Sniping Her Mafia King
Chapter 50

Arwen sat in the uncomfortable chair and watched as Sabine and Psych-One both exchanged glances with each other before looking back to her.

"There's no way to know how any of the medications we use for our trauma patients will affect the limited memories she has of her mother, Arwen." Psych-One's voice was uncharacteristically soft. Usually, she was pushing buttons to get reactions from Arwen. "She's been through trauma. It's not he first time and with all of the things going on, it is highly possible, in dealing with the most recent experience of being kidnapped could meld with her memories of being shoved in the pantry."

"I don't want her to have any more hurt."

"I understand," Psych-One nodded gently. "I think though, you're not giving her the credit she deserves. She is strong Arwen. She can handle this."

"She can handle having mind-altering drugs?"

"No," Sabine spoke this time. "We don't want to do it to her. The risk of her losing her good memories along with the bad is too much."

"Then what do you propose?" Arwen shook her head. "Should we make this all of Addy's fault? I don't want to ruin her perception of him. He's good for her." She paused, "I'm so tired. I'm so tired and I'm so confused and worried for her."

"You would want to give blame to the King?" Psych-One asked curiously.

"No but Josephine was all over it last night."

"I fail to see how it's his fault the Russian's knew to follow his FBI agent. How is the man capable of being an FBI agent and not know he's been tailed for hours?" Sabine grunted angrily.

Arwen hadn't heard this yet. "What do you mean?"

"The i***t Gavrikov had asked his friends at Nastya's for information on Cavallaro. They told him to follow the guy following Cavallaro. They were trailing the FBI agent. FBI agent O'Malley was the one who called Deidre's name on the street outside Portia's house. I think he thought he could pressure her into revealing information on Addy. Addy's driver stopped him." Psych-One revealed with an angry toss of her head. "What a douche canoe."

Arwen's fist clenched as her jaw dropped open and she looked around the room incredulously. "O'Malley."

"For the record, the entire team except you was debriefed on the full scope and they all know it was O'Malley who put Dee in danger. The Russians got lucky because he got bold chasing her down." Sabine made a face of disgust.

"Now what?" Arwen asked. "Are we just letting Addy deal with the FBI? If so, how does this play out? We don't want anyone knowing the car accident was anything more than an accident."

"It's being negotiated," Psych-One said diplomatically. "In the interim, you're right. We don't want anyone knowing the accident wasn't anything but an accident unfortunately, your cousin knows. Which is why we are here."

"Arwen," Sabine spoke quietly, "Psych-One, Artemis, Juno and I, all feel it is in Deidre's best interests to be given a debrief."

Her head snapped up from where she had been studying a speck on the floor. "Excuse me?"

"Not a full debrief." Sabine held her hand up gently. "We will tell her you work for an agency who protects women. We will not divulge your status as a sniper or an assassin unless you feel you want to reveal it to her. You won't give mission details of course." "Why?" Arwen's hands were trembling. "I don't understand."

"Arwen," Psych-One's voice again was strangely soothing, "we did this two years ago with Artemis' daughter."

"What?" Arwen blinked rapidly. "She has kids?"

Psych-One chuckled, "yes. She has children and her daughter is very bright but far too sensitive for this type of work. Her daughter knows minimal information but enough to reassure her she isn't crazy for thinking her mother is a spy. Deidre's comment last night about you and your girlfriends told us, she has observed your behaviour, your comings, and goings and while she would never ask, she knows there is something more to you than a doctor of physiotherapy."

"And you want to confirm this for her?" Arwen felt a pressing need to get out of the chair and go for a run. She was uncertain how she remained seated.

"We would."

"She's going to know it's my fault Miley is dead," Arwen looked away angrily. "If you tell her this, she is going to know the reason she got pulled into this s**t is because I took Zoya, and she got caught in the crossfire. She'll hate me. She is the purest thing in this world, and this will taint her."

"She could never hate you," Sabine smiled gently, her brown eyes holding Arwen's across the small distance between them. "Look at me Arwen. You are her world. You need to trust her. Trust her to know. It's the only way we can guarantee her silence." "You think she'll take a vow of silence? Do you threaten her with death if she doesn't?"

Sabine pulled a manila folder from under her seat and passed it to her.

Arwen flipped it open and looked through the pages of internet searches. "What is this?"

