KITTY: She doesn’t move at first, a frown of confusion flitting across her brow, glancing at the envelope being pushed towards her. Where she typically struggles to keep her mouth shut, words fail and die on the back of her tongue, struggling to get her head around what they’re telling her. Evidence that she’d helped Death take Leon? Something sent to Nana? Kitty shifts uncomfortably on the spot, the additional mention of her loathing of security measures coming a little too close to the secret she has tucked away beneath her ribs, protecting Saint from discovery. “I don’t—” A wide-eyed look is passed over each of the faces watching her. “I don’t know what any of that shit is.” With her back to the wall, she moves towards the window ( anything to get away from the weight of attention on her ), testing the handle blindly while her attention remains on her cousins. Locked. “I sure as shit don’t know why the fuck Death are sending you packages that target me or why you’re even listening to a thing they say, either.” Her gaze meets Rafael’s. Why were they even discussing this? “Did Nana— believe it? Who else knows about this?”

MARCUS: marcus watches her jiggle the window, but he'd made sure to lock them just in case. “we don't believe it,” he states firmly, despite the what if that filled his brain upon looking at the evidence for the first time. it was suspicious, sure, but kitty is loyal to a fault. if he doesn't have her full support, no one outside the family will. “doesn't mean we can brush this shit under the rug either.” marcus glances between kitty and rafael, wishing whatever it is that stands between them to melt away, even if it's just for now. “someone's waiting for us to start throwing each other under the bus, and if we want to find out who, i think we need to play along. and by that i don't mean announce it far and wide, we don't need war having a fucking clue. but if we let them believe we're convinced and trying to cover it up, one of theirs might come sniffing to poach kitty. and we need to start figuring out who these cunts are.”

RAFAEL: He looks back at Kitty’s stare, muddled with confusion and accusation. A low, shake of his head - “It doesn’t matter. She won’t say a thing ‘till we’ve got a plan in place.” There’s a low breath of hesitation, as Rafael listens on to Marcus’ plan. It’s a good one, that much he knows. But it doesn’t soothe the edges of the accusations. Maybe that’s what Rafael is meant to do… If his last fight with Kitty wasn’t hanging over their heads. He decides to be the first to break their little tiff, standing up from the desk and crossing the threshold. Key in hand, as he unlatches the lock from behind Kitty. “You can go if you really want to. But I really wish you’d stay.” He says patiently. “Don’t you want to fuck them up?” Rafael godes on, something echoing a smile. The first one exchanged in weeks.

KITTY: She doesn’t know what to do. Hates that she’s been caught off-guard and plunged, without warning, into something she doesn’t understand. Kitty’s line of sight returns to the envelope, its mere existence offensive. Stepping forwards, she snatches it up from the desk and glances at the contents: a phone she’s never seen before; old police files that would have brought a small smirk to her face if she didn’t feel sick with disgust at how much effort has been put into framing her. “Fuck,” she breathes out, too distracted to fully listen to what Marcus is saying until he mentions playing along. Dark eyes flick sharply upwards to meet his own. It’s a lot to take in, particularly with an audience. She watches Rafael draw closer with a key, the lock clicking open, and she barely waits for him to finish speaking before she’s pushing the window open and clambering out ( grateful, at least, for Rafael’s new house being a bungalow ). 

Kitty spends five minutes outside — five minutes alone, to think, to make sense of her own emotions and chew over the idea of being offered up as bait — before she heads back indoors, returning to the study, shutting the door behind her and sitting down in the leather seat opposite her cousins. “Okay,” she says, quiet but firm. “Okay, but if we do this, we have to do it properly. They sent something to Nana, right? So they’ll be watching her. She has to think it’s real. And you’ll have to limit the shit I do: you wouldn’t let a rat in on the important stuff.”

MARCUS: maybe if it were easier, he'd have gone after her. but her ability to outrun him and the distance that still lingers between them from his mistakes are what stop him from leaving the room. instead, he checks his phone over and over again until the door opens again and shuts behind her. marcus almost smiles when she agrees, twirling the head of his cane between his fingers as the beginnings of a plan form. “i'll talk to nana, say only ravi and raf know. might mean actually having a bodyguard or two,” then he smiles, “doesn’t mean you can't find ways to lose them, though. and it should make nana more suspicious.” marcus turns to rafael, “what do you think?”

