders and live bugs. Black couldn't follow them. He could not risk his commission and, ultimately, his entire reputation by letting a third party get involved. This woman was nothing to him: she was not his target and thus not worth the money it cost to load his gun.

He cast a furtive glance around, ran his hand through his thick red hair, and then pressed the display of his digital watch. The face lit up in pale green, reading at a quarter past six in the evening. Another hour wasted in this pursuit. That was fine. Black had all the time in the world to waste, if the end result came out as he intended. There was nothing else for him to be doing, anyway, considering he didn't have a day job. This was his both his occupation and his pleasure: Agent Black could wait.

Black was not a name given to him by any superior. It wasn't even a nickname passed on to him by his partners in the craft. He had knighted himself with the goofy moniker when he was new to the enterprise, and had since not had the heart to change it to something more suited to his ability and style. He knew it was childish, especially when he heard it called from across a room, but it was his nonetheless. He wasn't the kind of guy that thought people needed to grow up fast: a lesson it took him ten years to learn.

A creaking door and muffled voices above shifted Black back into attack-mode. He eased his body weight from his tailbone to his knees, taking three long, crouched steps towards the base of the stairs. Planting his feet squarely apart, he raising his gun, one finger on the trigger. One shot and this game would be over.

Heavy footsteps drew closer, falling with a rhythmic pace that the Agent had come to recognize as his targets. Drawing in one final, tight breath, Black timed out the steps as his almost-victim descended the stairwell. With a nod of his head he pushed away from the wall, planting his right foot and using it to force himself upright, pivoting around the corner as he went, gun leveled for the final shot.

Sonny Corinthos stood on the second to last stair, his own gun raised, a look of faint boredom flashing across his fathomless, dark eyes. A foot too far back, half a foot too high. Agent Black attempted to correct his aim, lifting his arms and locking his elbows, but he knew he had made a fatal mistake. The game was indeed over, but because of an error in calculation, the underdog had suddenly claimed victory.

Standing with easy confidence, Sonny tightened his grip on the gun, easing his finger over the trigger and watching with experienced eyes as his would-be assassin took his last look at the mob-boss he failed to defeat. Grinning slightly and nodding his head in a respectful, almost apologetic way, Sonny pulled the trigger and let the body hit the floor.

Port Charles was home to more criminals than innocent citizens. At least that was how it felt to the residents of good intentions. Everyday the local news was sprinkled with updates of mob wars and activities, of muggings, beatings, robberies and even the occasional, ever mysterious murder. There was never an ending to most of the criminal reports: the most the public got was the circumstance and the subsequent arrest that put their minds at ease. What happened after that was considered by popular opinion to be more underhanded than any of the crimes that preceded it.

It wasn't that the entire police department was corrupt: just the key parts. Only the people that Sonny, or any gangster like him, could use to make sure he stayed out of jail found themselves getting blackmailed, threatened or, if they were easily seduced by the way Sonny did business, put on the payroll. There was the obvious line between 'good cop' and 'bad cop', and the department constantly sought to cleanse the latter from their conscience, but there was also a gray area that no one wanted to acknowledge. That was where Sonny thrived, taking advantage of those that needed money desperately to make his own illegal activities vanish, or at the very least become disconnected from him.

It was human nature to want to survive. That was a clean, simple fact that every person born into the world understood subconsciously from the get-go. The details didn't matter. A father can't bear the thought of having his family living on the streets. A mother needs to send her children to college. An unexpected stay in the hospital has completely emptied the family's savings account. A miserable man can't kick his gambling habit. Everyone, at one point in their life, finds themselves in a hole that was just too deep to climb out of alone. Unfortunately for those working at the PCPD, Sonny had people who were constantly on the look out for cataclysmic events like these to exploit.

Still, there were worse fates out there. Of all the mobsters and other vagrants, Sonny Corinthos was considered one of the most chivalrous. Dangerously, terrifyingly, fatally chivalrous. He knew how to run his business and keep it above the law, his enemies, and internal upheaval. No one in the Corinthos organization thought about insurrection. No one who opposed him did so in an open, threatening manner. No one at the PCPD had the fortitude to come after him. He was good to those that he needed, to the people that protected him and served him, but he was known for his quick, effective way of handling problems. Even those closest to him couldn't help but look at him with a strange mixture of respect, fear and loyalty. He was the kind of man people hesitated to get involved with, but would die for once the ink was dry on the contracts.

As with every rule, there was an exception. Lorenzo Alcazar held the most territory and had more men at his disposal than any other syndicate in or around Port Charles. He was Sonny's biggest rival, and neither hid their loathing very well. Alcazar was in a constant state of threatened anxiety because Sonny held the docks so securely that no other business could unload ships through the ports without first going through the Corinthos connections. As powerful as he was, this handicap considerably limited Alcazar's out-of-country shipping and dealings. It was a major thorn in his side, and he was consistently trying to remove it without landing himself in jail.

Sonny never really worried about being killed, or having his business sabotaged. On top of his strangle hold over shipping in and out of Port Charles he had on his payroll two of the most affective people in the trade. The first was his Enforcer, who was a legend in his own right: Jason Morgan. The second was his brother, Ric Lansing, who was also married to the DA and one of the most talented defense attorneys in the state.

Jason was strong, agile, and fatally accurate with a gun: a highly trained killing machine in battle who would do anything to ensure the survival of his boss, the man he considered his best friend. He was fiercely loyal, proving it every time he takes an order without question or comment. He knows how to do his job, and he does so with such ruthless grace that he is widely feared. Sonny would by lying if he said he didn't rely on this reputation to keep threats at bay.

