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Why Does the Caged Bird Sing? (Corsair and Xana)

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It had been too long since Mercy had sat down to a big family dinner. Since before the Great War, to be certain. When she’d first married Vinnie, he had shown up to Sunday dinner twice, before deciding he was too busy to make the time each week, but even then, it hadn’t been the same.

Tonight, wasn’t really the same, either. Not in the formal dining room of the Stone manor, not with most of the table speaking English. It wasn’t the same, but by God, it was nice. Even her mother was beaming, and joining in the conversation with the help of herself or Valentino.

Her mother wasn’t the only one beaming. Marilyn had seemed distant and grim when she’d first joined them for dinner, but over the course of the courses, she warmed up. Mercy still wasn’t sure exactly what was going on with her, but it had something to do with Valentino, based on the way they kept making eyes at each other. As much as it hurt, she was happy for Marilyn, and her brother. Marilyn deserved that happiness, even if she couldn’t be the one to give it to her.

Her mother, it seemed, hadn’t missed the looks they were giving each other either. So, about halfway through the meal, she stood, and tapped her glass of water. “A Marilyn. Una donna abbastanza animata da riuscire finalmente a sistemare mio figlio. " “To Marilyn. A woman spirited enough to finally make my son settle down.”

“You better make this work,” Mercy teased her brother in English, in a quiet murmur. “Otherwise, Mama might decide she’d rather keep Marilyn than you.”
 
“Oh, he’s taken a few steps towards convincing me that I might keep him,” Marilyn whispered, just loud enough for the two siblings to hear her. “Three of them, to be precise.”

-*-

“Nobody’s seen any of them?”

Vinnie Morello’s voice was calm. Icy calm. The men gathered around his dining room table flinched anyway. “No, boss.”

“No sign of Nick, or Sharky, or Frankie?” Vinnie inquired, still calm. “Or of my mother in law, or my wife?”

“M-m-mi-might be w-w-wi-with the S-s-stone broad.”

“What?” Vinnie stared at the speaker. “The Stone broad?”

“Yuh-yeah,” Porky managed, nerves making his stutter flare up. “She, uh, Mrs. Mierlo, uh, uh, went, went shopping with, with her.”

“She did?” Morello drummed his fingerson the table.

“Yuh-yeah.”

Vinnie say silent for a moment. “Find her. Find them both,” he snarled in a harsh whisper. “Do whatever the fuck you want to them, but bring them here alive.”
 
Once dinner finished, Valentino and Marilyn led Damiana into sitting room, and Mercedes hung back with Will to clear off the table. It was around the time she’d normally be getting ready for her set at the Cage, and hopefully the first time anyone would even notice she were missing. The realization that Vinnie knew by now that she were gone –if he hadn’t already known– tied her stomach in knots. Seeking comfort, she leaned into Will, and wrapped her arms around his waist.

“Thanks again for hiding me here, and taking my ma in as well.” She laughed a little, and nuzzled her face against his shoulder. “She wouldn’t approve of our relationship as it currently stands, but if I understood her correctly, I think she gave me her blessing to leave Vinnie, so long as he’s dead.” That drew a darker laugh from her, and she punctuated it with a small kiss on William’s cheek. “So, would you make me the happiest girl in Chicago, and make me a widow?” More laughter followed that line, and another kiss, deeper and lingering.

Before that kiss could get any more interesting, there was a thud against the front door. She was just able to restrain herself from screaming, but she clung to William with white knuckles. “Are… are you expecting anyone?”

Another thud at the front door answered that question, and she snuck into the kitchen. Through the kitchen window, two sets of bright headlights blinded her, but she’d seen enough. Vinnie had found her, and sent his goons to come collect her. “What are we going to do?” she asked in a strained whisper, trying to conquer the fear that moved like ice through her veins. “Are there any guns nearby?”
 
