“Urgh, the fucking bastards.” Helen hit the dashboard with a closed fist. “That makes me so bloody angry.” She then looks back at me. “To be clear, I’m not angry at you. I’m just incredibly miffed those dishonorable scumbags went for your loved ones… And that’s not even to take into account that they went for me too. Such assholes.”

“Yeah…”

“Of course going after you directly wouldn’t have been much better… but you know what I mean.”

“Mhmm.” I nodded and just listened to Helen rant a bit more. It’s funny that this was the most I’ve ever heard Helen talk. Looks like she’s one of those rather silent types who get really wordy when they get angry.

“Shit!” Helen hit the dashboard one last time before she restrained herself again. “And now my car is totalled too.”

“We’ll get you a new one. Don’t worry about that.” Aileen calmly commented as she turned the car into a left-hand corner. “Might even get you an upgrade.”

Helen went silent and looked over to Aileen next to her. Squinting her eyes just a tiny bit, presumably out of interest. “Am I allowed to pick what car I’ll get?”

“I don’t see why not.” Aileen shrugged. “We have plenty of funds and you can see it as a reimbursement of keeping a rather big secret and us having caused you a lot of problems on top of that.”

“Hmm.” Helen hummed. “That’s more generous than I had expected.”

“Did you think we were just going to blackmail you or something?”

“Not exactly, but still…” Helen looked back at me. “Is that how you got your new house as well?” It seemed Helen’s euro had just dropped.

“Uh, somewhat like that.”

“She got adopted by the leader of our organization.” Aileen replied. “She didn’t want her to keep living at her old place, and she had something else behind it too.”

“Do you remember the entire situation with Ria’s parents?”

“I do.” Helen nodded.

“We used my new ‘wealth’ as a way to get them off our backs. That and some blackmail…”

Helen chuckled, after which she painfully clenched her chest once more. “So there was some blackmail involved after all.”

“Just a little, and it was for a good cause.” I defended myself.

“Can’t deny that. I do think you are a good person, Aurora. I don’t really have any doubt about that.”

“Thank you for the vote of confidence.” I smiled.

Aileen turned the car into the street where Em’s house was and parked up at the spot where she had picked me up to begin with. The van from earlier was already gone.

“Cleaners have passed through this place already.” Aileen cut off any of my non-yet-voiced doubts. “Don’t forget to get changed before you head back.”

I nodded and looked at Helen.

“I won’t look.”

“Thanks.” I blushed and started to get my clothes out of the bag. It was still going to be very uncomfortable with an unconscious guy next to me. I prodded him rather hard to see if he would move, but there was not a single grain of consciousness present.

“While she’s getting dressed, would you want to tell me what exactly happened to yourself?” Aileen started talking with Helen to distract her away from me, and presumably to distract herself as well. “You managed to take out three of their guys and I’m curious to know how stuff transpired.”

“Only three? That’s a shame, I thought I got more of them.” Helen sighed, to which Aileen chuckled. From the corner of my eye, I could see Aileen was leaning against her door frame while looking at Helen. Was she… trying to flirt with her a little? Surely not… right?

“Maybe you got unlucky.”

“Perhaps.” Helen replied. “But things went incredibly fast so I guess I can’t blame myself too much.” She then began the rest of her story. “When I left earlier this evening from the Meier’s mansion I already had the feeling I was being followed, but I couldn’t really confirm it until ten minutes later when I got a close eye on the number plate of a car that was behind me. At that point, I was thinking they were after the car more than anything else. Those do fetch a rather tall price, especially with all the modifications it had.”

“Bulletproof glass, all those things, I presume?”

“Yeah, pretty much.” Helen tapped the dashboard. “So I was taking out my pistol from my secret compartment in the central console and at that moment a truck rammed me off the road, it sent my gun flying but at least it did confirm they were not trying to take the car. At least not whole. I managed to brace myself before the car slammed to a halt against one of their other cars that had approached from the front. I undid my seatbelt and ducked at my gun that had landed behind the back seat. The slam from the truck had pried the doors open, so I knew they wouldn’t have a hard time getting to me. The first guy got a bullet in his head once he peeked inside to see if I was unconscious. After that, a hail of bullets hit the side of the car before I heard one of them screaming to make them stop. I didn’t really know why at that moment.”

“They wanted to take you alive.”

“Yep. What followed was a rather short siege of attrition. I tried to make my shots count, but there’s only so much you can do with two magazines worth of ammo.”

“Let that be a lesson to always keep more ammo stashed.”

“There was, just not in a place I could easily reach.”

“Fair enough.” Aileen then peaked back at me. “Are you almost done, Aurora?”

I was just getting my shoes back on. “Almost. I was just listening in a little.”

“Understandable.” Helen replied. “I hope it doesn’t shock or annoy you I had a gun near your girlfriends?” She asked.

“Well… I had my suspicions… You did look more kind of like a bodyguard than merely a driver.”

“I suppose so.” Helen smiled at me. “And since we are all in the open about secrets at the moment, and because your friend here presumably already knows my file, would you like to take a guess about my previous profession?”

“Oh, that will be fun.” Aileen grinned and looked at me in anticipation.

“Hmmm… some kind of Secret Service?”

“Close enough.” Helen nodded.

“Awh, I’d wanted the guessing to continue a bit longer.” Aileen looked somewhat disappointed.

“I worked as a more covert kind of security detail for diplomats. Not exactly Secret Service, but the training is very similar.”

“I guess that’s how you met Em’s mom? During some diplomatic mission?”

“That’d be correct, yes. I was looking for similar work closer to home and just when I was, Miss Meier offered me a job. I was happy to take her up on that. It’s way more focussed on the driving part rather than the security detail, but I don’t really mind that… or should I say… I didn’t really mind that. Because it seems I’ll be needing to pay more attention to that in the future, too.”

“We’ll assist you with that.” Aileen replied.

At least I finished getting dressed yet again, the last thing I took out of the bag was my phone. It had a couple of missed messages from Em and Ria, although they hadn’t been sent too long ago. “I think I’m ready to go back now.” I looked at the two women in front of me.

“Okay, I’ll be taking Helen and that guy over there to the doctor. Now that we have someone who’s alive, we can start interrogating him about anything he knows. You can make sure I’ll try my best so that this shit won’t ever happen again.”

Helen nodded at me as well. “You can assure Miss Emma and Miss Corelia that I’ll be fine and that I’ll be returning as soon as I can.”

“I will.” I nodded back. “Could you let me know something when you reached the doctor?”

“Sure.” Aileen smiled. “It will take an hour or so, though. It’s not that nearby.”

“Well, thank you anyway.” I smiled and opened the door. “Helen.”

“Yeah?”

“Sorry again for getting you into this mess.”

“It’s most important that everyone is safe. You really don’t need to apologize. But if you really do want to, then I would like to have a sparring match with you one day as a way to pay me back.”

Aileen whistled. “I don’t think that’s a terribly great idea. Last time we sparred, she kicked me against a wall.”

“Oh… let’s keep it to arm wrestling then.”

“That definitely sounds safer.” I chuckled. “Have a good night.”

“You too, I hope you won’t get into too much trouble with your girlfriends…”

“I hope so, too.” I closed the door to the car. It doesn’t take long before they depart into the distance. I turned around and looked at the entrance to the mansion, taking a deep breath before marching towards it.

-Oh boi, this is not going to be easy to explain, is it?-