STARLING CITY

"I'm not the man you wanna to take for a fool, Mr. Queen. You understand me?"
John Diggle, 1.02

My hands were in my lap.

And my heart was in my throat.

Our plane landed at just past six and we were home. Starling City was a jewel in the early evening, under the rainy shine of streetlights and the stadium; all lit up – . . . spotlights dancing off the clouds.

"There's a game."

Oliver turned his head, fixing on the stadium. He smiled, "I know. Starling Comets versus the Seahawks tonight."

I leaned back against the butter soft leather seats of the town car.

"You like baseball?"

"Baseball season ended in October," he said. "That's football."

"Ah, so you're a sports guy," I teased, bumping shoulders and Oliver caught my hand, lacing our fingers. Comfortable now, touching me, in a way he hadn't been the day we were married.

But of course I'd gotten to know him pretty well since then, too.

"If I net us a couple tickets," he said, grinning with poorly concealed enthusiasm, "would you want to go? With me."

"You think I'd like that?"

"Nothing beats catching a live game," he said. "If you're interested then yeah, I think you'd love it."

I smiled, and covered our clasped hands with my other. He gave my fingers a gentle squeeze. Our driver was watching us in the rearview mirror. Headlights sliding like the memory of ghosts over his face.

I didn't recognize the driver.

We cruised close to the stadium on our way out of the city, leaving the glittering lights, the cool drizzle that couldn't decide if it was fog, or rain, to the people.

The highway was dark.

Streetlights spaced much further apart – and even those would disappear entirely past the city limit. But we weren't going that far. The Queen mansion rose up out of the darkness, its lights liming the bloated bellies of charcoal clouds.

Oliver passed his thumb in a gentle sweep over the back of my hand and I smiled up at him. He was glad to be home. I wasn't so sure what to feel. But keeping that sparkling smile, the warmth, all flush and cozy from our honeymoon . . . these were easy games . . .

I looked again at the rearview. Our driver's eyes were still on the road. Sweat glistened at his hairline. He turned onto the smooth-paved driveway of the final leg of our trip with a bit of a swing, and the weight lodged in my throat sank lower.

Home. We – I was home.

Oliver's family had gathered to welcome us.

That was his sister's head peeking through the curtains, opening a clear slice of yellow light that cut sharply across the night-dark lawn. The front door opened and out stepped Moira, followed closely by the tall, broad-shouldered Walter.

Moira lifted one slender hand as headlights slid over the front of her.

My attention drifted back to the rearview mirror.

I felt it in the slight acceleration, where there should have been a decrease in speed . . . that sharp prickle crawling at the back of my neck. Threat. Our driver's eyes were glazed. Face pale under a sheen of sweat.

"Oliver."

One word. To warn –

The engine roared as our driver's body kicked back, his skull colliding with the headrest . . . foot slamming down on the gas . . . the car rocketed forward like it had been launched . . .

. . . the heavy oak doors of the Queen mansion leapt forward to meet us – Moira's eyes very blue, and very round, spot lit by white headlights bleaching the color from her skin.

My breath caught.

An arm hooked around Moira's waist, dragging her away. Oliver threw an arm bar across the front of me. The engine screamed! And then we hit –

My ears were ringing.

The noxious tang of exhaust caught in my throat, sharper than the coppery taste coating the inside of my mouth – blood. I moved my tongue around, looking for where the blood was coming from and froze at the feel of raw, sour flesh.

I must have chomped down on the inside of my cheek.

My seat heaved and bucked nauseatingly.

Through the ringing in my ears, I heard voices but couldn't make sense of what was said. The smell of the exhaust was overpowering. Swirls and whorls of dry dust floated in warm yellow light.

We were caught in the mansion's wall with brick and wood collapsed down on top of us, locking us in place; tires whirring uselessly inches above the glossy hardwood of the foyer . . .

"Are you alright?" – Oliver's rough hands on my face. "Look at me. Are you hurt?"

"No." The car shuddered and a dislodged brick splintered the windshield. "No, I'm fine." My hands caught on the door latch, then down to where my seatbelt held me pinned. "Check on the driver."

Oliver's hands fell away, and I felt the weight of his body shift. Ease forward. I wiggled my seatbelt buckle, thumb click-clicking on the release. The car shuddered, grinding on whatever it was that had us jacked up.

We were in a precarious position, here.

If the tires hit the floor they'd propel us straight through the foyer into the far wall – hopefully not straight through the far wall.

Our driver was a deadweight in the front seat and from where I was sitting, directly behind him; I couldn't tell if he was even still breathing. Oliver set his fingers to the man's throat.

"Is he alive?"

