deadlydelicacy | ☆BACKLOG☆ - Reborn and Bianchi history

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☆BACKLOG☆ - Reborn and Bianchi history

Who: Reborn and Bianchi
What: Their first real mission together
When: Two years before the start of the game. ☆BACKLOG☆
Where: A place a lot like New York

To say Bianchi was nervous would be an understatement. It did not help that she'd been paired with Reborn for this mission and was still trying to decide if it was a test or someone just didn't think she could handle it on her own. None of that was making things easier. And she was pretty sure Reborn remembered her little obsession with him from when she was twelve. Her eyes darted sideways for a moment, the dark fedora hard to see but the orange band blazing even in the dim light. There was no way she'd let on she was on edge. Reborn wouldn't treat her differently and she didn't want someone she had great respect for to think any less of her. It was her job to prove herself regardless of what this evening was about.

Both their heels clicked on the sidewalk as they moved toward the building their target was supposedly inside. The expensive black Ferragamo shoes Reborn wore had a hollower sound from the wider heel. And Bianchi's made that higher pitched, focused sound of a three inch stiletto. Her arm was curled lightly at his elbow and they certainly made a fine looking couple as they approached the gallery, the lights from the building throwing the shadows crossways to those cast by the streetlights outside. The cars passing by threw their own shadows making light dance around dizzyingly. As they grew closer, the bouncer at the door was visible. The show was invitation only but of course they didn't forget that detail, Reborn had the invitation in his jacket, Bianchi's clutch was obviously too small to carry it without having to fold the fine paper. Her eyes lifted up the tower of the building and she took note of the windows that were lit. Then let her gaze fall back to the building looking for other exits. "Looks like quite the party." She murmured, voice lazy more because of effort on her part than any real state of calm. Her hand was just a little tight against Reborn's elbow. Madonna it was like having your teacher by your side while you took the SATs.

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He can tell that Bianchi is nervous - it practically radiated from her. But she seemed to be handling it well, the nervous energy she felt translating to something a little more vibrant, more vital, which would serve her very well tonight. It probably didn't feel that way though. He is just as casual in his reply to her polite comment. "I'm sure it will be a very eventful night." He handed the invitation (not forged - what would be the point, when such things were easily obtained to those with the right resources? And such an added concern would be both unwanted and inefficient.) over to the bouncer with every mannerism of someone used to being obeyed, who had absolutely no reason to believe that he would be denied entrance - and so it proved, as the bouncer took the invitation without even examining it closely, bending his head slightly in polite acknowledgement and an appreciative once-over for the figure Bianchi made in her dress and heels.

Once inside, the party is in full swing, the sounds of conversation, of glasses clinking and people mingling, in an almost overwhelming din. When they check in, there are a few non-standard security types, particularly considering that this was an art exhibition, eyes alert behind dark glasses, stances aggressive. It is clear they are searching not just for thieves, but also for any hidden weapons. Scratch that, Reborn thought sardonically, any unsanctioned hidden weapons, noting that their gazes shifted elsewhere despite the crowd checking in, recognizing one or two peripherals to their mark that he knew would definitely be carrying.

He helped Bianchi with her coat, handing it to the person manning the check-in, trusting that she would leave nothing incriminating inside should they have to leave in a hurry (briefly wondering if, in fact, she'd decided to "borrow" a coat for the night; but he didn't judge other professionals on their methods if it didn't affect him), abandoning their coats. But if everything went as planned, that wouldn't be necessary.

If everything went exactly as planned. He smiled inwardly. When did they ever.

"Oh, a few," he remarked off-handedly, noting her careful observation with approval at her caution and a bit of amused disappointment that she had let him notice at all. "I wonder if you've seen any of Angelo's artwork before," he continued, slightly louder, leading her in the opposite direction, towards another set of artworks. "His style isn't to everyone's taste - his strokes are just a bit rushed - but it would be impossible to deny the overall charm of this effect. I especially enjoy his skill for the play of light and shade in fabric draping..." It was apropos of nothing, save for the fact that they were completely surrounded in enemy territory, meant to be incognito, and that it was much too early in the evening for her to use her particular skill in fulfilling their mission while maintaining anonymity.

