Leather & Lace: Ride or Rule

by onceuponatimetime

Gruff biker Emma Swan and her outlaw motorcycle club clash with officious mayor Regina Mills when they move their base of operations to Storybrooke, insinuate themselves into local life, and run afoul of rival biker gangs. Can love bridge the gap between Emma & Regina's vastly different worlds and protect their families from deadly gang warfare? AU slowburn Swan Queen Biker fanfic

2. Chapter One: Plans Within Plans

Regina faces the immediate aftermath of Emma's gun-wielding antics by reconnecting with the darkly calculating side of her mayoral persona. Can moments with her son and her best friend tether Regina to her morality? Or will strict adherence to her war path's agenda push her toward a deal with the devil?

Your time and your comments are much appreciated. : )

Sidebar: This chapter is longer than other chapters due to setting up several of the major conflicts for the first half of the story. Remaining chapters should go live more frequently due to their much shorter lengths (3500 ~ 9000 words).

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Leather & Lace: Ride or Rule

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Chapter One: Plans Within Plans

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Regina Mills

I heard the scuffle of her black boots before her whimpering plea.

"Sorry I'm late touching base, Madame Mayor," Ariel squeaked out hesitantly, her shoulders slumping as she trundled half-way into my office like a mindless zombie who must have been egregiously vapid in her former life. She was certainly as such right now; on the verge of crocodile tears for reasons that probably centered on her having broken a fingernail instead of her being the bane of my professional existence. "I ran into a small snag during my morning fifteen."

It was only scant seconds away from 10:30 am, but Ariel's incompetence adhered to no bounds.

"I can work nonstop until four to finish sorting the grant proposals," she muttered, as if hoping her half-hearted offer was immediately rejected so she could spend the evening partying with friends.

Eyeing Ariel contemptuously as I stood catty corner to one of my office windows, I sighed slowly to tamp down my rising ire. I was immeasurably vexed, not solely because the exasperating redhead finally managed to pad into my office looking worn and weathered after several attempts to rouse her from an almost disconcerting bout of sleep, but because she was a tangible reminder of how that blonde psycho biker reduced me to an unfathomably low rank in my own office, striping me of all regalia like a bloodthirsty mob intent on parading me through Storybrooke naked.

"Where were you sorting the proposals?" I responded icily, surveying the two empty whiskey glasses perched on my desk and a mound of semi-wet papers strewn underneath one of them. Like polished graveyard tombstones, the glasses were lamentable visual cues signifying something precious I lost to that hooligan: my personal agency.

"I kinda hunkered down near the toner and paper supply cubby," she said, steadfastly clutching a yellow legal notepad to her chest like a Kevlar vest. The paper shield wouldn't protect her from a verbal shot of truth to the face.

The inefficacious redhead definitely looked the part of an accomplice to a bizarre crime helmed by a gun-toting gutter rat: hair a messy pile on her weak shoulders, clothes some rainbow bohemian abomination, boots more worn than the pyramids of Egypt, and makeup whatever she could pillage from a dollar store shelf and airbrush onto her face. I never imposed a dress code on the young intern because I wanted my second run as mayor to be more in tune with millennial sensibilities - more personal freedoms granted to yield more productivity. Not unlike the Google offices in California.

But the reigns would be held tighter now. Casual days and laissez faire governance abolished.

Ariel was high on the personal freedom and low on the actual productivity.

"The proposal presentations were due a half hour ago. At which time you should have been at your desk working," I snapped derisively with barely concealed irritation and menace governing my voice.

Recrudescent anger swelled behind my eyes, morphing the russet windows to my soul into laser cannons. From Ariel's fidgety demeanor, I suspected she wasn't aware of what transpired in my office between myself and a hostile interloper, and therefore was clueless about her own culpability from being asleep at the wheel.

"I'm so sorry," she began quickly. "I was... at my desk ... and … there's a bit more... sorting to do."

After two weeks of enduring her paid internship in the interest of affecting favorable PR, today's incident made one thing crystal: Ariel's level of incompetence was thoroughly ingrained and inexcusably permanent.

Her increasing fallibility came as no parts shocking to me. Ariel originated from a family of overly chipper hippie stock, and it appears as though her kin never introduced her to the concept of repercussions for imperfection. They likely raised her to believe that everything she did, no matter how immeasurably devastating, was easily forgiven as long as she appeared to prostrate herself.

In stark contrast, since my days noshing on carrots with chubby toddler fingers, I was taught very harsh truisms - chief among them being love was a weakness - at the hands of my mother Cora, an officious woman who wasted no time explaining my origin as being resultant from a late-in-life mishap of biology and vodka, and my sycophant older sister Zelena who priggishly echoed that sentiment whenever a conversationalist pointed out her ten years of unremarkable life that preceded the start of my own. Lauded as the world's leading experts in Child & Adolescent Psychiatry and Neuropsychiatry, respectively, their collective brand of passive aggressive tutelage was as supportive to my developing psyche as a dentist's drill to a set of unanesthetized diseased gums.

But one life lesson stuck because it rang true during my formative years at a private middle school, a time and place where preteen girls had more things in common with bone-crushing alligators than they did the rest of humanity.

Sincere kindness was the tool of a fool.

Regina Maria Mills was no one's fool.

"Roughly estimated," - because the gods only knew the exact figure - "how far along are you in the sorting process?"

"I-I kinda just ... got started…" she flustered, wincing in anticipation of receiving one of my patented insults. That, or a slap. I was not opposed to supplying her with both. But lessons imparted through violence fertilized vengeance.

I wanted to eviscerate that blonde invader due to that very flaw of human nature.

"Excuse me?" I demanded, spinning my body to face Ariel with my arms crossed at my chest. I stared at her, mouth agape and eyes pulsing with intense revulsion, as if she were speaking a completely unknown language from a large alien mouth on her forehead.

"Dr. Whale calibrated my allergy meds, and now the morning doses make me super drowsy at random times. I kinda got backlogged due to … I have most of the grants separated by projected amounts requested. I just need an extension," she explained, rocking back on the heel of her left boot and nearly keeling over on her side.

I have never desired to know her entire life story. What I wanted was for her to complete at least one of her assigned duties, even if, at this point, that was accomplished with only a smidgen of actual accuracy. My office required the grant selection to be completed last Friday to increase our town's capacity to compete for state and federal funding.

There were other unfinished projects that required her attention, too. Ariel's employment as a parlay to good PR was not worth an aneurysm.

I massaged both my temples with my index fingers to stave off another impending headache. I was already envisioning the insipid young woman choking on a wad of paper ripped from her legal pad. I recognized the violence of my imaginings, and the twisting tight knots forming in my belly, as possibly stemming from a budding minute form of PTSD.

After all, just earlier today, a lunatic barreled into my office and held me at gunpoint.

The blonde's voice still vibrated through my gut, unbidden and undesired, as it propagated within my bloodstream and coiled around my spine. Gruff, lusty, and deep, her growled challenge sent frissons of fury and an odd euphoria streaming through my body, scorching cold nerve endings as it rumbled over and under my skin until all that was left in its wake was a tumorous mass of my own deadly intentions.

Your move bitch…

I absolutely detested that that biker's voice melted down a large chunk of my glacial walls, the cold exterior I was raised to erect as a defensive and offensive coping mechanism, leaving me to drown in a tsunami of indignation and resentment.

As if tussling daily with idiotic town council members who didn't know their left hand from a road repair budget wasn't enough troublesome burden on my shoulders, I now had to contend with a truly lawless criminal element riding around my town.

The instant replay of that thug's aberrant and abhorrent actions constantly cropped up in my waking thoughts that were once unsullied and unencumbered, like she was some special brand of OCD specific only to me. I was cogitating about the blonde barbarian more than I did my all-important work schedule.

All because of Ariel.

But I fancied myself a commensurate politician.

I seldom blew my top; doing so left one unprotected and transparent.

I've done questionable, risque and even deplorable things in my thirty-four years of life.

But the one thing I did not do - save for when it involved my loved ones - was vulnerable.

Releasing a barely audible 'tsk-tsk' as I shook my head, I bit back the urge to curse.

"And how much time should this extension consist of? Four hours? Weeks? Years? Do you think the people who dedicated hundreds of hours drafting the painstakingly detailed proposals they submitted on time - which attract lifeblood funding for their nonprofit institutions and fledgling companies - will appreciate my office not being able to reveal the grants that will go before the submissions committee by Wednesday's deadline? A deadline that was set by my own hand? They expect the common courtesy of professionalism," I chimed, breathing in deeply to center myself. "Now that you are armed with those considerations, what do you think is an acceptable time frame for such a costly extension?

Ariel's chin lolled forward to her chest like a thoroughly supplicant dog heeding her master's reprimands.