"He's alive."

A dark head appeared in the passenger-side window.

"Ollie!"

I shouted, "Don't touch the door. Get away from the car!"

Thea shrank back. Wide eyes in a pale face. She didn't grab for the door, try to open it, but indecision kept her there. Through the tinted glass, dusted with debris, she could see her brother. Oliver grabbed onto the backs of the driver and passenger seats, and eased into the front.

I wanted to spit, to rid the taste of sour and pennies from my mouth but couldn't quite bring myself to just spit on to floor of the car.

The roar of the engine died off, as Oliver dragged the man's foot from the gas. A metallic k-chink! and he pulled the keys out of the ignition. The sudden quiet making my skin hum.

I tugged on my seatbelt, giving the buckle a final few click-click-clicks. I was pinned, but I wasn't actually stuck. Oliver, now in the front passenger seat, called through the glass, "Thea, call an ambulance!"

"Are you okay?" She was moving from one window to the next, tripping over debris. "Ollie, are you okay?!"

"Yeah. We're fine," he said, casting a quick look back. Double-checking to be sure that I was still okay and not just stoically bleeding out in the backseat. He asked his sister, "Is mom alright? Thea."

"Mom's fine." She peered through the glass, looking past her brother to the other man, unmoving in the driver's seat. "What's wrong with him? Is he alright?"

"No." One word. Just one – "Where's that ambulance?"

"Walter's on it," she said, and I breathed a sigh. Good. That was good. Thea stumbled, tripping on bricks, and took a second to really look at the wreck. "Wow."

I loosened my seatbelt, slowly, so as not to lock up the top part. Then pulled at the waist strap, widening the loop. As I said, I wasn't stuck . . . but this wouldn't be graceful. I'd dressed up for my glorious return to Starling City as the newest Mrs. Queen – . . . putting me in an ivory silk skirt.

The length dropped to just past my knees; respectable, without falling into modest-territory. Exactly what I'd intended when I dressed on the plane, changing out of my comfortable jeans and top. Freshening up a little before we landed.

The problem is that the skirt was just long enough that I would have to hike it up to maneuver in a cramped space like, say, the backseat of a car stuck in a wall.

So, anyway . . .

. . . up went the skirt.

I kicked off my shoes and stuck my feet where the car door met the car floor. Hands on the seat. Not graceful, at all, but it worked. I crawled out of my seatbelt. Naturally, Oliver was watching all this and so was my brand new sister-in-law; peeking at me through dusty windows.

"You good?"

"Oh, yeah," I quipped, and wiggled, dragging my skirt back down from around mid-thigh. "Look at us, sitting in a wall waiting on an ambulance."

Was that sweat, or blood, tickling my forehead?

I wiped at the tingle and pulled my hand back, studying the wet spot glistening in the dusty lamplight. Clear. Sweat, then. I hadn't hit anything; where would the blood have even come from? My tongue probed the raw skin on the inside of my cheek.

Oliver stayed in the front seat, keeping a careful eye on our unconscious driver . . . essentially just keeping him company. What else could he do? Nothing.

I stayed in the back. Spoke to Thea, and to Walter, though the window; reassuring them, where they should have been soothing me.

I asked the questions I knew Oliver would want answered.

Moira was alright. Bruised, a little dazed – Walter hadn't been gentle yanking her off the step, but given that the alternative was seeing her mowed down by our car – . . . she could forgive a few bruises.

Things got loud when the fire department arrived, seconds ahead of the ambulance, both screaming onto the lawn. Loud got exciting when they started to cut the door off our car.

Fire department reinforced the crumbling wall, setting up emergency braces, while the paramedics unloaded a stretcher from their ambulance.

They worked fast, and precisely, and it was a fairly satisfying thing to just sit back and watch.

Our driver – and I felt a pang that I didn't even know his name – was strapped into a neck brace and then carefully slid onto a body board. They carried him to the stretcher they'd left in the driveway, safely away from the threat of crumbling walls and loose footing.

I came next. Climbing between the front seats, then out through the driver's side door aided by Oliver's steadying hands and the firefighters holding my arms. Drizzle needled my skin, the smell of the wind clean and dark.

A second ambulance pulled up. Lights flashing, but no sirens. I was given a blanket and made to sit down while Moira was seen to; her scrapes and cuts cleaned and tended.

What a mess.

They were going to need a tow truck to get the car out of the house. The Queen mansion; three stories of brown brick and glass had withstood the impact with impressive, but unsurprising, fortitude.

At a glance, the damage was contained to the crash. The solid oak doors were blown into the foyer, the wall crumbling around the scaffold-like braces . . . While the second floor, even directly above the worst of it, held strong.