RAFAEL: In an unsurprising move, she’s out the window instantly. And it’s just as well. Heavy is the head that wears the proverbial blame. But when she returns, ready and able, he has to stifle a smile. That’s his girl. “It’s an idea. I don’t like leading Nana around on some false idea, but…” Well, was there any choice? “We can say we’re still on the outs.” Weren’t they? Who’s to say anymore. But he says it like it’s in the past, and maybe it will be when the conversation is done. “I reckon they did this to put something between us. So, we can make a show out of it. Say it’s gone from bad to worse.”

RAVI: Personally, he thinks someone should go after her, but since no one else rises from their seat, he stays, too. And picks at his nails with growing anxiety until she returns. The plan they have in mind is a good one, but he's not so confident on it when one could still cut the tension in this room with a knife. "If they're dumb enough to go after Kitty, it's because the cracks are showing." He looks pointedly at the lot of them, Jessica excluded. "If you're gonna pretend to be having family issues, you can't be having family issues. I'm not here to force anyone to be buddies again, I'm just saying. Everyone has to be on the same page, or you're setting up a trap for yourselves."

JESSICA: Jessica crosses her arms, uncomfortable with talking about a problem she’s only been on the fringes of, even if it was her fault it began—afraid that anything she says will set things off again. She’s still used to knowing things last and letting her cousins speak over her, even if she would never accept this anywhere else.

She glances at Ravi, grateful that he spoke up, then says, “Honestly, it’s not even ‘family issues’ anymore. That makes it sound like we’re being petty and infighting for no reason, but we aren’t. All the problems people have had are valid.” Ikki conspiring against them, and Rafael keeping it secret out of love, is one. Marcus fighting their Seraphim and Virtue, hurting them, even if it had started out of worry (and pride and ambition), is another. And the tension has been exacerbated on all sides by sharp tongues and the Femenias temper. The problem with being family is that family knows how to hit you where it hurts.

“But they aren’t just family issues. What’s going on—and getting worse because everyone keeps fighting and avoiding each other and refusing to communicate—” Jessica says pointedly, looking at the three, “—is a Famine problem. And at this point, I think we have to sit down and think of it that way.” Exhales. “Think of it objectively, as our ranks. Think of warnings or consequences that need to be given out, even if we keep them, or the reasons why, to ourselves.” Their ranks, honestly; she wouldn’t be surprised if they tried to make her leave the room, like in Mallorca. But while she’s here, she adds, more gently, “But also... temper them, because we’re family.” All of them, even Ikki, with how much Raf loves him. “And maybe we can’t make complete exceptions, but should be open to a little forgiveness.”

Then, uncrossing her arms, she reaches for the plastic cup next to her and drinks her iced latte.

KITTY: She knows that there is some truth in what Ravi and Jessica ask of them, sinking a little in her seat as she levels her gaze with the desk and chews on a piece of gum that has long since lost its flavour but is, for the most part, preventing her from tensing her jaw. What she hates, though, more than being tricked into a room and locked in, more than being watched while making decisions she’d much prefer to mull over while alone, is being told how to feel. Kitty will do a lot for their family, including being served up on a silver Famine-bought Femenias-crested platter for Death to pick at like crows in the hope of catching a skull-masked vigilante in the act, but being asked to tame her temper to make herself more convenient to work with receives a resounding, “No.” She doesn’t care if she sounds childish. “It’s not fucking forgiveness you need to fill the cracks. It’s genuine promises to stop acting like pricks.” Maybe she’s being stubborn; maybe she has some apologising to do too. Regardless, she continues, looking at Jessica. “You say treat all this how I would in our ranks?” Dark eyes move to Marcus. “If someone in my crew did what you did, I’d cut off their hands and then beg Tío for forgiveness.” Kitty’s line of sight cuts sharply to Rafael. “And if someone said what you said to me on my birthday, I’d burn their fucking house down.”