"I-I'm not so sure..." she began, her mouth flapping about wildly as she relayed nothing of significance for what seemed like a lifetime.

Then the roar of revved up engines assaulted the air, rattling the wall of expensive tempered glass windows in my office like an earthquake.

[SQ mayor SQ] [SQ mayor SQ]

Ariel sprinted to a window and drew back the curtain, eyes wide with giddy interest like the immature child she was.

I whipped my eyes toward the streets outside my window, tucked a loose strand of hair obstructing my view, and trained my furious cross-hairs on the squared shoulders of that leather clad blonde idiot as she meandered through the Town Hall front lawn.

When she approached two similarly dressed male cronies who were perched on their bikes, they saluted her with more mocking revs from those infernal metal monstrosities. Like a trained circus animal, the blonde waved those damnable permits at them in a triumphant dance comprised of her lewdly thrusting her taut midsection toward their grinning chins.

She finished her bawdy performance by tucking her golden Medusa locks under her helmet, cockily straddling her bike and, as if preternaturally able to feel my steely gaze upon her back, raising a ringed middle finger toward my window before zooming down Main Street at the speed of light with her "brothers" in tow.

I slowly exhaled, drunk on a deadly mix of unmitigated anger and, gods be damned, curious arousal.

Like a newly released captive with an acute case of Stockholm Syndrome, my mind recalled the deep curl of the blonde's unpainted lips as she raked her lascivious gaze over my body. I imagined them tracing a wet hot line from my clavicle to the nape of my neck before forcing them to meet my ruby lips in a fierce battle for purchase until our dueling tongues pillaged both our mouths of all available air.

There was no mistaking the sexual energy present in the room whenever her eyes twinkled with more than hatred in their verdant depths. She likely had my entire facial makeup and body structure mapped out in the neurons of her mind with greater accuracy than any cartographer's charting skills.

I certainly noticed an abundance of things about her. The rough history within her eyes that were a magnificent twinkling emerald when she wasn't spewing inane drivel. The hardness of her arm musculature that seemed to be able to carry the weight of the world with bravado. The gruff lilt to her voice that spun her biker vernacular into an distinctive poetry that incited more than just verbal responses. The tight svelte bodice wrapped in curve-choking leather and denim - and so many dirty-sexy-cool tattoos - that bespoke of an energetic and animalistic love-making prowess.

And all of that seemed incongruous with the playfulness of the flaxen hair cascading down her strong shoulders and - my gods - the inviting sensuality of her delightfully unexpected dimples.

(A female biker with dimples!)

As her biker vibes monopolized my office, my body was on red alert even as my anger hit a deafening crescendo; my heart pumped to insanely fast rhythms, funneling heated blood to nooks and crannies that had never been transgressed.

I was never, ever that uncontrollably attracted to another person. Not even to my beloved, late husband Daniel Colter, and he was the embodiment of everything a woman could ask for in a lover: kind, caring, adoring, thoughtful, strong, funny, patient, supportive, smart, loving, playful, and romantic.

Daniel was so different.

So unique.

So perfect.

I simultaneously despaired and balked at the notion that anyone could ignite desires and sensations inside me that drove me to crave her - even if it was purely sexual - more than I had the first, the last, and the only great love of my life. The man who gave me the brightest light in my life and the only goodness in my soul, my four year old son Henry Daniel.

I knew these intrusive moments of ruminating on that antagonistic female hoodlum meant nothing.

Were nothing.

There was her immensely attractive body then there was her wholly unattractive everything else.

It was surreal ... when she deftly cocked her "iron" and pointed it at me, I was not paralyzed with fear or indecision.

Instead, I caught her off guard by simply being who I was.

And who I was was not a victim.

Never, ever again a victim.

The prickly tension hammering my eyes multiplied exponentially in its intensity as I focused my attentions back on Ariel. I twisted the silver ring on my right index finger, toying with the stones in a subconscious attempt to reign in my contempt and slow the thrumming of my heartbeat in my temples.

I unceremoniously motioned for Ariel to sit down.

"Did you still need me to collate the binders from the Parks Department's renovations proposal too"? She asked with a noticeable pout as she lowered herself into the very same chair that once held a very different sort of woman.

One who knew exactly what she wanted and exactly how to take it.

Ariel reeked of inaction; her presence was doused in the salty scent characteristic of someone who recently had one side of her face plastered in drool. It interspersed terribly within the still lingering scent of motor oil and cigarettes, the rude remnants of that tattooed woman who savagely forced me to sign permits I had every intention of sabotaging. The combined offending odors sent me careening over the threshold of pain.

I spun on my Louboutins and slinked into my chair, welcoming the coldness of the fine leather as it somehow began to erase the memory of having spent several minutes trapped in it with a trigger-happy hick playing at Turkish prison towering over me. The lack of warmth meant a new set of conditions from which to mount an attack.

Quirking an irritated brow at Ariel who eyed me intently, I retrieved a bottle of Tylenol from my desk and dry swallowed the recommended dose - my second such dosage since six am this morning - and smirked as I shoved the re-capped bottle back into its dark storage space.

It's called Tylenol and sex …

No, dear, it's called having difficult dilemmas and needing practical solutions.

Things a recalcitrant criminal knew nothing about.

As mayor to a small town, I trafficked in numbers and facts.

For years Storybrooke's population plateaued at 9,432 souls who took pride in their 97% literacy rate and their 1.7% crime rate. Especially the crime rate of practically nil; it created the impression that their gobs of money and their staid lives were safe from 'poor city/big city' problems like outlaw bikers.

But as mother to a four year old, I operated in emotions and worries.

My beautiful, bright-eyed little sweet prince, like most small children, was a true believer in the good in people, the superhero standard of righteousness, and the fairy tale promise of happy endings - so much so that he'd have a cute little whimsical nickname for my war plans like Operation Bye-Bye Bikers.

Any threat to my son's way of life would always be met with extreme prejudice. That's not hubris or braggadocio speaking. It's the hardened resolve of an enraged mother bear protecting her cub from imminent danger. I never succumbed the illusion that my town's impressive metrics meant threats to our safety weren't real.

Oh, they were very real.

So, no, I didn't need Ariel to collate a mound of relatively unimportant papers.

I needed her to prevent violent riff-raff from entering my office.

"Nevermind the grants and proposals. We have a bigger problem at hand."

"We do?" She asked, looking at me with uncomprehending hazel eyes that mirrored my son's puppy dog ones. I would not allow Ariel's visage being reminiscent of my son's to penetrate my defenses.

I toed my right heel off and flexed my foot over my left ankle. An unladylike habit from my youth that my mother's frequent berating should have drummed out of my repertoire but somehow never could. No matter how hard she pushed, there was always a defiant part of me that raged on and survived.

"I should clarify. You have a bigger problem at hand. I'm more than aware of what you were doing this morning when you were not screening calls or visitors to my office-"

"I'm sorry, Madame Mayor, I-"

I shot daggers at her cowering face.

"I trust you will not interrupt me again," I stated acidly, briefly waiting for the requisite nod of understanding. Once she slumped over in the chair, chastised chin to chest, I continued. "This morning, while you were bobble-heading at your desk, an outlaw biker calling herself Swan stormed into my office and absconded with several important documents."

"Should I call the sheriff?" She queried, shifting in the chair as if willing herself into prompt action to assuage her guilt.

Under normal circumstances, the call to arms would be welcomed. But I neither wanted to divulge every detail of my assault nor did I want her to recount how big a disappointment she was during it.

It would all reflect poorly on my mayoral reputation.

Besides, Graham eventually replied to my text and was due to clip-clop into my office in any second.

The lack of punctuality displayed by my subordinates - both within the same hour - was catastrophic; a myriad of oversights must be rectified and restructured in order for me to save face.

"Order yourself a cab," I replied evenly, moving the driest papers on my desk to a 'To Be Filed' metal tray.

"Where do you need me to go?" She asked, fishing her phone from one of about a thousand pockets on her pants.

At Ariel's age of twenty, I was already a junior executive armed with a bachelor's degree. Before achieving my MBA, I indulged in an eager brand of ruthlessness in order to climb the corporate ladder in NYC. The first financial firm to employ me, King Financial Group, had also supplied me with a rude awakening about capitalizing on your ambitions. I was employed scarcely for a week before the CEO, Leopold White, cornered me in the copy room and said, with his hand traveling speedily over my backside: "If you want to be an integral member of our financial team, then you need to show special attention to a key member of my team, if you catch my drift."

I caught that obnoxious pig's drift and ensured, months later, that the DEA and FBI discovered he was laundering millions of dollars in service to a notorious drug cartel with tentacles in every major city from NYC to Bogota, regardless of the fact that, within his large resume of deplorable activities, he had never committed that particular crime. Not quite the whistle he anticipated me blowing, but when I set my mind to a task, I knew how to toe the line and how to cross it.

