SHOT in the Back

Ethan hadn't taken long. The shiny black bike had cut through traffic like it was nothing and despite having to run a few red lights and barely avoid crashing, the youngest Karmts brother quickly and effectively made his way to his and Lena's base of operations. With a resounded screech he ground the bike to a halt and preformed a one hundred and eighty turn to pull up just next to Lena.

He snapped open the visor of his helmet and glanced at the miniskirt touting girl.

The same piercing eyes that both his brothers had possessed were seemingly driving holes into the girl. "Where are they."

---

A supple pair of lips drew themselves into a thin line and keen eyes surveyed the reports that were filtering through. Nelson had already pushed the Ching's onto red alert, a tactless way to handle the attack. He was only the head by blood. Everyone knew who should have been the rightful heir to the Ching leadership.

Elena Pierce glared at the computer screen before hearing a phone call that stopped her current chain of thoughts. "Yes...?" She asked as she placed the phone to her ear.

Max gave a little sigh, slouching in his chair. "Okay..."

"Right now we can't exactly withdraw from our bank accounts, but we'll try to pay you back later." Andrea told the girl in an apologetic tone.

"Don't worry about it," Carlotta waved her hand. "I like to think I get a nice allowance. If you need anything else, just tell me, m'kay?"

Andrea nodded. "Thank you." The woman looked over at her son, who was now poking the remaining noodles on his plate with a fork. "...You finished?"

Max looked up and nodded.

"Go put your plate in the sink then." Andrea said.

"I can't reach here." Max mumbled, embarrased.

"I'm done too," Carlotta said, taking advantage of the situation. "It's all right; I'll take it," she told Max, scooping up his plate to put away. "The sink's really big. It's not your fault."

After she placed both dishes under the sink and rinsed them off, she turned to Andrea. "Uh, do you need anything else? Feel free to explore the house, if you want. Just stay away from Myrrh's and Dom's rooms."

Bakura smirked at the sound of Elena's voice, his lips curling upwards into something close to maniacal. "Ah, Ms. Pierce, I just thought it would be best to let you know that with today's events, everything is all but set for our joint business venture on my part, there is all but one card left to be revealed on my part before things move onto your phase, make sure to time your move correctly, though."

"That said..." he frowned slightly though, picking up a piece of paper that he had scribbled on earlier, frowning as he read his own writing back to himself. "I am curious; a good friend of my who works for Wolfram and Hart contacted me earlier today, apparently one of their rising stars just managed to get a very dangerous man out of jail. A man who I previously thought to be dead; you wouldn't have to do anything to do with this, would you? After all, Lindsey Elliot is your lawyer and I would hate to terminate a partnership that has been so fruitful to us both because you're trying to pull something behind my back..." In truth he couldn't care less, but nonetheless Siegrain Karmts was an unknown factor that could damage his plans. His younger brother had been more trouble than he was worth and apparently he wasn't as bad as the older one.

Life was such a bother some times.

"I think we're good for now. We'll just right a list for some essentials then we'll be out of your hair." Andrea replied, finishing up her own plate and picking up a napkin to wipe Max's face, causing the little boy to whine.

Karl just watched in silence. Before getting up to take care of his own plate. He set about to washing them, getting them clean as he went. Making sure to clean up the sink after words. Then, he glanced around to see if there was a dishwasher nearby.

The dishwasher was located to the right of the sink, although it was smaller than one would expect from a kitchen of this size.

Carlotta nodded. "Right, I'll just be in my room. The door'll be open. If you need me, just yell."

"Got it." Andrea nodded, after wiping Max's face she took her own plate over to Karl and helped him load up the dishes.

"...Are you alright?" Andrea asked the man.

"Yeah, just fine," Karl said, nodding as well in response. Inside, no he wasn't. This day had just gone from a simple visit to his parents graves, to the house getting blown up. To now worrying about the landlord charging them for the house. Not to mention the fact he would have to call his boss and say that he wont be able to come in for a while.

And his boss wasn't all thrilled about him taking the occasional day off to spend with his family when he was supposed to be working. Of course, he did let her know about it three weeks in advance. Then he'd just lose one of his 'weekend' for the next week. Which he didn't mind too much.

Oh boy...calling her would be oh so much fun...