Porky watched Ike and Carl batter st the front door of the Stone mansion, slamming their shoulders against it and bouncing off. The rest of the boys watched as well, scanning the window for any sign of a response. Finally, he sighed. “Outta the way,” he announced, rubbing his hands together.

Carl rubbed his shoulder. “What? You gonna kick it in?”

“Nah. Course not,” Porky replied, opening the trunk of the Packard he’d driven and pulling out a sledgehammer. “That’d be stupid.”

-*-

Marilyn killed the lights in the living room as the pounding suddenly stopped. “Shh...” she whispered, dropping into a crouch and duck walking towards a window. Behind her, Damiana began to ask a question only to be silenced by her son.

“What’s going on?” Valentino whispered as she cautiously peeredthrough the drapes.

“About a dozen men,” she whispered back. “One big one. Saw him with Mercedes once.” She crouched back down. “Enforcer Morello’s boys.”

“Shit,” Valentino breathed, then had to stifle a yelp as Damiana cuffed him in the ear and barked something in Italian.

“Yeah.” A heavy blow echoed from the front door, and a second, and the sound of splintering wood. “Fortunately, my...”

-*-

“...sister and I thought this day might come,” Will said, lifting the top of the sidebar. Four blued .45 automatics rested beneath, along with eight magazines. He lifted and loaded the first, smiling grimly as he worked the action. “We just hadn’t planned on having guests when it did.”

Carefully, he flipped the safety on and laid it down. “We’ll want to head for the cellar,” he continued, loading the second. “We use the tunnels to stash our gear.” Biting his lip, he tried to ignore the sound of splintering wood as he loaded. “If we’re lucky, he doesn’t know who we are.”

-*-

Porky smashed out the last of the panel, then reached through and unlocked the door. “And they said I’d never be a burglar,” he laughed, shoving it open. “Check me...”

Gunfire roared, and his words were cut off by a gurgling of pain as two heavy slugs smashed into his chest. He hit the ground, half in and half out of the house. The rest of the nooks froze, staring. “Fucking...” he gasped out. “Fucking... get... then..!”

Silence reigned for another moment. And then Billy Sawyer opened up with his typewriter.

-*-

Marilyn hit the carpet as glass exploded onwards, accompanied by a hail of bullets. “Side door,” she grunted, sliding her spare automatic over to Valentino. “Then get your mom into the cellar. The tunnels will be safer, I think.”
 
The gunfire still made Mercedes tense, but months of wrecking her revenge on Vinnie through his gang had steeled Mercedes to the violence. She still wasn’t used to be the target for that gunfire, preferring the be the one caught her enemies off guard. Those preferences didn’t matter right now, however, as her attention focused to one fact:

She refused to be taken alive.

The kitchen door opened, and before she could even make out the features of the intruder, she opened fire, praying it wasn’t someone she cared about. The first mook went down, but two more poured in after him. Throwing herself behind the island, Mercedes hugged her knees as bullets ripped through the kitchen. She waited, seemingly forever, for them to run out of bullets, and peaked her heed out just enough to unload a magazine in one man’s chest.

Even with two more men dead on the floor, hiding in the kitchen was untenable. William motioned towards a door in the back of the kitchen, and she knew they were going to have to keep moving if they hoped to make it out. So she sprinted towards the door, slipping in before any more intruders could squeeze into the kitchen. The afterimage of gunfire burned her retinas as she tried to navigate the darkness of the cellar, feeling her way down with a sense of urgency. After all, their foes wouldn’t need to be able to see in order to spray them with machine gun fire.

They reached the bottom, and Mercedes hid in one corner, reaching for Will while her eyes adjusted to the dim light of the cellar. “Which way?”
 
“This way,” Will declared, jogging through the darkness. “We keep most of our toys down here, and the tunnels will be more defensible. Especially since they don’t know where they’re going.”

He trailed his fingers along the left wall, feeling the rough texture of the brick under his fingertips. “The darkness will help us. Marilyn and I played down here as kids, so we know the way. They don’t.”