Galvanized by that triumph, I used equally contentious tactics to secure votes during my first years in the political arena of Storybrooke. I feigned naivete when I ran opposite Richard Gold who owned eighty percent of the town's businesses but none of its workers hearts. Spurred on by Gold's continuous attempts to blackmail me - Daniel, only my fiance at the time, was not a legal citizen and had familial ties to notorious East Coast (and foreign) mobsters - it was easy to spark picket line controversies with his underappreciated employees over rumors of him price jacking basic foodstuffs in his grocery store chain and of him refusing to increase wages and benefits - and to supply a paper trail for the accusations that were entirely baseless (but not beyond the scope of something he would do).

I was surprised it took an imbecilic biker to remind me of my former temperament, and thus instill me with a conviction and savage hate I haven't experienced in years. I didn't realize just how antsy I had become without that hate until now.

And yet, I also was not surprised the biker affected me so.

Undeniably, there was a single narrative when it came to my closest female friends, lovers and enemies: they were confident, smart and blonde.

On a primal and visceral level, that three trait cocktail was my kryptonite.

And, I'm not alone in harboring that particular susceptibility. There are annotated studies which reveal how human eyes more readily identify light colors, especially yellow hues. It's the reason why school buses and cabs were painted a shade of yellow so bright and so stark it's almost a form of ocular assault.

It's no coincidence, then, that my closest friends during my undergrad days at Yale and my graduate stint at Harvard, Kathryn Midas and Maleficent Van Straten, both fit the bill. That biker bandit continued to weigh on my mind, whether preconditioned or not, and every thought that lingered on her sparked a war of emotions within me.

But I've inherited my mother's biological imperative to pretend everything was as it should be, and if it was not, to expunge any weakness until was.

"Follow me at once," I commanded Ariel, as I rose from my chair and thudded out my office door.

[SQ mayor SQ] [SQ mayor SQ]

"Am I missing something? Because I still don't understand where you need me to go when I don't have much time to finish all my other tasks," Ariel complained, dropping her notepad over a weird tchotchke perched near her computer.

"You're missing the subtext, dear. You're not being sent on an errand," I said, fishing an empty toner box from a nearby shelf. "You're being fired. Pack your personal effects in this box," I concluded, handing her said box.

Something uncouth happened with her face.

A rough quiver and a sheepish smile locked into apocalyptic battle, and tears were called up from the reserves.

She actually quailed over my decision, as if genuinely shocked it had graced her ears. Her eyes told the entire story: she was falling into a dark abyss that would consist of her obsessively replaying her mistakes over and over again in the forefront of her mind like a social media clip left on an infinite repeat loop.

"But I need this job," she implored, clasping her hands around the box submissively as a few stray tears tunneled down the hills of her cheeks.

Ariel's sniveling was a horrid epitaph to a profoundly upsetting morning.

"And I needed you to do this job, but you've proved unequal to the task," I said, almost in the consoling voice I reserved only for my son.

I knew how it felt to work in an environment with everything stacked against you, constantly struggling to wedge your foot in doors that people quickly shut before your eyes. Still, I was not running a charity. I was running a town.

While Ariel looked as if she'd vomit in any minute, I could only care inasmuch as I derived solace in having had the foresight to remodel my corner of Town Hall with marble and granite floors that were a cinch to clean.

I gathered my lips in a thin line and tamped down any sympathizing emotions. I defaulted to embracing my mother's axioms about life, but it was fitting. Danger lurked down the road of kindness; past kindness shown to Ariel led to a leather-clad ruffian treating the institution of my office as her personal pissing grounds.

"Email Sidney before you leave. He'll have the paperwork to ensure you receive university credit," I said plainly as I headed back to my office only to be stopped by a now defiant voice at my back.

"You're just like they all said," she barked coldly between sniffles like a recently grounded petulant child.

I turned around quickly to address her.

"What, pray tell, have they all said about me?" I goaded hostilely with both my temperature and my pulse raising.

Everyone knew I was a popular topic of gossip - I even had the moniker Evil Bitch Queen tossed at me once in NYC - but on the whole I did not have the exact account of how all and sundry in Storybrooke defined me. It was one thing to know you were being judged and another to know the exact verdict.

Ariel jerked in shock, morphing her ridiculous frown into an equally ridiculous snotty smirk.

"You're so damaged, not even devil would buy your soul," she declared smugly, and that was when the Tylenol stopped being effective and my migraine warped into molten fire scorching through my veins.

In the moment of murderous silence that choked the space between us - her eyes boring into mine as I narrowed my own - it appeared as if she expected me to join her in some pathetic screaming match that would devolve into fisticuffs.

The redhead was truly pitiful, her arms crossed at the chest, affecting someone with more guts than brains. She was scarcely one-fourth the threat that biker had been when simply raking her eyes over my body.

"Word of advice..." I said, leering in response to her reddening cheeks, allowing my anger to steamroll over my eyes. What flowed next from my mouth was admittedly not one of my finer verbal assaults, but dealing with ineffectual lackeys and tattooed dregs of society had grown taxing. I could feel the heated, scratchy irritation leaving my throat before I heard it. "...emotional blackmail is not your strong suit, dear. Perhaps play up what your infantile outburst suggests is a very flexible jaw joint and don't forget to be mindful of the uncomfortable ground when you're own your knees."

"Not everyone sleeps their way to the top, Madame Mayor," she spat, finally finding the backbone inside of herself that she'd need to survive in life because, in that moment - with the mounting pressure in my head darn near exploding into volcanic ash - I was more than determined to make certain she never held a job in Storybrooke that didn't require a hairnet and a high tolerance for grease smells.

"How right you are," I countered, the fire blazing anew on my lips, my smile wider than a spoiled child's at Christmas but deadlier than a rattlesnake bite. "Unlike you, most interns do their jobs instead of lying down asleep on the job."

"Madame Mayor," an all too familiar accented voice interjected.

Sheriff Graham had materialized near my office doorway, and both Ariel and I turned to regard him impassively as he trudged closer to stand awkwardly at her side. His brooding emo act looked ill-fitting, like a small boy walking around in one of his father's overlarge oxford shirts moments before tripping over the sleeves.

Graham had once been a pillar of decisive strength, but lately he clung to the irritating disposition of a timid man who was one step away from drowning his sorrows in liquor and tears.

He proffered me an unattractive perfunctory nod and then eyed us both quizzically.

It was clear he would make a grand show of comforting Ariel.

And do so out of spite.

Less than a month ago, seeing him swagger into my office in a clean and crisp uniform made my cheeks burn scarlet, my breath hitch mid-throat, and my fingers ache to maul his toned skin. It sparked an itch inside me that my molten core begged me to scratch.

Now … it's just the itch of an irritating rash.

Seeing his brown hair that was long enough to cover one of his cerulean eyes but swept away from his face with a shiny gel product, I wanted to rip a page from that Swan's book and flip Graham the middle finger.

That was not my style, but the sentiment was all me. When it came to my physical association with the sheriff, it was never about compassion and always about convenience. We were only ever into rough and quick sex in any location that accommodated two bodies except for a bed.

A bed was intimate.

I was only ever intimate with Daniel.

"One moment, Sheriff," I said, raising a finger before he could protest. I addressed Ariel in my most calm voice ever. "Clear out your personal effects before I return from the courthouse," I clipped, punctuating my command with a curt dismissive hand wave. No longer any room for amiability. "Do not force me to make our dear Sheriff assist you."

"Ariel? Are you okay?" He asked the shell-shocked young lady with a touch of genuine care in his voice, as she shot me what she must have thought passed as an intimidating look.

Seven seconds longer and her face would be beyond comical.

"Just forget it, Sheriff," Ariel sniffed as she spun on one heel, dropped the toner box, shoulder checked the sheriff, and flounced out of my office hub in a miasma of fiery red curls and static electricity producing fabrics, trailing anger like a dust cloud on her way down the hall.

"Did something happen with Ariel?" he asked earnestly as he rotated his shoulder joint.

"Did something happen with you?" I fired back, lips curling around a perfect politician's smile.

"I'm not sure what you're implying," he said, cocking his head to the side in a manner befitting a befuddled canine.

"I'm implying that you owe me an explanation. What were you doing that you couldn't take my call?"

"I thought we agreed to stay upwind of each other," he said flatly as his hands fished out a pocket-sized notebook from his leather jacket.

Shame that cops and bikers had similar taste in fashion. His leather jacket once made him appear rugged and, well, above the law. Now, in light of its sheer naked perfection and the blatant imperfection of the man wearing it, the jacket paled in comparison to the patch-littered vest of a true outlaw.

