He opened the door slowly, shielding himself behind it and drawing his gun from beneath his jacket as he peered through the bullet-proof glass. He frowned at the sight that met him. A figure dressed in a hoodie, features hidden, wielding not the gun he'd expected, but a knife. He stayed put. That didn't mean they didn't have an accomplice with a gun hiding nearby.

His eyes fell on the word on their hand, and he was immediately suspicious, but curious enough to not just shoot. He kept his gun carefully in hand. "Who are you?"

"Your kid," she answered, in a cautious voice, and dropped the knife, raising up both of her hands, a very obvious don't shoot. Unlike her father, her hair was dark, but her eyes were ice-blue. They swept over Sebastian - what they could see of him, at least - curiosity edged with a wary hardness. The only picture she'd seen of him was of a much younger version of him.

"I'm sorry, what?" Lorna asked, sitting up off the floor of the car.

"I don't have a kid," he said coolly. "Try again." He raised the gun, motioning for her to walk forward slowly. "Keep your hands in view."

"No, seriously, I am," she shook her head, walking forward as she did. "Look, I'm going to reach into my pocket and get a picture of my mother, alright? I've got fucking tiny pockets, I don't know what else you think I could possibly pull out of it," she continued, still holding up one hand and slowly reaching into her front pocket. She pulled out a folded up picture, and took another step forward, cautiously holding it out. "Look, okay? I mean, from the shit I've heard about you I don't know if you'll remember, but it was in Scotland, tail end of 1999. Edinburgh."

He took it with one hand, the other still training the gun on her. He glanced at the photo and folded it again quickly. "Let's assume for a second you aren't lying. Care to explain the pot shot you just took?"

"BB gun. It's in the bushes over there. I work for another organization, smaller than yours; pissed the wrong people off. They thought it'd be funny to get rid of me by trying to take you out. Fuck that," Keira snorted, standing where she was, trying not to stare.

"Hood down, slowly," he instructed, not lowering his gun for a second. He was turning the situation over carefully. He remembered the woman. It had been one of the few nights he hadn't been bloody shit-faced. The night before they'd left back for England. He'd spent a few years wondering about her. Considered going to find her.

She did as told, movements slow and deliberate. Lorna had to admit she looked like him. Sharp features, and those eyes. Still, the idea was fucking insane. The idea of Sebastian Moran as a father?

He could see the woman in her face, but he could also see himself, clear as day. He walked forward slowly, gun never wavering, and reached out to touch her chin, pushing it up and to the side, checking along her jawline and behind her ears for scars. Signs of plastic surgery. Nothing. He let her chin drop.

He stared at her for another long, tense moment. Then:

"Get in the car."

She nodded, ducking her head back down and climbing into the back, where Lorna and her shared a very awkward moment before Lorna made a 'nope' kind of sound and climbed out to get into the passenger seat. "Well, this isn't a fucking crazy idea or anything," she muttered, giving the girl an irritated glance in the mirror. She wasn't crazy on Moran's family. "How the fuck are we going to keep her from Jim, Moran?"

"Who the hell said we were?" he asked, handing her the gun. "Make sure she behaves." He started the car and pulled out into the road.

"You really want Jim to have this kind of leverage?" Lorna scoffed, eyebrows up to her hairline, but kept her eye on the girl, who looked like she was having to hold back from saying some nasty things to her. "You just met her, yeah, but people get weird about their offspring."

"Kindly shut up, Harrison," he said casually, taking a turn just a bit hard as he headed for their flat.

"Jesus Christ," she muttered under her breath, raking a hand through her hair. This was something she did not want to deal with. She'd never liked kids, never wanted to be around them, and now one (a mostly grown one, she would admit) was dropped in their laps. Not her idea of a picnic.

He parked in the drive and got out of the car, walking over to open the door for their passenger while Harrison remained in place with the gun. "Get out."

Keira got out in fast, efficient movements, though careful not to get too close to him, not to seem too threatening, and stood there, staring at the house. Her eyes got a little narrower. "Do you guys live here? Shit, are youmarried?"