-*-

Ashes-faced from blood loss, Porky leaned heavily against the kitchen wall. Two of the boys were dead in here, and one more in the hall, and one in the living room. He’d assumed he was hitting a soft target, a pampered rich boy and his sister. Not people who’d fight back like this. And where and when had Mrs. Morello learned to handle a gun?

“Get... get down there,” he said, his voice a harsh whisper. “Get them.”

-*-

Marilyn was acutely aware of Damiana’s wide-eyed expression as she pulled open one of the wardrobes in the “dressing room”. The last few minutes had been a terrible surprise for her, and now she was in an underground room filled with weapons and gear. And a set of costumes that were hard to ignore.

“Valentino,” the older woman asked, startled, as Marilyn pulled out a black suit and mask. “Tu... sei il Corvo?” A second’s pause as she took in Marilyn tossing the costume behind a dressing screen. “Ed e'lei I Usignolo?”

“No,” Valentino replied with a bark of laughter. “E'lei il Corvo.”

Damiana blinked. “Oh.”
 
Mercedes Jogged after Will, his dim shape her lone salvation in the dark of the tunnels. Beyond, she could hear the cellar door open, and men pour down the steps. At least ten, before she was too far away to discern.

Will navigated the tunnels with confidence, no hesitation at each fork. Mercedes was glad of that, because she certainly couldn’t tell the tunnels apart, and she hoped their assailants wouldn’t be able to either. But, was the plan to escape their pursuers, or just to find better turf to face them down?

The answer to that question was going to have to wait, as a putrid smell caught up to them. It didn’t deter Will, who still jogged forward until he entered a large room. She followed, but covered her nose as the stench became overwhelming. And once she was in the room, the source became clear.

Three bodies, mangled to horrific degrees, but recognizable enough. Some of Vinnie’s men, but not any who were important enough for her to know. Men who had hurt Marilyn, and Will’s late fiancée, most likely. Men who had most certainly deserved what had transpired, even if it were really fucking hard to look at right now. “Jesus,” she whispered, between harried breaths as she tried to get a grip on her situation.

Footsteps echoed through the tunnels, and she already had her gun up before their source came into view. This time, at least, she waiting until she could identify them before pulling the trigger, and that was fortunate, because it was Valentino, and her ma, and the Raven, and all of them were wearing body armor.

“Here,” the Raven croaked, still disguising her voice even though everyone here knew who she was. She and Valentino tossed her and Will a body armor each. Mercy didn’t need to be told twice to put it on.

Her gave spanned from Will to Valentino to the Raven. “What’s the plan?”

The Raven spoke, “We’ll each hide a different set of tunnels, and when they get here, we’ll lure them towards us with a smoke grenade, then you guys hit them from behind. We’ll pin them between us and mow the motherfuckers down.”
 
As Marilyn laid out the basics of a plan, Will stripped down and suited up. Black canvas trousers blouses into black boots. Black turtleneck, and then the straps of his weapon and tool harness. He ignored the body armor, though. That had always been Marilyn’s touch on the costume. He didn’t like it because it weighed him down, and made him careless. “We’ll each hide a different set of tunnels,” she explained in the Raven’s croaking voice, “and when they get here, we’ll lure them towards us with a smoke grenade, then you guys hit them from behind. We’ll pin them between us and mow the motherfuckers down.”

“Sounds good.” Valentino buckled body armor onto his chest, then pulled something out of his pocket. A crumpled grey-white piece of cloth that he pulled over his face, masking himself with a grinning death’s head. “Got anything heavier than these Colts?”

Will shrugged into his overcoat, then pulled his own mask on. “No,” croaked the Raven. “Just the .45s, and the grenade launcher.”

“Grenade launcher?” L’Ombra blinked. “Why do you have a grenade launcher?”

“For the grenades,” the Raven croaked, stepping past his sister to retrieve a bulky shotgun-like rifle from the arsenal. “Gas and smoke.”

