A/N: Hello m'dears… I hope the week has been a good one for you!

Please, if you like this story, click the follow/favorite button. Also, reviews are deeply cherished!

"You're expecting us to just take you at your word?" Diggle scoffed before he turned to stalk across the office, much like a cat stalking its prey through the forest, to the large bay windows. He was like a jaguar. It was an exotic, graceful, and in Sienna's opinion, the perfect description for a man like John Diggle. Watching the way that he moved, the way his muscles rippled with every step simply screamed at her that he was not a man to be taken lightly. The jacket she'd put together about the man illustrated him as military trained with three tours of Afghanistan beneath his belt.

Even though she was positive that beneath the rigid and gruff demeanor lay a very compassionate man, Sienna couldn't help the slight shiver that snaked her frame whenever John Diggle drew near her. She definitely did not want to meet the man in a dark alley. She didn't want to meet the man in a brightly illuminated alleyway, either, quite frankly.

"She's not asking you to take her at her word, Dig," she heard Oliver saying. She flicked her gaze over to him. Oliver was sitting on the edge of her desk, trying to appear at ease, but looking like anything but. Slade's mission to destroy Starling in order to get his vengeance had taken a heavy toll upon Oliver. She was sure though that if she asked him how he was doing that he'd say fine. The man could be just as evasive as her pirate about what he really thought and felt. "She's just specifying what her terms and conditions are for helping us."

"And one of those terms includes access to Slade Wilson," Diggle said without turning around. "How do we know..."

"That I won't let him out at the first chance that I get?" Sienna turned back in time to see him nod. "You don't know that I won't let Slade out. You can only trust that, for right now, I won't."

"Sienna," Oliver spoke softly, but the warning was clear. Slade stays where he is. Sienna merely sniffed. And fixed Oliver with a pointed look that told him in no uncertain terms that he was out of his mind if he thought she'd leave Slade to rot in his cell. "He's not getting out."

"Not yet he's not," she replied sweetly. Too sweetly, Oliver realized. "But he'll be out before long, that I am guaranteeing you."

Oliver merely sighed and let her comment pass. He just wasn't in the mood to argue the point with her. Not while his body hummed with pain and exhaustion. Diggle chuckled humorlessly as he glanced at Oliver from over his left shoulder.

"I gotta hand it to her, man," he said in a soft rumble Sienna found soothing to her frayed nerves. "Unlike some of the people we've come into contact with, she's at least telling us that she plans on breaking the bad guy out of prison."

"I don't see Slade as the bad guy for one, and I am not going to insult you by lying about not wanting him out for another," Sienna stated in a prim voice. "I do want Slade out of prison. But I am also cognizant that at this moment in time, where he is, is where he is the safest." Her lips tilted at the corners. "And frankly, the damned man has rather earned himself a timeout after deciding to knock me unconscious before dumping me in a utility closet."

Diggle's surprise reflected in the sparkling glass. "Slade Wilson knocked you unconscious and locked you in that utility closet?" He saw her nod. "Why?"

"It was to save me from the one person who presented the biggest threat to my life at that moment in time." A pause. "Himself."

The only thought worming its way through Oliver's mind at that moment was about how Slade had opted to save her. At the end, when the chips had been pushed all in and his hand called, Slade chose Sienna over himself. He'd given her up, left her behind, chosen to walk away from her instead of potentially bringing harm to her. "The Mirakuru caused him to distrust himself."

"His illusion of Shado wanted him to kill me."

"And he couldn't do that."

"No, he couldn't kill me," Sienna replied somberly. "Something I banked on when I challenged him to do just that."

"Sienna…"

"It was my life to risk, Oliver," Sienna huffed. "And I knew he wouldn't hurt me."

"You could have been wrong."

She looked at him. "Then you'd be talking to a ghost, huh?"

Oliver gave her a dirty look. "Not funny."

"Why did you even come to Queen Consolidated that night, Miss James? Surely he had you stashed somewhere safe."

"He did," Sienna confirmed with a nod. "But when I saw what Slade was doing to the people of Starling, the hell his baboons unleashed upon them in his quest for vengeance, I came to ask him, to beg him to stop it." She sighed. "Sadly, I couldn't get him to do that. Not even at the final moment, when he'd started to see what the Mirakuru and his hatred for Oliver could cost him in the end, I couldn't get the stubborn man to walk away."

Diggle turned to look at her. "You asked him to walk away?"

"Yes, Mr. Diggle," she said quietly. "I begged Slade to not only call off his baboons, his vendetta against Oliver, but leave the city with me." She let out a long, weary sigh. " I failed to convince him to do any of those things, quite obviously."