Reborn acknowledged the man's glance with a little nod and hidden smile. This was going to be a very interesting night.

They run into the man a few times that night, making a lazy circuit of the room and the art in it, politely mingling, but not overly familiar or effusive. Exactly the sort of persona that would not attract undue and unwanted attention, or linger long in memory. But it is still almost two hours later, when the wine and champagne have been circulating freely under the supervision of the attentive servers with silver trays, the conversations a little louder, a little less inhibited, that Reborn touches Bianchi's arm, nodding towards their mark.

"Method of delivery?" He asked softly, his voice all but inaudible, the expression on his face completely at odds. "I ask out of professional curiosity, you understand."

"I only know your abilities by reputation," he murmured, pleased at her newfound poise. "I never assume if I can help it." He likewise snags his own champagne flute, holding it up to the light as if to admire the color. "Shall I find us a seat?" He is asking how long she needs in order to finish making the switch, and how much time her concoction needs to take effect. And whether or not they should stay to follow through.

"Don't enjoy yourself too much," he said with a faint smile, and made his way across the room, still holding his champagne flute, as if his attention were on something else.

Well, that was smoothly done. Reborn admires the figure Bianchi makes, graceful and girlishly effusive, getting close to the mark - who actually waves off his protective satellites - letting her talk to the artist while she pulls off her little sleight of hand...

But even so, his eyes track the room, and something is missing, or just slightly off enough to set off his instincts. He doesn't rush over, or do anything quite so obvious, but he does move into a position he'd scouted out before, reaching into his pocket for insurance.

Reborn shook his head, halting her from returning. With the slightest unnoticeable gesture, he motioned her towards the left of the room, far from the exit. He himself started walking nonchalantly but confidently towards the stairs leading to the upper gallery. Something else was going on here as his presence proved and he intended to find out exactly what it was.

"Interesting show she put on, don't you think?" is the first thing he hears when Reborn finally reaches the upper gallery. What he finds in the shadows is the man they'd run into earlier, peering through the telescopic sight of the silenced rifle in his hand, not even bothering to turn around and face him. "I hadn't seen the Poison Scorpion in action before this. Her reputation is well-deserved."

"What is the interest of the Palmadessa Family in this matter, Marco?" He asked softly, ignoring the little sallies about Bianchi. "You know quite well what this will turn into."

"Oh yes," he says, the slightest touch of a bitter smile on his face. "We do." Reborn ducked a moment before Marco sent an expertly thrown knife spinning over his shoulder, cutting his fingers on the sharpened edges when he caught it barehanded. But he didn't fight back, and Marco didn't do anything further. The silence stretches out between them, the tension surprisingly light.

"The best of messengers," Marco continued, "can contrive to do several things at once. One message delivered to an associate, and an apology." Then he gestures to the gun, turning to look at Reborn for the first time since their run-ins down in the gallery proper. "And one more to go." The expression on his face is resigned. "I'd suggest-"

But Reborn is already gone, walking swiftly down the stairs. They needed to leave. Now.

"Idiot," he said under his breath. "We're going to have to use another way. All three of them will be watched as soon as-" He doesn't blink, but he does go still, and then there is a clamor and commotion from the far side of the room. "I regret not being able to see the effects of your handiwork at their full potential," he said evenly, almost casually, a very real regret in his voice, but it is absolutely professional. "We'll have to stay it seems," he continued, as the screaming begins, "since our unsettled friend has cut off our routes by involving us in his little scheme." Beneath the near overwhelming noise, he detects the much quieter second bullet that Marco uses to complete his mission.

"Hardly," he replies in a reasoning sort of tone. "They'll ask more questions if we go upstairs." Marco was a thoroughgoing professional. "But, if they're looking for us..." He glanced at her, and took both her hands in his. "There are ways to avoid questioning." He looked the slightest bit rueful. "Just your luck that I joined you on this particular mission, isn't it?"

The sound of sirens is piercing, and far faster than should have been the case, but he had the feeling that local law enforcement had been watching this particular gathering, unofficially, so it was no wonder. But the sooner they came and went, the sooner they could finish this up, and the faster they could investigate exactly how and why an allied family had made such an idiotic move.