Because I had spent an inordinate amount of time gazing into Graham's face from all manner of angles, it was easy to see the hurt percolating below the surface of his perfectly chiseled features, especially the lump trapped behind his sable-brown eyes. The expressiveness of those eyes was one reason why a fling that should have lasted one night drove us down a lonely codependent road for two years.

That, and my inability to properly mourn Daniel.

He wanted to have four children but never had the chance to hold his only child.

A drawn-out affair with Graham hadn't even constituted my biggest regret.

Not even my biggest mistake.

"How is that again?" My voice was restrained but perceivably contentious.

"I thought the call was of a personal nature," he admitted quietly and most definitely reluctantly.

"At which number did I attempt to reach you?" I demanded bitingly, arching an icy brow.

"The station's line that forwards to my phone," he said, slightly aloof as if the answer was obvious and irrelevant.

"So, your work phone," I corrected, studying the way he worried his bottom lip between blunted teeth. Once bastions of comfort, Graham's lips had become non-kissable, likely due to my rapidly diminishing opinion of him. His lips were not sensually mischievous like the lips of … no one I should ever consider. "Regardless of any misgivings, you should have answered."

"I was out answering a noise disturbance complaint near Widow Lucas' diner. A couple of stray cats had a row and made short work of some old boxes out back," he offered as he trundled closer to Ariel's chair but didn't sit in it.

Now that Graham was mere feet away from me, I was even less enamored with the idea of rehashing old arguments and opening up old wounds with him.

He could never have filled the void left behind by Daniel.

No one could.

It was not possible.

Because my entire life with Daniel had been about sharing one heart and one soul.

It was an all-consuming love that haunted every facet of my life.

No, defined it.

"We've been upwind of each other for over three weeks. Need I remind you it was at my own behest? So, the next time I call you is the exact time you answer. Rest assured, that next call and all subsequent calls will be in the capacity of you assisting me as the sheriff of this town and only in that capacity for the foreseeable future."

"I'm sorry, Madame Mayor. It won't happen again," he grumbled.

"Dreadful apologies appear to be a recurring theme this morning."

"I don't rightly follow."

"That much is evident," I said dryly, more than a little bit annoyed by how his athletic physique and agreeable accent had conspired to hide a grotesquely obtuse nature with the unbearable tendency to brood.

"What was your reason for calling me?" He inquired, tapping his pen on a flipped-open notebook page.

"I summoned you because the town has a serious problem, Sheriff, so do try to grasp the information I'm relaying to you with more vigor than you did our last discussion," I said, almost in the same didactic tone I used when I reminded him to put on a condom before jackhammering me. I didn't mourn either activity.

"I'm confident that will no longer be an issue."

"Good, because a dangerous biker gang has descended upon Storybrooke and is intent upon establishing roots here starting with The Rabbit Hole. I trust that I don't need to explain to an officer of the law the type of trouble such vagabonds will reap upon our town, especially with their hands on property of a dubious commercial benefit."

"I haven't seen or heard word of any biker gang in town. Are you sure they're not weekend warrior vacationers?"

How could he have missed those bandits thundering down Main Street?

I pondered the question for a split second before recalling that, yes, this was a man who could make me cum multiple times but never one who could focus on much else for any stretch of time.

"I haven't seen or heard Humpback Whales breach the waters of the Pacific Ocean, nonetheless they've been a presence off the coast of the Hawaiian Islands for centuries."

"What are you advising we do?" He muttered, conceding his fallibility. He was far too malleable. It made me want to laugh. Good thing I gave good politico face. It factored into my ability to ward off a gunshot.

"Following the discovery of this biker menace, I combed over the yearly budget statements and determined that your department can be allocated the necessary funds to hire five new deputies."

"I thought adding just one additional deputy wasn't fiscally possible until the end of next year."

It had been marginally possible before today, but I postponed new police hires until I could locate comparable funding for an overhaul to Storybrooke Elementary. Structural repairs where in order, and the public school desperately needed to attract teachers of high caliber who were being monopolized by our private school, Storybrooke Academy. Before this morning, I considered the public school's monetary issues to be the only blight on my administration. Raising taxes and accepting a dubious donation from Richard Gold did not appeal to the town council's sensibilities or to mine.

But once the biker gang's presence was broadcast, that confederacy of uppity dunces wouldn't express a single objection to having any and all town funds funneled into the Sheriff's Department.

I worked tirelessly for seven years to achieve relative peace in my town despite all the horrors of the modern world because I was all too well acquainted with those horrors. That biker and her gun were in crowded company.

"Apparently miracles do happen. You'll need to assemble those deputies as an anti-gang task force. I've emailed the details of where to find the city ordinances and state protocols for the training and development of your team. It's important that we keep everything up to protocol. We may need to obtain state or federal support in the near future. Do you have any candidates in mind for the task force?"

"There are a few people I could fast track."

"Do it."

"Madame Mayor…"

"... Sheriff?"

"Do you need any manpower at home ... for your and little Henry's protection?"

I should've taken his question in the spirit it was asked: concern for the well-being of others more than hope for a way to jumpstart a dead association between us.

But I also recognized that look in his eyes - it was a less than subtle longing tinged with disappointment.

"If I did, Sheriff, I have a few candidates of my own I can fast track."

"Like that survivalist?" He asked, an accusation coloring his tone. His eyes no longer mopey, they sparked with a sudden wild anger.

I bristled at his presumptuous line of questioning. Had that rage always resided there?

"I fail to see how my professional association with Mr. Locksley is germane to this discussion much less any of your actual concern," I stated dangerously.

"I mean, I'm not so sure his fringe group is any more a desired presence in town than a biker gang," he floundered, furrowing his brow as he sensed a torrential storm brewing in my dark coffee eyes. "They're extremely vocal and highly visible supporters of bearing arms. Are we really confident they won't become just as dangerous a threat as the bikers?"

"As mayor, I support our state and federal constitutional rights. As a person with a functioning brain, I'm quite capable of separating my professional leanings from my personal biases. I suggest you adopt a similar stance whilst manning the fort. I made you sheriff. And I can take it away just as easily."

"If you want me to head-up this task force, I will."

"Good. Email your list of selected deputies to me no later than eleven am tomorrow morning. I have final sign-off approval."

"Madame Mayor..."

"That will be all, Sheriff."

"We should talk about this, Regina," he insisted with a heated, desperate urgency to his tone, his eyes glassy and doleful yet hard. Unease and unhappiness a permanent fixture on his face.

I pegged him against Ariel's cubicle with cold dark soulless shark eyes.

"There's nothing to discuss," I stated clinically, as a lab technician would to a lay person when discussing the mechanics of a routine lab test no one ever wanted to know about, "Are we clear?" I added, my tone clipped and loaded.

"We are at that," he responded pointedly, fierceness and disappointment warring throughout his face from his eyes to the tight muscles of his jawline, such was his Rorschach mask.

If he thought my dismissive manner didn't properly honor to our history together, he didn't make his grievance known.

Not with words.

He just shuffled away from Ariel's desk without so much as a lingering glance, now armed with concrete knowledge that that history held zero meaning for me.

[SQ mayor SQ] [SQ mayor SQ]

"By the gods …" I grumbled as I took decisive strides into the larger of my town's two courtrooms, my heels thudding on the polished hardwood floors.

I required the personal pep talk.

There's nothing more patently boring than midday small town bench warrant criminal court.

Day in and day out, it was the same affair. Storybrooke's three judges droned on about their courtroom's draconian protocols, old codgers promised to prevent their half-blind dogs from defecating on their neighbors lawns again, and ambulance-chasing lawyers connived to have their nefarious repeat offender clients' sentences reduced to pittances - all to the shoot-yourself-in-the-face headache inducing metronomic beat of an emotionless stenographer's fingertip tapping.

Granted, after the morning I had, unwavering monotony was a welcomed addition.

For a brief interlude, I didn't clamor to punch anyone in the face.

Eclipsing that desire, because my unmitigated anger had trickled down to a residual putter, finally, was my distaste for being in overheated rooms.

It was unfortunate, then, that courtroom A-1 was the poster child for the negative effects of global warming.

Running borderline clammy fingers through my dark hair - mercifully still buoyant in the oppressively hot and dry courtroom air - before I stalked closer to the seating area, I briefly closed my eyes and sighed at the prospect of spending more than five minutes trapped in a poorly ventilated room that frequently paraded the unwashed criminal masses, some of whom tended to carry stenches more pungent than a burning pile of garbage. The lack of a discernible breeze or fans that blew with more force than a baby's fart further weighed down the chore that was introducing oxygen to the lungs.

This was where dreams deferred went to die.

