"Well you certainly set the niffler in the vaults," said Mammon dryly.
Rosethorn groaned. Seeing Ron had driven her to drink, though she certainly didn't regret killing his team.
"Fortunately it seems the Auror you spared didn't report it was you that killed them."
Rosethorn contemplated the well stocked liquor cabinet she knew Xanxus had in his office. She wondered if he'd object to her swiping a bottle of something strong.
"Squalo has also banned any missions to the UK for the time being... we don't need to lose operatives because those idiots think they can control Dying Will Flames," said Mammon.
"Good riddance."
Mammon left, and Rosethorn decided to see if Xanxus would let her raid his liquor cabinet...what she had wasn't nearly strong enough.
Lips clashed in a fierce battle for domination. Hands scrambled to take off each other's clothes as quickly as possible. Emerald met fierce red without hesitation.
Rosethorn had gone in looking for something strong to drink... Xanxus hadn't minded her raiding his cabinet considering she somehow always ended up in his bed afterwards...except this time it seemed Xanxus was done waiting.
It had started as a light caress, but with how wound up she had been from seeing Ron, from being in England for however briefly... she had struck back only to end up caught.
The forceful kiss had made something inside her snap like a brittle twig, and suddenly all the emotions she had kept at bay rushed forward.
Already loosened inhibitions were shot to hell as she damn near tackled Xanxus to the floor with a growl which he easily reciprocated. He had already locked the door before approaching her, so it was unlikely anyone would come in.
Finally there was the closeness she had so craved. The feeling of intimacy and desires reached after the careful dance they had been in.
Xanxus made no bones who was the dominant in this arena...he had far more experience than she did, but he didn't let it consume him. He was agonizingly careful while bringing her to the brink several times...she didn't even feel the sharp, biting pain, too consumed by the lust in her system.
When it was all over and she could think again, she could feel the satisfied smug aura coming off him.
Something had changed between them, not that she particularly cared. It had been a long time coming.
Of course the second she finally bothered to get something to eat, Lussuria noticed it.
"It's about time!"
"Oh god, does everyone know?"
"The betting pool has been exchanging as we speak, at least the second Squalo realized why the door was locked."
Rosethorn looked mortified.
"Oh don't look so upset. Everyone likes you and that this was coming..." said Luss sympathetically. "More importantly..."
"I am not getting into details... not this soon anyway," said Rosethorn.
She noticed the looks from the other Varia members. Most were generally giving her thumbs up with the occasional wink. Was everyone aware of what the boss had planned?
From what Mammon said, in between counting their cut of the bets, that was a big fat yes.
She didn't even try to resist when Xanxus pulled her into his room later that night for another round.
"What the fuck is this shit?" demanded Xanxus. He had been called to the Iron Fort for something, but it was beginning to look more and more like a set up designed to get his girlfriend captured or at least arrested by the English morons who tried to cage her.
"Watch your language!" snapped Coyote.
"Fuck you," said Xanxus, glaring at him. "I've put a blanket ban on all mission in the UK for the next few years, no exceptions."
"That is unusual. May I ask why?" asked Timoteo evenly.
"Fuckers came up with a new ward specifically to detect Dying Will Flames. They've apparently decided all 'soul fire' users, whether they're magical or not, fall under their jurisdiction. I'm not about to risk any of my men... at least not until the Vindice get pissed off with the Ministries over there and intervene directly," said Xanxus flatly.
Because the Vindice would take exception to the magicals trying to infringe on their turf and get involved sooner rather than later. It was only a matter of time before someone bitched to them and they showed up.
"I see," said Timoteo.
Something about his tone set off all sorts of warning alarms in Xanxus' head.
Officially the Varia was a separate entity from the Vongola familigia. Unofficially the Vongola held the purse strings and thus their loyalty.
He knew damn well the old bastard did not like his girlfriend. Not after she humiliated him and his Storm. Vongola Nono was not used to being challenged, much less by someone considerably younger than he was. That he had always been at odds with Xanxus didn't help at all.
He likely thought Rosethorn was openly corrupting the Wrath against his adopted father, when in fact she was perfectly content to ignore he even existed so long as he stayed the fuck away from her.
Everything was screaming at him that things were only going to get worse from here on out.
Two months later...
"Is it just me, or have the missions dried up?" asked Squalo.
All the higher tier ones were suddenly in short supply, and the lesser contracts were suddenly being funneled to the Mafia Land assignment board. It had been slow at first, but it was becoming increasingly noticeable of late.
"What's going on?" asked Rosethorn.
"Looks like the old bastard doesn't like the fact we're dating. He's trying to put pressure on us," said Xanxus growling.
"Pressure how?"
Xanxus motioned to Squalo's desk which was normally full of missions to be handed out and reports of ones completed.
Except the mission tray was much, much smaller than she remembered seeing.
"...He's trying to make you sweat by removing a chunk of the Alliance missions, thus forcing you to downsize or make cuts," said Rosethorn in annoyance. "Does he honestly think that's going to work?"
"Short term, not really. But if it continues long term..." admitted Squalo. They could handle a lack of missions for a year or so before it started to grate on the men and caused issues.
"Is this really the best he could come up with?" asked Rosethorn unimpressed.
"You don't seem overly concerned," noted Xanxus.
"I get bored and after the war I started making contingency plans. Mammon and I haven't exactly been idle with my vaults since Mammon's been acting as my financial adviser and go-between with the goblins. If he honestly believes cutting off one of our bigger sources of income is going to do more than annoy us, then he has another thing coming," said Rosethorn flatly.