"Not quite like that," he murmured, but he led her forward, still holding her hands, his entire demeanor protective. There were already a few of the official law-enforcement personnel in the center of the room, asking questions in far too eager tones for people who supposedly had been dragged out late at night to investigate a party gone wrong.

Once they got within earshot, Reborn spoke, his voice strident and outraged, and completely unfamiliar. "I demand to know what the meaning of this is!"

The officer closest to them seemed to startle, glancing over at him with disapproval, the standard formulas at his lips, ready to detain the possible witness but Reborn wasn't finished. "Why weren't you officers here to protect us until after the shooting ended? Or do we not pay enough in taxes to deserve some measure of safety and protection?" He tightened his grip on Bianchi's hands. Around them, quite a few of the guests were echoing his sentiments.

Cooperation in the aftermath of a messy shooting was far more likely to raise suspicions. If someone had been all sweetness and light with the police...well, suspicion and paranoia were far more probable emotions in any case.

He had to hide a pleased grin at that. Bianchi was turning out to be quite the accomplice. But he'd expected as much from her, given her childhood potential. He stroked her back soothingly. "Officers," he said, modulating his tone somewhat, though still with some underlying hostility that wasn't at all difficult to fake. "I'd appreciate it if you could speed your investigations-"

He noted the detachment coming down the stairs excitedly to report the presence of the obvious murder weapon - and the body. The officers gave him a once over and dismissed him - he could tell the exact moment when they were written off, particularly in light of all the other guests who were now clamoring to be freed or demanding to know what had happened. He wouldn't recall them now. He turned away slightly - and then he heard a gun cocked right by his ear.

"Of course," he muttered, in Italian, "you choose now to cause trouble, Antonio Barelli."

"You saw him first, that makes him your friend," he countered, and nodded at her formally before he stepped back into the gun, his entire manner casual and utterly confident that he wouldn't shoot though his voice is soft to avoid drawing attention. He'd picked a good moment, he supposed, with the police distracted over the commotion and the reveal of a body and the murder weapon. "What happened to your signature, Tony?" He asked easily, as if merely politely curious. "This isn't exactly the best weapon for such close quarters..."

In a flash his hand comes up to the other hit man's wrist, immobilizing it and causing his fingers to slacken, his grip loose on the gun. Reborn twisted in the crowd, giving Bianchi room to observe and to take her own steps while he held Barelli's arm behind his back. "Drop it," he whispered in a voice of silken menace. "And tell me what you're doing here. Or," he tilted his head in Bianchi's direction, "I'm sure you recognize my lovely escort for the evening."

Reborn could feel his prisoner shiver as Bianchi touched him, the mixture of fear and unexpected excitement, but even so, he stayed still and silent, forcing his face to remain impassive even as Reborn shifted his grip on his twisted arm slightly (and painfully).

"I've always found it to be wisest to indulge a lady," he murmured in the other man's ear. "Are you sure you won't reconsider?"

When Barelli stayed silent even so, Reborn shrugged. "I think he's shy. Let's go somewhere a little more intimate," he said softly, glancing at Bianchi. "It would be irrational to expect a good conversation in all this crowd." There are only a few police officers left in this room, the "informal security" having disappeared at that first sign of law enforcement. And Reborn could already see some of his already identified contacts, including the lawyers from the various assembled families, speaking with them, demanding that everyone be released. But it would take a while for such things to get put through to the proper channels, and they didn't have the time, if his suspicions were correct. The knife in his pocket felt heavy, demanding for him to examine it more closely.

"Do you have anything with you that isn't quite so final, Bianchi?"

"Sometimes it pays to be charitable to the imbecilic," he quipped. "If you use the vecuronium we can possibly get him to a more...suitable location. I'd rather not try the other here, considering the...delicacy of the information he might be able to give us. What do you think?"

Reborn holds on to Barelli's body as the vecuronium takes effect, the neuromuscular blocking agent paralyzing him, causing him to lose his balance, expertly shifting his grip from restraint to support, until it looks as though he is trying to help the man. He let him slide to the floor, his expression seeming frantic, "Are you all right, sir?" His voice is completely uncharacteristic, and draws exactly the right kind of attention from their onlookers.