As dust mites frolicked in the sunlight pouring from high-positioned plain windows, I shrugged off my grey blazer, not unlike a snake molting old skin, and staved off the pedestrian urge to fan myself with it. Luckily, I paired a short sleeved oxford with my pantsuit ensemble and had yet to display the signs of sweating anywhere except my hands.

I also wore a plastic politician's smile like armor as I padded around the room, willing my thoughts to focus on my goal of ruining the Charming Knights. Burying them under my town equated to throwing the law at their heads.

I ignored the inquisitive glances of a few elderly townspeople who undoubtedly found the live performance of People's Court to be infinitely more appealing than staying at home only to be ignored by their small army of cats.

Marco, an elderly carpenter and handyman extraordinaire, was among the population of unfortunate people genuinely excited to attend a court session. Of all the banal encounters with citizens I have had to endure over the years, I honestly found his to be the least infuriating.

"Good afternoon, Madame Mayor," Marco told the side of my face. I tossed him a courtesy nod on my way closer to the front of the courtroom. He wasn't a nuisance but I wasn't in a hospitable mood.

The master craftsman took his time scoping out a seat - which could literally have been anywhere as the were an abundance of empty seats in the peanut gallery; the largest concentration of people, eight to be exact, where criminals corralled off in a holding pen waiting to see the reigning ice queen of the courtroom, Judge Sarah Fisher. Sarah had transformed being disaffected into a perfect art form. No amount of tragic sob story would result in a lenient sentence. There was no room to curry her favor, only space to greatly enrage her. That was a personality trait I cherished in my own repertoire.

It was also what called me to her hellish courtroom during a very late afternoon lunch hour. Finding a pliable mark was infinitely easier in a situation where Sarah had already created no room for the person to maneuver.

"Bail is set at seven thousand. Breakdown is as follows: three thousand for resisting with force, two thousand for destruction of city property, one thousand for DUI, and one thousand for driving with an expired license. Bailiff, please escort the defendant from the stand and back into police custody," the steely Sarah deliberated with a forceful bang of her gavel, startling the criminal whose reservoir of facial sweat could irrigate several industrial farms.

As the bailiff led the dubiously dressed man away from the judge, the handcuffed criminal flashed me an ashen-faced, scrunched snarl that hinted at a great wrenching pain wracking his body - as if he had just been stabbed mercilessly.

I considered myself a percipient judge of other people's exploitable weaknesses, and always had the luxury of unveiling them without the serious impediment of being an actual people person in order to do so.

But a person's greatest worth was the secrets he or she kept hidden from the world.

That man the bailiff coldly ushered out of the judge's presence, with his jittery movements, telegraphed his secret for all to see: he had no chance, in any lifetime, of posting that seven thousand dollar bail.

Soon, I would find comfort in a such a realization dawning upon another ashen face once a certain tattooed blonde was read charges in front of the same glacial judge that she had no chance in hell of beating.

As I started to smile, my phone buzzed with a text from the one employee who has yet to fail me. I thumbed the notification screen.

Sidney: I've procured the requested packages and secure smartphones

The toady yet intelligent Sidney Glass' secret was easy to decipher, six years ago, when his eyes - housed in an angular, thin face - traced the contours of my body, landing reverently on my mouth before he guiltily averted his gaze to resume prattling off the minutes of a meeting I missed due to work-related travel.

In that instant I learned two things.

Sidney was in love with me.

And ...

I would exploit his flattering devotion without harboring any qualms.

But, I'd do so without crushing him. He was a special friend, after all.

Sidney had the privilege of knowing how it felt and what it meant to be rewarded with my trust. He was loyal to an almost suffocating degree, but he was also thoughtful, kind and attentive when it came to Henry and, so far, respectful of my boundaries. Some days his wiry frame carried a genuinely inviting smile that was a sight for sore eyes. But, he would never become more to me than a friend in my employ. No matter how much that fact silently frustrated him and how much he felt I should be over Daniel by now after four years of mourning, Sidney knew he was valuable to me in a way none of my easily discarded lovers - who were always trapped in the shadow of my love for Daniel - had ever been.

Sidney knew how to uncover other people's deepest and darkest secrets like a mirror highlighting the cracks in their faces. His background in computer science factored into that skill but so did his chameleon-like ability to be whatever a person needed - ruse or not.

I answered his text expeditiously lest he became too confident in his skills and too wasteful of my time.

Me: Your check-in is late.

Sidney: You expect ultimate perfection and I need sufficient time to deliver it to you. Shall we F2F in 1 hr?

Me: Send your files to my personal email. Password protected.

Sidney: Do you need the resumes as well?

Me: You have the liberty to hire my assistant and security guard. You know what I require. Send me the biker files only.

Sidney: Already sent

Me: Your intel had better be worthy of my time.

Sidney: I assure you it is neither a hatchet job nor a waste of our time.

Me: Roll forward with anything that will place that Swan in front of Judge Fisher first.

Sidney: For some reason, several records on her were heavily redacted or sealed under court order. Though there's still a lot about the Charming Knights in general.

Me: So, if I'm understanding you correctly, you texted me to tell me you're disappointing me immensely? Do not rest on your past laurels. I've fired one employee today. There is no quota. So get those files on her released to me in their entirety.

As I berated Sidney - blessedly via thumbed words and not face to face - I smirked when my eyes spotted the one blonde I actually wished to encounter today.

I found Kathryn Midas conferring with a client in the far left corner of the courtroom. I waved at her and made the universal hand gesture for 'give me a moment then we can talk.'

She arched an eyebrow as if to say 'make that sooner rather than later.'

The thirty-four year old lawyer was a fascinating woman from the moment I set eyes on her at Yale. She had a cool mix of girl-next-door innocent yet sophisticated looks that she usually accentuated with effortless makeup and a flawless dress sense; it made men melt at her smile and worship at her feet.

It was all a wonderful deception.

Almost better than any facade I've ever erected for myself.

Kathryn had the crass mouth of a drunken sailor, the jack-rabbit libido of a drunken frat boy, the raw honesty of a drunken divorcee, and the excitable irritability of a drunken old man. She was paradoxically crude and exceptionally well-bred, and had more advanced degrees and industry awards than she had wall space to display. Her husband Frederick was of intelligent sturdy stock; the man had to be in order to survive five years of marriage with his sanity still intact.

She was a drama queen; what I enjoyed most about the bold blonde was her way of dealing with the various classes of people who populated her lawyer's realm. She threw verbal daggers at her hardened criminal clients as vehemently and as frequently as she did the opposing prosecution team. Her menace was practiced with ease, flair, and panache; it brooked no bull. She made no apologies for who she was or the way she was and she was immensely successful.

We were peas in a pod.

Maleficent rounded out our trio, but only Kathryn was on speaking terms with our beautiful friend...

Kathryn shot me the stink eye in response to my continued brush off - like she was extending a huge favor to me that I was too dumb to comprehend and too stubborn to appreciate. She smoothed down her light blue skirt-suit (she must have received notice about the lack of cooled air) and pointed at a dirty blonde handcuffed behind the holding pen.

I tossed her a firm nod.

Kathryn's client looked exactly like the mark I needed. A twenty-something girl with a nice face and a shapely frame. The trepidation in her eyes, as clear as tropical blue waters, confirmed she was in no position to pass up any opportunity.

I smiled inwardly. I've vaguely known of Ava Tillman by her unfortunate reputation as a thief and finally had a reason to yank her from my mental Rolodex and put her background to expert use.

I needed to work fast; I had been assaulted little more than two hours ago, but my enemy had the advantage. My signature on her permits gave her footing and clout, and by this week's end, her gang would be throwing a hedonistic carnival in my town for gods knew what purpose. My mind immediately considered the event as a front for them to sell drugs or guns or women. Bikers were notorious for all of those deplorable activities.

I already knew they had guns...

Swallowing in a puff of dry air, I turned my attentions to Sydney's incoming text.

Sidney: I'll keep working on obtaining full disclosure files for that lady biker and anything else that can be made to stick for the Charming Knights on the whole.

Me: See that you do. Also make certain Henry is not late to his appointment with Archie. But, before you go, call me. I want to speak with him.

Sidney: As you wish

Sidney's texts morphed into the best reason for owning a set of ears and a smartphone: my son's voice.

"Mommy! Mommy!" Henry exclaimed so exuberantly yet equally winded it sounded as if he has just ran a 10K marathon in record time. I gripped my smartphone tightly, as if doing so were the direct equivalent of hugging him with abandon.

I took solace in the fact that, over the phone, my only reason for living couldn't see my brow furrowing as my mind fretted over every possible danger the bikers presented fast enough to break the sound barrier.

"Hello, my sweet prince. How was your day at the library?"

