Rewrite

AvalonReeseFanFics

A/N: How are my wonderful readers this Wednesday? How are we liking Wo Fat and Rowan's little adventure so far? Last chapter was all cute stuff and of course just a little bit angst, but overall I was going for cute. This chapter has a little more drama in it, but the next few chapters are going to be short and sweet. Also, really soon we'll be getting a new Main Character. Can any of you guess who it is? Don't forget to leave me a review and I'll see you guys on Friday!

Chapter 217

They had been in Paris for almost two weeks when things started to get out of hand.

Wo Fat was certain, at this point, that Rowan had not had any psychological damage done to her from the kidnapping, or at least none that she had made aware to him anyway. Business was beginning to pick up. He had managed to secure a few holds in the illegal gun trade and had gotten into the underground drug market too, with the help of Armando. Now he was working on getting into the black market.

Which meant dealing with renowned thieves, whether they be petty, jewel or art. Which meant dealing with big parties and needing a date as a cover.

That meant taking Rowan out. Which she was not happy with as her neon pink cast did not match a single evening dress that she went to try on. Not that he didn't buy her any dress she wanted, which he did, but he wanted her in something she would like too, which they had not found. By no fault of the dress but instead her cast.

It didn't help that after that phone call with the kid, Rowan didn't want to get out of bed. She couldn't articulate what it was to him that had her that depressed, he just knew that she was. He knew letting her call the kid would be disastrous, but he thought it would bring McGarrett on their heels and not unending tears, silent moping, and an unwillingness to leave her bed or even eat. He figured leaving her to her own devices would help her heal, but this wasn't a viable process, and it wasn't like he could get her a shrink, you know?

Then, of course, at the parties he managed to get her to, she got drunk. Like, mixed her meds with alcohol, drunk. The girl was trying to kill herself. So while he wanted to make connections, he spent more time babysitting her and carting her overly-influenced ass back to the hotel. Maybe he did need a babysitter, he was starting to realize that he needed a lot more help with her than he thought. He almost called Armando to send down Sunny or even JC at this point to help him. But even if she did need a babysitter he managed to secure a job that would land him with all the right contacts in the heist market.

So far he had lifted five pieces of art, each heist getting more and more difficult. And since he had proven himself he was now going to get to work with one of the best of the best. If he did, if he proved himself capable of both lifting and then reselling, he'd have this contact for life. Or until he got himself arrested. The art thief of course, not Wo Fat.

But before this night he had given her a stern lecture and a direct order. Well several direct orders. Don't stand out, don't wander off, and for the love of god don't drink. He had a singular job, and that was to meet with Ares, steal the piece the thief was interested in and then meet elsewhere to secure both payment and the piece.

This was a big job, and he really didn't want to bring Rowan with him, but he also didn't want to leave her at the hotel with the mini bar. One heist wouldn't be so bad, would it? It wasn't like she was going to participate. She'd just be present. It wasn't like she knew particulars either.

When he got there he had pulled Ares side and essentially asked him to baby sit Rowan for him. All he had to do was keep track of her, and when the alarms went off, he was to escort her back to the hotel. It was an easy task he thought, but before he went to disarm the security system and take out the guards he caught sight of Ares doing more than just watching Rowan.

He was right there beside her. Offering her alcohol. He had this suave look about him, a smile he didn't trust. But for the first time since that faked call from McGarrett, Rowan's smile seemed almost genuine. So he figured, for tonight, he'd let it go, only because she needed it. But after this he was putting his foot down and Ares was not going to be replacing Steven. If someone replaced Steven in Rowan's life it was going to be a man that Wo Fat could control and approved of. Though he was pretty sure there wasn't anyone who was good enough for his little imouto. Not anyone.

H5O-H5O-H5O-H5O

Pain meds and alcohol took her on a wild ride once, and it was that ride she craved when the darkness creeped around the edges of if she found herself thinking a little too hard about Steven. But most importantly it was the ride she went on when she got a little too lost in the waking nightmares. It was nice to have her world go fuzzy and her pain be forgotten in amber bubbles.

She didn't even like champagne but that was all they offered at fancy parties like these.

As if the bruises and scars littering her body weren't enough to stand her out in the crowd, the neon cast brought her to the attention to everyone else who could have possibly missed her.