I wouldn't trust it to go upstairs, but there was no visible bowing. No cracks in the brick or second story windows as the glass strained at the displaced weight –

My heart sank at the realization that none of us were staying here tonight.

I was tired. It'd been a long couple of months, followed by a nice enough but required honeymoon and now I just wanted it to be over. The chance to settle into my new home . . . settle into my new life . . .

Oliver had wandered away. He was on his phone. So was Walter. The drizzle beaded on the soft fibers of my blanket. I slipped off the back of the ambulance, leaving Moira to have her superficial scrapes bandaged without me.

I let the blanket fall from my shoulders and moved toward the wreck of our town car.

The debris was starting to settle under the weight of the mist-like drizzle; making it no less dangerous to walk on. Warm air from inside slid across my skin, an invisible barrier, like a membrane, right where central heating collided with the chill of wet dark.

The driver's side door was a twisted wreck. It looked lit it had been wrenched off the car by something very big, and very angry, in pursuit of, rather than in rescue. A crack of thunder had me ducking my head.

I slipped inside and popped the trunk.

Our luggage had been tossed, but nothing damaged. I shoved a suitcase aside and pulled mine up from under it – tugged on the zipper. My clothes were still neatly folded, packed tight, compact enough to keep things from moving.

"What are you looking for?"

I slid Capricorn's delivery into the waistband of my skirt and turned around, fixing an uncertain smile on my face. Tried to explain, "Our things . . ." as if our clothes mattered right now. To anyone.

It was a superficial concern, and I delivered it knowing that.

Oliver was looking very dramatic standing there with the rain spiking his short, dark hair. Framed by the swaying trees, blinking under the hard strobe of emergency lights.

I readjusted the tilt to my smile from uncertain, to sheepish.

"I guess it doesn't matter."

"No," Oliver edged closer to the debris, holding out his hand to help me down, "it really doesn't. C'mon."

I took his hand and let him guide me.

Thea had climbed into the back of the ambulance with her mother, hair a mess, eyes tired. From this angle I couldn't see Moira but the paramedic was still holding her bandaged hands. As if she were made of glass.

The sight annoyed me.

And it puzzled me that it did until I noticed that Walter, too, had wandered over. He leaned heavily against the side of the ambulance, talking quietly with the people inside. Oliver was the only one who cared to notice I wasn't there.

A strange sort of loneliness settled like aweight in my chest.

"The department has the same comment about this heist as it did the other two. No comment."

I smirked, approving of the delivery of that fuck off, and sipped at my fresh squeezed orange juice. So tart it was almost sour. Whatever else they might have gotten out of him was buried under a cacophony of voices and the scramble of bodies denied pursuit.

Channel 7 didn't waste time; back to the studio, and to the very handsome Benjamin Wolstencroft who picked up where that 'no comment' left off – "The SCPD may not be willing to go on the record, but traffic cameras got the entire heist in this exclusive."

I'll bet, I thought.

Next to Ben's head, the aforementioned footage started rolling. "Shortly after 1am, three masked men approached the armored vehicle, after launching what appear to be grenades through –"

Grenades.

They had grenade launchers. Because of course they did. Starling City was home to a thriving underground; you could get your hands on anything here, if you knew where to look. Little wonder this city spawned a vigilante.

"– one of the guards was pronounced dead on the scene, while the other died on route to Starling general." Pause. And, "Their identities have not yet been released." Benjamin Wolstencroft had a soothing voice.

Terrible for this early in the day; I could have listened to this man read me the dictionary.

The collision at the Queen mansion had warranted a half-a-minute mention. Good. Because that meant that an armored truck heist resulting in two deaths, and the loss of five hundred thousand dollars, was the most interesting thing to go down last night.

We were staying at the Aurelia Hotel in uptown Starling City, in a luxury penthouse suit with an absolutely breathtaking view of the city. You wouldn't think anything was wrong with the world from here.

I must have looked the picture of affluent privilege; blonde, young, in designer jeans and an eight carat emerald on my finger. A week ago I'd been staying at the Essex Grand. I was married there. Honeymooned at a private villa in an archipelago.

And it occurred to me now that the pervasive sense of loneliness weighing on me might actually have been melancholy . . . I was homesick . . . As I sat with my back to the TV, quietly watching the sun rise over the city.

Oliver stayed just long enough last night to see me, and is family, settled – . . . where he went after that, I had no idea. He hadn't come back. I spent the rest of the evening messaging with my sister; getting ahead of the news of the accident.

None of them were still here.