"I can hold the phone all by myself, Mr. Sidney," he stated politely. Henry was my son through and through from his dark hair to his vaguely sandy skin tone, but he had uncannily inherited his father's ability to deliver blunt phrasing in a genial manner. Sometimes it hurt my heart to hear Henry speak; he displayed Daniel's intonation too. "I learned a new joke today!"

"Can you tell it to mommy or is it a secret joke?" I asked, genuinely excited.

Henry was budding into the greatest little storyteller who ever existed but his current favorite pastime was telling the corniest jokes in the world. I must have heard half a million so far; I'd never tire of his comedy routines. His energy and innocence were the anchors to my sanity. I've never known the joy he feels every day as a child with a mother who adored his company the way I do his - I was only ever a vessel for my mother to fill with her reprehensible ideals and to parade around her colleagues as validation of her philosophies - but I knew all too well of the fears Henry experienced some nights as he tossed and turned and cried in his sleep. I was always there to comfort my son as my father Henry Sr had comforted me before he succumbed to a heart attack when I was sixteen.

But I vowed never to burden Henry with the scars of my past.

We had fresh scars to contend with...

Even before we commenced Henry's sessions with Dr. Hopper, I figured it was a good idea to introduce my son to positive ways to interpret the world around him. He had the active imagination common to his age group but also the awful memories of someone who almost had his life horrifically ripped from him. Henry and I were survivors; books, especially children's jokes and fairy tales, were his way of coping with all we've survived.

Of making what we survived more livable even when it could never be less present.

"It's a really funny joke but … but you haveta like animals, mommy... okay?" He said, plotting to throw me off the path of unraveling his punch line. Even when I knew exactly where his jokes were headed, I always allowed him to have all the glory and pleasure associated with telling them to me.

"I love animals and I love laughing, sweetie. So, let's see if I can tackle this funny new joke."

"What do you call a cow with a little baby cow?" He asked, giggling uncontrollably into the phone.

"Oh, that's a tough one," I teased exaggeratedly.

"Just guess mommy!" My little sweetheart insisted with mock indignation.

Henry functioned in extremes like me, hot and cold and, also like me, he felt everything deeply. So his laughs - no matter how they came, whether plentiful or far between, real or feigned for my benefit - warmed my soul. Brought me balance. Gave me the will to press against life until I left it ragged and winded.

"A milk dispenser?"

"No... a moomie!" He shouted, laughing with such fervor it became contagious. Both Sidney and I shared in his fun. Leave it to the whimsy and innocence of a child to ground you in life. Hearing his voice invigorated my passion to complete my task by any means necessary yet with careful consideration.

I could not fail Henry again.

He's my entire world.

"That's a good one, sweetie."

"I know, mommy, sheesh," he said in a voice much too big for his body. I couldn't help but smile at the curious behavior - perhaps a precursor to his far off teen years - because it merited my adoration. "Sidney brought me three used books for home!"

"That was nice of Mr. Glass. Can you be a wonderful little gentleman for Dr. Hopper, too?"

"Do I have to?" His super saccharine plea melted my heart.

"I'm afraid so."

A commotion in the holding pen momentarily distracted my attention from my son. The bailiff began clearing criminals awaiting their appearance in front of Sarah from the pen. All except for Ava and a middle-aged man slumped on the floor who appeared as drunk as he was slovenly.

"Can we have apple pie for dessert?" Henry chirruped. He was my flesh and blood but picked up his godmother Kathryn's manipulative negotiation skills through magical osmosis.

"Only if you eat all of your yummy veggies at dinner."

He also had a way of cutting right to the point that was all his own. "Veggies are not yummy."

"I know, sweetie, but the broccoli will have three different types of low fat cheese," I whispered, conspiratorially, and instantly knew that I had won him over. His giggles returned.

They were loveliest musical notes in the world.

"Awesome!" It was. He was.

"Can you hand the phone back to Mr. Sidney?"

"Okie-dokie artichokie!" He chirped, knowing exactly how I'd end our conversation because it was how we ended all of our phone conversations.

It was our routine and no one would ever be able to breach its sanctity.

"Bye-bye french-fry." I could not say it slow enough, for the life of me, to prolong one comforting moment.

Sidney's voice floated over the phone, bursting my all too brief bubble of joy."Yes, Madame Mayor?"

And just like that, my body became a live conduit for the burning electricity of outrage and hatred. It wasn't Sidney's fault or even directed at him, but my tone of speech through clamped teeth suggested otherwise.

"Watch my son at all times."

"I am his shadow, Regina."

A shadow with a licensed gun, I reminded myself. Sidney never left his loft without his 'insurance policy.' Storybrooke was arguably the safest city in America, and possibly the world at large, but it had a past just like any other city that, like me, Sidney was all too aware of. This current predicament with the bikers just highlighted that fact for us all over again.

I tucked my phone away as I approached Kathryn and the degenerate young woman in handcuffs standing behind the copper wire of the holding pen. Kathryn did not exaggerate her client's appeal. Ava looked at her with wide-eyed fear and regret.

The young thief was sure to be a soft target.

"Ava," Kathryn said, standing in front of the holding pen stiffly as if she suddenly realized a traffic light turned red and pedestrian crossing was ill-advised. "Here's how this one will go. Do not enter a plea. In fact, do not open your mouth at all except to tell Fisher that you understand the charges against you. If you deviate from that game plan, so help the gods, I'll shove my bare right foot so far up your skinny ass, you'll be speaking with a mouth full of manicured toes and know what the color Pretty In Pink tastes like. If you do what I've said to the letter, then I'll make sure Fisher sets a bail amount your family can post without selling their kidneys. Nod if you understood what I just said to you."

Ava nodded and then eyed me with all the shock of a deer caught in the proverbial headlights. "Mrs. Mills?"

"Indeed," I offered, repressing the smirk inspired by Kathryn's prep talk to Ava.

"Oh, by the gods, don't be such a stalker, Reggie," Kathryn jested. She's known since our undergrad days that I've immensely disliked the nickname she gifted me. That knowledge didn't prevent her from using the odious thing every chance she had.

I scowled out of habit. "This heat is unbearable and repugnant."

"I'm a broken water fountain myself. I can only imagine you're hiding an oasis under your pantsuit," she assented and then immediately switched gears with a healthy splattering of fury. "But you were tweaking my tits on the phone, right? Are you seriously considering not pressing charges? Because if that's your final decision, I might slip into a diabetic fucking coma."

I knew what the narrow eyes Kathryn tossed me meant, didn't care for them, and wouldn't succumb to them. I almost wished we could travel back in time to when she regarded me with casual indifference because she was too busy falling in love with Frederick and subsequently making excuses to miss our weekly lunches because she was too busy getting well and truly laid. "I'm not so much as making a statement, Kath. We do this my way," I replied.

She had no tolerance for my explanation.

And her client Ava looked at the two of us with more confusion than should be humanly possible.

"The more evidence and charges we have on this gang, the better chance we have at burying them six feet under your town. I'm paraphrasing you, of course, but you should consider it, Reggie."

"I'll consider a formal statement with Graham down the line, but no charges. Perhaps a tit for tat though."

"If you chop off that biker's head and mount it on your office's wall, that's categorically illegal."

"Yet clinically ideal," I said, the corners of my lips curling in a snarl.

There were a few things I'd love the chance to do with that blonde biker's head … mounting it …

Kathryn noticed my uncharacteristic moment of being lost to my thoughts. "As your lawyer and not your best friend, I'm advising you to take both of the legal options I expressed to you and to do so today."

I motioned for Kathryn to move with me away from the holding pen. Ava subtly inched forward in an effort to continue eavesdropping.

"I don't want any blowback to hit my front porch. I have your godson to consider. We'll hit them on the things that have nothing to do with me personally," I stated with conviction. I leaned in to whisper the rest of my concern for her ears only. "She had no qualms about pointing that gun at my chest, Kath. There's no telling what she'll do to really hurt me."

There was no accounting for what lunatics would do to achieve their desired outcome.

I learned that lesson the hard way.

The scar above my lip was not a beauty mark.

No matter how justified I was or vindicated I felt, I provoked that blonde biker with my threat to bury her Charming Knights deep under fertile Storybrooke soil. There would be blowback of some sort.

When the biker first clopped into my office, I didn't think much of her. But, she was right. I didn't know her. I could only extrapolate the risks involved. Armed with more intel and the law, I would get to know her well enough, soon enough.

"Harassment with criminal intent, illegally concealed weapon, reckless storage of a weapon… we could hit her with those in a heartbeat."

Apparently our conversation wasn't as muted as I thought. Either that or Ava was conditioned to pick up on crimes being read out loud in her vicinity out of survival instinct.

