Excuse The Obscene

One desk. One chair. Bright light. I can’t say I ever quite prepared myself to be here or that I was remotely happy being here but I can say that, for all intents and purposes, being here was a fair enough trade.

10 hours earlier

“So now he’s avoiding me.” I swung at Val’s head but made contact with nothing but air.

“Not just you. Everyone.” I leapt into the air just seconds before a foot swung out right where I had been standing.

“Perfect. Fucking perfect. Now he’s avoiding everyone because of me.” It didn’t take me long to realize I was being backed into a corner.

Two swift motions later and I found myself slammed against the hard floor.

“Fuck.” I groaned, waiting for the pain to ease its way out of my limbs. It had been a long ass time since I’d had the shit beat out of me and suffice to say, my tolerance for pain may have dropped a little.

“You’re out of shape.” Val said, reaching down to help me off the floor.

Now had anyone else heard Val say that to me they would have stared at her as if she was out of her goddamn mind. It was clear that I was far more physically fit than the vast majority of the west coast. But it had been a while since I’d had to fully rely on hand to hand combat and Val was right, I may have rusted a little around the edges.

“Hey, it’s not my fault. With a few knives and my guns, I really don’t need this shit. Hand to hand is so…excessive.” I defended myself, bouncing around until the pain had faded.

“This coming from the girl who used to pride herself on her ability to beat the shit out of anyone, anytime.” Val smirked.

“Yeah, and now I pride myself on my dead on precision and ability to pull a gun in the amount of time it takes most people to blink.” I shot back, returning the look.

“You hired guns,” Val laughed, “you’re all so fucking trigger happy.”

I rolled my eyes and left it at that, opting instead to grab my bottle of water and head for the stairs.

“You know I’m right.” I could hear the smile in Val’s voice as she followed me up the stairs and out of the basement.

“Of course you’re right.” I looked over my shoulder and replied in a tone used to placate toddlers.

I turned my head back around just in time to walk head on into someone’s chest.

Zacky's P.O.V.

“And what is she right about?” I asked Toni, instinctively wrapping my arms around her as she collided into my chest.

“Oh, we were just talking about how Toni’s game is just a bit off.” Val danced from behind Toni and responded in a slightly smug tone.

It was then that I noticed how sweaty Toni was.

“It’s not even noon yet and you two are sparring in the basement?” I cocked my head and asked.

“Yeah well, she wanted to brush up a bit.” Val said with a shrug.

“It’s fucking necessary considering how little hands on fighting I’ve been doing since I came back. I hardly ever get any jobs above rooky level hand offs and pick ups. Don’t think I haven’t noticed.” Toni tilted her head back and glared up at me.

Fuck, so she’d picked up on that. I thought I’d been pretty fucking clever with the rotating of jobs and making sure she stayed out of all the higher risk runs.

Yes, I most definitely played favorites and my most favorite was the feisty, angel faced bombshell standing in front of me in nothing but a sports bra and spandex shorts that left a ton of olive toned skin exposed. Her legs were nicely sculpted and not having them wrapped around me in bed was what had woken me up before noon this morning.

“Are you listening to me, Zacky.” Toni’s slightly ticked off voice pulled my attention away from those legs. “I haven’t done anything high profile in the two months I’ve been here.”

Tough. I’m going for at least six.

“Well, if you wanted to work up a sweat, baby, you didn’t even have to leave bed this morning.” I whispered, leaning down and biting slightly on her ear.

“Is that all you ever think about?” Toni asked and I didn’t have to look at her face to know she was smiling.

“No.” I continued my way along her neck. “I’m also thinking about how I want to take you out to dinner tonight. Just you and me, anywhere you want to go.” I ran my hands up and down her back.

“So, it’s time for me to go.” Val said loudly but got no response from either of us.

My fingers were sliding up her waist when I heard a low rumble. I rolled my eyes and laughed against her neck.

