A summer garden. Hibiscus flowers blooming in a concrete vase. Stone railings looking out onto a peaky sea. Her father motions for her to approach. "Ana, come say hello to the Lucas"

She slides a smile onto her lips and turns to greet them. Mr Luca is a wide man with a big neck and an ugly brown mustache. His son, Victor, is taller, blond with a bit of a sneer on him and shoulders almost as wide as his father's. His eyes stroke up and down her legs. She had worn the short blue dress at her father's insistence. He had wanted her to make a good impression. Victor is her fiance after all.

What he didn't know was that they'd met before in the French Riviera. She had come along with Papa to do some shopping and met Victor while he was waiting for his father to get out of a lunch meeting. Oh, she knew Victor, alright. Large groping hands and a lustful tongue. A dirty deed done against the wall of a hospital powder room while their fathers sat downstairs arguing over territory. It was just something to relieve the boredom. Now, two years later, their alliance needed to be solidified in a more permanent fashion, and they were both conveniently single.

At first she had refused, but her father had cornered her at the firing range and explained that this was what was best for the family. The Lucas had a name and good connections. They had been good partners for now, but blood is blood, and the boy fancied her. Also, Luca senior had agreed that her father could lead both families as long as he named Victor as his successor, but since they both knew that Victor was as dumb as dirt, they expected her to guide his actions, and therefore she would truly be the next leader of the family.

So she'd listened to her father and wore the white shoes and the pale blue dress that barely covered her as she faked being cute and docile. Victor leered, and their fathers smiled at the two of them. But they weren't the only ones there.

Mrs Luca's hair was red, obviously dyed. She had an elongated face and a well proportioned body, and she was very much younger than her husband. At her side stood a thin little boy with a narrow face and legs as long as a fawn. His blue eyes were huge, and the imbalance in his features made him look ugly. But she smiled as she bent down to talk to him.

"So who is this handsome young man?" she said staring into those wide eyes as she took his hand.

"This is David Luca."

"Well, hello little Davy. So pleasant to meet you," she'd said much preferring to speak to the boy rather than spending time with his half-brother whose lustful gazes were tearing through the thin fabric of her dress." Years later, she would shoot Victor in his jeering face after he found her letting the troups inside to raid the compound. She'd never seen the boy again. She looked for him now in the face of the man standing before her.

"You're Davy? Little Davy Luca?"

He grinned. "I always hoped that you would recognize me on your own one day, but Mummy took me back to Italy, and then there was school in England. I took her name there. Luca was a bit too well known to carry around with me. I met you by chance one day on the streets of London. I knew you the minute I saw you. You called yourself 'Mary', but I'd changed my name too, so ...

Mary put her fingers on his lips to stop him talking. Then she reached out and turned on the radio before grabbing him and pulling him into the pantry

"Ana, what are you?"

Mary closed the pantry door behind her pushing the two together in the cramped space. "Take off your shirt," she barked in a harsh whisper.

David's puzzled expression transformed into a smile, and he crossed his arms to pull off his jumper. Then he slowly started unbuttoning his shirt.

"Oh, for goodness sake get a move on!" Mary said reaching out to unbutton it herself before pushing it off his shoulders.

"Hold on, love. I didn't know that you were this desperate," David said reaching out toward her.

"Shut up!" Mary said dodging his awkward kiss as she wrenched his right arm up over his head and stared at the hair under his arms. After a few moments searching she found it. The small double 8 tattoo that marked him as one of the family. She had one of her own of course. John had found it in one of his unusually thorough sexual investigations of her body. She had brushed it off, claiming that it was the number of the room where she had lost her virginity. He had joked that he would have needed a longer tattoo as he had lost his in the back seat of his girlfriend's car.

David stilled realizing that she had brought him here to confirm his story, and not for some sexual escapade. Still, He looked down at her with longing eyes, his mouth slightly open.

"Well, little Davy, It is you. You never let on who you were. I am impressed. So what do you plan to do now? Are you here to get revenge for your brother, Victor?"

David snorted. "Victor was an Ape. He said mean things to my mother, and he touched her. If you hadn't shot him, I would have done it myself."

"You said you recognized me."

"I could never have forgotten you, Ana. Never, not since the moment I first saw you."

"But who did you tell? Who else knows about me?"

"No one! No one except mother."

"Your mother knows?"