MARCUS: kitty's gaze burns a hole through his chest. her anger is ripe and it is justified, marcus could never argue the contrary. in fact, he doesn't want to argue at all. “but this isn't our ranks. this is family. if we fuck up, we learn and we do better, and we do that together. we are femenias', not wardens.” he glances at rafael, looking for his brother to stand with him, in both a show of acknowledgment and of growth. he turns back to kitty, his first sister. “you have every right to be angry with us. with me especially. but ravi and jess are right, we can't stop relying on each other now. playing into the accusations requires us to be a better team than ever. can we do that?” he address not just kitty, but the whole room. “and before any of you start, i know i'm one of the worst. but i'm trying. i'll do better.” his eyes settle away from any particular set of eyes as he speaks. it should be easier to bear his heart to family. marcus wonders what went so wrong to make it so he can't look at anyone's eyes but ravi.

RAFAEL: In the midst of commotion, Rafael can only hang back and listen. A decree from Ravi, a wisdom from Jessica, and a distant resolve from both Marcus and Kitty. He feels like he’s sixteen again, caught in between the big personalities in Famine. And though he shares a nod with Jessica and a hum of agreement with Marcus… There’s only one person in that room that Rafael would burn this home alive for, just to keep warm. “I’ll go first.” Rafael decides, looking at no one but Kitty as he says it. “I let you down. I’d fucked it up. And when everything went wrong, I took it out on you.” Rafael sighs. “You were loyal since the start, and I forgot about that because I was a defensive shit.” Since they were all airing out their own wrong doings, he looks at Ravi. Almost pointedly. If he and Marcus had to do this, so did they. “Your turn.”

RAVI: He exchanges a look with Jessica, something apologetic when Kitty twists her words into more arguing. He squeezes Marcus' hand tight in his when his husband says his piece. Rafael turning to him is unexpected, and he finds himself stuttering out a quiet wh--? I--?, his eyes searching his cousin-in-law's for further instructions, but finding none. For once, he hesitates, not knowing what to say, but he digs out whatever he thinks he can apologise for. "Well, I am sorry for butting in." It's something he's thought about. If he hadn't fired that gun that day, he knows Marcus would've stopped on his own, but now Kitty doesn't believe that. She might never believe that. "I just want to see you guys well again, and I think I mess up trying to make that happen, sometimes, or I sound like I'm brushing your arguments off. You fuckers had this for thirty years, I only had you all for five. It's a little daunting to see you fight."

JESSICA: It takes everything in Jessica not to flinch when Kitty flings her words back at her, the contrast between them clearer than ever. She wasn’t saying to forgive and forget, but Kitty views punishment like an unforgiving Old Testament God.

Surprisingly—or perhaps not so much, considering the alternative—Jess agrees with her brother. Then Raf and Ravi are speaking, mostly to Kitty, maybe to the rest of them, and her brows furrow, lips pressing into a thin line as she thinks of all the things she’s already apologized for, even those that weren’t her fault. She refuses to take the blame for having her own goals. “I don’t think I should be speaking,” she says, already feeling her shoulders tensing, nails digging into her palms; she already knows Kitty will hate whatever she says next. “But if there’s anything I do regret,” she says, with sudden fierceness, “it’s pulling away when I should have dragged all of you to Tío’s pool house and dunked your heads into the pool until you apologized.” They’re all so stupid, and she is so goddamn tired.

KITTY: She doesn’t mention that the Wardens are rumoured to be getting along better of late ( admittedly in the wake of devastating loss ), but the thought flickers through the back of her mind like a drifting ember as she drums her fingernails against the leather armrest of her seat and listens to Marcus ask of them exactly what he’d failed to do previously — rely on one another. As much as she believes that he means what he’s saying, she questions whether he’s truly able to shed his fears and ambitions so quickly and efficiently for the sake of this plan. “I’ll do whatever Famine needs,” Kitty says pointedly, unblinking as she’s met with Rafael’s apology, a glimmer of resolve softening her expression. Dark eyes flick to Ravi, uncertain, blinking away unwanted memories brought on by his words, and finally settle on Jessica whose rage is welcomed even if the idea of anyone being forced to apologise rather than simply offering it willingly feels counterproductive. 

