The very first thing that popped into my head as soon as I saw the both of them was "Oh my God, Denny's has Free Pancakes Day tomorrow from 8 a.m to 12 p.m and I absolutely must remember to get me some flat circles of happiness even if that means I have to drag Preston there because free pancakes are totally mandatory for human survival." The next thing that I thought was "Oh my God, I really need to pee." And the very last thing that came to mind was "Oh my God, why the hell is my former best friend turned assassin conversing with a member of the Brooklyn Crowns?!"

All in that order, of course. I had my priorities straight, you know.

"Florence, you good?" Preston's voice drifted over to me.

Tearing my gaze from Ade and Elliot, I glanced at him and nodded. He was staring at me from his seat, eyes locked onto mine. Preston was trained to search for clues, find what makes people tick. The FBI had ways of getting information from a single glance. It was their job to solve puzzles and mysteries. They had perfected the practice of manipulation almost as well as Wolfe had. The worrying thought that Preston might figure out what I was internally freaking out about made me realize that I needed to pretend I was okay better.

Swallowing hard, I walked over to the front counter, chewing my bottom lip hard enough to draw blood. Mom was taking the order from a couple and Dad was preparing a customer's breakfast. Samantha was ringing up an old man's purchase. Outside, people hurriedly walked to where they needed to go and never taking a second glance at anything. Ade and Elliot were still talking and Preston was now drinking coffee. Everyone had their own lives to lead and didn't concern themselves about the affairs of another. But Wolfe and I meddled in each other's lives and look where that got us.

"Any information on Wolfe?" I asked curiously, taking another peek outside to the diner over Preston's shoulder as discreetly as I could.

"Not that I know of. We can't find any trace of the helicopter the pilot and him were in. NYPD lost the chase a couple miles southeast over the border of New York, just over Pennsylvania. His cronies must have also jumped. We can't find anything." Preston shrugged. "But that was the update from last night. Who knows, they might've gotten a lead by today. You can't really testify in court when there's nothing to testify against." He paused and I drew my attention back to him. Preston craned his neck over his shoulder and frowned. "What do you keep looking at, Florence?"

"Nothing." I said quickly. Too quickly. I think he noticed. Staring at the marble countertop, I said, "So I guess that you're still a target for the Crowns too, huh? I know Wolfe, and I know that he doesn't let things go easily. Especially a witness. You and I both have dirt on him. If he comes after me and finds you as well, it's lights out for the both of us. Not just me."

"We'll protect each other." Preston grinned his shiny white teeth at me. "Don't worry, you're surrounded by police officers and you have the FBI watching over you like a hawk. Not to mention, the CIA is waiting in the wings. They want to lay claim to you just as much. You understand your importance, don't you Florence? One testimony and everything the Brooklyn Crowns have built over the past years will come crashing down. The biggest case in the country closed by an 18 year old girl."

"Sure. And when the dust is cleared and the mess is done, some hoity-toity underdog member of the Crowns that you guys couldn't catch will come after me and then I'm dead. And then the copycats of the Crowns will begin, and then this city will burn to the ground. Sounds great, doesn't it?" I rolled my eyes.

"Did you just say hoity-toity?"

"It's not such a weird word, okay?!"

Now it was Preston's turn to roll his eyes.

My gaze flickered back to the Denny's diner and my heart jumped again. Elliot and Ade weren't there any more. A moment later, I saw them walk out together.

My throat lumped up at the sight of Ade. His back was turned and he was talking to Elliot. The image of his curly brown hair and the red college hoodie he loved so much brought back the feeling of hurt with a renewed vigor. A sharp burn pierced my wounded shoulder as if a testament to prove how bad of a friend he was. But nothing about Ade was still confirmed, it was just words and accusations. Wolfe's accusations. Maybe Wolfe was lying about this whole thing. Maybe it wasn't Ade who did this. I was willing to give Ade the benefit of the doubt because I missed him so much. All those years he was my shoulder to lean on and now he was just gone. The lump in my throat grew.

Elliot's lips moved. They were too far in the distance that I couldn't make out what he was saying, but what happened next was something I couldn't miss. Elliot reached into his coat pocket and after sweeping his eyes around the street, he handed it to Ade.

Aware of Preston, I shifted myself a little bit to the left. They were standing at an awkward angle so I couldn't exactly see very well, but I saw enough to catch sight of what it was. Ade looked down at the object Elliot handed to him. It appeared to be something small, white, and rectangular. A card, maybe? It could be a piece of paper or a photograph. Ade stared at it for a second, and then pocketed the thing.

Elliot gave a curt nod and after a second, Ade turned away and started walking. Elliot also turned and began walking the opposite direction. As Ade passed the Espresso House on the other side of the street, I angled myself out of his sight by pretending I dropped something on the floor (my dignity). But he didn't look so much as one glance my way. Elliot was briskly walking down the sidewalk.

