The knots in Felicia's stomach were so tight it felt as if her whole body might become entangled. She sat quietly at the bar, stone stiff with her head in her hands and a glass of vodka beside her. No damn wonder dad drinks so much.

Felicia and her grandfather whiled away the rest of the afternoon with Felicia staring coldly out the window and her grandfather reassuring her that everything would be fine. That's how they usually dealt with their problems -- one being determined to not show their fear if their life depended on it, and the other hiding their fears behind consolation and compassion toward others.

As each tried to overcome their battle with anxiety, a cab pulled up in front of the cafe. Pepe and three other Cubans Felicia didn't immediately recognize got out and the driver promptly sped off. Felicia's grandfather stood and greeted the men, escorting them to a comfortable seat at the back of the café. Felicia stayed at her post at the bar, drink in hand and eyes closed tightly.

"Poppa," Pepe began. "If Rico calls, tell him we got the back-up." His grandfather nodded and walked back to the office to wait for the call. Pepe took a seat at the bar next to his sister, his eyes never leaving her face.

"Pepe," she began, downing the last drop of vodka in the glass. "Level with me. What's going on?" Pepe sighed and chewed on his lip. His father had told him that if there was one person in the world that could not be involved in this, it was Felicia. He had already lost her once for dragging her into his lifestyle; he didn't want to lose her again. However, he seemed to have overlooked the fact that she grew up around it, she knew everything almost instinctively.

"Nothing to worry about, hermana. Everything is okay," Pepe half-heartedly consoled. Felicia let out an incredulous laugh and allowed her dark, angry glare to burn through her brother. Damn him for lying to me.

"You know what, hermano," she spat, "I have spent this whole day being told not to worry and that everything is going to be fine. Obviously you have all forgotten that I am not two, I'm twenty-two; I happen to know that when people are telling me everything is fine and not to worry that everything is not fine and I do have reason to worry. When the hell did I give you people the idea that I need protection from anything? I want to know what the hell is going on around here and I want to know now." Felicia's anger carried all over the café, drawing the attention of everyone inside, including her grandfather as he peeked his head out of the office. She could feel the blood rushing to her face--especially once she saw her brother's wide eyes fixated on hers. She slowly leaned closer to him, lowering her voice and eyes. "You know, Pepe, of all the people I know you were the last person I'd expect to lie to me." Her voice was nearly a whisper and her eyes were fixed intently on his face. Pepe sighed in defeat. He didn't exactly appreciate being called a liar but he couldn't deny her when she said it like that.

"Ok, you win, Felicia. Pop sent some men over to Little Haiti to send the stinking Haitians a message and prove their manliness, you know how it is." Felicia rolled her eyes. Yeah, I definitely do... over-proud bastards. "They gonna be coming back with a van with some goods and kill some stinking Haitian pricks on the way. It's gonna be a biiig one. That's all he told me, hermana." Felicia sighed and rubbed her temples. The throbbing pain was returning.

"Wait a minute, you mean they needed outside enforcements for that?"

"Huh? What enforcements?"

"You know, that Tommy Vercetti guy."

The light came on behind his eyes.

"Ohh, yeh, him. I told you hermana, this is gonna be a big one. Besides that, this guy is supposed to be a good gun. Better he be on our side than theirs, no?"

Just as Felicia was about to reply her grandfather rushed out of the office.

"Pepe, Rico call. He ready." Pepe made a motion with his hand to the back of the café and then headed back to the office and the three Cubans moved to the front and stood nervously near the door. Felicia sat straight up in her chair, afraid of what was going to happen next. Hardly two minutes later Pepe returned from the office and like clockwork cab pulled back up outside the café. Pepe whispered something to the men just before they jogged out to the cab and disappeared from sight.

"You're not going with them?" Felicia asked as her brother took a seat next to her. Pepe just shook his head and ordered a cup of coffee. Nothing more on the subject was said for the rest of the afternoon.

--

Hours later, after Pepe had taken a cab home, drunk, and Felicia had whittled away the day trying to stay away from the booze and putting her energy into doing odd jobs around the café, her father wandered in the front door. He sat sullenly down at the bar and sighed, turning his gaze to his exhausted daughter.