“Jesus,” L’Ombra muttered. “And I’ve been making do with pistols.”

The Raven pulled something else out of the locker, tossing it past her brother to L’Onbra’s reflexive grip. “Make do with a shotgun, instead.”
 
With her heartbeat thundering in her ears, Mercedes hardly felt like she could hear the conversation going on around her, much less understand it. Instead she focused on loading her gun, taking measured breaths to keep her hands steady. She loaded four guns, smaller semi-automatic pistols, holstering two at her waist and a third under her arm.

The Raven (Marilyn, she thought) tossed her a mask, and she pulled it down of her face. Not that it would really hide her identity, while she wore body armor over her dress and blouse, but it did make her feel more like the Nightingale, and she would grasp onto every fiber of confidence she could, right now.

The faint echo of footsteps down the tunnels the cue to get into position. She ushered her mother into the darkness of one dead end, and watched from the edge of the shadows for Vinnie’s men to pour into the large room. They had only a moment to investigate the grisly death of their fellow wise guys before bedlam descended upon them.

Chaos erupted in grey smoke and yellow flashes of light. The roar of a shotgun was even louder than the triphammer beat of her heart, and it spurred her into action, against the terror that clenched tight in her gut. Instead, she raised her gun and unloaded on the man unlucky enough to investigate the source of the shotgun shots, catching him in the back three times before disappearing back into the safety of the smoke.

So she kept moving, slipping into a different tunnel with her back flat against the stone to pull her next gun. Machine gun fire ripped through the air and reverberated throughout the tunnels, and Mercedes didn’t even allow herself to tense. Hesitation now could only lead to death. Or worse.

Capture.
 
Choking smoke billowed and roiled, filling the room and spilling out into the hallway. The gunsels retched and gagged, eyes and nostrils streaming, opening fire on the shapes that moved in the shadows. The shapes that returned fire.

“Fuck,” coughed one gunsel, a scrawny redhead clutching a .38 revolver. “We gotta get outta here.”

“Enforcer,” Porky gagged, “Enforcer wants Mrs. Malone back. And this fucking Raven dead.”

“Nevermore,” croaked a shadow, emerging from the boiling smoke. The Raven’s pistol roared, splattering the young goon’s brains across the wall. The smoking pistol came to bear on Porky, only to move aside as the Raven dove to the side. Echoing reports filled the air as Porky blazed away with his typewriter.

-*-

L’Ombra worked the pump and fired again. His target, a stocky Kraut, staggered backwards as the buckshot tore his chest open. He pumped again as the German tried to raise his pistol, and fired. This time, the man went down.

“None of them,” croaked one of the Ravens, emerging from the smoke. “None of them can leave.”

“Gotcha,” L’Ombra replied, pumping the shotgun again. “Fortunately, I never miss.”

Machine gun fire erupted in the hallway. Without a word, the masked vigilante and the masked killer went to investigate.
 
Machine gunfire erupted in one of the tunnel. As much as the noise echoed underground, it was difficult to pinpoint by sound alone, but flashes of yellow light gave away the position. And Mercedes’ heart sank as she recognized just which tunnel it was. “Mama…” she breathed, and sent up a little prayer as she sprint towards the darkness.

It was difficult to make out anything in the tunnel, save the crumpled lump lying on the ground. The crumpled lump, and growing pool of blood forming beneath them. The closer she got, the more the horrible truth became clear, as she recognized the blood oozing from a bullet riddled body. “Mama?” she gasped, dropping to her knees to roll the body over and confirm her worst nightmare.

Dead eyes stared back at her, and the mouth had been caught in a permanent state of shock and she wore her own shocked expression. Not her mother, but one of Vinnie’s men. One whose name she probably knew, but it didn’t matter anymore anyways.

“Mercy?”