He takes a look at the people approaching them, and seems to relax very slightly. "That sounds like a good idea, thank you for your help, Mr...?" His voice trails off with uncertainty, but his eyes are coolly calculating. He recognizes their volunteer.

His demeanor changes entirely the moment the door is closed and locked, a small room tucked away that even the police would probably overlook. "Alessandro," he said coolly, referring to the man who'd helped them wrestle his attempted assassin into the room, "what is going on here." It is a question only in the most technical sense, as there is no hint of insecurity or confusion in his tone.

Well, Bianchi seemed to have things well in hand. He turned to the other hit man, who had been one of Marco's associates. Had been being the key phrase.

"Did Marco give it to you?" Alessandro asked, with no preamble. Reborn didn't look confused, but an instant later he had taken the knife from earlier out of his pocket.

"You mean this, I assume."

"What's in the knife, actually," he replied absently, long fingers examining it carefully, turning it over and over, until he makes a twisting sort of motion and he withdraws a slip of paper from the now revealed to be hollow hilt. It is a small sheet, and it takes him very little time to finish reading it, but his expression is absolutely cold as he rips it deliberately into pieces and glares at Alessandro. "Give me one good reason why I shouldn't kill you right now."

The other man shrugged, looking from Reborn's expression to Bianchi, and then to Barelli, completely tied up and paralyzed; the only nervous part about his expression is in his eyes, but he meets Reborn's gaze steadily. "Because we let you know it was going on."

"They knew," he said to Bianchi shortly, the slightest tone of disgust in his voice, "and decided to capitalize on our oh-so-convenient presence to divert attention - " He breaks off and looks at Barelli, glaring murderously at them even as he regains the use of his tongue. "Keep him quiet for me, Bianchi," he requested politely, and turned his attention back to Alessandro. "So our mutual friend," he says the word with heavy irony, "doesn't realize that he's playing into your little game just yet."

He nodded, eyes still fixed on Alessandro. "Yes, they knew that we would be called in for this job, and they've been waiting for quite a few years for an opportunity to...shall we say, consolidate some mutually held business interests?" He had the jargon down absolutely pat, the delicate language for something that was, quite simply, a hostile takeover. "But Marco owed me a little something, after all these years, and he and Alessandro have an...understanding." He glanced at Alessandro, who doesn't react with more than a slight slump of his shoulders. "So our target is dead twice over today, the two of us are set up to take the fall -"

Alessandro shrugged with a kind of desperate nonchalance. "Messy, I know," he said, with the slightest accent. "But we are not dealing with subtle people."

"- and our dear friend Tony here," Reborn continued, "would have been quite convenient if he'd managed to succeed in adding another layer of bafflement to the entire situation by offing me." A whimsical quirk of his mouth. "I wasn't exactly going to oblige."

Alessandro smiled to match Bianchi's glance, but it seemed slightly pained even so. "I am...constrained somewhat by other obligations, much as I hate to disappoint a lady," he replied, his voice lilting and musical, with some kind of unfamiliar accent.

Reborn frowns briefly and then his smile turns sardonic. "Oh, so I'm supposed to use the precious little information you've managed to smuggle to us to complete our already compromised job without incident, extricate my employer from a territorial war he has absolutely no interest or stake in, and still manage tread carefully among the little factions building up here?"

He tilted his hat down slightly, hiding a brief smirk. "Well, so long as you're asking for the impossible."

"First off, we need freedom of movement. I'll assume they were clean?" He asked Alessandro matter-of-factly, referring to the weapons that the police were sure to find in the room upstairs and on Marco's person upstairs.

"So was he," Alessandro nodded, confirming. Well, that was one small mercy at least, though he would have thought much the less of them if that hadn't been the case.

Outside the room, the police were still making their way through interviews with the witnesses, who no doubt gave suitably garbled renditions that possibly resembled the actual events very vaguely while the lawyers attempted to redeem their exorbitant fees by arguing for the release of any incidental (read: incompetent) mob members who had happened to be caught up in this investigation without managing to escape.

"What was Marco's back up?" He asked softly, glancing at his watch. "I know he didn't have only the one contingency in place." He nodded at Barelli's still, furious form.

"The building is insured quite heavily in case of fire - both accidental and arson," Alessandro replied.

"Oh, well, that's something, isn't it?"

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