Just before he turned the corner, though, I saw him pull out a cellphone and press it to his ear before disappearing around the bend with a swish of his long trench coat.

* * * *

"Sleepover!" I squealed, throwing a pillow covered in rainbow polka dots at Preston's face. He dodged it just in time. Police skills, ugh. Flopping down on my bed, I grinned at him. "I'm so excited! I can't contain my excitement. My body cannot handle all this excitement. It's, like, spilling out of me. Like pee. Except it's not pee. I peed myself when I was five years old, though, because there was a thunderstorm and this huge crack of thunder scared me and it, like, squirted out of me. I use bathrooms, now. I'm a very advanced homosapien, you know-"

"Please stop talking."

"This is going to be so much fun!" I beamed at Preston's bitch face. "I haven't had a sleepover since I was thirteen. Wanna bake pot brownies? Wanna play ding-dong-ditch? Wanna have a pillow fight and make out aggressively in the middle of it? Wanna braid each other's hair? You would look so good with those little spiky ponytails! Can I touch your hair?" Without waiting for an answer, I reached over and plucked at Preston's dark hair like one would do at grass. "Woah, silky. What kind of conditioner do you use-"

"Florence, I'm in possession of a taser and I will absolutely use it if it becomes necessary."

"Alright, I'm sorry." I withdrew my hands. "So what do you want to do now?"

"Sleep."

"Alright. But what do you want to do before that?"

"Close my eyes and lay down in complete silence."

"That's the same thing as sleeping, you butthead." I grabbed another pillow off my bed to throw at him but one look at his furious expression and I quickly changed my mind.

At first, I was reluctant to believe that this whole 24 hour bodyguard thing was actually going to happen. But it was almost midnight now and he was still standing beside me. Or rather, sitting cross-legged on a sleeping bag on the floor of my bedroom trying to email Detective Rossen with a laptop but I kept on pestering him because it was just so darn fun. First, my favorite hobby was to annoy Wolfe, a crime lord. And now, it was an FBI agent. Man, I'd be surprised if I wasn't dead by my 21st birthday.

My parents were adamant about this whole protection thing. And so was the government, it seemed. Several NYPD officers were stationed outside the apartment complex and in front of the Espresso House. Preston also mentioned something about snipers, but I absolutely refused to believe that because I knew I wasn't that important.

Sure, the testimony they expected me to give in court would be the last nail in the coffin for the Crowns, but the government wasn't going to waste millions of dollars trying to protect a teenage girl. Wolfe was probably on another continent by now. Besides, I truly believed that he wouldn't kill me. Kidnap me? Absolutely. Torture me, kill my family members, threaten me, burn down all the Twizzler companies? It's not so far-fetched. But he would not kill me. I would not die by the bruised hands of Wolfe Sterling. That's because I knew I was going to die from an overdose of Twizzler consumptions. Or Clancy would hug me and I'd die from being smothered by her large breasts.

Speaking of Clancy...

I'd been battling with myself for the past day, trying to add up the pros and cons of telling another one of my secrets to law enforcement. Preston seemed a lot nicer than Detective Rossen, and more willing to listen too.

I watched him type away on his laptop for a second. The lights were off and the moon provided enough illumination to see even the darkest corners of the bedroom. My parents were already in bed so it was silent except for the tapping of Preston's long fingers over the keyboard. It was mandatory for him to report every little event that happened at the end of the day back to Detective Rossen, who was the head of the Brooklyn Crowns case this time. He was partnering with the lady who came yesterday to ask if she should take over my interrogation. I found out her name was Penelope Meyers and she was a friend of Clancy's.

Speaking of Clancy again...

"Hey, Preston?" I rested my chin on my knees and fiddled with my toes. A momentary lapse of hesitation kept me silent for the next few seconds, until Preston looked up to meet my gaze with his open brown eyes. Taking a deep breath, I decided to just go for it. No point in beating around the bush. "If I tell you something, do you promise not to tell anyone else?"

Preston looked at his laptop screen, the light from it casting a strange bluish filter over his face, before shutting it closed and putting it back into his briefcase. "That depends on what you want to tell me, Florence." His deep voice was soft and sweet, completely the opposite of Wolfe's. "I am still required by the state laws to report any information that I believe has the potential to cause harm to a person."

I sighed. "Can you drop the scary police act and just talk to me for once?"

"Fine." Preston rolled his eyes. "What is it?"

"Well..." The fiddling of my toes increased. I let a few more seconds of nervous silence pass before I spoke again. My love for Clancy was too strong to keep me from telling Preston. "...this was just a tiny, miniscule fact that I kinda...you know...didn't tell Detective Rossen about. But in my defense, he didn't ask me about it! So really, I'm not at fault here. I did answer all his questions truthfully. It's not like I lied or anything. But I just thought that someone else should know about this-"

"Florence." He said sternly. "You can tell me, okay? I'm here to help. What should I know?"