"Soo..." he said quietly.

It was Felicia's turn to sigh.

"I know, dad." Her father turned his face away and fixed his gaze on the countertop in front of him. He didn't want her to know. He'd asked... no, he'd told Pepe to leave her out of it.

"Pepe?" It was hardly a question. A silent nod was all the confirmation he needed. "I tell him... I tell him not to tell you. You weren't supposed to be part of it, Felicia." Felicia shook her head and bit down hard on her tongue, biting back a long string of curse words that would make even him blush.

"I'm not stupid. I knew something was wrong. When are you going to realize, Pop? I'm not a little girl anymore." Felicia felt her eyes start to prickle and she swallowed hard. "And even when I was," she said quietly, "I wasn't."

Her father didn't look at her and didn't say anything for a few drawn out minutes.

"I just... you know, I wanna protect you. To me, you always gonna be my li'l girl, hija." This time his eyes were the ones to mist. Felicia turned and stared at him, for the first time since she got there not knowing what to say or how to react. She just stared.

"Ay, my son. You okay." Oh thank God, she thought. Her grandfather, as always, was the one to save the moment. He came up to his son and took his face in his hands and pulled him into a hug. "Felicia... she, uh, she worry about you, si?" Felicia smiled sheepishly, stood from the barstool and leaned over the counter to grab her belongings--the few she had.

"I'm gonna head home now. Goodnight," she called as she headed for the door.

"Be careful," both men replied in unison. Felicia just waved her hand at them and disappeared into the night.

--

That entire night, once she'd finally fallen asleep, she was plagued by painful nightmares of memories passed. Visions of her mother, her father, her brother... all dying the same horrible, violent deaths. One by one each of them were stripped of their lives by this horrible darkness, leaving only Felicia to bear witness. Just as the darkness began to loom toward her she heard something in the distance; it sounded like... popcorn popping? Her eyes fluttered open and the sound amplified to its true volume. The popcorn wasn't in fact popcorn but the deafening blasts of gunfire going off outside her bedroom window.

That's a different kind of alarm clock.

As she rose from her bed she glanced over at the clock and started to panic when she saw that it was no longer morning but well into the afternoon. "Oh damn," she hissed and hurried to the shower, grabbing a t-shirt and shorts on the way.

Just under a half hour later Felicia snuck into the café and grabbed her apron, tying it gingerly once, twice around her waist. She quickly found a rag, dampened it and began to wipe the counter, working her way down until she was halfway down the block. It didn't really need wiping, but a quick skim over the café and she didn't see her father, so maybe if she looked busy he wouldn't know she had come in hours after she was supposed to. I guess this is what happens when you force an answer to something you're not supposed to know.

"You're late."

Felicia jumped and wheeled around. Her body went through a strange spasm of tension, relaxation and tension when she turned and locked eyes with her father's hired gun, grinning widely down at her. Once the initial shock and disbelief that she was so nervous she mistook this man's thick accent and smooth voice for her father wore off she smiled half-heartedly back at him.

"And that is your concern how?"

Tommy's grin widened and dimples that hadn't previously been noticeable pressed handsomely into his cheeks.

Hell, who knows what might be hiding under that mess.

"Nothing. I just wouldn't want Umberto to sell you to the Haitians in return for brain cells."

Felicia rolled her eyes and put her hands on her hips and tried hard to suppress a grin.

"Well, wiseass, were you going to order anything or are you just planning on sitting there and running your big mouth?" She couldn't help herself. Tommy smiled devilishly and lifted the cup he'd be sipping from--right in front of her face. Embarrassment bubbled in her tummy and her cheeks flushed hot. She started aimlessly wiping the counter as if she'd never seen him sitting there, but Tommy's grin never faltered and his eyes never left her face.

"Maybe if certain waitresses weren't too busy telling their customers to shut up they'd notice these things." Felicia stopped and glared at him. Tommy's amusement sparkled in his eyes. "Anyway, I need a refill." He lifted his cup toward her and raised his eyebrows, waiting.

A devilish glint reflected in her eyes.

