A new neighbour was moving in next door to Jay Halstead. A woman with a sexy, raspy voice. That was all he knew so far because she was the other side of the head high wooden fence between the gardens, and Jay was on the opposite side of his own garden, leaving him unable to see over it.

"It's a fairly good size for a garden. Needs a lot of work, but that's not a problem," the woman was saying to someone. "What do you think, dad?"

Dad. The woman's dad might be moving in too. Or he might just be helping on moving day.

"Dad, are you going to stand there all day?" That came not from the woman next door, but from Jay's ten year old daughter Clementine. Adopted daughter technically, but Jay saw no distinction. Never had, never would. Clementine was a light skinned African American girl with wavy brown hair that she almost always wore in little pig tails, almost always under a Chicago Cubs baseball cap. Baseball was something that father and daughter both loved. Right now, they were both wearing a baseball glove each, tossing a ball back and forth for pitching and catching practice. Jay had held the ball for longer than necessary, causing his daughter's impatience.

"Sorry, Clem," he said, before throwing her a ball that she caught low, about knee height. "Well done."

"That was a low one," Clementine said.

"Slider," Jay bluffed, covering for the lax throw that he had made while still trying to listen to the conversation going on next door.

"It wasn't a slider. There was no sideways movement on it."

Jay smiled. Clem had such in depth knowledge of baseball for her age that he sometimes wondered if she was borderline autistic. But he did his best to nurture her interest, hoping that she might have some kind of future in the sport. "Okay, throw me a slider then."

"I don't have a slider. All I can do is fastballs or changeups."

A changeup was thrown with the same action as a fastball, just slower. Clem threw him one, which had no problem in reaching him. For her age, she good strength in her pitching arm.

"I'll have to show you how to pitch sliders. Or cutters." Jay threw a ball that curved away from Clem's right hand. She almost caught it, but it glanced off the end of her glove and sailed up and over the fence, into the new neighbour's garden.

"Dad! That was nowhere near me!"

"It was a cutter, sweet pea. I did get too much on it though. My bad. Let's see if we can get the ball back."

Jay walked up to the fence and looked over it. The first sight he got of his new neighbour almost took his breath away. Wearing tight black leather pants, she had her back to him and was bending down to pick up the baseball from the overgrown grass of her lawn, showing off a mind-blowing peach of an ass. What a first impression, he thought.

When the woman stood up, baseball in hand, and turned around, the second impression Jay got was as nice as the first. She was beautiful. Perfect bone structure, gorgeous eyes, and a smile that almost killed him. She was stunning.

'Dad' was nowhere to be seen, apparently having just gone inside the house.

"Hi," the woman said, approaching the fence. "This almost hit me."

"I'm really sorry. It was totally my fault. I threw a cutter that my daughter couldn't reach. She accidentally tipped it over the fence. Thank you," he added as she handed him the ball.

"Daughter?" the woman asked. She looked over the fence and saw Clem. "Oh, hey!"

"Hi," Clementine said politely, smiling.

While that was going on, Jay had gotten a quick glance down the woman's white top. The top button was open, showing him some nice cleavage. She hadn't caught him checking her out.

"I'm Jay. This is Clementine."

"Clem," the young girl insisted.

"Hello, Clem. Jay. I'm Erin. I'm moving in today, so I guess we're neighbours now."

"Cool," Clem said.

"I saw the truck outside earlier," Jay said. "Do you need a hand with anything?"

"Thank you, but no. My dad and one of his buddies are giving me a hand. We've got it between us."

No mention of a husband or boyfriend, Jay noticed. "Alright. But if you do need me, just holler or give my door a knock. It'll be no trouble."

"Erin! Can you come here?" yelled a man with an even raspier voice from inside the house.

"One minute, dad!" she called back. "Nice to meet you guys. Is it just the two of you?"

"It is," Jay confirmed. "I've been separated from my ex for two years."

"I stay at mom's place one week, dad's place the next. Mom's coming to pick me up later. She's a physiotherapist," Clem added. Too much info for the conversation, but that was what kids were like at times.

"I'm a dentist," Erin said brightly, obviously enjoying talking to Clem.

"Eww," Clementine said, clearly thinking about how much she hated going to the dentist.

Jay laughed. "Don't take that personally."