“Don’t laugh. You didn’t work up an appetite this morning getting your ass beat.” Toni punched me lightly before grabbing my hand and pulling me in the direction of the kitchen.

We walked into the kitchen and Toni immediately glanced around as if contemplating what to eat.

“Sit down.” I pointed to a chair before walking over to the fridge and pulling out the ingredients for a sandwich.

Toni ignored what I said, no doubt by instinct, and hopped up on the counter instead. A few minutes later, I walked over to the counter, dropping the sandwich and a beer next to Toni’s thigh.

It took Toni, all of five minutes to scarf down the sandwich and half of the beer. I stood off to the side and smiled a little. Even watching her eat managed to be entertaining. When she was done, I pushed the plate away and separated her legs to stand in between them.

“Now that you’re finished-” I ran my hand lightly over her knee.

“I’ve been meaning to ask you,” Toni pulled my head back by my hair and I looked up at her “where’s Johnny?”

I could feel a slight edge of annoyance taking over. Johnny was the last thing I wanted to talk about right now. To say things have been tense would be a vast fucking understatement. Toni and Johnny still hadn’t fixed things between each other and it was starting to put me in a fucked up position - professionally and personally. It didn’t take much to notice that Johnny hadn’t been around much lately and no one was left guessing why.

“Zacky,” She shook my shoulder a little, pulling me from my thoughts, “where’s Johnny?”

I contemplated whether or not I should answer her question. Chances are she’d pester me until I did, but on the other hand Johnny had made it clear that he still wasn’t ready to right things and there was the chance that Toni’s persistence would weigh in on the negative side this time. One look at Toni’s tense face and any chance of me not telling her disintegrated.

“I sent him on a job a bit up north. He won’t be back until tomorrow morning. You can talk to him then.” Hopefully killing something would loosen Johnny up and by tomorrow they would both be ready to work things out.

“What’s up north?” Toni asked, distracting me slightly by running her hands up and down my chest.

“There’s a large debt that needs to be paid. He’ll drop the money off tomorrow and you two can talk.”

Toni nodded and I lifted her up off of the counter, wrapping her legs around my waist.

“Now let’s go.”

Toni's P.O.V.
I’m not going to say that I particularly like sneaking around behind Zacky’s back. I have no problem doing it but it’s not like I enjoy lying to him. But Zacky had to be a little off his game this morning if he actually believes that I’m going to wait around for Johnny to come back tomorrow morning only to escape me again. If Johnny wanted to take things to such great lengths then fine - a few hours stuck in a car together heading north would be more then enough time to sort shit out.

I spent the morning with Zacky like I would any other morning and waited for Brian to pull him away for business before quickly changing and grabbing my car keys. I dropped a note claiming I was going out to spend the day with Val, before racing out the house to my car. If I blew all the lights and drove way above the speed limit then I would probably be able to catch Johnny before he left. I glanced quickly at my watch, letting me know that it was almost four o’clock. It would be about a three hour drive north to Santa Barbara so chances are Johnny was already getting set to head out in the next twenty minutes or so. Breaking every existing rule of driving safety, I managed to make it to Johnny’s place in seventeen minutes.

I slid my car quickly into park just as I watched Johnny open his car door and toss in a duffel bag. Jumping out of my car, I raced to Johnny’s passenger side door and was in the car before he even put the car in drive.

I slammed my door shut and just turned to look at Johnny, one eyebrow raised. Johnny glanced at me and didn’t bother to spare me so much as a glare. He pulled a pair of aviators down over his eyes and set the car in motion without so much as a whisper or a sigh.

Confrontation. That had been my golden plan - to leave Johnny with no choice but to acknowledge me. But even in the space of a simple four wheel car, he managed to entirely ignore my existence. He’d all but made it an art form and it was truly beginning to piss me the fuck off.

Half an hour into the ride, and not a single word spoken, I was beginning to doubt the effectiveness of my plan. By the fifty minute mark I had had enough of the silence.