"Go on," said Xanxus, interested. Rosethorn blinked. "Seriously, give me ideas. The more we can do to show that old fucker he's not going to make me cave on making you my girlfriend, the happier I'll be."
She smirked.
"Well Squalo's been more or less going through the motions with his sword training lately and with how busy we've been until now he hasn't really had a chance to challenge himself... so why not let him go on a world-wide training trip for a few years to give him some actual challenges and improve his skills, which coincidentally could double as a recruitment drive. In the meantime I can help with the paperwork so he's not completely swamped when he gets back."
"Voi, I like it!" said Squalo grinning. He was really liking that idea already...he had been so bored with training the mooks who thought themselves swordsmen! "But what about the rest of the idiots?"
"Put their asses through some new training exercises designed to promote communication between the divisions. Maybe even get some of those Lightnings to grow a damn spine. We could rotate the squads around between countries to bring in new languages and poisons... our current stock is only as good as what we can bring in. Letting a castle full of bored assassins and quirks sit around is just asking for trouble, so we train their asses to the ground and get them to think of new skills and ways to use their flames. We are the Elite, we should fucking act like it and keep ahead of the game," said Rosethorn.
"I like it. I like it a lot."
Getting the divisions to act as a cohesive unit would make missions that much easier. If they were going to get some downtime because Nono was being an ass, then they were going to be productive about it and get some of the lower ranks to upgrade their skill levels and keep them at the top of the pack.
"I could help them learn how to deal with magical interference... I'm sure Mammon would help me make amulets to protect against them having their minds wiped... we might even be able to bring in some werewolves... most of them hate the magical communities, especially in the UK, considering the amount of prejudice they give them for a condition that's easily controlled."
Xanxus was very pleased with her ideas. Not only would it keep the Varia as the Elite of the Elite, but it also kept the idiots from getting ideas out of boredom. And it meant they would use the downtime to actually get things done to make them even more dangerous to their enemies.
Xanxus kissed his girlfriend on the head.
"Love you."
Rosethorn blushed while Squalo mock gagged.
"What do we do if the old fucker tries to cut us off from the Vongola's funds?"
"Squalo, what part of 'I have been conspiring with Mammon for the past couple of years with my very large and extensive amount of gold' did you not get? If he pisses us off too much we can turn the tables right back on him by cutting the Varia away from the Vongola completely until they get a new Don," said Rosethorn rolling her eyes. "Vongola Nono's control over us is only as much as we let him. He has no idea what sort of trouble he'll be in for if he thinks we're going to let him walk all over us. I'm a Black... we don't take this sort of thing sitting down."
Xanxus looked even happier hearing that, as did Squalo. If Timoteo pissed them off too much they had the option of breaking off until the Vongola got their shit together. It made a warm and fuzzy feeling come over them both...neither of them particularly liked Nono with how he treated Xanxus like a feral tiger he had taken in and expected him to suddenly act like a pampered house cat.
If Nono noticed that his ploy to make the Varia sweat was being rendered completely ineffective by Rosethorn, he made no show of it.
Xanxus was particularly smug as Rosethorn had gone over the Varia contract with Mammon and made up a standard rate of pay for all members not currently on assignment or sick leave.
The flat rate covered basic rent and utilities, even if it forced some of the men to learn how to make a proper budget and stick with it. Mammon offered classes on the basics of budgeting for free with far too much amusement on the matter.
The issue of food was deftly taken care of from a rather amusing source... some of the investments Rosethorn had made involved large farms that had both magical and mundane crops and livestock. It was a simple matter of transporting the food through judicious use of house elves that were already attached to the properties, which meant that there was no worry for sabotaged products. Frozen foods and spices would have to be imported, but the basic necessities were more or less covered...coincidentally this made Mammon very happy since it meant the food budget was cut considerably and thus could be allocated to other areas without impacting standards.
Nono had absolutely no idea that Rosethorn and Mammon had been quietly cutting them off from any dependence to the Vongola, even if it meant breaking multiple laws to do it. By this point knowledge of the magical enclaves was more or less standard (as was the reason for the ban on all mission in the UK for the foreseeable future) among the Varia. Most of them considered magic a 'weird application of Mist Flames' and was thus ignored so long as things didn't get too crazy or weird.
If and when Nono tried to put the screws to them by putting even more restrictions on them other than cutting off the number of decent missions available, he was going to be in for a very rude surprise to find the entire group already self-sufficient to the point they didn't need the Vongola to stay active.
No one did payback plots better than a Black, and Rosethorn was a firm believer of a back up plan whenever it was possible. She had grown out of the reckless Gryffindor idiocy and into the cunning Slytherin that the hat had suggested all those years ago.
And then something happened that set off an entirely new issue no one saw coming.
Rosethorn was a magically bound godparent. She knew this, as she had signed the paperwork and made the same oaths Sirius did all those years ago, when Remus and Tonks asked her to take care of their only son Theodore.
So when she started getting pings on her magic that alerted her that her godson was in trouble, and more importantly close by when he was supposed to be in England... well, she decided to do the responsible thing.
She tracked down where the 'ping' was coming from through trial and error (which took a week) and called in the reinforcements.
This was mafia territory. Her godson should not be in Italy at all, much less in an area she knew very well was not home to a "nice" famiglia. In fact this was one of the last Esterneo territories which was one of the worst ones to have gotten their hands on her metamorph godson, if the rumors she heard about them were even remotely true.
It was highly unlikely the Vindice would get involved if those idiots did have Teddy. They knew about magic and all it would take was a simple spell to confirm she was his godmother for them to drop any damages she caused. No way in hell would Andromeda hand over her last remaining connection to her daughter.