“Okay,” she murmurs, biting at the side of her thumbnail, “so we do this and we do it together.” Keen to return to the looming dark cloud of Death, she offers up information she’s been keeping to herself. “I have one lead. Wren identified someone in Death’s ranks. I wanted to use her for a project—” Cat + Mouse is mourned silently, unable to focus on it while so firmly caught in the crosshairs of an enemy’s scope “—but it could be useful knowledge for this. Her name’s Ginny. I’ll send you a photo they shared with me.” Hard to believe that the thief would go through all this trouble simply due to a few unlucky run-ins. “Do we have anyone else?”

MARCUS: there's nothing else he can ask of them. and while their troubles aren't smoothed over by any means, there is something that wasn't there before. understanding? acceptance? he can't quite tell the nuances, but he doesn't complain. mention of a project catches marcus' attention, but it's the name ginny that makes his brows raise. marcus glances at ravi, knowing of his ex flatmate only through stories, and shoots his spouse a silent look of that ginny? his gaze is quickly brought back to kitty, “what's her last name? and what's this project?” he comes up blank with any new leads on death's identities. “no one new.”

RAFAEL: “Ren.” He answers instinctively, until sets of eyes look back at him. With a small, feeble shrug, he toys with a pen atop his deck. “I followed her out of that god awful pub… Might or might not have twisted her arm, after I saw her with the strawberry macaron haired fuck.”

RAVI: Dramatic gasp makes its way out of his lips at Kitty's words. "Ginny?!" There could be a million Ginny's out there in London, sure, but the fact that this is also the name of a person who contacted him recently and spewed a bunch of suspicious bullshit -- yeah, he's convinced it's the same girl before Rafael even confirms it. "She was my roommate, I-- fucking hell, I talked to her the other day and I thought she sounded weird, but--" he shakes his head, trailing off. "She tried to get me to believe I wasn't a part of this. And we have Vincent, too." It's aggravating to know he has two connection with those cunts already. A sigh deflates his shoulders. "Kitty, I don't think Ginny knows I know about her, so. If you need a way to bait her in for your project and I can help, I'm all yours."

MARCUS: “oh actually,” he cuts in, “now that you mention wren. he gave you ginny? huh...” marcus' brows knit into a frown, “okay so no one fucking tell them. i may have been snooping on the security footage outside their flat... and i saw him talking to may nguyễn. but he definitely didn't look relaxed, and if wren gave us ginny... it doesn't add up. if wren was a rat, they wouldn't have a conversation with may right outside their apartment where there's working security footage. wren's not that stupid.”

JESSICA: When the message arrives in the Fem Fam group chat—quiet for so long, now brought to life—Jess clicks it and stares down at the face of the girl she’s laughed with, partied with, considered a person she could trust. Mei Lan—or apparently not. An image nudges at her memory: a bouquet of asphodels arriving at her door, the words “Jess, I’m sorry. Be careful. - g.r.” on the card. Now it makes sense. G.R. Ginny Ren. What the hell. “Fuck,” she says, heart twisting in her chest, “she’s my friend, too. She knows all of us.” And while Marcus’ news about Wren is welcome, that isn’t her business; it’s Kitty’s, now. All she can think about is that someone she considered a friend isn’t her friend, after all. “Alright, so M—Ginny, Vincent, Jack Tanner, May Nguyễn,” she repeats. “Ginny is the common thread across us so far. Though Ravi… you might be the only one still in contact with her. I have a number of hers, but it’s probably not her real one.” And she doesn’t want to call now, not until she’s thought about it. If Ginny thinks Jess knows who she is, she’s probably shrugged off her false identity, but Jess is more worried about what she’ll have to do if Ginny does pick up.

