The sunlight was harsh as it beat down on everything in it's path.  No one was spared the searing caress of mid afternoon rays, from the old men on the corner who sat in rotting wicker chairs and winked at the women walking by, to the boys playing stick ball in the street who only interrupted their game when a car turned onto the street.  The person who was unhappiest about the sun, and having to stand in it, was a girl of sixteen, dressed in a private academy uniform and standing in the paltry shade of dying oak tree.  Her hair was a dark red, eyes a deep jade green and her skin, her skin was a milky white, peppered occasionally with freckles.

As a hot breeze kept pushing the sickly branches of the oak aside, the girl would have to move, trying to keep in the thin shade as much as possible.   She had been waiting for hours and as inviting as the striped canvas awnings of the deli and soda shop across the street appeared, she had been given strict instructions to stay behind the wrought iron gates on her preparatory academy and wait for Louis, her driver. 

With a look of misery she finally sank to the dirt around the tree and sat down.  According to golden watch she had gotten for her twelfth birthday Louis was now two and a half hours late.  Since she was only attending half days during the summer she had hoped it was merely a misunderstanding.  But after everyone else had been picked up and the last instructor left, a growing feeling of dread made her wish she hadn't had so many cookies at lunch. 

Her stomach flipped again when she heard the screech of tires as a car came careening around the corner and swerved, narrowly avoiding two of the stick ball players.  As she got to her feet she saw the car was actually a truck.  And the person driving it was not her driver Louis, but her mother,  Marietta.   

"Naomi! Get in!" 

The passenger side door flew open before the truck came to a full stop and Naomi tried not to vomit, the look on her mother's face was so intense.  

"Mom?" was all she managed to say as Marietta stepped on the gas and took off down the street.

"Just be quiet right now Naomi, I need to concentrate." 

Naomi nodded and found herself clutching her book bag so tight her knuckes grew white beneath the sunburn.  What was going on?  And what had happened to Louis?  She swallowed a mouthful of foamy spit and tried to keep her eyes off of her mother's intense face and fury filled eyes.

The inside of her lip was beginning to spot with blood and erupt in pain. Perhaps she had been chewing the inside of her mouth harder than she thought. Sure, Marietta Rossi may have been the Godmother of Detroit, but she certainly was also a human; a woman. A woman who, especially at this particular moment in time, succumbed to stresses just like any other. And boy, what a stressful fucking ordeal this was.

Her blonde hair began to fall loose from it's bun on the back of her head, obscuring her view as she drove recklessly down the street, away from the private academy. Irritated she brushed it out of her eyes and let out a sigh. Perfect. Just perfect. This day had, of course, started out just like any other. Business meetings, contracts, building plans. Yet, for whatever reason, this pesky rival gang who seemed insistent on having her killed kept cropping up out of the blue, in the most unexpected places. Today it had been at her legitimate business front- Rossi and Co. Clothing Distributors. She had exited the front door per usual when the loud gunfire erupted. Louis, Naomi's usual driver, had become one of the unfortunate victims in the onslaught.

"Thank God Pedro was there," she muttered to herself. And it was true; the Consigliere had been down the street when he witnessed the fray. He had come running, shouting at her to take his truck and go. She knew her first priority was to make sure that everyone was safe from this unknown ragtag band of mobsters- and that included the young, sixteen year old Naomi. So as fast as she could she had arrived, and now here they were. As she took a sharp right hand turn that threw both her and Naomi's back into their seats with a jolt, the spot in her shoulder where she had been shot ached- reminding her furiously of her last encounter with the same crew.

A new wave of anger welled up inside her as she stepped harder on the gas; careful enough to speed and making sure that she wasn't going fast enough to attract any unwanted police attention. The road grew bumpy underneath Pedro's truck, and feeling the jostle she turned her head a fraction of an inch towards the young girl beside her.

"You hanging on tight, honey?" she asked, her green eyes darting over to see Naomi clutching onto her book bag and the seat. Good enough for her.

She felt a momentary hesitation as she navigated the street signs around her. They needed to make it to Edward's apartment, which would be acting as their safe house until they figured everything out. Yet how to get there from here? A scared squeak echoed from the passenger seat, and Marietta looked over towards Naomi. The scared shitless expression etched upon the young girl's face was enough to melt her heart. Softening for just a moment, she took one hand off the steering wheel and placed it lovingly upon the red-head's knee.