Ric, on the other hand, was smart and tactical. Where Jason was the muscle, Ric was the brains. He and Sonny were as close as they could be while still keeping up the appearance of playing opposite sides of the fence. Jason was Sonny's best friend, but also his second in command. He could be trusted to do anything, no matter the legality of it. Ric worked for the state, and with that came certain limits to how far he could protect Sonny. Making smaller court offenses disappear was common work for him on his brother's behalf, but asking for anything more made the counselor of loose moral standards nervous. He was married to one of the best criminal prosecutors in the state, and that came with risks. Sonny didn't push it. He knew how to manipulate the courts without having to risk Ric's reputation or personal life.

Sonny knew how important family was to a man.

His two sons were the loves of his life. Michael, the eldest son, was a carbon copy of his mother in personality and looks, while Morgan, still a toddler, grew to resemble his father more and more each passing day. Sonny couldn't imagine a world without them, and did everything in his power to keep them safe. Needless to say, he succeeded pretty well. They were guarded, but far from sheltered. He spends time with them while making sure to keep them away from his business. He laughs with them, takes them to the park, watches TV with them, plays silly, embarrassing games with them: everything a father should do. He loved them, regardless of his standing with their mother.

Carly Corinthos was not a woman he kept in high regard. They were once in love, true enough, and through that love gave life to two of the sweetest children on the planet. Carly, despite her vows, was a wanderer. Sonny had the reputation of a playboy. Their personalities, on the base level of their characters, were inherently incompatible. But somehow they had managed through all of the affairs and flings for a marriage that lasted four years. It was Carly who crossed the final line when she became involved with Sonny's biggest competitor and most dangerous rival, Lorenzo Alcazar. As far as Sonny was concerned, he could have her. He was in love with another woman, anyway.

There was a woman in his life that occupied his every waking thought. She was beautiful, like a goddess, and as stronger than one so impossibly intoxicating should be. Her name was Reese Marshall, and she was an investigator for the PCPD. Realistically, their relationship was inconceivable.

Love wasn't really known for being sensible.

"Sonny, are you okay?" A soft yet firm voice called from down the hall. Reese appeared around the corner, fixing the buttons on her blouse as she moved down the stairs to join her lover. She slipped her arms around his waist, and noticed the gun he was holding casually at his side, "I don't get it."

Sonny smiled at her, turning and removing her arms from his body carefully, a sign that they were in the company of someone who didn't know about them. She followed his eyes and saw Michael playing dead on the floor. His shirt was wet, a green and orange squirt gun on the floor beside him. Sonny raised his own gun, purple and red, and fired a weak stream of water in the air.

"Unfinished business," He said casually as he stooped beside his son and placed a hand on the young boys shoulder. "Michael, I thought you were playing in the guesthouse with Morgan and Max?"

"I was." Michael chirped, sitting up abruptly and grinning pleasantly at his father and the detective, "but we left the score tied, and I wanted to see if I could get you this time. I guess not."

With a laugh, "I guess not, too. Now go on, I have important work to get done and I can't have you running around soaking the paperwork. Go see if you can't kill Max. But don't get your brother wet, okay? He's still getting over his cold."

"Okay, dad!" Michael leapt to his feet, taking both his squirt gun and his father's, and then left through the back door, shutting it behind him. Sonny went over to it and made sure it was locked before returning to Reese. She was waiting for him with a look that puzzled him. It was somewhere between amusement, mocking and devotion. He liked it, whatever it meant.

"What?" He asked, taking her hands and putting them back around his waist, his body fitting against hers as if they were designed for each other's embrace. She rested her head against his chest, closing her eyes to listen to the calm beat of his heart.

"It's like watching a different person. I've seen you at work, and I've seen you at home. You're so… cute with them."

"Spread that around. I'd love for my rivals to find out about how cute I am," he hugged her tightly, then moved his hands up her body until they met each other under her chin. She looked up at him and his lips met hers. When he broke the kiss after a long, passionate moment he found her staring at him in wonder. Smiling, he answered her question before she asked it, "because I love you."

The cherry blush that crawled across her cheeks made his heart melt. She bowed her head, her thick, wavy brown hair falling forward in a wave. She raised her hand to brush it back behind her ears as Sonny did the same, their hands moving in perfect unison, one over the other. Laughing, Reese moved away from him, down the stairs and into the living room. He watched her go, frowning in disappointment. A glance over her shoulder reassured him that she felt the same way, but she was conflicted.

"I should go. It's not fair for me to be here when you have the kids. For them, or for you. You love them, too, you know."

Reese knew that recently Carly had been monopolizing her time with the boys. She had every right to, of course, considering she was their mother and Sonny did his best to keep her happy. He let her do as she wanted to make sure she did not take them away from him completely. The courts were very familiar with Sonny's reputation: he would not win a custody case against his ex-wife no matter how many strings he pulled. Reese did not want to make Sonny lose any time he had with his boys. She understood what they meant to him, and despite how much she loved him, she knew it was for the best that they remained ignorant of their father's relationship.

"Yeah, I know." He waved his hand and crossed to her, using his body to tell her she should stay. It was hard for her to fight him off, his sensuality perilously magnetic. Giggling, she pushed against his shoulders as he tilted his head to chew on her neck.

"Sonny."

Sighing and raising his hands in defeat, he took a step back, "Okay, all right. If you think you should go…"

"I do. But… how about I come back? After you put them to bed?" She nodded at him suggestively and he nodded, taking the moment to give her one last parting kiss. They lingered for a long moment, savoring the taste of their affair. The investigator closed her eyes as Sonny pressed her closer, his hands exploring her lithe body, working her clothes into disarray.

Their lips still touching, her breath coming in short gasps as he breathed her in deeply, he said, "I can't wait."

(There it is! Hopefully I'll get chapter 4 up much faster. XD )