"Deidre's internet history." Psych-One explained. "For about two months before she even told you about Raven sucking the professors d**k, she was trying to replace ways to expose Raven. If I had to guess, Raven tried to get Miley to sleep with the professor. We think it's why Miley and Deidre didn't hang out as much anymore because Miley wanted it to go away, and Deidre couldn't let it drop. She was trying to replace a way to make Raven pay. She just couldn't figure out how, but she was looking."

"This is not happening," Arwen went through the searches and couldn't help but chuckle as one of them was titled 'how to hack a bad person's email. "Oh Deidre."

"Your little girl has a strong sense of right and wrong, Arwen. While I'd never ever consider her capable of being a Bellona agent just due to her physical injuries and her past brain injuries, she has the heart of an agent. She will understand. I know she will." "When?" she looked up from the packet.

"Now. It's why we are both here. You didn't need two of us to do your debriefing," Sabine winked at her as she accepted the folder back. "She's itching to get discharged and we won't discharge her without a psych eval. We want you to sit in." Arwen sat quietly for a moment digesting the information when a thought occurred to her, "Cat's going to be pissed. She was already mad my boyfriend got debriefed and now my kid?"

Sabine gave a little chuckle, "maybe. She'll get over it."

Psych-One looked to her expectantly, "are you good with this?"

"Yes. The alternative is giving her mind-altering drugs and I'm more frightened of those and the risk she loses more than just her recent memories than I am of her hating me. I'd rather she hates me than forget her mother's face."

Arwen followed the two women from the room where they had been sequestered near Deidre's hospital room and down the corridor towards her. The nearer to the door she grew the slower her footsteps moved. She saw Jesse standing at the door leaning against it with a big smile on her face as she talked to Deidre. Jesse turned her head in the directions of the clicking of their shoes and grinned.

"Deidre was just telling me how much she wants to get the hell out of here."

"Can't say I blame her," Sabine's voice was cheerful. She stepped past Jesse and into the room, "Deidre, just one more evaluation and we can spring you."

"They send my psychologist?"

"You were taken from a car, kiddo," Sabine was blunt as she pulled a chair closer to the bed. "It's protocol."

Deidre gave a shrug as she watched Arwen, Jesse and Psych-One follow Sabine into the room and close the door, "I never said I was taken from a car. I was in a car accident. It rolled down a hill." Sabine gave a low laugh, "sure it did."

"It did. Three times." She didn't back away from Sabine's lifted eyebrow.

"What happened when it stopped?"

"I don't know. I woke up here."

"You sure?" Sabine asked, "because your story last night when Clara Draxton was here with Arwen was a bit different."

"I don't remember Clara being here." Deidre held Sabine's gaze.

"You know they know each other, right?" Arwen couldn't help but laugh at how much her cousin was sticking to her story. Arwen pulled a chair and sat in it, "she's trying to protect the King." "Who?" Deidre played coy.

"You sure we can't use her?" Sabine looked over her shoulder to Psych-One who shook her head with a small smile as she leaned against the door to the room.

"Use me for what?"

"Deidre, do you know it means to make a blood vow?"

Deidre's blue eyes bugged at Sabine's question, "what?"

"When you are part of a certain kind of family, for instance la Famiglia Cavallaro, you need to take a vow. You swear to uphold the rules of the family, swear eternal devotion, take the secrets of your family's actions to the grave and so on." Sabine didn't back away from her question, "you seem to very bent on protecting Adrianu Cavallaro so I'm curious if you've made some kind of vow to him." "No," Deidre grimaced. "That's absurd."

"Is it?" Sabine pushed.

"Yes, it is. He's good to me and Arwen. I respect him. It doesn't mean I have to make a kind of blood vow to his family."

"What about to our family?" Sabine asked pointedly.

Arwen watched as her cousin's eyebrows furrowed in confusion.

"Your family?" Deidre questioned cautiously. "What do you mean?"

"I mean, if you were asked to take a vow of," she paused as if thinking a word up, "silence or trust, to protect your cousin and our family, are you willing."

"I would die for Arwen," Deidre didn't hesitate. "If you want a blood oath to protect Arwen, you slice all the veins you want."

Arwen chuckled at her words, "Dee, nobody needs you to slice your veins."

"Arwen what is going on?" Deidre flicked a glance between Arwen and Psych-One, "and who is she?"

"My name is Psych-One. I'm here to evaluate you today to see whether or not we can trust you." "What if I don't trust you?"

"Arwen," Psych-One spoke up, "do you trust me?"

"I better trust you. You're the one keeping me sane." Arwen commented dryly.