KITTY: “The project was just something, an idea—” she glances at Jessica, hopeful for silence. The thought of sharing Cat + Mouse while it was still little more than a pile of bare bones yet to be assembled into anything of worth makes her stomach twist. “It’s not important now but I’ll tell you at some point.” Silence stretches through Kitty’s mouth as the name Wren had fed her is batted back and forth between her cousins, a small nod offered at Ravi’s suggestion ( tentative if only because her loyalty is what she is known for, the concept of this fabricated betrayal wriggling free of their plan and slipping into the ears of those uninvolved leaving her uneasy — and yet it is exactly that very same loyalty which has her agreeing ). “Yeah, that’s smart. Let slip to Ginny what Death wants to hear and we can see if it makes it back to them.”

Marcus’ interjection receives a hum of agreement. “I interviewed Wren. Scared them on purpose. They’re not a rat.” Then again, this would be apt revenge for striking fear in his heart, attempting to frame her, wouldn’t it? Kitty shrugs the idea off, paranoia all too easy to fall victim to. “We have our starting point, then. Who else do we need to tell about this? And who—” Famine is home and hearth and heart and the next question has to be forced out “—who should I stay away from to help sell the story that I’m a rat?”

MARCUS: marcus peers over his sister's shoulder at the picture of the girl in question. marcus expects to be memorising new features, but instead he's met with gratingly familiar ones. “her? fucking hell...” a hand reaches up and aggressively rubs over his mouth as that reality sets in. “that sneaky bitch.” he has to laugh when someone gets him as good as that. surprise and frustration make it easy not to poke at kitty's mention of an idea, but he knows her well enough to know if she's not explaining it yet, there's reason. and is it not part of shedding his old skin, to stop trying to tie every one of their joints to strings and puppeteer each decision to please himself?

“i might be able to talk to ginny ren. there's a fake investigation into...” he motions to his left knee, not wanting or needing to say it out loud, “and i can pretend i still believe it.” suspicion for wren diminishes, but if nana is to believe kitty is being punished, he can't admit to having talking to her about her angel. “i think we need to tell tío rafael. he'll play along, won't he?” marcus turns to rafael for confirmation before he returns his attention back to kitty. “would be real handy if we could just.. ship you off somewhere.” the idea makes him laugh, as if kitty would ever agree to leave them all in london. what else would she hate? he wonders. and that's when his eyes lock on somewhere distant and a frown sets deep in his forehead, mind at work. “we could, actually. ship you off somewhere, without you having leave london.” marcus smiles a little, mind whirring at the possibilities this opportunity could give them.

“say i go to tío, and i suggest we swap a member of famine for a member of war. a temporary change to ‘improve relations’, and i suggest we send you.” he points to kitty, the most volatile of them and with the most reasons to not play nice with their new friends. “we convince war you're in the dog house, not only will they help us sell it to death, who no doubt have their claws in war somewhere, but if they think you're on the outskirts being pushed out, who knows what they'll let slip to you thinking it'll never make its way back to the rest of us? i'll personally be waiting for them to underestimate you.”

RAFAEL: The assessment of Ginny Ren, and her claws in each one of his cousin’s lives, is enough to give Rafael a jolt of satisfaction. At least he twisted her arm and gave her holy hell, when he had the chance. He glances at the picture, and unkindly wonders what she looked like well after the fact. He leans back, quizzical brow listening in on Marcus’ suggestion. It’s admittedly a good one - but his stomach twists at this proposed distance. It’s not like he and Kitty were on the best of terms yet, and now she’s handed to the cold lion’s den. Nevertheless, he stifles a dissatisfied hum. “Papa can keep a secret. He might be… On edge, as of late.” He picks the words carefully, as the image of his father’s own distrust haunts him.

“But… familia sobre todo.” It feels like a lifetime since their old, family mantra is exhumed from its cold rest. It’s nearly rusty on his tongue. But Rafael stands up from his chair, looking at every person in the room to confirm as much. “He’ll do what it takes for our family.” Just like they all would. With a nod back at Kitty, he reaches for his cell phone. “Let’s give Death the show they want. PR stunts are our specialty. It worked with Emil Becker, thanks to Jessica. It’ll work for us. Say… A well placed video of us,” he gestures between Kitty and himself. “Fighting?” After all, it’s clear that the purpose is to put them on the outs - by whatever means necessary. With a shrewd smirk, he looks back at Jessica. “You think you can figure something out?”

