Hi everyone, it's been some time as usual. I hope you had a scary Halloween. Today, I come before you with a new chapter for the Bad Guys. By the way, did you guys see the trailer for the Bad Guys christmas special? The animation seems kinda lowkey, but the story seems interesting. I don't know if Diane will be in it, but I hope so. Next publication will probably be a new chapter for Paw Patrol: pups and the video.

Pay attention, because I put an easter egg in this chapter. It's the first time I do something like that and I'm curious to see if you guys can find it. Anyone up for the challenge?

Now, for the reviews.

-Elizabeth: Thank you :)

I don't really have anything else to say, so let's read that new chapter. Enjoy.

Wolf pushed the wooden double door open and walked inside his father's office. He could hear his own heartbeat accelerate as the doors closed behind him. Was it him or were they always this slow? Suddenly, he felt trapped, stuck inside a wolf den.

The office was vast and luxuriously decorated. On Wolf's right side, there was a red couch and a small oval-shaped fancy table in front of a 110-inch 16k plasma TV set on a dresser where beverages, snacks and glasses were stored. On his left side stood two red armchairs and another table, this time circular, in front of a lighted fireplace. On the wall next to it was hooked a giant portrait of the current chief of the Moon Mafia, Wolf's father, with his name written under it. Viniel Moonbane. Behind it, hidden inside the wall, was a secret elevator that led directly to the secret basement under the night club. A basement that served both for the illegal activities of the organisation and as a mean of escape should the building be raided by the authorities or rivals. In front of him, Wolf saw his father sitting at his desk filled with documents, office equipment and a laptop. Behind his father, six tall tinted reinforced windows gave a nice view on the outside.

The older wolf had black fur and dark brown eyes. He was wearing a chestnut brown jacket, a white shirt with black tie and black pants. He also had a gold dangling earring on his left ear.

When the leader of the Moon Mafia heard the door of his office close, he looked up and, upon seeing his youngest son, simply went back to the papers he was working on. Not a single trace of emotion could be seen on his face or in his actions. The same way it had always been. When Wolf was younger, it was something that the lupine found upsetting, never being able to tell what his father was thinking or feeling. From what he knew, the guy was just like that. One of the few times he lost his demeanor was when he had gotten angry and yelled at Wolf because he had refused to kill the masked stranger in that abandoned warehouse. A scary moment that had definitely marked Wolf.

Once Viniel finished whatever he was doing, he put back the documents in a classifier that electronically sealed itself. He put it on the right end of his desk where a hatch sucked it in. Only then did he give his attention to Wolf.

"It is not often surprised that I am suprised, but today, I'm willing to admit that I am."

"Me too, in a way," Wolf answered as he walked closer and stood in front of the desk.

Once again, memories threatened to overwhelm him. So far, he owned his ability to maintain his cold facade only to all the years he spent as a conman, and he couldn't afford to let it break now.

"What are you doing here, Moe?"

It had been a long time since someone had called him that, it felt…weird. Viniel was speaking like he always did. Direct, authoritative, expecting answers quickly. Today, it was a good thing because Wolf wasn't here to beat around the bush.

"I go by Mr. Wolf now," Wolf felt the need to clarify," and like I told your guys and Krey, I'm here for business."

Viniel's eyebrow rose in suspicion. "You expect me to believe that when you are the one who ran away in the first place. Your uncle told you what would happen if you came back. Give me one good reason to not execute you right now."

The mention of Wolf's uncle brought back another memory, a particularly painful one. Not long after his fugue and before he met Snake, Wolf had been caught by his uncle and two lackeys sent after him. In retaliation for his desertion, his uncle had beaten him up to blood with a promise of death should he ever bring harm to the Moon Mafia.

Wolf was about to defend his case when a third wolf entered the office through the double doors. It was Damien, Wolf's older brother. He was the same heigh as Wolf, but his fur was slightly darker, he was wearing a dark blue shirt with brown jeans, sunglasses and a backpack.

"Hey father. Just came back from…"

Damien stopped upon seeing Wolf. He removed his glasses and blinked, as if to be sure he wasn't hallucinating. A smirk then appeared on his face.

"Ah. I see baby brother came home."

Wolf frowned, sincerely unamused. It seemed like his brother hadn't changed either. They had been close once, but their relationship deteriorated after their induction test. Yes, the one in the abandoned warehouse. Wolf failed, but Damien passed and was welcomed into the Moon Mafia and their father inner circle. He then began to treat Wolf like everyone else, even mocked him for his failure. At the time, Wolf had regretted not being as brave as his brother, but today, he simply saw him as a jerk without empathy.