"You are not..." Oliver began, but Sienna cut him off.

"Responsible?" She nodded her head. "You're right. I'm not." She heaved another sigh. "Yet, here I am making myself so."

"Why?"

Sienna smiled at the frustrated air in Oliver's tone, but it quickly turned into a pained grimace as the afternoon sun shot a beam directly to the point in her brain where a drum solo Lars Ulrich would approve of, pounded. She closed her eyes a moment, resting them against the headache that drummed behind them. Bitter acid bubbled up into her throat, burned the inside of her mouth. Three nights without sleep- without Slade, were starting to take a toll upon her.

Oliver took note of her misery and felt a stirring of pity. Pain rippled up his ribs as he rolled to his feet. The bruises from his fight with Slade had spread over his skin the same way grief and guilt were creeping black over his heart. He told himself it wasn't illogical for him to feel as he did. Sienna had done nothing to him (not yet, at least), and did not deserve to suffer. He went around to the small fridge located behind the desk and got out a bottle of water that he pressed into her hands.

"Are you sleeping?" he asked her in a tone of voice meant for her ears only.

"No, Oliver," she replied without opening her eyes. "I'm not." She swallowed convulsively and set the cold bottle against her flushed cheek. "And I can guarantee you that he's not sleeping, either."

He let that comment pass. The last thing he wanted to discuss was whether Slade was sleeping or not. Much harder to ignore, he found, was an obnoxious little voice (which sounded suspiciously like Felicity) whispering to him about why she was not sleeping: fear. He studied her pale features. "Have you been eating?"

Those doe-like eyes turned upon him now. "Are you... worried about me, Oliver?" There was a vague note of bemusement in her tone; on her face. Bewilderment, and Oliver realized, something else. Something dark and almost undefinable that slithered across her gaze like a serpent creeping over the sands of the Mojave Desert. It was disbelief, he realized with a start. She didn't believe that he (or anybody else for that matter) might be concerned for her health and well-being. He set one of his hands upon hers, squeezing her icy fingers with his reassuringly.

"Hurting you," he told her in a soft tone. "And leaving you alone and vulnerable? Those are the only things about locking Slade up that I regret."

Sienna's face softened and she laid her palm against his cheek. "I think I've finally figured out just what it is about you that makes me believe in you even though every ounce of logic and an obnoxious panic disorder tells me I shouldn't."

He didn't smile, but Sienna saw his face had lost the edge it'd had. "And what's that?"

"It's that you remind me so much of my brother, Jonathan."

"Your brother?" Surprise flavored the question like sugar sweetened coffee. "You have a brother?"

"Had," she corrected gently. "I had a brother. One a lot like you, in fact."

"So your brother donned a hood and ran around Miami with a bow and arrow?" Diggle drawled.

"Gotham." Sienna's lips twitched. "My family is from Gotham, actually. And no, Jonathan wouldn't have been able to shoot a water pistol much less a compound bow. However," she said. "He was spoiled, selfish, immature, stupid and shallow." She heard Oliver sigh even while Diggle snorted a laugh. "And he was frequently thoughtless and paid no never mind to hurting any of the people around him-not even his own sister, whom loved and adored him."

"Almost sounds like you grew up with Oliver, Miss James."

Oliver slanted a look at his friend and partner. "I was not that bad, Dig." At both their scoffs, he sighed, grimaced and said, "okay, I admit I was pretty bad, but..."

"You cheated on your girlfriend with her sister," Sienna told him smartly. "And then cheated on both sisters with Shado. You were more than just a little bad, Oliver."

His face felt hot and he had an almost irresistible urge to squirm at that moment. That she knew about his indiscretions didn't overly surprise Oliver. Slade had shared with this woman a great deal more than she'd let on (and the majority of it embarrassing stuff he'd prefer she not know about quite honestly).

"You know far more about me than I do you."

She fixed him with a look that said she wouldn't fall into that particular trap. "You and Jonathan were one and the same, Oliver. That's why I know so much about you. Only," she said on a long breath, "you are the spoiled little rich boy that fate dumped on an island where fanatical terrorists, Doctor Mengele, an A.S.I.S agent and one inhuman super serum were all waiting to make a man outta you." Her eyes seemed to glow then with the intensity of her thoughts. Dark and thick like molasses, and deeply sad. "And that brings us back around to what we were talking about before we got off track. The island. And the person, or person's," she emphasized in a firm voice. "Of interest who were behind everything that happened on that island."

