Heels on tile.  Long strides.  

Click.  Click.

A determined pace, echoed by a triple threat of wing tipped shoes, the soft swishing of which might be the reminder that NOTHING of the family is spoken of outside of the family.  

Click.  Click.

Hands flex at her freshly healed waistline.  Her slacks rising high over her wounds bring her a greater comfort than her normal skirts and dresses.  It's a much more commanding look, similar to the suits worn by her bodyguards behind her - though she does not sport their signature fedora.

Click.  Click.

"I'm sorry Ms. Luciano, but your father is quite..."

Isabella pulled her gun from her purse and chambered a round in a smooth motion - the men behind her did not copy her motion, but watched the man at the door to see if he'd be dumb enough to point a gun at her.  It would not take a brilliant man to know, if they did, this would not end well.  Bodyguards didn't pull guns on made men, it just wasn't done, and if she was pulling a gun to see Lucky - it was of the utmost importance she get in and not be delayed.

She looked the bodyguard in the eyes sending all her pent up pain, frustration, and confusion of the day pouring down the carbon-steel barrel; a promise, not a threat.  "Ask him to make a minute for me.  It's urgent."

The bodyguard blinked.  "I assume that bullet isn't for your father?"  He said, his hand still near his own gun, not yet sure what to make of the situation aside from how fucking odd it was to have Isabella trying to bully her way into Salvatore's office.

"Get me in the room and you can take my gun if you want... but if you make me wait, and I'll step over your corpse to ask him for a minute myself.  I have no fucking time to play games, Junior, and neither does he."

Sal is in his office dealing with paperwork when he hears the commotion outside his door. He stops and listens... he can hear Isabella's voice talking to Junior who was on his door. 

"This cant end well," he says to himself. 

Sal had told Junior that he was busy and didn't want to be disturbed. 

Sal got up from his desk took a drink of his whiskey before turning to the door. He stopped and looked over at his bulletproof Vest. 

"Nah I shouldn't need that," he says unsure of himself. 

Walks over to the door and opens it up. 

"What the fuck is going on out here?" he says

Isabella let her gun roll around her trigger finger and offered the grip to Junior who took it and patted her down.  Isabella showed no sign of annoyance at this, just kept her eyes on her father while his man did his duty.  Tiny and Tim behaved as if this was another day at the office. Nails, the youngest and 'slowest' of Isabella's toughs looked like he wanted to break Junior in half for insinuating that his boss held Salvatore in anything but the highest regard.

As the pat down ended, Isabella did something she very rarely did with anyone who wasn't an immigrant... she spoke in their family's native tongue, "Devo parlare prima con mio padre ... e poi con il mio Don - entrambi sono questione di vita o di morte ... se hai un minuto da perdere?"  Her tone was as emotionless as she could make it but her eyes, her eyes smoldered with the promise of anything BUT emotionless discourse.

"Sì, sì, vieni. Che cosa è mia figlia" he says to her 

Sal closes the door behind her and walks with her to his desk. He did not know what his daughter needed. But he was sure it was important.  

Isabella walked in and held up a hand to make sure her guys stayed outside.  Of course, Tim and Tiny didn't need to be told but Nails... it helped the poor guy.  She shut the door behind her and turned to face her father who was on his way to the sofa in his office.

"We have said hardly two words to each other since I got back."  She said flatly.  "I figured that was because Marie must have told you about the extent of my injuries... I figured you might need time or maybe it was just that you were too damn busy to... whatever."  She shook her head and stepped towards him trying to keep her notorious Sicilian anger in check with her father.

"But you couldn't make time to tell me that the man I told you that I loved was possibly dying?!?"  She gave him a look that said how hurt she was.  "I bled for you... for this family... and the man I want to make a future with could be dead and no one fucking thought to tell me!?!"  A touch of anger entered her voice as she cursed.

"Why... why didn't you tell me?  Did you think with what happened to me that I couldn't handle it?  That it was too much?  Did you just... hope he'd be fine?!?  Please say something!"

"Because it was not my place to tell you. That is Elias's decision to make," he tells her straightly. 

Sal walks around and sits behind his desk and lights a cigarette. 

"So that is why I did not tell you." he says to her

"Now what was this other business that you needed to speak with me about?" he asks

Isabella exhaled loudly.  "You KNOW you would not okay with me keeping news of Marie's health from you, NO MATTER WHAT she wanted."  She crossed her arms in front of her breasts.  "If I LITERALLY did not have news that couldn't wait I would make you talk to me like your damn daughter but ... GAH!"

She reached into her purse and pulled out the mug shot of the man her father killed, the man who had shot her while she'd been having breakfast on his front porch.  She tossed it onto the desk.

"I have a guy on the inside, he got me a name.  William Banes.  Billy-Boy to his friends.  Fucker is a two bit no one, honestly I wouldn't have been able to tell you who the fuck he worked for and I make it my business to know this shit for you.  THAT'S how low on the totem pole he ranks.  The only thing of note about him is that this punk has done wet work before... in Black Bottom."  She knew dropping the turf of someone so powerful into the lap of her father would set him on edge, but this next part... well, she had no idea what he might do, so she prepared herself for anything. 

"Allegedly for the Godfather."  she steadied herself.  "Billy's mother is the Godfather's second cousin... and Billy-Boy is his Godson.  The Church records confirmed it.  I hate to say it... combined with the fact that the chaos-loving-mother-fucker Durden wanted us to look into the whole damn thing..." 