“You can’t dance around me forever.” I finally turned my head and simply stared at Johnny who kept his focus on the long stretch of highway in front of him. “This has gone on long enough and we might never see eye to eye on what happened and the decisions we both made, emphasis on both of us, but we can still move forward and leave the past alone.”

Not so much as a slight head motion. I shook my head and got comfortable. With the remaining two hours ahead of me, and a long stretch of silence to accompany it, I might as well be comfortable.

I drifted in and out of a slight doze before the car was finally pulled to a stop at a harbor. I looked at Johnny before looking out the window. Zacky never let me go on far away drop offs and pickups so I wasn’t all that familiar with what was considered ‘normal’ locations for the occasion but a harbor seemed like a pretty logical spot. This harbor was mostly secluded and far enough away from city life that chances of someone just happening upon anything was unlikely. There were a few expensive looking ships and boats docked but other than that the place seemed mostly deserted.

I turned my head and watched as Johnny climbed out of the car, lit a cigarette and glanced down at his watch. Instinctively, I looked down at mine too; it was a little after seven. I followed Johnny’s lead and hopped out of the car, leaning against the hood beside him.

I gave the silence a few more minutes before finally deciding to change tactics.

“Let’s go.” I pushed myself off the hood and stood in front of Johnny, pulling off my jacket.

He stared for a moment before removing his aviators and staring me dead in the eye.

“Come on. We clearly going to have to fight this shit out.” I said, prepping myself.

Trying to talk through it clearly hadn’t worked and I refuse to return to Huntington with this pile of shit still hanging over my head.

“I’m not going to fight you, Toni. ”He gritted his teeth, speaking the first words he’d said to me in days.

“Why the fuck not? We seem incapable of settling our differences in a normal way so why not get physical? It’s primal instincts and all that shit.” I spouted sheer nonsense while bouncing impatiently.

He seemed to mull it over, pushing himself off the hood of the car and standing up straight.

“Don’t forget who taught you everything you know.” Johnny said passively.

I smirked a little and threw my head back in a nod of sorts.

“Don’t forget who kicked your ass that day in Zacky’s basement.”

It was pure bullshit. I knew I had beat Johnny back then, barely, but there was no chance of me beating him considering how long it had been since I’d had to actually do much hand-to-hand combat. I knew that there was quite a high chance that Johnny would beat the shit out of me - he had been the first to train me and without the added weight of my guns and knives I was still a little below the abilities of the guys and Val but I wasn’t counting on winning this fight anyway. All I wanted was for Johnny to release his anger in a way that I know is most common and effective for the guys.

“Well Zacky’s not here to watch over you this time.” Johnny grinned back, a borderline sadistic grin. A shit-eating, ‘I’m going to kick your ass and enjoy it’ grin.

“Enough with the fucking chit-chat.” That was all the warning I gave Johnny before I took off swinging.

Before my fist could make contact, Johnny’s hand shot out and grabbed a hold of it, using my momentum to swing me around and straight to the floor. I had a quick second to contemplate how much more the pavement hurt than the floor of the basement where Val and I had practiced. I was back on my feet in a matter of seconds and ready to take a stronger defense position rather than try to advance on Johnny again.

It didn’t take long for him to come at me, legs and fists flying simultaneously. I was so intently focused on blocking Johnny’s kicks - that were known to do serious damage- that I missed the fist that ended up planted right against my ribs. I fought the urge to double over and grabbed a hold of Johnny’s wrist, twisting it to the side and kneeing him in the gut. I hadn’t hurt him all that much but I had managed to slow him down enough to dance backwards a little away from him.

Two breaths later and Johnny was back again, knees making contact with hip and legs sweeping out at my feet. I danced and dodged underneath Johnny, appreciating my small size and my ability to weave out of tight spaces. Before Johnny could react, I was behind him sending a kick right at his back. A move like that would have knocked most people straight to the knees but like all the other guys, Johnny was far to experienced to falter. My ego would take a serious hit if I kept sparring with Val and the guys.

