"He's gone," Lana said, throwing the file down.

"I see," he replied, not touching it, head still in the document he was scribbling on, "Next one?"

"No, I'm done. "

Anthony paused his writing, the black and gold fountain pen glinting in his hand. "Stopping after only three kills? Wasting all that training? "

"Yes. "

"And getting back only get three people? "

"Yes." Anthony looked up at her at this and an eyebrow flickered up in surprise before dropping back down. Didn't think she had been serious, eh?

"Very well, who will they be?" he asked, leaning back into his chair and raising the pen to touch his lips.

But he knew. She had told him.

Lana shrugged it off. Probably a parting power play. "My mother and siblings."

He nodded, in a way that said he he had just wanted to confirm and Lana's frown deepened. Had something happened to one of them?

He picked up his desk phone, rung a number and said into it," Come in. "

Two of this goons walked in. Were they going to take her there? Did he keep them in the building?

"Fun fact," Anthony started, and they grabbed her. Huh? " There were three bodies dumped in the lake yesterday. You contributed to the haul, of course. "

He stood. "And yet Dorian isn't one of them."

Lana tried to not let the shock she felt show on her face. She might not have been completely successful because a small smirk was forming on his lips.

But they had been careful, had even employed a decoy, so to speak.

He picked up the file, turned it around. "You were a little apprehensive about the job so I told Lowe to tail you. He spotted Dorian as he crossed your street. "

"Perhaps I was biding my time, " she tried.

"You had him in your house. If you didn't want to stain your carpet, you should have gone to his. "

He had taken to pacing the length of his lengthy desk. "Of course, he would have finished the job but he thought it was just a look out mission. And by the time, he had reported it, Dorian was gone. That guy sure does know how to die, I'll give him that. "

He dropped the file on his table and walked toward her. "I'm debating if Lowe should be punished. It was a honest mistake but still a mistake nonetheless. "

His voice had dropped to a whisper as he was right in front of her. "Now the punishment is going to be, if I decide to dish it out, a light few days of torture, loosing digits or maybe a limb. Nothing too serious. Was supposed to be the same for you. "

He straightened his coal-black suit- not that there were any creases on it- as he stepped back and resumed that slow, deliberate pace.

"While I have very little affection for him, never read me bedtime stories, you did put the official CEO of the cooperation in jail, and its gonna take something to get him out. Bad for our image, you see. "

Oh.

I put the dad in jail? Threw the drug baron in the slammer? The lord of assassins in the big house? Not bad for a rookie.

"So the punishment is death. "

And looks like you ain't gonna be alive to tell the tale, Wonder woman.

Ah. And there she was, her mocking subconscious. Lana was beginning to worry. She hadn't heard a peep from her since the night of Jerry's death.

Although why she came out now...

He hooked a hand under her chin. "But I'm fond of you so you're not the one that's going to die. "

You can take your fondness and shove it up-

"And the best part is," he said putting on the TV at the other side of the room, "you get to pick who does. "

Huh?

It was showing her family. Her father wasn't there.

So the full family then. Lana didn't disagree.

"Now, initially, I didn't put your father in here but now I'm feeling sympathetic." He leaned down and tore a little piece of the kill file. After showing her the 'father' he'd written on it with that beautiful, sleek pen, he neatly folded it and dropped in into his white coffee mug that said boss.

Of course it does.

He walked up to her again, mug in hand. "I promise that whosoever it is you pick will die. No more."

One of his goon left a hand.

He's not really serious. Is he?

"But if I get to zero, they all die"

"Anthony-"

"Five. "

Maybe she could try and take them out. She could punch goon numero uno where the sun don't shine, do the same to son of a bitch two and the add a kick to the nose for boss man.

And then you could jump out of the window of the seventeenth floor and land on one knee in the pavement below, huh?

True. Sounded good in theory, and not to mention satisfying, but she wouldn't be able to actually execute that without a weapon, especially as the man still holding her was four times her size and identical in build to his colleague.

"Four. "

He's not really gonna do it. He won't.

"Three. "

But then there it was. The spark that seemed to ignite in his eyes when he had this type of hold on someone.

He was actually serious. Actually planning to kill a member of her family!

"Anthony," she gasped, "please I'll do anything, anything at all. "

At this he paused, but then shook his head. The glee was there, brightening his grey eyes. He had her by the neck and she knew it. The game could officially begin.

"Anything?" he asked. Lana didn't dare believe it yet she nodded frantically. "Then you'll pick. Two. "

She still threw a punch. Brian was expecting it and caught her.

Anthony tsked. "Another attempt like that and you'll lose the privilege to decide. "

Things didn't seem to be working right anymore. The hand by her side was limp, her body felt like it's weight had doubled, her heart beat drummed an erratic tune, and her eyes seem to be filled with hot, prickling pins.

