#kanafau

The Garden Hotel wasn’t exactly the most subtle meeting place in the world, but with so many eyes on her at all times, and the hotel’s well-established policy of neutrality, it was one of the few places where Arabella could get a modicum of privacy. She had managed to lose the guards for now, and had made some adjustments to her schedule without her manager knowing. There were so many steps to arranging a meeting. So many small, subtle deceptions that held the risk of getting caught. But Arabella was a desperate woman, and there were so few choices she had left.

She spotted him amid the tropical ferns, precisely where she had hoped to find him. It would have been far better to have found someone a bit more...inconspicuous, but beggars couldn’t be choosers. “I have thirty minutes, no more. I’m sorry I couldn’t get more time.“ Arabella spoke softly, glancing off to the side in case she had been followed. “Um...the last operation...how did it go?“

The Golightly party had gone horribly awry, much to the apparent delight of one particular advisor among the Triad. The rumours flying about were all over the place. Diamonds, assassins, the mafias taking a stand against the police, whatever the truth of the matter as, it was only being magnified across every social media feed, and every front page of the newspaper. There was danger when there were too many whispers and not enough fact, and Arabella was not one to take kindly to being out of the loop.

[SMS] sent at 10:05 AM: Kana. We need to talk. Sunny Maria’s at one.

Arabella was the first to arrive this time, civilian attire and a clever disguise keeping her just one among many civilians living their lives within the city. It had been a Herculean task to evade her mother’s guards, but after the violence she had seen that night, she was feeling just a tad more daring than she did before. Nestled in the corner of the popular cafe, with thick glasses and her hair tucked under her baseball cap, she watched the door, nervously biting her lip in anticipation of her only ally’s arrival.

“I don’t trust anyone, anon. That includes Kana by default, even if he’s been a reliable partner thus far.”

( @kanafau )

“An alliance of convenience, that’s all. I don’t think I would call us friends. I don’t think he would want to be even if I asked.“

( @kanafau )