"Don't call me like that," Wolf retorted sharply.

"Or what," Damien scoffed as if challenging Wolf to make him take back those words, "you have nothing to do here." He then asked their father, "What is he doing here?"

"Business, apparently," Viniel answered.

The leader of the Moon Mafia knew there was more to it if it forced his runaway son to come back after all these years and risk his life. Whatever it was, in his experience, Viniel deduced it most certainly was something important (at least for his son) which made him curious. The Moon Mafia wasn't present in Chicago which made the situation even more intriguing.

"The attack on the Debate of the Candidate yesterday. The bullets found by the police carry the Moonbane's mark. Ring a bell?"

"Oh, that. Impressive, right," Damien exclaimed proudly. "Eight victims in eight shots, including moving targets. Sometimes, I still impress myself."

Wolf's eyes widened as he looked at his brother. "You…You did this?"

"You bet," Damien said as he dropped his backpack on the ground and sat in one of the armchairs. He made himself comfortable, put his hands behind his head and closed his eyes.

"Why?"

Damien opened one eye. "Uh?"

"Why?" Wolf repeated more impatiently.

Wolf knew from the bullets that a Moonbane had fired them, only members of the family were allowed to use this mark, but he hadn't expected the shooter to be his own brother. During this time, Viniel kept watching the conversation between he two brothers without interfering.

"Why do you care," Damien asked when something clicked in his mind. "Wait, are you the wolf I briefly glimpsed during the attack. The one that ran to save that fox chick?"

"Don't call her like that and answer my question."

"Why should I? Did you forget how things work in our business? I'm no snitch."

"Business? Snitch?" Wolf repeated, taken aback by what it meant. "It was a contract! Someone paid you to do this."

Damien's reaction told Wolf he had guessed right. Diane had a contract on her head? Why? Her identity as the Crimson Paw was still a secret and while politicians always have enemies, she hadn't received any threats recently. At least that he knew of, but he was confident she would have told him if that was the case. And what about the other victims? Something was missing here.

"Who hired you," Wolf asked walking closer to his brother.

Damien rolled his eyes, exasperated. "You're not gonna get anything for me. It's too bad for the chick though. She seemed hot."

Wolf clenched his fists. He wasn't feeling great just being here and his brother was only making it worse. On purpose or not, he wasn't sure and honestly didn't care. He could feel his anger rise fast and, for once, he didn't know if he wanted to control it.

"Answer my question," Wolf almost growled.

Damien looked at Wolf, unimpressed and even slightly amused.

"Oh, I see what it is. She's your chick or was. I know she's in the hospital, so I'll probably have to pay her a visit to finish the job." A devious smirk appeared on his face. "Maybe I'll get some fun with her first."

That was the last straw. With a furious snarl, Wolf launched himself at Damien with his fist raised to deliver a punch. However, Damien easily caught Wolf's wrist, pushed him back with his feet and quickly stood up before Wolf could gain back his balance. Wolf attacked again, this time trying slash his brother with his claws. Damien simply dodged by moving to the left. Wolf went for another punch, but Damien blocked it. With a swift movement, he moved behind Wolf and caught him in a painful arm lock.

"That brings back memories," the older brother commented while Wolf groaned in pain.

He tried to hit his brother with his elbow, but once again Damien easily blocked the attack.

"That was very pathetic," he murmured into Wolf's ear before throwing him on the ground next to the couch. Another groan of pain escaped the younger brother mouth. "You never could beat me when we were kids. Seriously, what did you expect?"

"Luck, I guess," Wolf answered as he used the couch to stand up.

"(Scoff) You should have stayed in your playground. You don't match the level here."

Wolf glared at Damien. "I'll make you regret what you did. Everything."

"Right, like a hitman with my record would be scared of a coward," Damien mocked crossing his arms, "and that's far from being the only type of job I do."

"Do you find this amusing? How ca…"

"Enough," Viniel said with a stern voice that froze the two wolves.

Two circular drones suddenly flew down. They each were equipped with four propeller thruster and two electric darts with two settings: stun and kill. No need to guess on which mode they were. Viniel didn't need the drones to calm down his sons, but he always had had a dramatic flare.

"I don't have time for this. Damien, knock it off and Moe, you waisted your only chance to leave alive."

