NOTE: Very long pause, I know, but I've had a lot of stuff to do lately that's not going to be done with until July at the very least. So I hope to give you more updates in the future, but just know that if there's a long pause like this one it's not that I'm not commiting to finishing the story, it's just that my commitment is being split into a lot of directions lately. Hope you guys enjoy this one, and as always please review.

- Chapter VII -

Hostage

Mia looked at the three mobsters in her house with such disgust that it almost distracted her from tending to the wound of a man they brought with them into the apartment.

"Thanks for doing this," Sean said weakly. Mia managed to smirk.

"Let's just say I grew up with too many boys to avoid being in medicine," she noted, finally getting a hold of the bullet inside and taking it out with a jerk.

"Ah!" Sean exclaimed and the thugs flipped around in surprise, with their machine guns at ready. Mia's mouth fell half open.

"What do you plan to do now? Shoot him again?" she scolded them. Then, she put the bullet into a dish nearby and started stitching up the wound. The men went back to walking around.

"So, you never told me where you were from. Or anything about yourself actually," Mia said as she closed up the wound.

"Well, I moved a lot as a kid. Last place I got into trouble, the authorities told me they've had it with me. Funny enough, my mother said the same thing," Sean explained.

"I don't find that funny," Mia admitted.

"Neither did my pop. I got sent here to live with him and, well, by the looks of things you can tell it didn't work," the wounded man noted with a smile. Mia shared the moment of levity, even though it didn't come from a particularly comforting story to begin with. Suddenly, her phone rang. The guards immediately turned their attention to Mia as she answered it.

"Mia speaking," she identified herself immediately.

"Mia, listen to what I say very carefully," Brian instructed on the other end of the line. Mia tried to hold her excitement and relief from the mobsters' attention.

"Brian?" she whispered.

"I'm here, Mia. Dom and Neela are safe, too. We're hiding outside the building," Brian revealed.

"I'm being watched, Brian. Kamata hired these three goons to watch me and Sean," Mia said soberly.

"Don't worry about it. Ask Kamata's men to get something from the silver R35 parked at the curb. They are going to ask you to use your car keys to identify it as your car. Grab my old R34 keys from my pants and appear at the front window. I'll unlock it instead, but they won't know the difference. Go," Brian told her.

"Brian, I-" Mia began.

"Listen Mia, the longer we postpone this, the lesser chance we have of pulling it off. Please, just trust me. Go!" Brian persisted, and hung up. Mia immediately composed herself, and walked over to the guards.

"I need some more medical equipment from my car," Mia lied and the head body guard, a tower of a man, looked over to Sean.

"He seems fine the way he is," he noted.

"Excuse me, what's your name?" Mia asked impatiently.

"Kannon," he replied.

"Kannon? Well, how appropriate. Tell me, Kannon, are you the doctor here? No? Well if that's the case, I suggest you let me get my stuff so this kid doesn't bleed to death and Kamata mounts your head on his wall? Hmm?" Mia intimidated the man, and although Kannon was suspicious of her to say the least, he decided to give her a chance.

"You're going to have to prove you have a car outside before you walk through that door," Kannon said matter-of-factly.

"Okay," Mia said lightly, reached into Brian's jeans and took out the keys to Nissan's older model. She opened the window stuck her hand out while Kannon watched on from behind her. The car beeped and its lights flickered. Brian did his job. Mia turned around with a victorious smirk on her face.

"Satisfied?" she probed.

"Not quite yet. One of my friends here will follow you downstairs. We don't want anyone running away now, do we?" Kannon teased.

"Oh, don't worry. I'm not running," Mia clarified as she proceeded out of the house with her new escort.

"It's right over there," Mia pointed to the R35 just as they left the building.

THUMP!

Mia barely got a glimpse of Brian leaping for the thug from behind and putting him in a rear naked choke. The man gurgled and clawed, trying to break away from Brian's grip but soon lost consciousness. Dom immediately grabbed Mia and set her down in the corner next to Neela. Brian knew that Kannon was watching from the window above, and having not seen the two exit the building he would be alarmed. He took out the Glock he had acquired previously and kept his eyes on the entrance door in case someone decided to check up on the missing couple.

"Hey sis, I need you to take cover with Neela here," Dom noted.

"But, Dom-?"Mia tried to protest.

"That's non-negotiable," Dom said flatly, crouching next to Brian.

"What now?" the bald headed fugitive asked.

"We need a diversion," Brian said unsurely. Then, the two noticed a food delivery guy park his car nearby. They smiled at each other.

When the doorbell rang, Kannon was already suspicious and ordered his remaining thug to stay back as he opened the door . The man standing in the doorway had a cap on and held his head down, a box of takeout in his hands.

"What is this? Who are you?" Kannon asked, and then…

BAM! BAM!

The mobster behind him crumpled onto the ground, dead, as the apartment window shattered and Brian was revealed with his pistol at ready. Kannon swung around to shoot at the ex-cop but the food delivery guy grabbed him from behind, forcing his gun hand away as the bullets started spraying against the wall. It was Dom! He kicked Kannon's machine gun away but in the process allowed the big guy to grab him as a human shield. Brian stepped into the apartment, sweat beads forming on his face as he tried to aim for Kannon's head. The mobster was too experienced to expose himself for that.

"Take the shot. Take the shot, Brian!" Dom called out, but even with the extensive firearms training Brian had as an FBI agent, that was too risky of a maneuver for anyone to pull off.

THWACK!

Out of the blue, Kannon fell smack down onto the floor and the two men turned around to see Mia holding a broken lantern in her hand.

"Nobody chokes my brother but me," she exclaimed as both Dom and Brian smiled admiringly at her.