"Hey, what are y'all talking about? I didn't do any of that-"

"Ava, when we're talking to you or about you, you'll fucking know. So take a corner until one of us flags you down," Kathryn stated, and I couldn't love her more for her take charge attitude. Crass or not.

As Ava stalked to the back corner of the holding pen, I pressed a finger to my left eyebrow. "You of all people know those type of criminals hit you in the gut and the heart, Kath. I have Sidney scrounging up whatever he can through his channels. Is it possible for you to just do the job I've asked?"

"Really, Reggie? I can feel my hymen growing back with you questioning my capabilities," she deadpanned.

"If we find nothing on paper to work with, which I highly doubt, then we'll do things your way. But, if we decide to go down that road, I'll need time to send Henry to Canada to stay with Zelena. But, I don't want to disrupt his life more than it already has been, Kath. My formal report is last resort. Our current resort is your pickpocket client."

"She's done much more than just leave unsuspecting people's pockets filled with lint."

"She's not a natural brunette, but she'll do."

"Why must she be a brunette specifically?"

"A hunch."

Otherwise known as 'I saw an animalistic burning desire in that crazed biker's visual appraisal of me.' I dressed for success in more ways than one, and certainly knew I was desirable, but her licentious surveying gaze was much too great a response. There were times when it appeared that I was all she could see and everything she would fight for just to own a taste of me. She was at war with herself as much as she was with me.

No matter how much I denied it, my mother was right about more than one thing.

"When you know a person's weakness, Regina, you can control them. You will have the power."

"Are we running with a tragically misunderstood Ava as a youth outreach coach angle?" Kathryn asked, lulling me out of my musings on my mother's twisted and self-serving philosophies.

"Decidedly so, dear."

"There's a silver lining to this cloud of shit after all. I'll make her commit to the actual hours in addition to your little recon mission."

"Just make the deal happen with the prosecution and Judge frosty."

"Yes, mother. I'll go play nice with the other kids," Kathryn mocked as she sashayed her way to the judge's bench. Kathryn was not fooling me; she lived for procuring impossible plea bargains for her clients. She was the most winningest lawyer in Maine and scoured Storybrooke for clients due to our high concentration of individuals who had deep pockets and a deep lack of being versed in all things law.

I approached the holding pen and rapped my knuckles lightly against the wire. "Ava."

The young woman rolled her eyes, but had the good sense not to keep me waiting. "Yep?"

Hopefully her listening prowess transcended that of her sparse vocabulary.

It did not escape my notice that Ava shared the same street patios as that raving blonde lunatic who accosted me.

I couldn't shake the residual hum of that biker's voice from my head.

Your move bitch...

The horror of it had imprinted on my synapses.

Now it was the soundtrack to my revenge and Ava was one of the instruments.

The young thief allowed curiosity to to dull her irritation. She shuffled closer to me with a blank slate face.

My voice always hooked them.

The blondes.

And so I adopted a low gravelly drawl that promised intrigue but also brooked no room for defiance.

"A word in the corner of the pen."

[SQ mayor SQ] [SQ mayor SQ]

"That's all?" Ava announced, feigning the haughty confidence of someone with a winning poker hand who, unbeknownst to her, had absolutely no matching poker face to pair with it. "You ain't exactly overwhelming me with incentive."

"Money is never the only thing to consider. You should understand all the risks involved. You've been a confidential informant for Mrs. Midas in the past, but what I require is more nuanced with vast implications involved."

"The only thing involved is my neck," she groused, leaning her forehead against the holding pen's wall of wire. The pressure of flesh against metal tattooed itchy looking grooves into her skin.

"That's where you're wrong and precisely why you should listen closely. If you agree to the job, under no circumstances do you actually know me outside of the prefabricated cover of your connection to the town's youth project initiative. That fact will not change once you've settled in with the Charming Knights, provided you can accomplish anything substantial beyond mere introductions."

"You wouldn't be coming at me all Mission Impossible style if you didn't already know I can do the shit you need. Loose lips will get my wig twisted, so I got it," she declared, threading her fingers into the tiny spaces of the wire wall, turning them into whitening rods of hardened flesh.

"Good to see there are functional brain cells careening around the dark corners of your mind. Still, for the sake of crystal clear clarity, I'll spell things out. If anyone suspects you, then it's you and only you anyone suspects. If anything about our arrangement or my personal life is even remotely hinted at during your associations with the Charming Knights, then I will bury you under a backlog of crimes even Mrs. Midas couldn't defend you against. That is, if you even walk out of those biker's clutches alive. Lest you feel a martyrdom death is an acceptable trade-off for any pain you feel myself, Mrs. Midas, or society at large has caused you, do consider my knowledge of your twin brother."

"What twin brother?" She said with a barely there hiccup in her voice. She was brimming with feints, which was always a tragic characteristic when not properly masked.

"Do not insult either of us by pretending you do not have a blood connection to a Nick Hansel Tillman."

"I don't see how he has shit to do with this," she said, immediately changing her tune and balling her fists at her side.

"I'm about to overwhelm you with incentive, dear. Everything depends on how you want to involve him. Seems your twin brother has recently checked into a methadone rehabilitation center in our state's great capital. Perhaps that center is owned and operated by a highly impressionable person who adores spending money and knows your brother is on his last strike. Perhaps your brother does not wish to spend his impending sobriety sharing an eight by eight foot iron bar-enclosed room with a burly man who'll take his life sentence rage out on your brother's face and other body parts."

"Geez, I fucking get it," she relented with darkness consuming her eyes. "Leave my brother outta this shit."

I shrugged as if unfazed by her display of might because it was wholly unimpressive. However, regrettably, I was affected by the brief sadness reflected in her eyes. I hadn't envisaged dragging relatively innocent people into a fray as potentially dangerous as this one, but fighting fire with fire required the proper accelerant.

I was confident Ava's Achilles Heel was her brother. Her past illegal endeavors funded his various stints in rehab and his rent elsewhere when he was between facilities.

"For everyone's sake, make that the actionable truth. And given the sensitive nature of this task, do understand that I am not pimping you out to that biker or her gang. Whatever you do to extract information is entirely of your own accord. That means your own free will."

"I'm not a fucking idiot," she snapped, picking dirt from underneath her nails with her teeth. In that moment, by all considerations, and to borrow her own words, she looked exactly like 'a fucking idiot.'

"Current location and predicament suggest otherwise, but I'll chalk that up to a youthful exuberance for obtaining the finer things in life without the inclination or ability to actually work for them."

Her teeth clenched in fit of anger. "Do you ever just say what the fuck it is you mean?"

"Always."

She pushed her head off the wire and tutted.

"What if they…" she started with worry etched across her face. She took a deep breath before continuing. "...look, I'm not dumb enough to rat you or yours out and I know a shit-ton of ways to get info from suckers without fucking them … but, say I've kept my mouth on lock - and I will - but say I feel my life's in danger. Can I walk away from that shit and not catch slack or worse from you?"

"You can walk away from everything right now. It'll consist of you walking away handcuffed toward a jail cell, but it's a viable option should you find yourself not up to the task. However, if you do choose to go undercover, how you survive while on the inside and how you extract yourself from them is your own affair. My only obligation to you was spelling out the risks and expectations. Police custody or biker parties, it's your prerogative."

She threaded her fingers through the wire again and gripped it tightly. A mouse with its feet caught in a mousetrap trap will always seek an out until its last twitchy breath. "You don't give a shit about anybody."

"I do not care specifically about you, but, contrary to popular belief, I do have a conscious. That's why I'm giving you a choice. I can hardly be blamed for little more than pointing out that your choices are both limited and unfavorable because of the decisions you've made in life. Mrs. Midas will take things from here should you choose the job."

"Yeah… if you were me... what would you do?" She asked with an angry sadness woven into her voice.

Hooked by lack of good choices.

I didn't have the heart to rub salt in her wounds.

Call it being drained from fighting the hot air in the room.

I did not deem it sincere kindness.

"It's both our good fortunes that I don't have to make that choice for you," I said curtly, moving away from the holding pen with my back to her.

It didn't escape my attention that the real difference between Ava and myself was my vantage point of seeing all of the chess pieces in play and exactly how they were being played.

Her a pawn.

Me a queen.

But neither of us controlled all of our own moves.

"You didn't tie me to the stake ..." she called after me, her voice quaking with renewed rage yet something approaching regret "...but you did light the flames. The least you could do is humor me."

And there it was when I couldn't afford to experience it… sympathy … because I was someone's mother and Ava's plea for help was like that of a small child's.

I sighed without breaking my stride and shot my response to her awaiting eyes over my back, almost chastising myself for the understanding I was extending to her. "I'd do what you've likely always done when you embraced the darker aspects of yourself in the name of love. Think about who you love the most. Think your brother."