Aside from my ego, my left knee also took a heavy hit. I swayed a little to favor my right knee but managed to stay standing. I saw Johnny’s right arm swinging for my stomach again and managed to dodge that easily only to be hit hard by his left fist right at my shoulder. I bit back a groan and tried to roll my shoulder to regain the feeling there.

“How’s that feeling?” Johnny asked and I didn’t have to look up to know that he was smirking.

“Fucking painful.” I responded, weaving backwards again.

“Good, can’t hurt anymore then it did when you left me.” Johnny spoke as he leaped closer and landed another punch to the dead center of my stomach.

“Left you?!” I coughed a little but didn’t buckle over. “I saved. my. fucking. life.” I punctuated each word with a swing at his chest.

Johnny blocked each hit and danced back a little.

“You were the one ready to brand me traitor and toss my body into the ocean.” I heard my voice get higher as I advanced on Johnny again.

“Two fucking years, Toni.” Johnny growled, and rammed his shoulder against my chin, knocking my head back. “Two years of wondering what fuck happened to you.” Hit to the gut. “Of searching for you.” Kick at the knees. “Of worrying about you.” Twist of the arm. “And finally, of just giving the fuck up on you.” Johnny spun and elbowed me across the side, knocking me to the floor.

I rolled over and wrapped both legs around his, dropping him to the floor beside me. I grabbed his shirt and attempted to choke him with it.

“You could of saved your fucking worry for someone who you didn’t already want to see dead.”

“Fuck you. I’m not fucking Zacky. I didn’t do the shit to you that he did so don’t try to fucking blame me.” Johnny locked my wrists in his hand and got to his knees, pulling me with him.

“You didn’t do anything to stop him!”

“You didn’t do anything at all for two years!” Johnny pushed me back to the ground and jumped back to his feet.

Seconds later I was on my feet again too.

“I won’t apologize for that. I won’t apologize for anything and I’m not fucking asking you to apologize either. I’m asking you to get. the. fuck. over. it. Just like I have.” I swung my leg up into the air but Johnny grabbed it before it could make contact and held it there.

After a few moments of staring blankly at me, Johnny twisted my leg a little - successfully dropping me back to the ground. I didn’t bother getting up again this time. I had tried everything and I was just about ready to give the fuck up.

I looked up as Johnny walked over to me, knelt down and held a hand out. I looked at his hand and then back up to his face. His blank stare dropped and he was grinning. Not a sadistic grin but a full blown, all around Johnny grin- one that I hadn’t seen in years.

“I just beat your fucking ass.” Johnny winked as he grabbed my hand and pulled me off the floor.

I rolled my eyes and slammed my fist into his stomach.

“I want a fucking rematch.”

We continued on like that for a few moments, shooting playful insults at each other. After awhile, Johnny glanced down at his watch again and growled a little.

“He’s fucking late.” Johnny said as he walked over to the car and pulled a pistol from the seat, tucking it into his back pocket.

It was then that Johnny appeared to have some sort of revelation and glanced back up at me.

“You shouldn’t be here. Zacky’s going to fucking kill me.” Johnny said passively as he looked up and down the harbor.

“Oh shut the fuck up. We all know that I’m more than capable of taking care of myself.”

Johnny didn’t get a chance to respond as a black Jeep sped around the corner and pulled to a stop right in front of us. Johnny’s face took on a blank hardness as he stepped forward to meet the guy coming out of the car. The man was of medium build with shaggy brown hair falling over his blue eyes.

“You’re fucking late.” Johnny said, clearly waiting for an explanation.

“I know, I had some last minute trouble pulling up the money.” The guy motioned to the car and other man exited, handing a large duffel bag to Johnny.