"I won't," Erin said, giggling. "Alright, it was nice to meet you guys. Enjoy your game."

"Will do," Jay said as Erin turned and walked back towards the house.

That evening, just after he finished eating a TV dinner, Jay's phone started ringing. He groaned to himself as he leaned forward to pick it up from the coffee table. A crime drama series he liked was about to come on, and he didn't want the interruption. So much for that, he thought when he saw the name of one of his bosses on the screen.

"Hello?"

"Come over to the casino," the woman's voice said, no nonsense as always.

Jay almost asked, 'Now?' But he already knew the answer to that, and asking would only annoy her. "I'll be right over."

The call ended. She rarely wasted time on niceties.

Half an hour later, Jay walked through the main entrance at the Empire Casino, one of the businesses that his bosses owned. The place was busy, no surprise considering that it was Saturday night. He hadn't been told where to go, but he knew without being given instructions.

The massive casino and hotel had several bars. One of them was the 'Executive Lounge'. That was where he would find the boss. Or so he thought. In actuality, he encountered her coming the opposite way before he got that far.

Kim Ruzek was a woman who was not to be messed with. Along with her husband Adam, she owned the casino and hotel, as well as an extensive food processing plant. Those were the legal businesses, which Adam took charge of. Kim, the more cold-blooded of the two, supervised the illegal operations that the Ruzeks were involved in: producing and distributing crystal meth, occasional gun running, and money laundering.

Seeing the look on Kim's face, Jay stopped to wait for her to approach him. She was pissed off about something. Walking next to her was Kevin Atwater, one of the organisation's higher ups, who was primarily in charge of security. Right now he was on bodyguard duty.

As Kim came nearer, Jay saw a disaster start to unfold, but not for his boss. There was a loud, fat, obnoxious customer sitting at a blackjack table that Kim was about to walk past. By the sound of it, he was making a fuss about having to wait for a drink. When he noticed Kim, apparently knowing who she was, he decided to mouth off.

"Hey, Mrs Ruzek! I've been waiting fifteen minutes for a drink. What kind of place do you call this?"

She stopped and glared at him. "A busy one."

Good answer, Jay thought, smiling to himself discretely.

"It's a joke is what it is," the fool said loudly. "You need some better staff in this shithole."

Kim looked at Atwater. No words needed to be exchanged. As Kim resumed walking, Atwater grabbed the man by the back of the head and smashed his face into the edge of the blackjack table. The hideous crunch Jay heard told him that there was a broken nose there at the very least.

"Get that out of my casino," Kim said over her shoulder as she walked over to Jay.

"You needed to see me?" he asked politely.

"The cops picked Adam up an hour ago. Some bullshit about a murder they're trying to pin on him."

"Damn," Jay said, looking down for a moment. He doubted the cops were doing much pinning, but he had no intention of saying that. "What do you need me to do?"

"About that? Nothing. That's not why you're here. You see that woman over there?" she pointed across the room at a woman who was sitting at a roulette table. It took him a moment to realise it was Erin, his new neighbour, now wearing a delightful turquoise dress.

"I do. Her name's Erin. She moved in next to me today. Don't tell me she's an undercover cop?"

Kim grunted a laugh. "We're all fucked if she is. She's our new meth cook."

"Oh," Jay said in surprise. So much for being a dentist.

The Ruzeks' previous cook had been killed in an attempted carjacking, or an assassination that had been made to look like an attempted carjacking. Jay didn't know which, and he was fairly sure the Ruzeks didn't either.

"We bought the house next to yours so that she could move in there. I've got a new job for you. It'll be your only job for us."

"What's the job?" he asked, making sure to sound open to whatever it was.

"Keep her alive. She's worth a lot of money to us. You'll be well compensated, more than we pay you each week at the moment. But if she dies, so do you. Am I in any way unclear?"

Jay had no doubt she was serious. He had known taking work from the Ruzeks was dangerous years ago when he had first started. But he was a single dad whose legal job as a crane operator down at the docks didn't pay enough to give his daughter the life she deserved or put her through college.

"You're perfectly clear," he replied.

"I'll call you tomorrow. Goodnight," Kim said, walking off and leaving him standing there.

A/N: Welcome to my latest story. My regular readers will recognise Clementine, along with other characters as we move forwards.

Please share your thoughts on everything that was learned in the opening chapter.