I took a deep breath. "Clancy Devans is Wolfe Sterling's aunt."

At first, Preston's face was blank. And then it turned to one of surprise, and the confusion. After one long moment of silence, he shook his head. "Not possible." Preston said, matter-of-factly. "Wolfe Sterling has no living next-of-kin nor any living immediate family members. If I remember correctly, his mother had no sister. So it's impossible for him to have an aunt. Who is this Clancy Devans, exactly, and why did you keep this information, no matter how inaccurate, from Detective Rossen?"

"It just never came up. He didn't ask me about Wolfe's family relations. He only asked about Wolfe's and my relations. Clancy Devans is another employee of the Espresso House. She's one of my best friends. But you see, Clancy said the same thing." Well, that was kind of a lie. It was Wolfe who showed me her family history report back in his super cool lair....which I kinda didn't tell Detective Rossen about. Same with the meth smuggle. They didn't need to know. "She never mentioned that she had a sister. I know she has a brother living in California but that's all the siblings that she has, to my knowledge. Maybe they were estranged? Twins separated at birth? I don't know. All I know is that Clancy is Wolfe's aunt."

Preston looked at me. The expression his face displayed was almost one of suspicion. "How do you figure that? I mean, who told you that she was his aunt?"

"Uh, well...Wolfe kinda told me."

His eyes widened. It was quiet for a second, and then after Preston had processed the information, he cleared his throat and said, "How much contact did you have with this guy anyways? That way you talk about him makes it seem like you've known him for a good amount of time."

"More than you would think." I replied quietly. If only they knew half of what really happened, I'd be in even more trouble than I was now. "More than my parents would like to know. We weren't close, but he let me in enough to make that testimony your bosses are all waiting for sound like solid gold. I mean, I don't know his favorite color or anything, but I think I know more than anyone else does." I shrugged and then winced when a sharp pain pierced my shoulder. "For example, I know that he likes to fight."

"Of course he likes to fight." Preston said darkly. "The guy is a crime lord, the love for violence is runs in his blood. Sterling is a lot more cunning than anyone might think. No one in the agency has actually seen him in flesh up until last night. Charts and analytics can only go so far, so we don't know what to expect. He's a volatile factor, the biggest one, in the empire he's created. To bring the Crowns down, the glue that needs to keep them together has to be broken. Wolfe's greatest advantage is the sub rosa he has around his entire life. We don't know much about the guy. We hear his crimes, we see it, and we're the ones to fix it, but we never actually have caught him doing it. That's why you're such an important piece in the puzzle, Florence. You could take him down."

"But...suppose I didn't want to?" I asked after a moment's hesitation.

"What are you implying?"

"I didn't ask to be put in this position, Preston. Everyone is looking at me, expecting me to pull some superhero bullshit and single-handedly put away the biggest and most dangerous American mafia the country's ever seen. I should be looking at college applications, not worrying about upcoming court trials and news interviews." I said, a little frustrated. "Everything is so confusing and I'm so tired of playing both sides and I don't know what to do because Wolfe's not the guy you all think he is and there's some rival gang out for blood-"

"Woah, woah, woah." Preston held his hands up, looking alarmed. "Back up for a second there, Flo. What rival gang?"

Oops.

"Nothing." I shook my head quickly, hoping he couldn't see through my lies. "I was just, you know, assuming that the Crowns have enemies. They can't have gotten to where they are now without pissing off a few people in the process, right?"

Preston squinted his eyes and studied me carefully. I was so afraid that he would see right through my facade that I focused on unfolding my blanket. When that was done, I draped the whole thing over my head and body so that there would be a break from the intense gaze FBI Officer James Preston was giving me.

But Preston, of course, had other ideas and more questions to grill me with. He took a hold of one of the edges of the blanket and yanked the thing off me, so that it slithered right onto the floor. I stared at him open-mouthed, mad that he interrupted my cocoon time. I was trying to turn into a butterfly, duh, so that I could just fly away from all my problems.

"I'm only telling you about the aunt thing because I'm afraid that they're gonna come for her because all the security is around me and there's no one to protect her. Wolfe is sneaky like that. If it's not too much to ask, can you ask Detective Rossen if he could station some officers outside her house? It's better to be safe than sorry." I said.

"I'll see what I can do. How much did you keep from Rossen?" He asked suspiciously. "Because I can schedule another interrogation with him if you want to reconsider your options here. It seems to me as though there are more secrets floating around here than in Rosewood, Pennsylvania."

"Oh my God, you watch Pretty Little Liars? Who do you think 'A' is-"