"Is she your shrink?" Deidre asked Arwen.

"Yeah," Arwen laughed, "so is Sabby. There are other psychiatrists and psychologists in our organization but at our level, these two ladies are the ones we deal with."

She waited for the words she spoke to sink in and watched as confusion etched on Deidre's face. Deidre gave a shake of her head.

"I don't understand. Organization?"

"We are part of an organization of women helping women," Psych-One explained as she edged closer into the room. "We do whatever it takes, whenever it takes to help a person who is in trouble get out of trouble." "You're a part of this," Deidre looked to Arwen.

Arwen nodded, "yes, Dee. I am."

"Since when?"

"Since the fire," she explained wishing she knew what she should be saying. "I needed help. They helped me. I now pay it forward."

"What do you do?"

"I keep people safe." Arwen was purposefully vague.

"Deidre, we're going to tell you what happened last night." Psych-One cut in. "I need you to have an open mind and I need your promise what is said in these walls stays in these walls." "Or what?"

"Or I go to prison for a long time," Arwen said bluntly.

Deidre blinked, "what?"

Sabine reached out and grabbed Deidre's hand, "We," she waved to Jesse and Arwen, "help women who are in trouble. Your friend Addy was helping a young woman who was here in the country illegally. A man in her home country had bought her for a million dollars from her brother. He wanted to take her virginity and make her his slave-wife."

"What the f**k?" Deidre's disgusted face caused Arwen to snicker.

"Unfortunately," Sabine patted her hand, "it happens. She was here but hadn't told anyone her whole story. Addy didn't know people were looking for her. He thought she was a girl who was hurt and needed help and he sent her to Arwen for treatment. When she was there, her brother's friends showed up to take her home. Arwen hid her."

"Good!"

"It is good," Jesse spoke quietly. "Arwen and our team kept her safe and away from harm. Addy didn't know where she was. We didn't tell him."

"He's your cousin," Deidre looked to Jesse. "Why couldn't you tell him?"

"Oftentimes the less people who know, the safer it is for them." Jesse offered the only explanation she knew.

"Here's the thing, Deidre," Arwen spoke from her chair wishing there were a way to sugar coat what she needed to say but not wanting anyone else in the room but her to tell her cousin the person responsible for Miley's death was her. "The men thought Addy had the girl. In order to make him give her up, they tried to replace anything to use against him. Addy has an FBI agent trying to build a case against him and they knew it. They followed the agent which led them to you. They took you as leverage against Addy. They wanted to make a trade."

Jesse continued the story, "as soon as Addy realized what was happening, he had his team let us know but you were already taken. At this point it became a rescue mission to save you and Addy."

"A rescue mission. Not a trade-off?"

"No." Psych-One's voice was softer than Arwen had ever heard her, "we would never trade one woman for another. It's not what we do. We knew we could you out alive, especially with Addy on the inside. He kept them distracted from you until we were able to get you to safety." "They tied him up and beat him, badly. All you had to do was give up the girl." Deidre frowned.

Arwen found it funny she hadn't mentioned trading the girl for herself but rather for him. "Dee, the minute you were safely out of the building, Addy got himself out of his restraints and took the big guy out," Arwen told her. When Deidre looked at her in surprise she shrugged, "he has skills which would shock you, I think. He was in the chair because he wanted to be."

"He's not badly hurt?"

"He's going to make a full recovery. He's already shooting his mouth off," Psych-One reassured her. "Deidre, it's important you understand what you went through last night, as traumatic as it was for you, the only people you can ever talk to about it, are in this room. This is it. It puts our work in danger. It puts the lives of thousands of women all over the world in danger. Do you understand this?"

"I do." She twisted her fingers sadly, "Miley would have thought this really cool. Even though I know I could never tell her, she was always saying how much she thought Arwen was a badass and could be a spy."

"Not a spy," Arwen chuckled, "but I'll take the badass comment."

"Deidre, when Jesse said earlier, sometimes the less people know, the safer it is for them, this is one of those situations. We are telling you the bare minimum because we are left with no alternative we could agree on." "What kind of alternative is there?"

"Mind-altering drugs," Psych-One didn't beat around the bush. "Occasionally trauma is best forgotten and it's easy to make people forget. The risk was in having you lose memories Arwen didn't want you to lose."

"This is like a movie," Deidre rubbed her hand over her face sadly. "Do you do this to people? Remove their memories?"