Her mother emerged from the darkness, just enough for her to see that she was alright. Both hands clutched a machine gun, and she shook, more than a little bit, but was she clearly alright. Again, Mercedes was left with but one response. “Mama?”

Damiana looked down at the gun in her hand, and gave a little shrug. “You never wondered why your father and I left Italy?” “Non ti sei mai chiesto perché tuo padre e io abbiamo lasciato l'Italia?” She snickered, and shook her head, “No, I suppose I wanted to protect you from all that. Some good it did me, huh?” “No, suppongo di volerti proteggere da tutto ciò. Qualcosa di buono mi ha fatto, eh?”

A long shadow descended upon the tunnel, drawing both of their attention. Another gunsel, peering into the dark for his prey. Mercy was about to lift her gun, but the roar of the typewriter from behind made her hunker down instead, covering her ears and protecting her head. Once the gun finally stopped, the body flopped to the ground in a wet thud. She looked up, first to the now dead mook bleeding in the tunnel entrance, then back at her mother, still holding the tommy gun before her.

“I’ll tell you all about it later. First we gotta get out of here alive.” "Ti racconterò tutto più tardi. Prima dobbiamo uscire di qui vivi. "
 
“Your mother,” one of the Ravens croaked, “is a fascinating woman.”

L’Ombra blinked in surprise at the bullet-riddled gunsel. “Yeah,” he agreed, wondering if he was talking to Marilyn or Will - it was hard to tell them apart in costume. “More than I knew. But maybe we should focus, now?”

“Good point.” The Raven roughy an automatic up and fired, briefly illuminating the tunnel with a lick of flame. There was a cry, and another gangster collapsed. “Any idea of how many more we have to go?”

“I didn’t get a good count,” L’Ombra replied, flattening against the wall as gunfire erupted from the tunnel entrance.

“I count five more,” the other Raven announced, emerging into the junction. Then the vigilante’s pistol rose, and roared three times. “Make that four.”

Suddenly, Damiana brought her Thompson up and aimed towards the new Raven. Before the vigilante could move, she fired. There was a gurgling cry behind the masked figure, and the sound of something hitting the dirt floor. “Tre!” she called.

-*-

Gripping his gut and gritting his teeth, Porky dragged himself upright. Gasping for breath, he tried to ignore the way his blood smeared the floor an wall. It was bad, he knew. Real bad. But Enforcer Morello would need to know what happened. Need to know that his dame was here, and that the Raven was here.

And the way it was sounding, he might be the only one who could get the word back.

Gasping from the pain, he stumbled towards the door. Just get to the car, he told himself, trying to ignore the way his vision was getting. Just get to the car. Worry about driving after that.
 
Gasping from the pain, he stumbled towards the door. Just get to the car, he told himself, trying to ignore the way his vision was getting. Just get to the car. Worry about driving after that.

Smoke and the scent of gun podwer filled tunnels beneath the Stone Manor. It burned Mercedes’ eyes, but she dare not blink, not until this was completely over. “One.”

“I don’t think there’s anyone else left,” her brother –L’Ombra– called back.

“Did we count wrong?” she asked, gaze spanning from one Raven to her brother, to her mother, and finally to the other Raven.

“Possibly,” her brother said, searching the shadows for movement, “It’s not like we had a good chance to line up your husband’s goons for a head count.”

Still, something wasn’t right, and Mercedes couldn’t let go of her paranoia, even as the dust settled. She glanced over the bodies piling the floor, and after another minute, she figured out why. “Paulie, he’s not here!”

“Paulie?” L’Ombra asked, loading two more shells into the shotgun.

“Big guy, one of Vinnie’s lieutenants. He was here but… He’s not any of these bodies.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah, no mistaking him.”

“Then he must have escaped, somehow?”

“And you better believe he’s headed right for Vinnie.” Mercedes released long breath, and reloaded her gun. This wasn’t quite the way she wanted to confront Vinnie, but there was no longer a choice in that matter. Glancing up, she made contact with her brother, and then both of the Ravens. “You guys ready to end this?”