"That's none of your concern," he said, voice devoid of any clue or emotion as he reached out to take the gun from Harrison, training it on the girl again. "Let's go inside. Keep your hands visible."

"Quickly, please. We're on a lit street, and we have nosy neighbors," Lorna reminded, shutting the car door as quietly as possible so as not to draw attention.

The girl didn't resist, but he still watched her every movement carefully, his gun close to his side to remain as invisible as possible until they entered the house. "Harrison, please grab a chair and some rope or handcuffs?"

"On it," she nodded, kicking out of her heels and disappearing upstairs with a trot. She was back a minute later with several pairs of handcuffs in hand, and immediately disappeared into the kitchen to grab a chair. After she'd carried one out and set it down in the middle of the living room, she gave the girl an expectant look.

Keira sat with a small huff. "My name is Keira, by the way. Since nobody asked," she grumbled.

"Keira what?" Sebastian asked, as Lorna cuffed the girl's hands behind her and to the chair, and did the same with each of her ankles.

"Malone," she sighed, shifting uncomfortably as Lorna stepped back. "My mom married some rich guy a while back but I didn't want to take his name. He's a dick."

"There's a lot of rich guys like that," he said with a nod. "How did you find me?"

She shook her head. "I didn't. The people I work for did. I didn't bother asking a question that I wouldn't get an answer to."

"But they knew about your association with me," he pointed out. "Did you tell them that, or did they find out from somewhere else?"

She groaned. "It was stupid, really. I didn't know who the hell you were - how could I? All I had was your first name, and a crumpled old photo. I was telling my friend about my past, all that shit, and I showed him the picture, and-"

Fred laughs when she says she doesn't really know who her father is, and he only settles down to chuckling when she gets defensive. "Relax, K, I'm not laughing at you, I'm laughing because I've met about five people who know their dads." He says 'about five' about a lot of things. About five guys, about five piercings, about five fish. She doesn't know where he picked it up. She's been saying it more, though, since she met him. She pulls the decaying, wrinkled old Polaroid picture from her wallet and hands it to him, rolling her eyes.

"That's him. He's probably in his thirties by now. My mom took it when he was smashed, or at least acting like it." She waits for him to respond, and when he doesn't, she looks up from the scratch on the back of her hand to see his face. It's stark white. "Fred?"

"That's Sebastian bloody Moran, K," he says in a hushed tone, like it's hard to get out of his mouth. "That's the fucking sharpshooting butcher of Europe."

"- he recognized you. Told whoever'd listen. Blabbermouth."

He bit back a long stream of curses, and turned away for just a moment. When he faced her again, any trace of emotion was wiped clean. He would treat this like an interrogation room. Feel nothing, think nothing but logic. "How many people know of our supposed relation?"

She shrugged as best as she could restrained. "I don't know. Ten, fifteen, a hundred? I'm sure everyone's talking about how they 'sent that little asshole to get killed by her own father.'"

"What organization?" he pressed, walking forward to stand over her, blue eyes meeting blue.

"Luciano's" she replied. "Based in Italy, I think. I don't know, I haven't been. I work in the London division."

Lorna knew who that was, and she wasn't particularly pleased with it.

"Right..." Moran muttered, watching her. Then he walked forward, pulling a handkerchief out of his pocket and pressing it into her mouth, walking around to tie it behind her head while she forced out muffled expletives. "I'm not sure what you expected. I need to do some research. If your story checks out, I'll consider letting you live. Don't cause any trouble or that consideration will be gone."

Lorna checked her thin wristwatch before her eyes flicked back to Keira. "I'll be down in a few hours, give you a bathroom break. God knows I don't want to clean that up," she snorted, then turned for the stairs, pulling her crimson hair out of the elegant twist she'd had it in and letting it tumble over her shoulders. "I'll be upstairs, Sebastian."

He followed after her without comment. He did need to do research, yes. But at the moment he needed to think, and process.

