Eva is caught up in her thoughts and so isn't into her Shadow persona. She is rudely brought out of her thoughts when a drunk grabs her and shoves her into a brick wall of the building in the alley she took. She manages to fight him off but not before he calls out to some friends to help him.

Eva doesn't wait and takes off running. She hears the people chasing after her and does her best to lose them. In her panic she doesn't notice the men at the entrance to the next alley she runs to and since she is now in her full on Shadow persona they don't notice her either. But they do notice the men that are chasing her. They stop the men from going any further and Eva finally breathes a sigh of relief. 

It's been a long time since she's had to run and dodge things in the alley ways of the city.

It's the sound of guns going off that bring her back to the here and now. She curses herself for a fool. The men must have been stopped from coming down here because some sort of illegal deal was going on. 

A deal, that from the sound of gunfire has gone sideways.

That's Eva's last thought before she feels the bite of something hitting her abdomen. She looks down in shock and sees blood coming out of her. Then she looks up and takes a half step forward into the light of the streetlamp.

Eva makes it one step and sees two men standing and one facing them falling down. "Tristan?" Eva whispers in disbelief and the other man turns to face her, "Cain?" Eva says then drops to her knees.

Cain sees her and drops the gun he had pointed towards her. "Eva!" He runs forward and captures her before she falls to the ground completely.

The man with him runs up as well. "How the hell do you know Eva, Lassiter?" Tom demands as he sets Eva down to looks at her wound.

"I'm Cain," Lassiter says and let's the tears fall. He puts pressure on her wound in an effort to stop the blood flow.

"What the fuck is she doing out here?" Tom wants to know. He runs his hands through his hair. Tristan is going to kill them all for this. He takes his phone out and calls for his car to be brought and for the doctor to be waiting for them at the estate.

"She likely is coming back from volunteering at the abuse center."

"Then why didn't our men stop her from coming this way? And where the hell is her guard?"

"She likely left her apartment without him seeing her. She is like a shadow when she wants to be. That's likely why our men didn't stop her. My question is, why  would she come down here if our men are posted? She knows as well as anyone that there is trouble if there are people posted at the openings of alley's and backstreets."

"I'll take her to the Estate, you find out the answer to those questions, because if we don't have them soon, Tristan will kill us all." Tom says and takes the girl into his arms and all but runs to his car. As soon as he's inside the car takes off.

Cain, watches the car until it's out of sight then he turns resolutely towards the alley that Eva had come from. The look he's wearing now has terrified more than one opponent in the ring. When he questions the lookouts they are no less terrified. They don't know anything about the girl, but they tell him about the group of five or so men that had come running up to them. They were sent on their way.

Lassiter knowing these streets well goes to the most likely place to find the men. The local bar, strangely enough located just one block away from the abuse center. Lassiter thinks that the location of the center should have been better thought out, but there's nothing he can do about it.

Cain enters the low lighted room of the tavern. He makes his way to the bartender and has a low voiced conversation. He finds it very enlightening.

He makes his way to a man that looks the worse for the wear. It's obvious that he's been recently pounded and Cain wants to hear his story. He wants to know if he needs to share the punishment the other men will be receiving or not.

"Mind if I join you?"

The man looks up from his morose contemplation of his nearly empty drink. "Free country, but you might want to find a different table to sit at."

"Oh, why's that?" Cain inquires affably.

"I'm full of bad luck, that's why. Went to work this morning and found a pink slip in with my paycheck. Went home early and found my wife in bed with my neighbor. Came here for a friendly drink or three and my friends dragged me outside. They were then called by their friend to chase after some poor woman their drunken fool of a friend wanted to have fun with and she didn't. I tried to stop them and they didn't take to kindly to my interference. Gave me a right drubbing they did. "

The man motions over to the boisterous table in the back. "The man in the center in back is the fool that called the morons out. Now they are all bragging at how manly they are that they made some poor woman run for her life and they chased her towards some drug deal or gun deal or something along those lines."

"You sound a might bit bitter there, friend." Cain says consolingly.

"Can't afford a hospital and I hurt like hell. While those fools are celebrating being pigs. You carry the air of danger about you," the man looks at Cain rather blearily. "Would you by any chance happen to have a gun on you? And if you do, would you be willing to use it on me?"

"Whoa, whoa there buddy, even if I did have a gun I wouldn't go around killing people just for fun. Why would you want me to kill you anyway?"

"You weren't listening to my days events. My wife comes from money and her family never approved of me so they will hire an attorney for the divorce. I don't have much and now I don't even have a place to live. If I live, I think I might have some internal damage from those bloody braggarts. I'd rather have a quick and painless death." The man takes his drink and tosses the last of it back.

"Have another on me, then you'll be coming to stay with me until you get your feet under you again." Cain likes the man and has no doubt that Tristan will approve of the man staying there at the estate since he did his best to help Eva.

The waitress brings over another beer as Cain makes his way to the other table. He'd already called in for reinforcements. "I hear you lot are the cowards that chased the female into the middle of a drug deal."

"We aren't cowards!" The man that called his friends to chase Eva exclaims loudly.

Cain sniffs, his disdain clear. "Then what do you call more than half a dozen men chasing a small female down dark alley ways yelling out profanities and threats while doing so? Then coming back here and bragging about it? What's there to brag about?"

The men shut up and some look down in shame, others look at Cain with hostility. "What's it to you?"

"The female was shot. She was my friend. Her boyfriend is my boss."

The man that started this whole mess is one of the hostile ones. Made bold by alcohol and by his friends surrounding him demands, "Yeah? Just who the hell are you? Who the fuck is your boss and why the fuck should we care?"

"Me? MY name is Cain." His announcement is met with silence. "My boss? Tristan Wederer, heard of him? Why should you care?" Cain motions to the men that had just come into the bar, "because if she dies your deaths will be a thousand times more excruciating then they already will be." 

The man turns white as do his friends that are sitting with him at the table. The men come in and restrain the men and lead them out to the car. No one in the bar makes an attempt to stop them and do their best to avoid seeing anything.

Cain stops by the table where the man he talked to earlier was just finishing up his beer. "You ready to go?"

The man had turned white when he heard Cain's name. Before he disappeared he was the most feared man on the streets.

"Y-yeah," the man sets down the glass and takes to his feet.

"Tomorrow I'll take you shopping and get you some clothes. Then we'll take a short trip to your home and gather whatever you wish. I'm sure my boss will pay for a lawyer if you'd like one."

The man stammers out his thanks even as he gets in a nicer car than he ever thought he'd see, forget about being inside one.

Cain tosses down a bunch of money on the man's table and says that should cover the tab for the men that he's taking with him.

There is silence in the bar as he walks out the doors.