JESSICA: Jessica notices Kitty’s expression as she mentions her project and graciously withholds comment, also preferring they wow the family when the time is right. But the next idea, Marcus’, is different, and while it’s clever, reminding her why he’s a Dominion, she isn’t sure if she would want Kitty to go off to War—even if it would benefit them.

Though Rafael seems to like the idea, and the three of them agreeing is a good sign, his next suggestion makes Jessica pause, scrunching up her face a little as she glances between the two cousins and the phone in Raf’s hand. “Alright, you know I love a good catfight, but I’m not sure that’s a good idea right now,” she replies warily. “It’s a bit too soon.” Fighting, even for show, can get personal so quickly, and they’ve had a bad track record with fighting since the bombing, their emotions too raw and close to the surface. They’ve barely even made up. She glances away, furrowing her brows in thought. “If we were to try something, it would have to be in public—the private room of a fancy restaurant, but with someone recording from a distance and bad acoustics so we can be seen but not heard. The Gallery at Galvin La Chapelle, perhaps,” she muses. “But if anyone has any better ideas, I’m listening.”

KITTY: If the thought of pretending she was disloyal wasn’t enough, her heart sinks at the suggestion that she be sent into War and forced to hide at close range how she feels about Gabrielle Warden’s youngest son. Kitty frowns, bouncing her knee as discomfort prickles at the back of her neck. “This is starting to feel like an actual punishment,” she says with a laugh that lacks humour. Marcus is right, though — if they’re to sell this to Death, she needs to be kept at arms length from Famine. Let the weight of her faked treachery hang heavily from her neck. She’s bled for their cause on countless occasions but these sacrifices were new. More complex. “If Tío doesn’t laugh you out of the room when you suggest I spend time with War, and their Horseman doesn’t try to murder us all for suggesting it, I’ll fuck with the Wardens a bit.” She pauses, her voice turning sharp and firm with refusal. “But we’re not fucking telling them about the shit with Death. That stays in Famine. I know I’m the last person you’d expect to give a shit about my reputation, especially when it’s War’s opinion of me, but I don’t want them thinking I’m the sort of person who would rat on my own family.”

A look of bemusement is offered to Rafael’s suggestion of a staged fight, rescued, with a small smile of gratitude, by Jessica’s suggestion of it being too soon. For all her rage and ferocity, Kitty is first and foremost a creature of love. Slights to her heart take a while to heal. “You could just hang out together without me,” she suggests off-handedly, but nevertheless keen to save herself from having to throw fake insults at her cousins. “Get together every few days, take a shit load of photos and videos, be seen by the right people, make it obvious that I’m not there.” She’ll have to steel herself from the haunting feeling of missing out, even when orchestrated for that exact purpose.

MARCUS: marcus snorts, devoid of humour. it certainly won't be an easy suggestion to make, but if anyone could sell it, it's him. this will help the family, he thinks, not dancing around temptation and calling it spying on the enemy. but gwen is not a topic he's ready to broach with them, not yet. he keeps her tucked and protected in his pocket for a little while longer. “let me deal with it,” he assures. the least he can do for her now is back her demands, after all it isn't punishment, stripping her of any choice would only serve to sever them more. “alright, we just let war think it's to improve gang relations, then.”

“girls are right,” he muses, “this is the first talk we've had together in what, a month? just us? let's just pretend to have fun without kitkat.” marcus looks back at kitty with an expression that, if it could speak, would say we'd never be whole without you.

RAFAEL: The pieces fall into place. Synchronicity found through the harrowing few months of grudges and misunderstandings. Rafael nods in cautious agreement, only to muster a half-smile and a bemused scoff at Marcus’ endless dry humor. “Charming.” He throws an arm around Marcus’ shoulders, and uses the same hand to gesture Kitty over. His free arm, extended out to Jessica and Ravi. “Come on guys - group hug.” Rafael grins, pulling each of them into his arms until they are all together again. As it should be.