She was used to people giving her a wide berth, she was used to Wo Fat dragging her from circle to circle to participate in small chat. She was getting used to blacking out at one of these and waking up in her hotel room. In fact she welcomed it.

This party was different. Wo Fat was no longer amused with her, and instead gave her strict instructions with a dark glare of warning on his face. So for the first little bit she obeyed. She stayed in the ballroom, she stayed away from the alcohol, and she kept to herself. She wasn't sure how she wasn't supposed to stand out because she was the only one who looked like a cage fighter who lost a match had just shown up in a hunter green to the floor gossamer dress.

The problem was, as soon as that handsome man with the auburn hair, the dangerously poisonous green eyes and that glittering half smirk came up to her, she stopped caring about Wo Fat's rules. She took the offered champagne and the not so subtle flirting without batting an eye. There was something very familiar about his silhouette, as if those shoulder and that jaw line had been seen before, but the champagne and the pain meds kept her too fuzzy to actually put together what this man reminded her of. And they sure as hell kept her fuzzy enough for her to forget to enforce her morals.

Which was how she ended up in that small closet with a man she just realized was built exactly like Steven and very closely resembled him in the whole chiselled feature area. She could have stopped it by then but she didn't care, she welcomed it. She clung to him like he was her oxygen, though really all this really was was a confidence boost. For the moment she was pretty and she was wanted. And if she closed her eyes she could pretend she was with the man she loved.

It was an easy rhythm to slip into and all the champagne she shouldn't have drank helped. Pretending that this man was Steve was still hard. Though built like him, he didn't move like him. So each motion, each movement, jarred her out of that fantasy she craved and brought her out of the fuzzy amber bubbled dream world and back into the harsh dark reality she was trying to escape. Not that that helped her emotionally, not that that helped her get over him, or proved to her or him that she was on the mend, but it helped a little bit.

She let Ares finish up, pretended he rocked her world, acted all breathless and amazed and then slipped out of that closet and went back to the party. Ares trailed after her, ever the French gentleman, which she thought was an extinct breed, offering to get her more to drink, asking what she'd be doing over the next couple of days.

It was nice, but unnecessary. Having got what she wanted Rowan didn't need Ares now, but if Wo Fat needed to do business with him, she figured she'd have to at least play nice. When the alarms went off and the party evacuated, Ares hit her with the code for an escort.

I'm your pumpkin carriage.

Great, she was stuck with him until she got back to the hotel.

Maybe it would work better next time if she picked a guy who wasn't exactly Steve's build. Maybe she needed someone who wasn't like Steve at all to get any lingering feelings for Steve out of her system. Or maybe… maybe Steve was never going to be out of her system. Maybe she had lost the one great love of her life and she'd never get a chance at that again. Because even in the city of love, Rowan felt nothing except longing and lovelessness.

H5O-H5O-H5O-H5O

Wo Fat hadn't liked leaving that party without Rowan. Granted he had a high from pulling off the heist, but that sensation was slightly muted. He had been forced to entrust her safe return to Ares, whom he knew was at least lusting after her. So when Ares, who was fifteen minutes late, finally showed up at the warehouse meeting point, Wo Fat was on him.

"Did you get Rowan back to the hotel?" he asked not liking the smile on Ares' smug face. There was something about him, something Wo Fat couldn't quite place, that made his skin crawl. The man had done nothing, he was France's most elusive art thief and stolen art work dealer. So there was nothing for him to be that turned off about.

"I did," he said coming to stand beside him, carefully taking the plastic encased scroll from Wo Fat and replacing it with a very heavy briefcase. "What an exquisite flower that girl is."

Wo Fat cocked an eye, he wasn't sure he liked his sister being referred to as a flower, but alright. "Yeah, she's really something."

"How long have you had her?"

Wo Fat chalked up the odd phrasing as a language barrier and simply went about opening the briefcase to ensure that all that was owed him was there. "Uh… about three years now maybe two and a bit. We're both pretty bad with dates so I doubt either of us knows."

"And how much would it be if I were to take her off of your hands?"

Okay, now that wasn't a language barrier. He knew exactly what Ares was asking now. He paused in counting the money and glanced up to him, a warning glare on his face, paired with a dangerous growl of: "Excuse me?" should have been enough to stop that line of questioning there, but Ares didn't get it.

"You heard me, your little concubine, I was wondering how much it would be to buy her from you."

"If you are referring to Rowan, she is my sister, not my personal slut, and she is not for sale."

