Knock. Knock. Knock. The furious rasps on the wooden door shake Luca awake, leaving him to rub his eyes in confusion before getting out of "bed". Bed of course being a generalization for the patch of unstained carpet that he conveniently passed out on the night prior. Struggling to keep his puffy, bloodshot eyes open, he stumbles to the front door and with a shaky hand, turns the knob and opens it.

"Took you long enough," a familiar voice said as the door swung open. Maria. She steps into the apartment, taking a sniff of the air and immediately gagging. "What the hell is that?"

"Uncleaned vomit mixed with unhealthy levels of apathy." Falling backward and catching himself on the wall, Luca cracks a smile much to the annoyance of his guest. She takes a couple more steps into the house, leaving the door wide open behind her. Scanning around the small main room, she shakes her in disappointment before turning back around.

"Ugh, I can't stay in here much longer. This abomination should be condemned!"

"Oh, calm down," Luca said, head drooping to one side.

"No, I will not calm down! How you can live in this rat hole is beyond me! Just, clean yourself up and meet me outside. I think I'm going to vomit..." With no other words, she walks through the open door once more, closing it behind her. Pushing away from the wall, Luca sighs and makes his way to the bathroom.

After a five minute shower and the subsequent joy of picking out clothes, Luca's officially cleaned up and ready to meet with his new employers, for lack of a better term. Stepping out of the bathroom, he pats both of his pockets before stopping dead in his tracks. A look of revelation flashes across his face and he runs past the perpetually vomit stained living room into the seldom used bedroom. A single blanket and a couple of pillows rested atop the bed, but were scattered by Luca in a frantic dash. Once the blanket was strewn across the floor, and the pillows out of view, did Luca find what he was looking for.

His trusty pistol, and the very same jacket that he had worn on the long walk to the church that ended up going nowhere faster than a Sid Feder return. Slipping the latter object on, and sliding the former into his back pocket, he makes his way out the door without bothering to lock it up. Light, frigid gusts nip at his face as he walks against the wind to a navy blue Chevy Equinox, his ride.

Halfway through the trek, unzips the breast pocket of the jacket and slides out an envelope, white with a red/orange smudge on the left side, which he covered with his thumb as the SUV sprung into motion near where he was now standing. Motionless. A name, scrawled in the center in black ink caught his eye.

Natalya.

A honk. Luca brings his eyes up from the letter's carrying case to see the front end of the moving vehicle pass by his face. Maria calls out from her rolled down window: "Come on, move it!"

Shaking his head, he slides the envelope back into his jacket and gets into the back seat of the car. Pulling the door shut, he turns his head to the left and makes eye contact with yet another of the unnamed pawns in Maria's army. He leans back in his seat, letting out a sigh while only one thought crosses his mind: "What the fuck did I just get myself into?"

***

The sound of a cell phone vibrating on the surface of a solid oak desk rips through the facade of silence in this darkened office. Swiveling around to face the desk, a man covered by a sheet of shadow reaches out and slams his palm down atop the facedown communication device. Turning it over, he presses the illuminated green button.

"Yes?" the man asks, voice masked with several different vocal pattern distorters, to the point of appearing more cybernetic than human. He taps on the desk, formulating an awkward, off beat rhythm awaiting the voice on the other end to respond.

"Sir? We found Arzegotti," the voice responds shakily.

"Good, very good. Bring up his current location on the screen, if you will.

"Very well sir." Just like that, the screen behind the chair, where the man had been facing prior comes to life in a flash of color that fades into a superimposed map of Los Angeles, wherein a red dot flashes in the area marked "Compton". He turns around in chair to face the screen, pointing at the flash of light.

"Is it safe to assume that he's still within this area?"

"Yes, although he won't be for too much longer, at the rate he's going."

"Assemble a team, and send them to Briefing Room Six, as soon as possible. I don't want us to miss this opportunity."

"Sir? There's a snag in this situation..."

"Well? Out with it you whelp, before I slice out your tongue myself."

"He isn't exactly alone..."

"At this point, that fact is meaningless to me."

"But-"

"But nothing, you heard your orders. Bring a team to me in the next hour. Briefing Room-"

"Six, yeah yeah, I know."

"Never interrupt me." The man presses the glowing red button and ends the call. Without turning back to the desk, he reaches behind him and lays the phone where it had rested prior. Rising from his seat, he lumbers across the room to the door. Opening it, he steps into the sterile, artificial light of the underground complex.

A masked face.

"Finally, the plan comes together," he mutters under his breath, and begins his walk down the halls to get to Briefing Room Six. This matter was much too important to not plan in person.

***

"You really think this Arzegotti kid is worth anything?" I asked; my abnormally apparent Ukrainian accent strained under the effort of keeping up with my comrades. I had been a little lackadaisical, and now I was paying for that, struggling to keep up with the others as they raced down the hall. Hearing my voice from such a distance (not outrageously far, just a few feet back) the rest of the group slows to a stop momentarily to let me catch up. Making it into the semicircle, I rapidly slow down to a jog, almost falling forward in my own momentum fueled lurch. Breathlessness kicks in and I start to pant a little while sticking in close to the center of the group, as to not repeat what I just did.

"The boss does, and at the end of the day; isn't that what matters most around here?" the cold, flat voice of Aaron Goldblum, my unwilling superior responds with a question of his own. God, I don't trust that motherfucker. Someone that dead behind the eyes obviously has something to hide.

Then again, I think we all have at least one thing to hide from each other.

"Come on, Roman! What the fuck were you running from?" Ah, Archie Lawson. New guy. Somehow, he knows the prick we're supposed to be going after.

"Your frighteningly poor grasp on your own language: you don't end sentences with a preposition."

"Let me rephrase it then, what the fuck were you running from, bitch?"

"Very classy, asshole."

"I try."

Finally, we make it to the room. Briefing Room Six, to be exact. Goldblum steps out in front of the pack, into the scanner's range. Red beams shine on him momentarily, before the door opens, accompanied by some generically chosen "Welcome" phrase.

We all step in after him, the large screen in the back of the room showing a picture of a large, white house partially covered by a shadow.

"Team Seven, I presume?"

"Yes, sir."

"Good. I was beginning to think The Organizer failed me."

"You of all people should know, that I would never do that." Stepping into the room at that very time, was none other than the mysterious figure known simply as - The Organizer.

Cue dramatic music.