Diggle folded his arms across his chest. "Why exactly do you believe that there's someone who is behind what happened to Oliver on the island?"

Sienna's lips curved. "Uh-uh," she said lightly. "We need to come to an agreement about my request before I am going to start revealing any of the information that I have managed to gather."

"Sienna..." Oliver began, but Sienna held her hand up.

"I'm not asking you for anything that is all that unreasonable, Oliver." She turned the chair to face him. "All I'm asking is to see him. One day a week, supervised visitation for an hour. Is that really so much to request?"

"It is when the person is Slade Wilson," Diggle stated. "Look, Miss Jam..."

"Sienna," Oliver and she corrected absently.

"Sorry," he said with a slightly sheepish smile. "Jynx."

"It's all right, Oliver," she said with a small smile before glancing at the man watching them with no expression upon his face. "Just call me, Sienna, please," Sienna implored. "I really would like us to be friends, Mr. Diggle. Or," she added with a slight grimace. "If we are not able to be friends, I'd like us, at least to not be enemies."

"All right." Diggle inclined his head. That seemed a reasonable enough request to him. "I understand why you want access to Slade Wilson..."

"Do you, Mr. Diggle?" she cut in to ask quietly. "Do you understand just why it is that I want access to Slade?"

"He's your fiancée..." he began, but he trailed off when he saw her shaking her head. It begged him to ask the question, "Being his woman is not why you want visitation rights?"

"Well, yes, I want to see him because I am his woman," she admitted while pushing her hair out of her face. Oliver, as well as Diggle recognized it as a nervous, and vaguely embarrassed gesture. "But no, it's not completely why I want visitation rights." She saw his eyebrows shoot up, read the surprise in his dark eyes. She sat forward in her chair and typed some commands into the computer. "Mr. Diggle," she said in all seriousness now. "You might have cured those infected by Mirakuru," she turned the computer monitor towards him. "But you didn't stop the supply. And whoever has this supply?" she glanced now at Oliver. "They can not only create themselves an entire army of super soliders, but..."

"They can re-inject the Mirakuru into Slade Wilson," Diggle whispered as he stared at the monitor. He glanced at Oliver, saw that his expression was grim. "We gotta find this supply, man."

Oliver nodded as he rose to his feet. "Where do we begin, though? That is the question."

"By finding out where this supply got sent," Sienna said. "And to do that..." she looked up at them with an expectant look upon her face.

"You need to talk with Slade," Oliver said on a groan.

Sienna gave a nod. Oliver felt a quick burst of disgust and anger at being pushed into agreeing to giving Slade visitation rights, but he weighed his acquiescence against their other options. They didn't have any. "Can you be ready to leave in two hours?" he finally asked her.

"Yes."

Oliver glanced at Diggle, saw by his expression that he'd reached the same conclusion he had about their options. "Why don't you..."

"No way, man," Diggle gritted. "You are not going without backup."

"Or your IT expert," a soft voice spoke up. Three pairs of eyes focused upon the woman hovering nervously in the doorway. Felicity Smoak glanced first at Sienna, then over at Diggle and finally at Oliver. Her bubblegum pink lips lifted at the corners as she stepped into the room. "So, where are we going?" she asked.

Anna Smith was seated at her desk outside the CEO's office, hanging up the phone (she'd been pretending to use) while sliding the audio surveillance recorder she'd brought with her from home into the pocket of her pleated navy skirt. She froze when she felt a bony hand clamp down upon her shoulder. She jumped, swallowing a small shriek and snapped her head up in time to look into the pale eyes of Abraham Truth.

"You were able to record the entire conversation?" he asked in a silky murmur.

Anna nodded. A sinister light waltzed across Truth's face.

"Excellent," he said with a slight nod. "Brother Consequences will be pleased with your dedication to our cause."

Anna swallowed convulsively. "How could you be sure that she'd meet with Mr. Queen here at Queen Consolidated?"

"The woman is nothing short of predictable." He sniffed his disdain. "Once she moved out of Wilson's penthouse, it was only a matter of time before she'd call Mr. Queen here for a face-to-face meeting. Getting to Slade Wilson is, first and foremost, Sienna James's main objective. And to achieve that end," he told her in a conspiratorial tone. "She needs Mr. Queen."

"But she did not count upon us bugging her office here in Queen Consolidated."

"No," Truth purred. "She did not anticipate that we would not only have Wilson's penthouse and yacht bugged, but her office here as well. Sienna James might be an intelligent female, but she's just not shrewd enough to outfox us."