Vinnie seethe in his living room chair, watching the empty driveway with growing ire. Not the whiskey in his glass, not the woman on her knees before him could soothe the rage that boiled in him now. To think of the respect he’d shown Mercy, not bringing Isabelle into their home, only for her to run away with another man. Or a woman? It didn’t matter, not really. She humiliated him, and she was going to have to pay for that. No one humiliates Vinnie Morello and lives to brag about it.

Bright lights flashed through the windows, before cutting off with the engine. Fucking finally. What the hell had taken Paulie so long to collect Mercy and that Stone woman anyways? Vinnie pushed Isabelle away and moved to stand. “Clean yerself up.”

Walking still ached something fierce, but fury at his slut of wife propelled him forward, and he pushed himself to get the door. She’d fuck pay sorely for this; she’d spend the rest of her short life regretting her mistake. But it wasn’t Mercy’s face that greeted him as he opened, but Paulie’s. Pale and etched in agony, he stumbled against the door frame as he tried to enter the house. He managed a single step before falling to his knees, gripping Vinnie’s shirt with bloody hands.

“What the fuck happened?”

“The Stones… they’re the Raven… both of them.”

“What?”

And Missus… Missus Morello… she’s the… Nightingale.”

What?!” That explanation, as much as it shocked him, made a ton of sense. After all, too many of the hits seemed to rely on some inside information. And who was more inside than Mercy? “Where is she?”

The next car to pull up answered that question before Paulie could. Not that he could see the passengers while the headlights blinded him, but he could hear the car door open just as the engine switched off. There was just enough time to recognize Mercy –wearing body armor over a blouse and skirt– before she raised a gun before her and pulled the trigger. Bullets ripped through his knee –the good one– and sent him flailing to the ground face first. He rolled over in time to see her standing over him, with a pair of masked Ravens and L’Ombra surrounding him from all sides.

“Don’t die too quickly, Vinnie,” Mercy insisted, keeping her gun trained on him as she approached. “We got something to discuss, first.”
 
Vinnie glared up at the four of them, anger and bravado serving as desperate fuel to push back against the agony and sick fear. “Bitch,” he snarled, spit flexing his lips. “I trusted you! I...”

His next words were lost as L’Ombra’s boot caught him in the jaw. “She told me what you did to her,” the masked killer snarled, dragging a heavy automatic out. “I outta...”

One of the Ravens caught his wrist as he aimed the pistol, dragging it out of line. “No,”the vigilante croaked. “They’ve got the most right. Not us.” A gloved hand gestured, taking in Mercy and the other Raven.

“Wha...” Vinnie managed, blood and bits of teeth dribbling as he spoke. “What... are you... talking... about..?”

The other Raven stared down, then drew a slim, blues knife from a sheath inside the black overcoat. “You want him first, Nightengale?”
 
Mercedes stared down at Vinnie, glaring with the hate and loathing she’d hidden from him for years. The first and last honest interaction of their married life.

“Whaddya think Vinnie? Should I drag you inside, throw you down on the dining room table and make you scream? Should I ignore your crying and begging?”

Vinnie sneered up at her, “You needed to be taught, to respect me.”

“Oh, you taught me alright. You taught me good.” A vicious kick to the rib sent Vinnie sprawling onto his stomach, coughing up blood. Another landed with a wicked thud. “You taught me that I’m stronger than I thought. More capable than I ever imagined. You introduced me to a deep well of rage that fueled me to take my bloody revenge on you. I learned how to handle a gun, how to make a molotv cocktail, and how to outrun your guns in a car. I’ve learned just what a small, weak, pathetic slug of a man you are.”

With his knee shot out, and his other knee still recovering from the last shoot out, Vinnie could only pull himself along the drive with his hands, inching forward. Not nearly far enough to escape Mercedes’ wrath, and she stopped him in his tracks by crushed his hands with her foot. “Most of all, you taught me that I don’t have to be afraid of you. Not anymore.”
 