"Recently a young woman was brought to us after being held for over a month as a prisoner by a serial rapist. Would you want to remember?"

Deidre paled, "no, f**k no."

"My field of expertise is neuropsychiatry. If I can replace a way to help any woman escape the trauma of such things, I'm going to do it." Psych-One was clear, "the risk in eradicating memory in a person such as yourself, who has had a traumatic brain injury as significant as you had a child, is increased. Arwen didn't want to risk you losing your mother's face."

She looked to Arwen sadly, "thanks. I think I'd rather remember being taken by a giant hairy man and Addy getting beaten than to forget mom."

"I will also be here to help you get through the trauma of all of this," Sabine said reassuringly. "You don't have to just deal with memories of big hairy Russians. I'll help you sort through this and help you deal with the loss of your friend too."

"Thanks Sabine," Deidre squeezed her hand back.

Deidre paused as if remembering something, "Addy, he was taunting the guy. He said his cousin punches harder than he did. He was talking about you, not one of his other cousins, but you, Jesse."

Jesse gave a one-shouldered shrug, "I do hit hard."

She made a face then at Arwen, "he also said something about a maple paddle on his girlfriend's a*s. Can we work on removing that from my memories?"

They all laughed at her question and Sabine promised to devote an entire session to just this.

"I do want to reassure you of one thing," Psych-One spoke directly to Deidre, "what happened last night was a fluke. You are not in danger now. You will never be in danger again. You might not see us, or you might not think we're watching, but we are. You are safe, Deidre." Deidre stared at her hands, "if it happened once."

"We never make the same mistakes twice, Deidre." Jesse spoke bluntly. "This will never happen again."

"Deidre, you will never have to look over your shoulder because we're at your back. Always at your back," Sabine promised as she rose from the seat. "If you think you see movement in the shadows, it's us."

Deidre gave a giggle at her words.

"We're going to let you rest now." Psych-One nodded. "It was nice to meet you in person Deidre. Get well soon." She led Jesse and Sabine out the door and then closed it with a resounding click.

Arwen studied her cousin who was intently staring at the hospital blanket. "What are you thinking?"

"I'm thinking nobody addressed the elephant in the room."

"Which is?"

"Why I'm not supposed to be frightened of a giant hairy Russian anymore." She twisted her fingers, "nobody came right out and said it but I'm guessing he got killed?"

Arwen got up from her chair and moved to sit on Deidre's bedside. She reached out her fingers and stroked the pitted scars of her cheek. "Deidre, do you think I would let anyone take you from me and survive the night?" Deidre's eyes flicked to hers in surprise, "Arwen."

Arwen knew her eyes were cold and forced her voice to be hard, "there are things in this world I will never apologize for. This is one of them."

"I thought maybe Addy..." her voice trailed off in disbelief.

"Addy had his fun," Arwen watched as Deidre blinked, "but the minute the man put you in the situation you were in, every single one of my closest friends knew my bullet was going through his head."

"Didn't it bother you?" Deidre's voice was so low the question was barely audible.

"No. I had an angel and two devils on my shoulder while I pulled the trigger. I'm at peace with what I did, Dee. I need you to be as well." She knew Dee understood the reference to their parents.

"Did he really pay a million dollars to get a girl?"

"The girl's family owed him money. He knocked a million dollars off the debt on the agreement she lose her virginity to him and marry him, not necessarily in this order. She was meant to be his s*x slave. He told Addy if he didn't turn her over, he was taking you back to Russia with him in her place." Deidre's eyes were round and horrified and Arwen leaned forward and put her forehead to her cousin's, "I love you. I hope you're not too disappointed in me."

"Disappointed in you?" Deidre sniffled, "how much more could you prove you love me than to kill a guy because he kidnapped me. It's f*****g badass."

She wrapped her arms around her tightly, "I want you to try to rest for a bit. It'll be about an hour or so before the doctor fills out your discharge papers."

Deidre lay back in the bed and sighed, "I thought Addy would be by to see me."

Arwen frowned, "he said he would but truthfully, I haven't heard from him either. I know he was in a bit of a pickle with his own internal security stuff and maybe he's tied up with it."

"Maybe," Deidre said quietly.

"Rest now," she kissed her forehead gently. "I'm going to go make a couple of calls, but I'll be right outside the door."

"Okay."

Arwen slipped out of the room and felt the tension in her shoulders ebbing. This was not what she had expected for the day, but it couldn't have gone better. Now all she needed was to have a sit down with Cavallaro and call it a day.