"Good," Andrea replied... before groaning and thunking hr head against the a cabinet. "I hadn't sent my thesis to my professor yet. All of it was on my laptop... god-"

The woman covered her mouth, not wanting Max to here what a foul mouth she had. Plus, she didn't want the boy repeating what she said out in public.

"You still have time before the deadline?" Karl offered, wrapping an arm around her. Oh, how their 'normal' life was now down the drain. The war was starting all over again. And now, she probably was thinking about getting back in....

"I'm not sure. Wonder if the excuse 'sorry, my house blew up' would work." Andrea sighed, reasting her head on Karl's shoulder. "And I was doing well in the class too..."

"I'm sure it will, if it gets featured on the news...or if you show your professor..." Karl offered, and then rested his head onto hers. He closed his eyes, and took in a deep breath. "Somehow, things will work out...I promise..."

Andrea let out a small laugh. "Yeah, I'll just need to bring up Youtube..."

The woman sighed once more, leaning into her husband's comforting touch. "I believe. That's all we can believe right now..."

Siegrain sighed, the authorities had finally showed up and gotten to work, trying to put out the fire whilst they rounded up witness and get things under control; but it'd do them no good.

"They took way to long to get here..." he murmured to himself, stuffing his hands back into his coat pockets and walking away again. The last thing he wanted to do was deal with the fuzz. But then that begged the question, why had they all take so long to actually do their jobs? The police in Marisol had never been great back in the day, but this was ridiculous. They'd take so long that key witnesses were already gone and they hadn't made any efforts to find them despite handing out information to the media.

"This isn't right at all," somebody was messing with the police and fire departments, made sure to delay them long enough for the targets of the attack to escape into family protection yet they'd also found a way to get all the information to the media, or at least some of it. He didn't like this at all, because the implications were not pleasant in the least. "Somebody's up to something big..."

Doque dragged Mel onto the scene, looking at the burnt out corpse of a house, before letting go of her charge. "Alright, go off and get your information, but don't get in anyone's way too much," she instructed, patting the girl on the head, before wandering off to talk to some of her other colleagues to get more information on what actually happened.

Mel sighed, leaning against a lamp post. Too late now, she was already there. Oh well, she'd have to settle with observing the possible rooftop locations for where a pair snipers may lay. In a city, snipers were quite notorious for getting places, especially since their guns could be hidden inside of a suitcase.

After somewhat forcibly reminding the de Lucas at the HQ who was in charge and why, Myrrh called Dominick to inform him of the recent events. Dominick approved of his plan of action and told Myrrh not to come to the meeting (the topic up for debate had changed amidst the latest chaos).

"Instead, go to Andrea's old place to see if you can find anything out. The perpertrators will most likely have left, but maybe there are clues. It's our property that was damaged, so it's not suspicious for you to be there, but be careful."

Myrrh laughed. "I always am."

Which is how he found himself milling around the burnt up building, eyeing the cops a bit warily but not otherwise acknowledging them. He was still dressed in civilian clothes but wore a gun holster pretty openly. His knives were hidden under his clothes.

"I'm sure they would love to watch the house on Youtube," Karl chuckled and then mentally sighed again. It was offical to him now. He was cursed, or just some sort of universal butt monkey that all the bad stuff happened to.

God hated him or something.

Lena sighed when he showed up. "Sorry Ethan, but I was only able to get a little information, all I know for sure is that they were taken in by the De Lucas, but they've been keeping the information under tight lip, to make sure no one finds them." She explained, ashamed that she wasn't able to find out much.. "We can presume that they most likely didn't send some low rank grunt to get them, and I presume it's someone high up, with a good place to stay, that they can protect easily, but other than that, I got nothing."

"Wonder how many views we'll get." Andrea joked, before also sighing. It just... sucked. It was like Marisol was some huge black hole that kept sucking everything back into it's vortex, no matter how you tried to get out.

Max walked over to his parents, grabbing onto his mom's leg and looking up at the two. Andrea gave the boy a smile and rubbed his hair, still soft and mussed up. "At least we have each other."

"And that's all that really matters. None of us are hurt." Karl added on, giving a smile at the two. Well, true. Everything could be replaced, except for a life. There was only one of that. But then, he looked over at Andrea...what if she did go back into the De Luca fighting ranks again...?

"...I gotta pee pee." Max decided to announce.

"Oh... yeah." Andrea was glad they started potty training months back, but the little boy still had a bit of trouble getting on the porcelain throne... and off it.