"What will happen-"

Truth interrupted Anna. "-to Miss James?" His thin lips twisted into a smile that shot chills up and down Anna's spine. "Why, she is going to meet with a little accident after she leaves the building." He saw the horror stamped upon Anna's face; written in her dark eyes. "You're shocked by what is going to happen to her?" He chuckled humorlessly. "What exactly did you imagine was going to happen to Miss James when you pledged to take this undertaking, Sister Honor?"

"I'm sorry. I just did not think that you were going to have her killed!" she whispered furiously.

Truth's voice was harsh. "She cannot ever reach Slade Wilson. Consequences absolutely forbids it." He turned and watched as Oliver Queen exited the office with Sienna James, his bodyguard, and a petite blonde Truth didn't automatically recognize in tow. He reached into his pocket for his cell phone. Anna knew what he was about and spoke hurriedly.

"Do you think that it is wise to have Miss James attacked out in the open? There are any number of things that could go wrong. Other people could get hurt."

"So?" was all that Truth said before he flipped his phone open, pressed the send button in order to electronically deliver the message he'd typed over a half hour ago: do it.

"Brother Truth," Anna began but Truth cut her off.

"In ten minutes, Sienna James will be nothing more than another memory that will fuel the hatred in Wilson's heart and soul." He closed his phone and slid it back into his pocket. "And he will kill Oliver Queen for having taken yet another woman he loved away from him. And then," his voice dropped to a low hiss that had Anna shivering. "We will kill him."

On a rooftop across from the steel-and-glass high rise, a phone vibrated, alerting the man who'd been lurking up there while waiting for word from Brother Truth about whether or not the Harbinger would be adding another name to his list. A hand, stained honey-gold from hours spent in the sun reached down and picked the phone up. He slid his thumb across the screen in one smooth, and effortless motion in order to read the message he'd been waiting for.

Do it, the message read.

Short, simple and succulent.

A soft sound, much like that of a bear who was just awakening from its long hibernation, rumbled deep in his chest. The Harbinger had been given the go. A smile stretched across his full lips, illuminated a face that only a mother could love. He set the phone back on the ground and reached for the rifle he'd set against the wall. Anticipation sang in his veins. The Harbinger lived for carnage and loved being the deliverer of death. Excitement peaked as he dropped a round into the chamber, heard the click which told him that the countdown to salvation had started. Now, it was only a matter of waiting for when his target would poke her pretty little head out of her nest.

Another name would then be collected.

One more trophy would be added to his case.

And the Harbinger would be one step closer to his goal of being the number one assassin.

Then, and only then, would his craving truly be satisfied.

Roy Harper was late. Like thirty-five minutes late, in fact. It wasn't that he'd intended to be late for this bizarre meeting he'd been requested to attend at Queen Consolidated. He'd left his ramshackle apartment with enough time to get across the city, grab a coffee, and make it to the meeting with at least ten minutes to spare. However, he'd neglected to take into consideration all the road blockages, extreme congestion because of the closures, or that a five-car pileup at Lexington would require him to backtrack and take a series of back roads just so he could get into downtown Starling.

He let out a curse as he parked his borrowed (as in it belonged to a friend whom he hadn't asked if he could use it) car and hopped out even before the engine had a chance to finish sputtering and spitting. He was just jogging across the street when he saw Oliver emerge from the building with Felicity and the James woman. Diggle followed close behind them. Roy went to call out to them but stopped when he spied the small red dot that crept across the back of Oliver's head, slide slowly to the left and drop down to fix upon the forehead of the dark haired woman.

He was racing across the street when the unseen assailant pulled the trigger…

Diggle saw the red dot a second before Roy and sprang instantly into action, years of military training providing him the reflexes necessary. He shoved Felicity at Oliver, heard her squawk of surprise mingle with Ollie's surprised grunt.

"Sniper!" he shouted in the same instant that he hooked an arm around Sienna's waist and pulled her down to the ground, covering her body with his. Seconds later a slug slammed into the glass door, shattering it into a billion different pieces.

On the rooftop, the Harbinger saw through the scope of his rifle how the round he'd discharged found purchase in glass rather than the dewy flesh of his offering. He released a stream of curses and went to take aim again at his target, but he couldn't get a clear shot. Pandemonium began to erupt and he saw his window of opportunity completely fall shut. He would not satisfy his craving this day. He saw the man who'd denied him his satisfaction lifting his eyes towards his location. It was definitely time to leave. The Harbinger must never be seen. He stowed his rifle in its special case and quickly exited the roof.

And added another to the list of those that he needed to reap.