'Had to have high, high hopes for a living

Shooting for the stars when I couldn't make a killing

Didn't have a dime but I always had a vision

Always had high, high hopes'

(｀_' )ゞ

"This is a nice place," Ray says, excitedly roaming the halls of my hotel room.

I sit there slouching on the coach watching her look around the room with a big smile on her face while I just look at her from under my lashes making a double chin, feeling like an old man.

"A place you're not supposed to be in," I remind.

"Well, I'm here," she responds.

"I still didn't get your reasoning for coming here," I sigh a long sigh.

"Because," she stops to think, "I wanted to help."

I stare at her as she fidgets knowing the reasoning was dumb.

"So you're telling me," I begin standing up, "that hundreds of mallows here with me isn't enough?" I trap her in front of the wall but she slides down and escapes.

"Two more wouldn't hurt. Besides, I brought you Blake," she says like it's a good thing but I feel my brow tick downwards into a frown.

"Yes you did," I say, reminding myself to question his motives.

Instead of being petty about her being here, I savor the time before I send her safely back to North America and pull her back into my chest, suddenly needing her contact. She sighs, thinking I've calmed down , and further buries her head into my chest, deeply breathing in.

"Where's Blake?" I ask, barging into the mallow's hotel room where Blake was staying. They all freeze, one brushing his teeth, others playing cards before snapping out of it and pointing towards the exit door.

I burst out of there and I could feel them staring at me dumbfounded but I zoom through the hallways of the hotel looking for him when I saw him innocently waiting for the elevator.

"You brought Ray here?" I push his shoulder making him almost fall in shock.

"Ace, listen," he tries to speak before being cut off.

"You've gotten real comfortable around here Blake, but let me remind you what this gang is and what part I play in it," I say angrily. He stays silent, probably already foreseen this lecture coming.

"When I trust you with the most important thing in my life and I see you didn't do your job," I take a deep breath trying to calm myself. "It doesn't work that way."

After gathering my thoughts while he stayed silent, I say, "Blake, because you are my right hand man, you get to stay in the gang unlike others. However, your month suspension has started. Pack your bags, I don't want to see you until then. You are a danger to Ray and the gang so I don't need to see your face. Take a holiday vacation from the company and go visit your family."

Once I've finished, my eyebrows loosen up and they're back to their normal place but Blake just looked shocked. I went really easy on him but it seems he didn't even expect this, or he was hurt when I said he was a danger. It didn't matter, he's the one who couldn't do his job properly in the first place. If the Marshmallows want to keep their name as the most feared mafia, I need to take action towards those who stand in the way.

"Yes, sir," Blake says, sounding really hurt but he just stood there waiting for me to change my mind.

I didn't give him a second look when I retreated to the room as I heard the elevator ding but Blake was far gone to enter as he took the stairs. I stop for a second to close my eyes and take a deep breath and see a man walk past me when I open them. His tattoo on his arm seemed strangely familiar and when I paid a closer look to it, I realized why.

"Ray

1998

5:50"

A set of little panic arises, and I basically sprint back to Ray, for some reason thinking she's hurt. But when I arrive, she just seemed to be on my phone, living her life away on my Instagram.

"Hey, where were you? I took a little nap and I couldn't see you anywhere afterwards," she pouts and I restrict myself from sighing a sigh of relief.

"Nowhere, just checking up on the mallows," I say and plop myself next to her on the couch pulling her a little bit towards me.

"You didn't yell at Blake, did you?" She looks at me knowingly.

"You know I had to," I sigh, not liking making her upset.

After a little while, she fidgets out of my hold and sits up straight, looking guilty.

"Do you promise to not get mad?" She suddenly asks and I just look at her confused.

"I wouldn't get mad at you ever, unless you're putting yourself in danger," I question.

"No, no, and it's not directly towards me you'll be mad at so just promise?"

Feeling even more confused, I nod. "Alright, I'll try."

"Blake tried to kiss me the day before you left to Australia," my heart suddenly sinks. "I went to the mallows' house and he was upset and one thing led to another, he got really close to kissing me but I snapped him out of it before anything could happen. He's tried to apologize but I stopped him because I didn't want to think it happened, but it would've been unfair to you to hear it from somewhere else," she explains, taking a deep breath after finishing her rant.

"Did he make you feel uncomfortable?" I ask, worried about her first, but she immediately shakes her head.

"I was just worried about his state of mind and your reaction," she says, probably lying to herself. Whenever anyone gets too close too quick, she panics but she doesn't want to worry me.

But when I hear she's okay, the aspect that Blake tried kissing Ray settles in and I suddenly have the urge to chase him down and knock him out. Ray senses me getting quiet doesn't lead to a good thing so she grabs my hand and looks at me seriously.

"Nothing happened, it's not going to happen again, there's no point in dwelling over it now," she says, looking calm enough about her reasoning to make me calm down.

