Henry was a stubborn man, and it took Amira getting all the way to the pinky of his right hand before he realized that this crazy broad really was going to keep carving out his fingernails until he talked. At that point, he started singing like a bird. Amira listened and committed each detail to memory- from the address of his packaging location to the street names of the people he sold to.

When she had enough information to go on, Amira stood and used the stiletto to cut the electrical tape from Henry's wrists and ankles, and crumpled them into a ball as she walked away. The pale, shaking man looked at her, confused. 

"You-you're letting me go?" 

Amira just shrugged and tossed the tape into a small waste basket.

"I got what I needed from you, and you really couldn't be stupid enough to try that again. Not that this organization would work with you again anyway. You're washed up with us, and that means you are going to be black listed with the rest of the families we are aligned with. You've fucked yourself, Henry. I don't need to kill you..."

The man struggled to his feet, wobbling slightly, then turned to start making for the plastic flaps leading to the dark tunnel out. 

"...but I will."

When he crossed the grated drain in the floor, Amira pounced like a leopard; a black curved blade gripped in each palm. Henry heard the whoosh of air behind him and naturally turned around to look. As soon as he did, one of the blades came down diagonally from the right and slashed him from the collarbone to just below the opposite pectoral muscle. He hunched forward, unable to draw in the air to scream, and as he did, her second blade made a hooked slice into his right side, puncturing his liver before she pulled it back through. They were two quick, gruesome cuts, and the soon-to-be dead man dropped like a sack of wet cement to the floor over the drain. 

A few moments later, Amira opened the door as she slid her blades back into their spot. She found William posted there, waiting as if he was just waiting for the bus. She gave a pleasant smile.

"Oh, hello there. All done with that. Don't worry about in there- not your job to clean up. There are people for that. We have other work to do. I have the location of Henry's packaging facility and three buyers. We're going to find out what Uncle Joe wants done with them."

She glanced down at her clothes. The black was done purposefully, to make hiding certain stains easier, but she would need to change first.

"A bit more excitement for your first day than I was expecting, but I suppose it's better to jump right in."

They reached the elevator bank and she punched the button.

"I could have some lunch, too."

Willie nodded to the woman as he stepped in to the elevator. "I think I'm alright for now. Not overly hungry at the moment. Chalk it up to firt time jitters." He waved as non-chalantly as he could in the direction from which they had just come.

"Who do I return these to?" He asked as he pulled the pistols from his jacket. "And are we ordering in, or am I taking you somewhere for lunch Miss Dayan?"

He didn't want to know what happened in that room of hers. Mor importantly, he didn't want to end up in that room of hers. Which meant, he was her shadow today, and then he was going to do everything in his power not to be close enough to be her shadow ever again. If she wanted things done, he'd do them, and he'd keep himself busy enough that he never had to show face either.

She waved and leaned back against the wall of the elevator as it lurched and started up.

"Hang onto them for now. If you find something you like better, you can drop them off in the armory. Otherwise, use them as you need to. I'll show you where the ammunition is kept later. I'll need to change before we see Uncle Joe."

They rode in silence the rest of the way, and when they elevator stopped and the doors parted with a 'ding,' they were back on the floor facing Amira's office doors. Jeannette appeared and gave Amira a smile, then stepped toward William.

"Hello, Mr. Butcher. I'm Jeanette! I've been assigned as your assistant. Would you like to follow me and I'll show you to your office?"

She had bright green eyes that looked as if she had never seen a rain cloud or dropped a scoop of ice cream from a cone onto the sidewalk. 

Amira smiled a bit and gave William a "see you in a while" kind of wave, then started for her office, yawning.

Willie nodded to Amira and then turned to Jeannette.

"It's nice to meet you Jeannetter, I'm Willie. In fron of anyone else Mister Butcher is fine to keep up professional appearances, but when it's just you and me, Willie will be fine."

He followed the young woman closely, not quite listening as she was explaining something to him. His mind was still wandering to other things, recent things, that were likely being cleaned up directly under their feet as she spoke.

"Do we have something to drink in the building anywhere?" He asked abruptly just as they reached his office door. He did notice that there was a blank nametag on the door. Not everything Amira had her hands on was perfect after all. Maintenance hadn't gotten his name yet clearly.

"Of course, sir! We can have anything you like brought in. Miss Dayan keeps three or four things on hand for herself and visitors. You can do the same, or just keep what you like in the office."

She opened the door to a spacious office, about 2/3 the size of Amira's. There was a large desk and upholstered desk chair, a coffee table, and a leather couch, a book shelf, and a file drawer. 

"It's a bit sparse right now, but it's just holding furniture that we keep for spare offices. You can order whatever you like and have it delivered. Now, what can I get you to drink? We have coffee that is just brewed, or several kinds of tea. There is beer and wine, and any spirits you want can bet sent for."

Jeannette blinked and narrowed her eyes a little.

