pretty savage

“Damn, this place is fire,” Henry said, taking in the old, refurbished factory. “No pun intended.” Seeing his cousin look so full of pride brought a smile to his face. For too long the family had been hiding in the dark; it was about damn time they got back to their life. “Can’t wait for the grand opening.”

Dia snickered before she could stop herself and whacked her cousin on the arm. “We can’t joke about that! Like, half a dozen people died!” But her point was undercut by her giggles. Henry was almost always able to get a laugh out of her, but Dia would be lying if she said she didn’t feel like a piece of her spirit had returned to her over the days since they’d been back.

     Zach had been running some errands of his own. He’d secured a place before the move and in between planning and fucking sneaking, he wanted to make sure his family was set. He noticed Dia standing in the street, seemingly admiring a building. 

     “This the place?”

The sound of her cousin’s voice pulled Dia out of the spell she’d found herself falling into. She turned toward him and her face lit up. "It’s perfect, Zach.”

.

Scarlett was in a rush, having accidentally slept in on the morning she was meant to have a business meeting with someone very important. Trevor would kill her if she missed this thing… Well, maybe not actually kill her, but it definitely wouldn’t be an interaction she was looking forward to.

She was looking down at her purse, shuffling through it to see if she’d even grabbed her house keys before she left. As if that was something else she needed to add on to her day. Suddenly she was knocking in to somebody and she felt herself going off balance, grabbing out to the person she’d just ran into for stabilizing herself.

“Jesus fucking christ, sidewalks are meant for walking, not standing like statues.” Obviously the incident was Scarlett’s own fault for not looking, but the fact that she was already having a bad day and was growing later and later by the second, she didn’t exactly have time for niceties with people who were literally getting in her way. It only took her an extra second to recognize the person she was still clasping on to before letting go as if they’d burned her.

“You’ve got to be joking me. Do I have a fucking beacon for Kings right now.”

If Dia was a more responsible cartel-crime-doer-person, she would’ve been paying attention to her surroundings. Or even if she was a more responsible citizen of the second largest city in the entire nation, she would’ve been paying more attention. She knew immediately that she’d made a mistake when someone collided with her, but her apology quickly died on her lips when the other person snapped, which immediately made her defensive. This defensiveness turned more toward disdain, if not aggression when she registered exactly who it was that had run into her.

Of course, Scarlett fucking Cohen had immediately bitched someone out for an honest mistake. Dia wasn’t sure that Scarlett had any other setting aside from ‘irrationally bitchy.’ If she’d realized it was Scarlett, she would’ve fuckin tripped that bitch intentionally. 

Dia scowled. “Funny, your flying monkeys usually warn people ahead of you,” she said snidely. “Glad to see you haven’t changed a bit, Scarlett.”

With it being a beautiful day in sunny Los Angeles and it finally starting to feel like summer now Christian found himself skateboarding down the sidewalk with a nice cool breeze hitting his body. That mixed in with just finishing up a joint Christian felt amazing. Of course that would only be short lived as all it took was a quick distraction to look away for just a second before realizing the collision that was about to happen. 

“Oh fuck,” he mumbled to himself before jumping off the board and wrapping his arms around the woman before any real damage could be not. “Fucking hell, that was close. You alright there?” He asked the girl, not realizing just who he was.

Dia had been completely sucked into her own little world, imagining everything she could turn this place into, which, in hindsight, wasn’t the best move, seeing as how there was probably a small handful of people who would’ve loved to have taken advantage of her distraction. But she didn’t exactly have said hindsight yet. So when someone made contact, she let out a super dignified squeak of surprise as she stumbled to avoid toppling both herself and the other person over. “Shit, I’m so sorry!” She stepped back from the stranger, only to see that he wasn’t a stranger at all.

“Chris!” What followed was a mix of emotions. Joy at seeing her old friend, shock that he’d literally just run into her on the street, guilt and sadness for the having to leave the city without even a goodbye, all washed out from fear that he wouldn’t forgive her -- or any of them. But Christian was one of the precious few people in the cartel that hadn’t looked down at her as the Kings’ kid cousin, or just put up with her for their sake. He’d truly been her friend, and she didn’t have many of those outside of her cousins, and she had no idea how he would react to them coming back after being gone for so long. “Christian, hi.”

She slid her phone out of her back pocket and swiped to send a short text to her realtor, saying only “Put in the offer.” Then, she turned and took a few steps backwards to admire the old, industrial-era factory. Well, okay, it hadn’t been a factory in a while. Not since the fire. But it was still a great building. And it was the perfect place for a nightclub, which had been one of her dreams for a long time.

“L.A., I’m home,” she murmured under her breath, as if she was -- just for a moment -- the only person in the city.