"I doubt it," Wolf retorted with a confidence that surprised his family.

Damien was confused while Viniel frowned. Slowly, as to not trigger a reaction from the drones, Wolf lifted his hand in which appeared a small circular device that looked a lot like an earplug.

"What is this," Viniel asked suspiciously.

"This is a modified microphone. Not only does this little baby record everything it hears, it also continuously pinpoints its location and directly sends all its data on another device I hid somewhere. Kill me and those data will automatically be sent to the proper authorities. I'm sure they'll love to hear Damien's confession."

Even with the Moon Mafia resources, his brother, and thus the organisation, would be in deep trouble should this recording reach the FBI.

"How did you enter the building with a microphone? The guards should have frisked you," Damien asked shocked.

This time, it was Wolf's turn to smirk.

"Like that would stop me. In case you would want to track the signal…" Wolf dropped the earplug and crushed it with his foot. "You also lost this Damien."

Wolf took out from his pocket Damien's card carrier that he stole during their fight. Damien brought his hand to his pocket where the object should have been only to find nothing. Shocked once again, his mouth fell wide open. Wolf tossed object back to his brother who barely caught it.

"Look who doesn't match the level now," Wolf said smugly.

In truth, his previous attack wasn't the result of his anger, at least not only. To be honest, Wolf didn't think it would be that easy to make his brother talk. The guy gave him what he needed on a silver plater, the card carrier was just a bonus to humiliate him. It's not like Wolf expected to win this fight, though landing a well-deserved punch would have been nice. Fighting never was his style while Damien has been training in hand-to-hand combat and with weapons since they were kids, and he was obviously good at it. Piranha and even Diane would certainly have trouble in a one-on-one against him.

Wolf straightened his ruffled blazer and looked back at his father with the same expression he wore when he walked in. "Now, can we talk business?"

"How dare you," Damien yelled, embarrassed.

The threat of the recording was only thing stopping him from killing his younger brother right now. Viniel too was far from pleased though his face remained neutral.

"You claim to do business, but instead you threaten us," the father stated.

"I see it more like leverage to force you to listen to me. Once we're done, I will give you the location of the device with the recording."

Whatever happened next, the choice belonged to his father. Both Wolf and Damien stood here, silent, as they awaited their father's decision. The only sound heard was coming from the drones' propellers. The tension was palpable. Then, with a sign from Viniel's hand, the drones flew black where they had come from.

"Very well. I'm listening."

Damien couldn't believe it. "Father, you can't be serious."

"When was I ever not serious? There are many ways by which someone may fight to get what he wants. This is a lesson your brother learned a long time ago, unlike you," Viniel answered glaring at Damien. "We wouldn't be in this situation if for once you thought before you acted."

Damien wanted to defend himself, but couldn't find anything to say, so he simply looked away and scowled. Viniel looked back at Wolf and signaled him to speak.

"I have two requests. One, I want to buy Diane Foxington's life. Two, I want the contact of Damien's contract backer."

In the criminal world, to buy someone's life meant to pay for the person to be spared when she should be killed. In this case, it would negate the contract on Diane's head. However, the price was always high, usually the double of the one paid to kill the person. As for the contract's backer, it was possible to buy back this kind of information, but it could cost up to ten time the amount offered for the contract execution.

"I'll pay for both with this," Wolf added as an USB flash drive suddenly appeared in his hand. "This drive contains encrypted money coming from an offshore bank account my gang filled over the years. There's almost five hundred thousand dollars on it. Accept the deal, and I'll give you the key to access the money."

"That's it," Viniel asked.

With all the efforts his son obviously made, he had expected something more…just more. Nonetheless, he could see in his son's eyes how dead serious he was. A determination he had never seen in him before. So, he opened one of his desk drawers and took out a small computer. He then extended his hand and Wolf gave him the USB drive. Wolf was grateful to not have given this money to the police with the rest of the Bad Guys loot. Viniel inserted it into the computer who scanned it for any malicious program. It found nothing and the drive was indeed incrypted.

"It seems legit," Viniel said. "Damien, is five hundred thousand dollars enough?"

Wolf silently prayed for the answer to be yes. Since he didn't know how much the contract was worth, he could only work with the dark market prices to estimate if he had enough money. It should be the case, but one can never be certain in this kind of deals. To win, a good player must never show all his cards especially when he doesn't have any more.

"Yes, it is," Damien finally admitted reluctantly.