"Mr. Butcher, is everything alright? If you don't like this office, we can find you a different one. There are plenty of others."

Willie shrugged.

"It's a bit big don't you think?"

He paced around the office to take everything in and then shook his head.

"Everything is fine, I just expected to have to work my way up to an office like this one day in the future, not start here. Where do you go from here but down?" He made his way to the window and looked outside and down at the streets below. Down was right.

"If you tell me where the coffee is I can get it myself. It's about time for a lunch break for you isn't it? You plan on going out somewhere? If not, you're welcome to use my office, I've got to take Miss Dayan somewhere in a little bit so I won't be using it."

He followed her to the door then. "As a matter of fact, you already know what the budget looks like, and I don't much care for how the office is. Why don't you have at it? Decorate it how you think it might look nice."

A funny smile grew on the young woman's face, but she nodded.

"I can take care of the office for you, sir, no worries. And if you do prefer to get your own coffee, there is a staff breakroom down the hallway to your right about four doors down; but eventually you will need me to get it for you. Once everything is in place here, it'll be busy. You will be busy. Don't feel bad asking me for things- it's my job, and I like it. It makes me feel like I'm helping."

Jeannette shrugged sweetly and then turned out the door. Only about three seconds later, there was a knock and another very different voice was followed by a head popping around the corner.

"Ah, Mr. Butcher, I see you've been given quarters. Excellent! How was your first run with the wolves?"

Garrett perched just inside the door, leaning against the frame. He was not wearing his suit jacket.

Willie shook his head.

"Not wonderful, but I think I managed to avoid the worst of it. She left a gift for someone else in the maintenance deck and spared me from having to clean it up."

He gestured toward a chair.

"Come in, have a seat." As he did, Willie made his way to the door. "Jeannette, you win, if you would be so kind as to bring us a couple of coffee's it would be appreciated." He closed the door and made his way to his desk, the only other chair in the office at the time. He would have to make sure Jeannette knew that he needed more chairs, a couch maybe.

"Survivor's guilt doc. How much do you know about it? More importantly, you recognize it when you see it right?" He asked as he took a seat.

Taking the offered seat, Garrett raised an eyebrow, keeping an eye on William.

"I'm quite familiar. And if you're referring to Amira, then yes, you've hit the proverbial nail on the head. But it goes much deeper than you may realize."

Settling back in the seat, he looked at his watch and gave a quiet whistle.

"You're really getting the full brunt of things today, aren't you? I'm assuming you've been filled in on the recent war in which she lost nearly every one of her previous coworkers- including her soon to be fiancé whom she brought into the mob world. And I told you briefly about her first partner who was killed protecting her during an operation that went south. Before that, her brother was shot in the head right in front of her; and before that, both her parents were killed while in another country, and she never saw anything of them again except for their bloodied personal belongings which were shipped home to her and her brother in a wooden crate."

Garrett steepled his fingers together thoughtfully.

"So, Amira practically lives in a constant state of survivors guilt. She has her Thorazine, and we work on therapeutic control measures; but then damnable things like this war happen, and they her delicate balance back to the darker side."

There was a knock, and then the door opened. Garrett's expression changed like a light switch to something pleasant as Jeanette brought in a tray of coffee and condiments, and both stayed quiet except for a polite thanks before she retreated and closed the door behind her.

"Now, none of that is to say that things like you saw down below don't happen every day in this business of theirs; it's just that Amira doesn't like firearms. She prefers to operate more 'up close and personal' so to speak."

Garrett reached for one of the cups of coffee and the sugar bowl. 

"But, before you go thinking that you've saddled up with a sociopath, you must know that Amira absolutely feels remorse. She wasn't always this woman. Before her psychotic break, she was a rather meek young woman, I'm told. Hard to believe looking at her now, but the sum of everything that she saw and the final straw that broke her is the woman you see now; but she mourns the woman she was before. The innocence she no longer has. But- in a way- she's trapped."

By the time he was done with the thought, he had dumped about six spoons of sugar into his coffee and moved onto the creamer. He looked back up to William with a somewhat gleeful grin.

"Fascinating stuff, isn't it?"

Willie nodded slowly as he listened and digested all of the information that was provided him a moment earlier.

"If you say so Doc. I just meant to bring it up in case you weren't aware. You're more informed than I am though so that's a good thing. I like that I think."

He reached down to grab the remaining coffee and took a sip without adding anything to it.

"You know, that's my first time dealing with..." He waved a hand toward the ground to indicate what he was talking about. "I thought about asking Jeannette to bring us something stronger. THen I took a look outside and I wondered how many people in my position would have turned to the bottle first."

He turned as he spoke, standing from the chair then and making his way back to the window, still holding the cup of coffee and sipping at it regularly.

"I wondered to myself, how many people in this city have problems. How many of them feel like they don't know how to cope, or how to deal with it, and they grab on to a bottle and they drink until it's not there anymore."

He shrugged.