"It seems that certain waitresses are too busy to serve ignorant big mouthed goons." She didn't wait to see his reaction. She turned away and snaked from behind the counter to work on the booth in the northernmost corner of the café. Tommy muttered something under his breath and served himself a cup of coffee. Rather than returning to his stool he slid into the booth Felicia was wiping down, earning himself a long, hard glare and quite possibly putting him in a dangerous position. After all, there wasn't a bar standing between her and his neck now.

"And you're sitting here because..."

"Because I never really enjoyed holding conversations with people's backs," he replied simply. "It's a good way to stay out of a fight but it gets old fast." Felicia lowered her head, trying to hide the grin that was cracking her glare. Once she felt she had it amply under control she leaned over the table and scraped her fingernail over an unrelenting spot of dried-on food that just didn't seem to want to let go.

"Who said I wanted to hold a conversation with you anyway? Most sane people would have just automatically assumed I was done talking to them when I walked away."

"Well, honey, I'm not most people," he blurted suddenly. Felicia lifted her head so that she looked him straight in the eyes--little surprised her anymore but somehow that caught her unexpectedly off guard. "And I'm definitely not sane," he added with a chuckle. Felicia laughed but rolled her eyes and shook her head. She returned her attention to the unrelenting spot without another word. The last thing she would let him do was charm her guard down.

Suddenly Tommy reached up and gently brushed a strand of hair from her face, his rough fingertips grazing her cheek. She jerked back and stood straight up, cleared her throat and wiped her hands on her apron.

Smooth.

"I'm, uh… I have to go do something... because there's something that I, um, need to... I haven't cleaned the bathroom in almost a week, I think I should probably go do that," Felicia fumbled, her eyes darting desperately over the cafe.

Oh God, I'm just on a roll today.

"You mean you have to do that right now?"

Felicia nodded and grabbed her rag. "Yeah, I have to, sorry. If you need more coffee it's right there," she pointed behind the counter. Tommy laughed, realizing, once the initial shock of rejection wore off, that this was actually pretty humorous.

"You think Umberto would approve of that?" He smirked. Felicia turned and headed for the bathroom without so much as a scowl in his direction. Tommy laughed and watched her walk away… as much as her hated to see her go, he loved to watch her leave.

That wasn't corny.

A half hour later Felicia emerged from her chambers but neither said anything. She went back behind the bar and wiped the counter yet again -- it seemed like that damned counter could never be clean enough.

Tommy, on the other hand, sat in the same booth rolling a straw flat between his fingers, watching her out of the corner of his eye. There was something attractive about her, something that made him want to talk to her. She was no Mercedes, that was for sure, but there was something there, he just couldn't quite put his finger on it.

Felicia saw Tommy watching her out of the corner of her eye as she stooped before the counter and wiped down the front, which was oddly neglected. She'd always liked Cuban men, perhaps because they were so familiar and available to her, but Tommy had magnetism that Felicia couldn't completely wrap her head around. Maybe it was the danger in his demeanor, or maybe it was because he was, despite--or perhaps because of--his profession, suave and dare she say likable. He made you want to be his friend, even though you were scared to death of him and knew he'd probably sell you to the enemy without a second thought -- for the right price.

"Felicia!" She jumped up and scurried behind the counter like she'd been caught doing something wrong. Tommy turned his head and watched as he took a seat at the bar in front of her. "You OK?" he asked quietly, leaning over the counter toward her. He saw her nod but strained his ears to listen, leaning forward and folding his hands on the tabletop.

"Why wouldn't I be?"

"Pepe, he say... he say he hear you last night, yelling and everything. He worry about you, you know? And me, I worry too." Felicia swallowed and gave him a small smile.

"Yeah, it's okay. I was just having a bad night, no big deal." Umberto nodded and was about to reply when a large hand clutched his shoulder.

"Umberto, my friend. How are you today?" He was laying it on thick. Felicia raised her eyebrow at him and barely caught the hint of a sympathetic smile on his mouth.

"Tommy! Tommy, my boy. You come see me." A quick pause. "What's wrong?" Tommy laughed.

"Nothing at all. Can't a man visit his friends once in a while without there being an emergency?" Tommy glanced quickly at Felicia and smiled again at her, this time a lingering, friendly smile. Felicia just gawked at him feeling thoroughly confused.

He's up to something. Hah, I'm not so sure I want to know…