It was advice I extracted from my own heart.

After all, despite how they blossomed into sheer underhandedness, when I made my war plans, all I thought about was my sweet little prince.

[SQ mayor SQ] [SQ mayor SQ]

Most people viewed their cars as a means to move quickly from point A to point B.

My black Mercedes roadster, with its custom tinted windows, was not merely transportation.

It was a personal sanctuary.

It inoculated me against quotidian intrusions into my personal space that constantly threatened to erode my piece of mind; I yearned for the centering strength that sitting in an inviolable space while I corralled my thoughts and emotions - however much they devolved into the mundane or abstruse - that my roadster always afforded me.

My day started in scandalous mayhem, became mired in an atmosphere of exceptional stultification, and disintegrated into an unabashed attempt at hibernating inside a sleek luxury vehicle like an eccentric recluse.

Parked outside Town Hall, idling in a recently resurfaced lot that was all but deserted save for a royal blue Dodge Caravan belonging to the early evening cleaning crew, protected from the somnolent outdoor heat by my car's cooled interior, I watched as one of the cleaning workers walked past my car yelling loudly into his phone in Russian.

I closed my eyes, shut out the world, and held my breath until my lungs burned holes in my chest.

There was one final task dire circumstances compelled me to complete before collecting Henry from his therapy session.

It was the last thing on earth I wanted to do.

Eat crow.

I gave myself a measured look in my rearview mirror, then retrieved my phone from my argilla Prada Saffiano tote, stowed the bag on my passenger seat, and dialed a number I hadn't called in years.

I banked on the number still connecting to his direct line.

It rang and rang ... and then rang again. A continued theme of my day.

But all concerns of those seven digits being an antiquated contact number were laid to rest when an ominously thorny but preternaturally confident voice made its presence known.

"I doubt you're calling to wish me a happy summer's eve," Richard Gold hummed, and it was more a chastisement of my numerous foibles, real or imagined, that he proudly exulted in cutting displays of his incendiary opinion than a customary greeting between old acquaintances. That I could fully reciprocate made me the foremost person to keep both the closest and the furthest away from his dealings. "But I'll take this cessation of your radio silence to mean the water under the bridge you're attempting to build between us is, in fact, the putrid runoff from an industrial leak you've wrought upon a town that you struggle daily to govern."

The impish grin that perpetually adorned his dour face whenever we acknowledged each other in passing (with venomous eyebrow arches on my part and nothing else) was practically visible through the cellphone signal.

The fact that Gold opened with a thinly veiled insult telegraphed that he was under no illusions about why I called him after so many years and so far away from campaign season.

I needed something only he could supply, and the verbal exchange from here on out would be nothing less than a war of attrition to obtain or deny it.

There was seldom anything that escaped Gold's attentions. While he couldn't possibly have known about my earlier encounter with that blonde thug, if I knew bikers were in Storybrooke then Gold knew bikers were in Storybrooke.

And - because he orchestrated moves within circles I did not - he undoubtedly knew they were here before I did.

There was only one reason why I hadn't noticed bikers in my town before this morning: They weren't staying in my town.

That left the astronomically good probability they were staying on the outskirts of Storybrooke, in Gold country.

I dived right into the point. "I need a favor, Gold," I huffed, spitting his name out like profanity as I drummed my fingers along the edge of my steering wheel. "And you're going to give it to me."

"Perhaps you've suffered from one too many debilitating migraines, Regina," he started, delivering my name snidely before breaking abruptly into an eerily jovial chuckle. Animosity will always linger between us, but over the years it has transformed into an unspoken mutual respect for our unparalleled skill-sets that we sharpen against each other's faces like blades to whetstones. "... so I'll be a gentleman and remind you that I do not grant anything in the way of favors. Favors are unicorns. Pure myth," he concluded.

"I think you'll make an exception," I teased in a slow drawl. "After all, outlaw bikers loitering around Storybrooke is not good for business. You, my dear imp, are only content when business is booming."

"That, dearie, depends entirely on what business I've made my business. But outlaw bikers you say? Sounds intriguing. How ever could one have missed spotting them in our illustrious town?"

I white-knuckled gripped my steering wheel at the insult. "You don't appear to be a man who has everything he wants except a loud motorcycle. But you are the man who has a cabin in the woods he's been most keen on unloading in tiny increments. I vaguely remember you attempting to lease it to my sister's husband. Something about the lush forest trees providing the perfect curtains against prying eyes."

"My, my, Madame Mayor. You do not strike me as one who engages in the trivialities of camping. At least not on your own," he suggested with a heady accusation tinting his voice.

I stomached his slights for the sake of piercing through to the heart of the matter.

Besides, Gold's interest was hooked the moment he answered my call. Voicemail was invented for the disinterested.

"Good thing I happen to be equipped with the ratifying vote you require on a certain city ordinance amendment. If my memory serves me correctly, no one on the town council has been clamoring to pass your cute little suggestion. Now, would you look at that," I said, with mock surprise coloring my voice. "The next town meeting is first thing tomorrow morning. I do so love using my pens for more than just decorating my desk."

I had no doubt in my mind whether or not he would acquiesce.

The only unknown was how hard he'd press for an advantage.

"Color me the least bit curious," he replied evenly and surprisingly quick. The man did have a way with pouncing when the circumstances were perfect.

"Bikers are leasing your cabin, are they not?"

"If what you're offering is more than a beautifully constructed Trojan Horse, then perhaps they were leasing my property," he stated before outright laughing. "Was it too optimistic of me to think they'd play nice with the local authorities?"

Gold grated on my nerves, but I maintained focus and simply sighed. The only thing that spoke to his greedy nature more than the currency of secrets or actual money was the assurance of real political power.

I strapped down my urge to drive to his pawnshop and kick him in his yellowing teeth.

Sneering, I told him, "You may enjoy lying down in beds with flea ridden cohorts but the rest of us do not. How fast can you tinker your way out of that contemptible lease?"

"The moment your ink dries on my bill, dearie."

"Gold, if any of this comes to light-"

"Save the red level threat warnings for your blissfully unaware plebs. If mutually assured destruction has kept nuclear war at bay since the first splitting of the atom, I can stomach the precautions and caveats."

"You don't strike me as one without an ear for the specifics."

"A secure phone line grants me some leeway. Are we agreed on the terms?"

"As much as we can be," I assented, turning my keys in the ignition and sparking my car to life.

"Then prepare to turn myth into reality, dearie."

As I knew he would do for the right price.

He owned a pawnbroker shop for a reason.

Ariel, impeded by the myopic lens from which she viewed life - one fashioned from of the naivete and inexperience of being young - had no idea just how wrong she and her 'they' were about me.

Yes, I was damaged.

Perhaps even irreparably so.

But that damage honed me into a woman who did not flinch when a loaded gun was cocked in her face.

It was not a weakness.

I needn't worry about the devil rejecting my damaged soul because the real devil was always other people.

And other people were beneath me.

"When have I ever led you to believe I was not prepared?" I stated plainly.

There was no such thing as meaningless silence when it came to Gold, so the protracted moment that passed without his response was rife for interpretation. If there were two people on earth who despised each other more yet knew each other better than Gold and I did one another, neither one of us has met that pair.

They were the true unicorns.

The myths.

And to get to that point between us, the both of us had done terrible things.

And had terrible things done to us.

"I'd hate to discover what those poor little bikers did to earn your admiration thus so," he said, the mirth in his voice laced with a sharp edge. No difficulty reading between the lines there. Soon, he would be the only person besides Kathryn who knew exactly how far that Swan woman had crossed the line with me. I'd never tell him myself, but he'd uncover the truth. He always did. Exactly how he used that detail was the thing. I didn't fear a twitchy armed biker, but I had sense enough to be wary of a seemingly calm man cut from the same black cloth as myself.

What he said next, with the signature sing-songy cadence of his full lilt, was pure magic to my ears.

"In two days time, Madame Mayor, your newest constituents shall be officially homeless."

The words resonated within my pulse; I felt impossibly light as I revved my roadster's engine.

But I also felt an all-too-familiar heaviness as the blonde's gruff voice ignited against my temples, combusting into ashes and then rising from the ether of my mind like a gangling phoenix.

Your move bitch…

The febrile remnants of her declaration gave me no peace and irritated me to no end.

But, like a war drum, the vibrations from my car tearing down hot pavement drowned out her crude anthem.

The sensory input of her voice, her smell, and her glares faded away as I headed toward my son.

Your move dear...

Right the hell out of my town.

To Be Continued ...

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Up Next: Emma's POV - The proverbial shit hits the fan and blows right in Emma's face. And yet, she still wants to see Regina's round ass disrobed before her eyes so she can brass-knuckle slap it and... hey, her words, not mine!