"And then I realized very quickly that I don't want to be one of those people."

At this, Willie was close enough to the window that he could hear his own voice reflecting back at him, see himself in the almost mirror-like glaze of the window in the Ney York sunshine.

"So coffee instead. Coffee, and talking to someone about it to figure out how to not dive in to something I can't get back out of."

He didn't turn then, just took a deep breath.

"So Doc? Before I go out there and bring her to Ligambi and get into the shit with her. How do I keep myself from doing something stupid? How do other people cope with this kind of shit every day? How do people avoid becoming a sociopath? How do they stay sober during all of it?"

Now he turned.

"Because my only answer so far is to find some work that needs to be done and throw myself at is so goddamned hard that the only person who sees my face is Jeannette out there." He chuckled. "Glad she's cute too or else I'd end up resenting her for not being a pretty face. I know myself too well to know that if I had to come to work every day and see some normal fucks walking around I'd eventually want to go out to find a pretty face. Having one here will help keep me here."

Sipping his sugar-and-cream-with-a-bit-of-coffee, Garrett listened as William went through a grapple with himself that wasn't unfamiliar or unexpected. Dr. Mitchell had seen it more than a few times; so while the man before him paced and verbally worked his way through everything before him. When he finally came to the question that everyone reaches- though it's always different- Garrett put his coffee down and sat forward, resting his elbows on his knees.

"You're not going to like the answer I give you, Mr. Butcher, because it sounds far too simple for the level of complication that sits in your mind right now. Still, my answer remains the same."

He paused for a moment and looked William in the eye with a matter-of-fact stare.

"You simply choose to make it your life. You decide, here and now, that you can and will adapt to and master this new world you've stumbled into rather than let it confound and overpower you. Yes, what you have come into appears to be a wild and murderous jungle with psychopathic, power-hungry men who do things that you only read about in the papers. However that is only the perception you've lived with up to this point in your life; it is the story you've been told and that you've told yourself up to this exact point."

Garrett's expression became somewhat mischievous, as if he were about to reveal some kind of great secret, and he stood.

"See, that's the thing about perception- it's only the stories we tell ourselves; and stories can change. So, what if you change the story? Rather than standing in a big empty office wondering how you're going to cope with the big bad world of the mafia- you tell yourself, 'hot damn, I've just landed a job that is going to gain me a six figure income within six months, the kind of influence most men only dream of, the kind of friends that can be extremely beneficial, and a secretary with a heavenly set of tits. I wonder what's next?'"

Then, he gave a bit of a shrug and raised his eyebrows.

"Or, you can keep your current perceptions- keep looking over your shoulder at every turn. Trust no one, keep your eyes forward and only do what you have to do to survive and stay away from the 'monsters' around you. The risks are different, then, but you're staying in your perceived safe-zone."

He raised both of his hands, palms up, and moved them up and down slightly like a scale.

"All you have to do is choose what life you want to live."

Willie's eyes narrowed for a moment as Garrett got up and made his proclamation. He thought for a brief moment about the man before him, about his mannerisms, his dress, his ability to turn his emotions on a dime.

"I know what path you chose at least and you seem well enough off."

Still, Willie turned back toward the window. His thoughts wandered away from the room he was in to Brooklyn. It was an older life, one he might be happy to leave. It wasn't a good one, there really were no people left there to lean on, no family, very few friends. His head slowly turned to the right, and found hiz gaze lingering on Manhattan. A six figure income? A gorgeous secretary who stayed at the office and lived somewhere in Queens while he lived in Manhattan. He could have everything he read about in the papers, and all it took was keeping his wits about him and being quicker than the other guy?

"I might need to hit the gym a bit more Garrett." He finally said, the corners of his lips starting to perk every so slightly. It was the first time he felt hope in a little while, but here he was.

"Alright then, today begins a new story I suppose. The question is, where's my fucking pen?" He tapped his jacket where the pistol still sat. "Not sure I want this thing to be the key to all of it. There's a lot of other things we can do to avoid this part. Just because Amira got thrown to the wolves, doesn't mean we all have to. And like you said, she feels remorse, when she gives herself time to. But why? She's the boss, doesn't she have people better suited to doing that work than she would be?"

Once again, he was thinking out loud more than anything. He made his way to the door and shook his head.

"Doesn't matter, not my call to make, she deals with it how she does, I'll deal with it how I do right?" He turned back toward the doctor. "The boss was thinking about lunch, you want to come?"

He leaned out toward the hall.

"Jeanette, can you please let Miss Dayan know that the two of us will be in her office shortly to take her to lunch?" He stepped toward her desk. "And make sure to clear my schedule for lunch tomorrow, I need to take my new secretary out to get to know her."

He gave her a smile and then waved toward Garrett. "You comin' doc or am I gonna have to make excuses for you when the boss has to wait?"

With that he made his way toward Amira's office, with a sudden hunger in his belly, and not just for food.