"In that case, I accept your deal," Viniel told Wolf.

Wolf looked at Damien with a sly smile as he said this. Oh, how the table had turned.

"Give me the key," Viniel ordered.

"The information first," Wolf argued.

Viniel didn't respond, simply raised one of his eyebrows. The message was clear and as much as Wolf didn't like it, he had already exhausted all his means of pressure. Testing his father patience any further wouldn't be a smart move.

"Fine."

Wolf told his father the long code Doom had gave him when the bird had moved the money from the offshore account to the drive and encrypted it. With it, Viniel unlocked and retrieved the money. Once it was done, he told Damien to give out the information Wolf wanted.

The older brother clearly wasn't happy about this, but obeyed to his father, nonetheless.

"Harrington Langley," he said in a clearly unhappy voice. "He's the guy who hired me."

"Harrington Langley," Wolf repeated. "That name sounds familiar."

Damien rolled his eyes. "He's the deputy director of the FBI, dumbass, and quite rich. From what I understood, he was involved in some shitty traffic that was about to be discovered and his candidate for the office of Governor of California was supposed to cover it up. But he didn't make it to the elections. So, he hired me to get rid of the competition."

"How original," he added with a sarcastic tone.

"But there were only two candidates, what about the other victims," Wolf asked curious.

"A distraction, so no one could find out the motive and link it to my client," Damien answered nonchalantly.

Wolf found this horrible and despicable, but he was here for Diane, not the other victims. Besides, they were already dead, unlike her. He was almost done here, so he kept his opinion to himself and moved on.

"I'll need proof," Wolf said.

"That wasn't part of the deal," Viniel cut in.

"Even a petty thief like you know to never keep such things around," Damien added in a obviously insulting manner.

Wolf indeed knew this. While the Bad Guys never bothered to hide their criminal activities, enjoying scaring people and playing with the police, most criminals didn't work like that. Mafias in particular were always careful to get rid of evidence against them, with the exception of financial records and the Moonbane's mark on some bullets which are special cases.

Wolf only had one thing left to do to close the deal.

"The device is hidden under a bench in the small park not far from here, between Perifel Avenue and Blabey Road. Third one from the left."

Viniel told Damien to go retrieve it and to contact him once he found it. The two remaining wolves remained in silence. The father looked back at his son who held his gaze, something he never did when he lived under his roof. Granted, Viniel currently wasn't trying to intimidate him, but it still surprised him (three time in a row, what a day) considering how soft he was as a child. Tonight, he could only acknowledge his determination and his wits.

Viniel's phone buzzed. It was Damien calling him to tell him he found the device at the designated location. Viniel told him to bring it back for analyse before ending the call. He knew Wolf knew what would happen should he had lied to them, which wasn't in his interest.

"It appears everything is in order," Viniel told Wolf.

"Then I won't disturb you any longer," Wolf answered before he added a bit sarcastically. "A pleasure doing business with you, father."

Viniel simply nodded, telling him he was free to go. Wolf walked up to the double door of the office when he stopped to turn around.

"Oh, I almost forgot. Better give this back to Damien," he said before throwing something at Viniel who caught it. "From the petty thief."

Wolf opened the door and left. Viniel looked at his hand to see a credit card, most likely coming from Damien's card holder. At this moment, Viniel realised how much of a good asset his youngest son would have been had he not left. The kind that sadly deteriorate if you force them to work for you. Or perhaps it was because he left that he became who Viniel saw today. He had better and more important things to do than chase after his son anyway. Nonetheless, when the office doors closed, a small smile appeared on Viniel's face. Maybe what happened was for the best after all.

Wolf finally confronted his family and didn't die. Houray! I must admit this chapter gave me more trouble than I originally thought. When discussing with a friend, I realized the initial dialogue my have been too...how to say it...gentle for mobsters. Wolf's plan also needed some work to be more credible. A big thanks to my friend for his help.

As for the easter egg I mentioned, did anyone find it? It was in the name of the roads where Wolf hid his recorder. Perifel is the name of the producer of the movie while Bladey is the name of the author of the books.

On another note, what did you guys think of this chapter? Was the confrontation between Wolf and his family up to your expectations? Was it like you imagined it would be. I personally loved writing Wolf literally owing his brother using his wits and thief skills. So funny. I also wanted to show Wolf's father in a way similar to Wolf but different at the same time. Thus the elegant and confident attitude, without the goodness and charm.

As usual, take care and until next time.