"Yes, I told her when I first met you."

"And what did she say?"

"She said that you were a spy now, and that I had better not be a dick and blow your cover."

Mary smiled, "Sounds like her. So why didn't you tell me who you were? Are you spying on me? Did the family tell you to spy on me?"

"No, Ana, no. I would never do anything against you."

"Then why tell me now? What is it you want?"

"I thought that now you might want my help. I can't believe you are staying here by choice."

Mary frowned. David's mouth was still open. His roving eyes reminded her of his half-brother. "Put your shirt on David," she ordered. He bent down and picked it up.

"Ana. You do know that your father is dead."

"Yes, I know. Even I read the papers. Died in prison. Who is the head of the family now?"

"Your uncle, Cassius."

"Cass? But Cass is an idiot. You need to be clever to lead..."

"That's exactly what Mother said. That's why I think that we should go back."

"We?"

"You. The rule of the family is yours by right. Your father was boss, and you are his only child. You have the brains to do the family justice."

"Go back? But I betrayed..."

"You objected to your father killing your mother. You made a break to get out on your own. They won't hold that against you, not now that you have a child to follow in your footsteps. I think it's time for you to take your place. The place that was destined for you from the start. Do you really think that my father expected Victor to lead? They told him that, but everyone knew that you were the one they were grooming. Ana, its time to go back."

Home. It was a place Mary thought lost to her forever. Her leaving had been spectacular, Testifying against her own father, confirming that he had killed her mother, a government agent. Her Mother's sacrifice had gone a long way to get her rushed through training. She had left the Island and had an interesting and honored, career, until the first time they had left her behind to die, and she had realized that loyalty was something that only happened to other people.

David had his shirt on now, and he was staring at her intensely. "Ana, why are you here?"

"What?"

"Why are you here in this place pretending to be a housewife, pretending to be a normal person. Do you plan to stay here, to raise a family with that man who doesn't love you? Surely you can't still be on a job. What kind of job would require this much of you?"

"That's my business, I can live where I want."

"But Ana, you can't stay here. Mother warned me just yesterday that someone's put a contract out on your life. A big one. Someone really wants you dead. You won't survive here. You are too exposed. If you come home to the island, the family can protect you. We can protect your son."

"Daughter, she's going to be a girl."

"She won't be anything if you don't live to give birth to her."

Mary put a hand to her belly, then she clenched it into a fist. "I'm being watched. Tell me what you have."

David grinned. "There's a barge on the Thames. It carries steel beams for skyscrapers. The family uses it sometimes for smuggling. Once the steel is offloaded, it returns much faster with a cargo of recyclables bound for France. We can hide you. Once on the ocean, a ship will rendevous with us.

"But barges are slow. Is there a faster way?"

"The airports are too well guarded. No one looks at river traffic."

"When's the next opportunity?"

"It should be coming upriver tomorrow. It will take at least a day to unload. Then it will have to load the new cargo. I think it likely to be leaving Friday about three hours after sunset."

"Make the arrangements."

David beamed, "You're coming? You're really coming home with me?"

"No. You are staying right here. It would be too suspicious if we both left at the same time. Make arrangements, but don't contact me again. Put the time on your Facebook page. Call it Judith's Christening."

"Judith, is that what you plan to name her?" Mary picked up David's coat and handed it to him. "I can't believe that you are really coming back. I can stay for a while. Help you pack."

"I need to be alone. I have some... loose ends that I need to close up here. "

"But..."

"Just make the arrangements. And don't tell anyone who I am. If there's a price on my head…."

"Ana, I may not be as good a shot as you, or as good a planner as my father, but you certainly should know by now how good I am at keeping secrets."

Ana looked up at David's narrow stupid face. She hadn't guessed, not once who he really was. She nodded. Then she opened the pantry door and stepped out into the kitchen.

"Thank you, David for bringing me lunch," she said loudly. "I really enjoyed it. We'll have to do this another time." She walked him to the front door and opened it pushing him out of the door, but he turned pulling her close as he pressed a kiss onto her lips. She pushed him away and then looked around to see who was watching before waving once and closing the door firmly between them.

The smile fell from her face then. She had fought so hard to get away. Was she seriously considering going back? But if there was a contract out on Mary Watson, could she afford to stay? She locked the door and went back to the kitchen to turn off the radio.