Johnny dropped the duffel bag onto the hood of the car and opened it up, I assumed to do a quick count of whatever was in there.

“You didn’t say you were bringing company.” The guy swayed a little on his heels and nodded towards me.

“She’s clean.” Johnny responded passively without glancing away from the bag.

It took one more sway of the guy’s heels for me to realize something was about to go wrong. I looked quickly at Johnny who was still staring into the bag intensely and when I turned back to face the guy again I found a gun pointed at my face.

For the third time that day, my body jumped into hyperactive motion. One swift kick relieved the poor fucker of his gun as well as let Johnny know something was going on. Moments later chaos broke out. Three more men climbed from the Jeep, upping the number from two to five instantly. I could hear bones snapping as Johnny took care of the first guy out of the car. After that I didn’t have time to focus on what Johnny was doing anymore. Limbs were flying and bones were breaking as I dealt with two of the burly men. For a moment I felt a fighter’s high- one that I couldn’t get from just sparring with the guys. No, this was fighting to kill and for a while I was pretty fucking confident that Johnny and I would easily come out on top of this. And then I heard the sirens.

There were only two possible ways it could have come to this. Either, by some fucked up chance the cops had decided to simply check out this harbor at this exact time or the fucker had tipped them off before coming here. Considering the shit eating grin on the guy’s face at the sound of the sirens, I was willing to bet my life on option number two.

“Toni, get in the fucking car.” Johnny shouted as he fought his way out of the grasp two of the men had on him.

I’d only managed to turn on my heel before I felt an arm wrap around my neck and pull me back. Some men just don’t know when to stay down. I shot my elbow back and heard another bone snap. Before I could make another move I heard a few shots fired off.

I spun around quickly to see that Johnny was fine but the tires on the car weren’t. One of the men laying on the floor had managed to shoot out both front tires and one back tire.

The sirens were getting closer and it was clear that we were pretty much out of time. Seconds later two cop cars careened around the corner, coming full speed at us.

One glance at Johnny and we both took off running. It took me all of a millisecond to realize we had no fighting chance in hell of out running those cars. At best we’d make it a few more feet.

“Johnny turn!” I shouted moments before the cops cars would have slammed into our bodies. I spun on my heel and began running in the opposite direction with Johnny right in front of me.

It took the cars a moment to shift there momentum and do a u-turn to chase after us again. It gave us a decent amount of distance but it still wouldn’t be enough to get away. Something had to fucking give. One of us had to get caught and I knew Johnny would not lean towards the idea of leaving me behind. I waited until Johnny had gained a few feet distance on me and slowed slightly as I watched him turning the corner, no doubt assuming I was right beside him.

I took the few seconds I had and jumped into the driver’s seat of the car that now had three deflated wheels. Revving the car, I laughed a little to myself despite the situation. This car, Johnny’s baby, was about to give her all in this harbor.

I watched the two cop cars come closer through the window and once they were close enough I stepped on the gas and shifted into reverse while spinning. The loud sound of metal crushing metal filled the harbor. Tires screeched and the three cars piled into each other, sending my body lurching forward. I managed to push the door of the car open and drop myself out onto the gravel. I shut my eyes and just laid there listening to the after effect sounds of the car crash.

In under three minutes, back-up had shown up and I was cuffed and shoved in the back of a police cruiser. Less than half an hour after that I found myself in a Santa Barbara jail. The small, decrypt room had people coming in and out asking me questions. Everyone of them received no more than a small smirk and a raised eyebrow.

No, I definitely can’t say I wanted to be here in this chair as the harsh white line beamed down on me and men in suits harassed me but all things considered…I’d take it. Johnny had gotten out and that’s all that mattered. I didn’t regret jumping in the car with him hours ago and I sure as fuck didn’t regret wrecking those cop cars back there to give Johnny a chance to get away. Now all I had to do was sit back and wait for Johnny and the rest of the guys to get me the fuck out of here.