"When have you become all whole and healed," I laugh softly enough for her to relax her posture and laugh with me.

"Ace," I feel someone shaking me awake.

"What's wrong?" I slowly wake up, fully knowing it was Ray who called me.

"Someone's at the door," she whisper.

Stretching out my fatigue, I pick up my underwear from the floor along with my sweatpants from last night and go check who Ray is talking about. I open the door and see a couple of mallows bleeding or beaten up which jolts me fully awake.

"What happened?" I ask, closing the door behind me.

They sign in sign language, meaning they don't want the cameras to catch any of it.

"We got a call from the west saying that they have found where Antonio has been hiding exactly so we sent a search group, and when they didn't come back, we went after them," he signs fast, making sure his back is to the camera.

"Then we got attacked by some of Tonio's guys which now know where we are so we're thinking we should pack the equipment and join the west wing," he suggests.

I nod and they all do the same meaning they acknowledge my agreement to the plan of action then disperse to their rooms and I swiftly but quickly return to mine.

"Who was it?" Ray comes out, wearing my shirt.

"The mallows, we need to pack up quickly," I say, picking up everything from the living room.

"Why? What's happening?" She starts mimicking my actions.

"That duck has found this place," I say referring to him.

"So where do we leave?" She rushed to the room and packs any clothes her and I have which isn't many at all.

"To the west mallows where Robert is," I inform, packing any weapon I have into backpacks. "Don't worry too much about what you might forget, some others will come and check that everything looks normal."

Quickly pulling pants, a shirt and a leather jacket out, I dress into it, ready to go. I go check on Ray to see her wearing the feminine version of my outfit, black pants, white shirt, and a black leather jacket plus her combat boots. She pulls out something from the back and tosses it.

It's a fully loaded gun that I usually get for myself and she pulls out her own gun and says, "I'm sensing this will be a long night."

As Ace gets the signal from the others, each one of us subtly leaves the hotel one by one. He holds my hand tighter and we walk to the stairs planning on leaving from the back exit. I hold onto my mother's necklace she gave me when I was a baby that I am now finally wearing openly and sigh quietly hoping everything turns out okay.

I feel the gun pressed to my skin and other blades I hid in my outfit threatening to poke out. As we are close to the stairs, I catch a glimpse of a man staring at us moving, looking tired. I furrow my eyebrows in confusion and squeeze Ace's hand in reflex.

He looks back at me questionably but I just shake my head as a never mind when the old man retreats back to what seems to be his room. When we're safely outside, the mallows let me borrow my own motorcycle since they know I've been practicing which upsets Ace.

"I'm going to be an inconvenience if trouble occurs and you can't move freely," I defend myself.

"You know I'm going to be worrying over you the entire time, right?" He crosses his arms.

"Ace, you were the one to train me and this isn't my first time," I start pushing him to his bike.

"Stay in front of everyone, got it?" He instructs, putting his helmet on and I nod.

As everyone fires up their engine in sync, I take the lead, having already memorized the directions to the west wing. The others follow behind me in a scattered format and we continue like that for hours until we finally reach the meeting place.

Before we stop, I see from the corner of my eye bunch of men looking casual but one of them hid their gun badly so instead of stopping, I speed down the street to the other side of the building. Though everyone was confused since they probably were only paying attention to if I got in trouble and not the obvious, some catch up and realize what I saw so they all follow me.

I take a stop first, taking my helmet off and seeing Ace come next, doing the same actions I did.

"Did you see them?" I say, referring to the men.

"Yeah, I already called for backup," he says, ruffling his hair that's sticking in all directions.

On cue, mallows I recognize walk up to us in casual clothing, not stopping to talk to us but enough for us to know they're there.

"Each station is going to need to scatter across the city and make sure everything is set for the plan," Ace instructs the East Mallows on the plan I was not informed about.

"Are we going to fight the people I saw?" I ask once everyone starts moving to where they should be.

"No," Ace begins, "We are going to be doing that while you leave with Robert to go find Antonio," he shocks me by saying that.

"You're letting me go find Antonio?" I squint my eyes to find a lie.

"I need to find out some information from these guys and I don't want you seeing that. So as you get yourself situated with Rob, I will already be done here and I will follow you there. Just be safe, okay?" He says, completely in his work zone.

"Then I will see you soon, you be safe as well," I give him a quick kiss and we both part ways, heading towards the groups that await us.

I was planning on doing a writer-mas but it's only two more days until christmas so I will be uploading chapters both tomorrow and on christmas day. It's not much but it is what i can do for now. Thank you for being patient with me. My updating schedule will be twice a month depending on the amount of school work i have. However, it will probably be more than that but I don't want to say once a week so y'all don't expect much.

Keep your expectations low so i can exceed them haha... that being said, thank you for your patience and reading this chapter!