She watched her father's reaction carefully.  She didn't DARE say 'the Godfather was shooting at us - he wants you dead' ... no one said that.  Those words were treason, but her father had to be coming to the same conclusion she had.  The question was... what would he do about it?

Sal listened as his daughter spoke. When she was done he let what she dropped on him sink in. There was an old godfather in Detroit and Sal kicked up to him a piece of what he brought in. The man was half retired but it was a respect thing. Why would he want him dead? 

Sal mulled it over in his head... and the more he did it made sense and the more it made sense the more pissed he got. 

Sal stood up and grabbed his .45 off the desk and walked out of his office. 

"THAT STUPID OLD ASS MUTHER..." Sal yelled. 

Sal stormed out of his headquarters and jumped in his car. started it and hauled ass out of there. 

Isabella followed her father out of the room, knowing she couldn't keep pace if she was going to issue orders.  She had to let him go in order to be anywhere near ready to back him up. "YOU."  She pointed to Junior and turned to two other bodyguards who had appeared since she'd gone into the room.  "YOU and YOU.  ON ME."  She then began moving towards the door as fast as she could in heels.

Nails sprinted ahead to the car, exiting the house just behind Salvatore.  He fired up the car and pulled it up to the front steps just as Salvatore was peeling out of the drive.  "Shadow him!"  Isabella cried out as she lept into the passenger seat.  Her father's men hopped into their car and followed without further instruction.

Isabella lamented not having time to call in the whole damn crew, if her father was going to roll a Godfather he should come at the bastard with overwhelming force - did he REALLY think it would be easy?  If she could keep the Godfather's men off her father, maybe they stood a chance... he was just an old man after all...  

Isabella checked her guns and gave a thought to Elias and her last words to him... she prayed they wouldn't end up truly being her last. 

Sal pulled up to the restaurant the old man uses as his headquarters. He walked past the guards just like he always did and headed to the back, the private dining room where he knew the old man would be. The guard at the opening to the room looked at Sal as if to frisk him but sal just gave him a look that caused the man to back down. 

No one took Sal's gun ever and that man knew it from the first time they met and Sal broke his jaw. Walking up to the table the old man looks up at him and smiles. 

"Don Salva..." *BANG* the first round tears through the old man's shoulder. 

Shots ring out inside the restaurant. 

Izzy watched her father getting out of car from a distance.  Salvatore had gotten a good lead on them out the drive and they hadn't made up the difference thanks to the downtown traffic.  Taking off her heels, she muttered a quick prayer as they arrived at the restaurant. 

Already the men who let her dad in were now looking more alert.  Two cars full of men coming up behind a Don who entered like he had some place to be... well, that wouldn't take a genius to figure out.

Nope.  This situation would call for some carefully executed automotive diplomacy or she wasn't getting in that door fast enough to mean a damn to her old man.

"Run 'em down."  She said to Nails as they pulled in.

"Miss?"

"Run them... down."  She enunciated her words.  Luckily Nails' response was the right one and he gunned the accelerator.  Izzy braced herself for the impact and got down low as the men, who knew they were about to become victims of vehicular homicide, opened fire.  The sound of men being impacted with Motor City Steel and going under the tires wasn't something she was likely to forget all the days of her life, but she had no time to dwell on that now.

She was running into the building without a thought, gun fire erupted from all sides of her.  The bodyguards were returning fire and she wasn't getting an inch closer to that back room where her father was until these wise guys were cleared out.  The old dining room had become a warzone and the only relief was that they were so focused on her and the guys that they weren't racing to their Godfather's aide.

Izzy had to trust that her father had that matter well in hand because, short of a miracle or her father having a desire to make the man suffer; she wasn't going to be at his side fast enough for it to matter.  Her dad would either be Godfather when this was done, or they'd all be dead before dinner time.

Sal had taken a shot in the midsection... It hurt like hell but no time for dealing with it. Sal heard gunfire coming from outside the room.

"Izzy must have followed me..." He mutters to himself. 

A bullet buzzes past his head. "Fuck this shit," he says before standing up and starts firing and empties his clip into the old man's body. 

Sal reloads his pistol and heads out of the dinning room. He sees the old man's men shooting at his daughter and he sees read and unloads into the men. 

The firefight seems to take forever, but in truth it was a brief thing.  Bits of dry wall, paint and plaster float through the air creating a thick fog-like haze all around them.  Isabella peaks over the booth she was using for cover and spots her father in the doorway of the private dining room.  Unlike the bodyguards who remove their hats respectfully as they see Salvatore & the Godfather's corpse beyond him; Isabella races to her father's side, jumping over corpses to do so.  She wraps her arms around him in a tender and very ungangster-like embrace.

"You dumb ass..."  She says into his ear softly into his ear, kissing his cheek.  "Thank God you're alright."  She says kissing his other cheek.  It's only then she notes that he was grazed in the conflict.  "You really can't go anywhere without taking a damn bullet... I definitely know what I'm getting you for this Christmas."

She chuckles and looks past her father to see the dead man on the floor beyond.  "So..."  She says, the reality of it settling in upon her at last.  She lets Salvatore go and brushes some of the debris off his jacket.  A smile grows across her face and she is taken by the moment & the realization of what has just happened.  Isabella kneels down to take up her father's hand and kisses the back of it across his rings.  

"My life before yours, now and always, ..."  Her eyes were a glow with pride & dreams of what yet might come now that her father was the most powerful man in city.  "Godfather Luciano."