He waited until he had closed the door to their bedroom behind them to speak.

"What the fuck just happened?"

"Your long-lost kid from a woman you fucked once is in a crime network run by Giorgio Luciano, an Italian mobster in human trafficking circles who I thought was dead until two minutes ago. Unzip me, please," she added, pulling her hair over her shoulder, standing with her back to him.

He walked forward, sliding the zipper down before turning away, walking over to the window to stare down at the street.

What the hell was he going to do?

The logical thing was to kill her immediately. Harrison was right. Kids were trouble. Weak points.

But...

Part of him was fascinated. Those eyes were his. He'd put them there. The sturdy nose, the high cheekbones. He hated his family. His father had been the bane of his existence for years and his sister had somehow managed to outdo even that. But this... this was a whole new game...

Lorna got undressed and into pajamas, leaving her dress in a puddle in the middle of the floor before going into the bathroom and shutting the door. She sat down just over the threshold, her head falling into her hands.

New York. A party. Armetti was with her, a hand on her exposed back, left bare by the dress she was wearing. He says nothing as they step off into a smaller hall, his hand increasing in pressure just a little before it leaves as he turns and melds back into the crowd, and she walks down the hallway alone. She has a tiny syringe pressed into her palm, the needle carefully kept away from her skin. She can't remember the name of the poison held within. She opens the heavy oak door at the end of the hallway and beams at the handsome man waiting for her in a leather armchair. Luciano. A typical Italian beauty. He doesn't suspect a thing until she injects him in the thigh, a vicious stab through his slacks. There's a brief fight, but he doesn't stay on his feet long. She turns and leaves, tossing the syringe to the side with the tinkling of glass.

Sebastian was too busy, too preoccupied to deal with this right now, with this version of her, the sick and twisted one that she kept separate from herself. She couldn't trust herself to stay in there and not say whatever came into the head. That girl was an unknown variable, and it made Moran dangerous to Lorna again, made him too unpredictable to trust completely.

She dug the heels of her palms into her eyes, biting back a pained swear.

He didn't know how long it was before he was heading back downstairs. He walked into the living room and undid the gag, tossing it aside for now. "What happened to your mother?"

She stared at him for a moment, swallowing the dry taste in her mouth. "She and my step-father died in a car crash a year or so back. Why?"

He nodded just a little, going to sit on the couch. "Just wondered. You seem a little young to be drifting around. You're what... fifteen, sixteen?"

"Seventeen in a few weeks," she murmured, shifting her weight a little. "What, you didn't start that young? Bet your 'wife' or whatever she is did. Us girls, we start young. That's what I've seen, anyway."

"I was a golden boy until I was thirty," he said sarcastically. "Led a scout troop." He leaned back in the couch. "What got you started?"

Keira sighed. "My mom paid for me to get lessons at a shooting range. Thought it was important for me to protect myself. Imagine all the old geezers' surprise when I pass up the best of them. Some guy approached me one day. Gave me a card. Told me to call him if I ever wanted to make money. I didn't, not until my parents ate it."

He nodded a bit, and some part of him was pleased to hear she'd inherited his skill with a weapon. He did his best to stifle the emotion. "Then you call them and end up mixed in with Italian human traffickers."

"Yeah. The guy - he was a contractor. An agent, kinda. Like for actors? Put me in touch with people. The Italians. I wasn't sure what they were doing, but I suspected. I don't know," she sighed, shrugging again. "Not my business."

He nodded. "Good policy," he admitted. "What did you do to piss them off, exactly?"

"Shot the asshole who tried to touch me in the head. He was my CO, kinda. Friends in high places. You know."

He smirked just slightly, the corner of his mouth twitching upward. He'd spent a whole hour on his computer, run a background check on this girl more thorough than the checks he ran for Jim's security officers. Called in a few favors. He knew her friends, enemies, her fifth-grade science project. There wasn't any doubt about her story.

There also wasn't any doubt that she was his.

The question now became what to do about it.