After the wedding, once they'd seen us safely off, my family had gone home; to Central City. Returned to their homes . . . to their lives . . . and I knew it was wrong – I knew I shouldn't . . . but it was hard not to feel as if they had left me behind –

"In other news" Ben was saying "another peanut-butter recall has been –" At least it wasn't spinach again.

I switched off the TV and as if on cue, the penthouse's private elevator dinged a musical chime and the gold-plated doors slid open. Oliver was back. And he brought a friend . . .

Idle amusement kept me quiet. Waiting for them to notice me. I recognized the friend as one of Oliver's groomsmen. A straight-backed black man with hard eyes over an easy smile.

They looked like they'd been talking as they stepped of the elevator. Oliver in the same clothes he'd been wearing last night. The other man in a suit and tie and a clean shave.

Oliver saw me first. As tired as he must have been he still swept the room as if this were something he was conditioned to do. His bodyguard noticed me at about the same time – not a half-second after. The elevator doors eased shut behind them.

"Morning," I said cheerily and set my tall glass of fresh-squeezed OJ aside. "You both sleep well?"

Oliver took off his coat, dropping it on the white leather armchair by the elevator. "Tell me you haven't been waiting up for me."

"Please. I slept. And you," I crooned, lightly teasing "have impressive timing."

He frowned. "What do you mean?"

"I mean if you're going to slip back before anyone notices you were out all night, Oliver, this is it."

That coaxed a smirk from my husband's silent bodyguard, watching us. He was standing a few feet back, and to the side. Listening, not intruding.

I got up from my breakfast table and careful conditioning is the only thing that kept the wince off my face as I mentally cringed at what I knew he saw.

Barefoot, but still in those designer jeans and a casual but cloud-soft cashmere sweater. The entire city laid out behind me, through those incredible floor to ceiling windows.

"Amy," Oliver said smoothly, "meet John Diggle."

The man held out his hand, and I clasped it eagerly. He said, "Ma'am."

His grip was firm, a strong, solid palm.

I kept my hand in his, saying "Mr. Diggle. A pleasure."

Silence.

I blew out a sigh. Offered a wry grin. "You're . . . keeping me company today, aren't you?"

Mr. Diggle offered a tight smile. No effort at denial, and hardly an apology. There was challenge, there, and I knew Oliver must have already warned him of my promise. That any bodyguard assigned to me could expect misplace me . . . a lot . . .

Oliver didn't try to explain, or to convince me, and I appreciated him for that. More so than I would have, if he had. Instead, he asked, "Any plans today?"

"Depends."

"On?"

"On whether or not you know the name of our driver last night."

"We used a car service," Oliver said, slowly. "Why?"

I shoved both hands into the slim pockets of my jeans, and shrugged a little. "We were in the backseat when the man seized. It's not our fault," I said "but it feels wrong not to check on him. We were there. When it happened."

Blue eyes, sharp as knives, completely unclouded by weariness, studied me. "You're right," he said, again, slowly. "Do you want me to come with you?" It was an honest, sympathetic offer. Any other day and I might have taken him up on it.

But I had errands to run.

What I said was true; I wanted to pay the man a visit, check on him. It was the least I could do to show I cared. Because I did. But it also helped to validate where I was going.

I let my smile wink. Bright, optimistic – totally not harboring ulterior motives. "You sure you don't want to catch a couple hours sleep?"

Oliver hesitated and for just a second, he looked torn. Between doing the right thing and the needs of his body; exhaustion weighing on him.

I wasn't the only one who knew it and it was Mr. Diggle who made my husband's mind for him.

"I've got this, man. Get some rest."

Oliver looked grateful. Then he looked at me, "A couple hours. I'll be up by lunch . . . if you want to get . . . lunch . . ."

I laughed, lightly. "Goodnight, Oliver."

Cue the crooked grin. The almost subtle exchange of glances between the men, too fast for me to even guess at what passed between them. Oliver brushed my arm, a gentle caress, as he passed me on his way to our bedroom.

Left alone with Mr. Diggle in a million-dollar penthouse suite, the marble under his glossy black shoes veined with gold . . . I tried not to look too at-home standing there in my bare feet . . .

There was just a little more than five hours until lunch, assuming Oliver meant noon.

Plenty of time.

I studied Mr. John Diggle with the same frank openness as he was watched me. Two strangers, who didn't yet know what to make of each other. I hadn't asked where Oliver had gone last night, to keep him out until the crack of dawn.

And I didn't intend to.

In truth, I didn't care.

I had my own secrets. My own lies. We were going to have to find a quiet middle, for this relationship to survive what I was bringing to the table . . .

. . . poor Oliver had no idea what he'd married into.