Her brain was fuzzled, wasn't doing its job. It seemed to be directing all energy, even the one to think, to her throat.

Because she was shouting, she felt, screaming her lungs out. She wasn't really hearing it as her ears were ringing, but she felt it; the vibration that was hurting her head and the strain that begged her to stop.

"Anthony, please! Please, I'll find him, bring him back, dead if you want, I'll do anything you want! Please- "

He cut her off. "One. "

The word reverberated in her mind, repeating itself before the echo of its predecessor even faded. Lana's breath came in short, loud pants.

He didn't even really care about his father! It was all a show of power. Like Jerry.

"Zero. Very well then, Brock, Brian," he said, gesturing to each of them with his head, "go-"

"Wait! Wait, I'll do it. I'll do it!"

Was that her? Was that breathless, hoarse, choked voice hers?

Anthony beamed. "See? That wasn't so hard. "

He handed the coffee mug to Brian.

The hand already felt heavier than it had any right to be, but it seemed to still be increasing in weight. She wouldn't be able to lift it.

Anthony raised his eyebrow after a moment. A warning.

The hand was still so heavy but it was moving. With it, she was going to condemn a member of her family, the family she had worked hard for, killed for!

She picked.

The tiny, folded scrap of paper, the fate of a piece of her life, was taken out of her shaky hand. It fell back to her side and Brock took hold of it too.

Brian made to hand it to Anthony but he shook his head and said, "Open it in front of her. I'm a fair and just man. "

Oh, the profanities she would have spat at him. Her mother would have to wash her mouth with soap and holy water then baptize her in the stuff.

But all of her consciousness was drawn to the paper. He unravelled it.

Third child.

Third child? What was that? She didn't know anyone named... Jeremy?!

Anthony picked up his office phone, dialed a number and repeated the words.

The door on the screen opened.

Two men came in and before Martha and Ava could process it, a sleeping Jeremy was roughly dragged off his mother. The second man slapped Ava as she tried to clumsily hold him back, still not quite understanding what was happening. She fell heavily atop Martha.

The camera switched.

She could hear them though; sobbing, shouting, begging.

Then she noticed that she had joined them; crying, hot, unpleasant tears and pleading loudly in words that were meshing together while trying to wrench her hands out of Brock's hold.

"Anthony, please. I beg of you. Stop them please -"

Lana didn't know how to rank the next moments of her life. Sure, it easily took the cake for collectively being the worst but which particular part?

Was it the shot?

"Wha-" Jeremy had started rubbing his eyes only for him to be cut off. A moment after, he was still standing.

Then his sleepy eyes closed again, the dot of blood blooming from his chest as he went down.

The silence?

While Martha and Ava processed what had happened.

It was so loud. As though the world had just sympathetically paused to let her take it in. As opposed to the cacophony of the sound bouncing against the walls of her head.

The pain?

It blossomed as soon as the fact had really sunk in, as soon as the sight of blood pooling around his unmoving body decimated the shield of disbelief she was trying to put up.

So much that Lana wondered if she had been shot too.

But no, the pain was not stopping.

The camera switched again.

Looking at Ava and Martha, she wondered if the TV had been muted. Ava lay on Martha's arms, her cheek becoming red as the tears flooded down their faces.

Then she peered at those faces.

The expression said they just didn't know what to do anymore. Maybe they didn't.

She hadn't been able to talk to them since they were taken and had seen them on the TV twice. The twelve year old boy they'd just killed was the kidder of the family. The one that made them laugh in all situations.

He hadn't been to the Disney land he'd been yapping about.

Ava's head was lying across, Martha's hand, elbow bent backward and her leg was resting against the rough wall in an angle that would hurt.

Broken.

The physical pain they were surely in wasn't having an effect on them.

Lana's tears stopped. Just ceased abruptly as she lagged in his goon's arms.

"That was sad, " Anthony said, touching a hand to his chest. If you didn't look closely, you may gave thought there was a sliver of remorse in his being.

"So, " he said, clapping his hands once, "would you still like two of them?"

Lana looked up at him.

Anthony was taken aback. Cold, dead eyes on a pinched, pained face. Not glaring at him. Just... gazing. As though she he was a specimen she had just discovered.

He raised a brow. "So is that a no?"

"I'll take them, "she replied, voice low and scratchy.

"I'm sorry, Lana." She knew he really wasn't. "But it's a consequence of your action. I'll make sure he's buried."

She didn't look back, didn't even know when Brock had let go of her hands, just dragged herself out of his office.

Her mother and sister were waiting at her apartment.