“You... fucking... bitch!” Vinnie screamed as the bones in his hand broke. “I... I’ll... fucking... kill... you!”

“Big talk,” croaked the Raven with the knife. The vigilante’s hand blurred, and the slim blue steel of the blade streamed through the air. Vinnie shrieked as it drove through his crotch and embedded in the ground. “Big talk for a dickless worm like you.”

Mewling in pain, Vinnie groped blindly for the handle of the knife. As he did, the Raven drew an automatic and cocked it loudly. “Big talk, for someone who didn’t even have the balls to do his own dirty work.”

The automatic roared, blowing Valentino’s hand into wet meat. “Nick did.” It roared again, blasting a wet red crater in his shoulder. “Frankie did.” Again, and this time his right elbow shattered. Vinnie screamed again, high and thin. “They’re all fucking dead, now.”

The Raven grabbed his hair, forcing him to look up. A leather-clad fist with a heavy signet ring swam in and out of his pain-wracked view. “So when you see them in hell, tell them one thing.” The ring pressed against his forehead. “Nevermore.”

He screamed again as acid seared his flesh, branding the Raven symbol onto his shin. And then he dropped hard, teeth splintering on the concrete. The Raven stared down at him, then turned to Mercy. “Want to finish him? Or just watch him die?”
 
Vinnie looked up, the weight of his impending demise finally real, and heavy. “Don’t do this Mercy… You can’t. You’re my wife”

“Don’t worry, Vinnie, I didn’t forget our vows.” Mercedes pointed the gun right between his eyes. “’Till death, do we part.’”

The .45 roared to life, and Vinnie slumped to the ground.

It was over.

She was free.


3 years later​

Fa la nana bambino,
Fa la nana bel bambin,
Fa la nina, fa la nana,
Nei braeceti della mamma.

The lullaby died away, barely audible over the steady breathing of the child in Bed. Mercedes smiled down on her son, and placed a single feather light kiss on his forehead. She tiptoed into the next room, where her mother sat with her knitting.

“Sei sicuro che non ti dispiacerà guardarlo stasera?” “You sure you don’t mind watching him tonight?

Damiana shook her head. “Certamente! He’s asleep, yes? È un angelo quando dorme. He’s an angel when he’s sleeping.” Her lips curved up into a mischievous grin, and she cocked her head to one side, “Quando è sveglio, tuttavia ..." “When he’s awake, however…"

Mercedes laughed, "Concordato. Ma lo rovini ancora. " “Agreed. But you still spoil him.”

"È il mio unico nipote." “He’s my only grandson.” Will entered now, looking utterly dapper in his double breasted dark blue suit, and greeted her with a kiss and her jacket. Damiana glanced between both of them. “Unless you two are going to fix that tonight?”

“Mama!” Crimson embarrassment flushed her features and left Mercedes speechless for a heartbeat or two. “We’re just head out to a show.”

They didn’t make it to the club, however. Instead, Will pulled into a darkened warehouse, and cut the lights of the car. “Sure you want to skip the show?”

Mercedes’ response was to climb onto his lap, and lift her dress off over her head. “I’ve been waiting a long time to get back into this.” Their lips met, hungry and moaning, and she worked open the buttons of his dress shirt. He inched her stockings down her thighs and she kicked off her heels in turn. Soon she wore naught but her bra and panties, and he down to his undershirt. “You brought our change of clothes, right?”

“You know I came prepared,” he teased, pulling her into one last kiss. Then he pulled an old mask over her head. She climbed off his lap then, and suited up. Heavy boots replaced her dainty heels, and the thin silk dress gave away to body armor that concealed her curves. With a pair of .45s on her hips, she straddled the motorcycle behind the Raven, and held him tight.

“Ready?”

“Always.”

The throttle revved to life, and the motorcycle peeled out onto the street.
 
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