"Ah that would explain the lack of chemistry between you two," he said. "Here I was thinking that she just wasn't into the Phantom of the Opera."

Okay screw doing business with him, this guy was just going to get punched. Instead of flying off the handle, which would not do either him or Rowan any good, Wo Fat intoned a few fake laughs and went back to the money he was dealing with.

"Seriously though, I won't take no for an answer," he said. "After a lay like that, I just have to spend more time with her. How much?"

At that Wo Fat slammed the briefcase shut. Rowan had fucked him? Fucking why? He thought she was obsessed with McGarrett. Though at second glance he did kind of have McGarrett's shoulders… and his jawline… damn did he leave her alone with a French version of her ex?

"Okay. I will say this one more time. My sister is not for sale. And you will leave her alone, you got me?"

"Alright, alight, I will play your game, American," he said. "There is one more piece I need, if you can get that I will double this amount."

"Just name the piece, and I'll get it," Wo Fat said. "And just so you know, Frenchie, this isn't a game. I can assure you that you don't want to know what'll happen to you if you touch my sister again, but if you want to know ask Riku Sato."

Wo Fat left it at that, taking his briefcase of money and leaving that warehouse. He checked his watch, Rowan would be out of it by the time he got back and he didn't want to wake her up. He'd yell at Rowan when she woke up in the morning about the terrible life choices she made when it came to men. And he'd let Ares find out what happened to men who fucked with Wo Fat's sister on his own.

H5O-H5O-H5O-H5O

Wo Fat had woke her up that morning to tell her she was an idiot. An idiot and a slut.

She never should have slept with Ares. True. But she was drunk and she just wanted to feel loved. She promised him she wouldn't drink. Also true. But he didn't know what it felt like to have that gaping hole in your chest crack and break at every beat away from the ones she loved. He didn't know what it was like to have a dark memory just at the edge of her mind at all times, knowing that if she were to indulge it she'd relive the terrors she thought she left behind in that basement.

He had asked her, quite nicely, not to go anywhere without him. Never go anywhere unsupervised. The problem was he didn't trust anyone other than him to supervise her and she was sick of waiting for him to be available to go places with her.

And she had listened… at least for a few hours, until she decided that she was too bored and it was about time to ignore that rule. She got herself a cab, told them to take her to Versailles, paid a ridiculous amount of money for that cab, paid an even more ridiculous amount to actually get into Versailles and then, with her headphone guide on her head she got to wander around the palace at her own leisure. Silently picking out the pieces she'd steal and put in her own place, or dreaming of being a French courtier in the era of Queen Marie Antoinette you know… without getting beheaded.

She had been so absorbed in the sheer beautify and magnificence in front of her that she didn't even notice him until he was right beside her.

Rowan jumped when Ares put a hand on her arm. She recoiled away from him, she didn't know why he was there but she had a bad feeling about it.

"Your brother sent me to keep you company and to be your pumpkin carriage," Rowan rolled her eyes god damn it. Why would Wo Fat do that to her? He had been livid that morning over last night's little romp, had been so angry that she had slept with Ares/ Why the hell would he send him to get her again? Was it because he was the only one he trusted to take her home?

"Fine, but I'm listening to my audio guide, so don't expect me to be social," she ordered putting her headphones back on. He followed after her dutifully until she was done. When she returned the audio to the front desk he tried to drag her to the car, but Rowan wasn't done. She went into the gift shop, wandered the outside gardens, found a little on site café where she had tea and croissants and only then was she ready to leave.

She followed him out of Versailles absently going through the things she bought not just for her, but for Wo Fat who was probably mad at her but she came to a complete stand still when she saw what was waiting for her.

"He sent us a car, come on, let's get inside," he had said to her but Rowan just stared at it. On the outside it looked like a high end black car but she didn't know much about cars. She just knew that something didn't feel right, and that car didn't look right.

He was saying that Wo Fat had sent this car but Wo Fat only used Audi's and this was a Bentley, or whatever car had the Tri-Star in the circle. For the first time Rowan went for her phone. "I think I should call him, just to tell him I'm on the way."

The problem was the second she said that, the second the phone came into view, Ares darted forward, one hand gripping her wrist the other quickly stabbing her in the stomach with an epidural needle. She watched him inject the strange fluid in her and just like that things started to go dark.

She never should have left the hotel.