"I'm sorry sweetheart. I've just had a very bad morning. I'm sorry to be taking it out on you," she lied through her teeth. "I figured it would do me some good to come and pick you up. Maybe we can go visit Uncle Edward and have dinner with him and Willie? Does that sound fun?"

When she had, several years ago, decided to take this young orphan into her life and adopt her as her own daughter, the one thing she had always vowed was that Naomi would never, ever, know anything about 'the business'. The poor thing had been through enough tragedy in her short ten years when her path had crossed with Marietta's. As always, the older woman felt bound to protect the helpless girl. Or die trying. And at this moment in time, that was a very scary and real possibility.

However, she knew that, at whatever cost, Naomi was too fragile to know the true intentions behind her sudden desire to pick up her daughter from school.

"So, how was school?" she attempted to ask casually, keeping the murderous rage she was feeling from shaking her voice. Marietta took the next left hand turn without stopping; she could almost swear that, as the tires screeched and squealed, they had only been driving on two wheels for a moment.

Naomi's mind wasn't wandering, it was spinning.  The furious tremor in her mother's voice kept her from believing it had just been a bad day and the speed she maintained did little to help the illusion that she and Naomi were just going to Uncle Edward's for dinner. 

She could feel a familiar terror creep into her throat and begin to choke her but with a hard swallow she opened her mouth and stammered-

"S-school was boring."  She wasn't sure boring was the right word.  Latin was a little dull but she often found it interesting how she could tie her native German and her adopted English together in so many ways.  

"Are Jews the reason Europe is at war?" she blurted out.   She actually hadn't planned on asking that, ever.  With the economic crisis in America, very few people wanted to talk about the escalating conflict overseas.  But for the last week her economics teacher had been blaming the European Jews for the unstable economy Eastern Europe and Naomi felt familiar bands of panic tighten around her heart when he spoke. 

For a moment the anger drained from her mother's face and was replaced by something that closely resembled shock.  Naomi snugged herself closer to the door and gripped the handle as tightly as she could.

"I-it's ok Mo-Marietta. You don't have to answer."  Naomi winced as the older woman smacked her hand on the steering wheel and took another hard left.

The shock that she felt was enough to snap her out of the rage she was feeling over the entire tangled situation. Yet, though she wanted nothing more than to pull over and hug Naomi, Marietta knew she had to keep going.

And so she continued driving for safety. It was often a hard balancing; finding ways to keep the young girl- her daughter- safe, while trying to keep the anonymity of the underworld. The girl possibly couldn't know at any cost. A fragile being who was curious and smart and at this point the Godmother was sure she had figured everything out. Every single time, however, when it came down to the wire, the sweet and innocent- utterly naive girl- would come out with a statement like... that.

"Darling," she said, keeping her voice even as she took another wild right hand turn. She reached over and tugged gently on a strand of Naomi's gorgeous red hair, making a silly noise for comical effect.

"You call me mother, you hear? And Jews, or the Jewish faith, are not the entire reason Europe is at war. I wish I knew more. I wish I could tell you more."

She was horrible at this comforting thing she knew. Marietta was never a woman who looked at politics and war in other countries; especially not when she herself was involved in so many situations so close to home in her own business. Yet she knew it was a passion of the girl's, and she loved the girl in turn, so always did her best to make a concerted effort.

"Hey, you look at me."

Marietta glanced away from the road in front of her for a moment to lock eyes with the young girl.

"I don't know the cause of everything. I don't know the reason for everything. But don't you go around trying to pin all that destruction and war on something that is connected to you. What's happening over there is horrible. Despicable. But deep down, some people are animals and will look for a reason to start a war or a big to-do over anything. If people are telling you the Jews are to blame, they are wrong. In war, everyone contributes to the blame."

Taking a glance at the Street signs she began to find familiar areas. They had to be close to Edward's by now. Then she could park Naomi in the backroom with her homework and...

And what? Plan the murders of an entire syndicate while her daughter innocently lingered in the room beyond the closed door? Glancing at Naomi's face she shook her head and sighed. This caught the girl's attention.

"Some days, dear, my life is just too complicated to even fathom," she said as she glanced into the rear-view mirror. A sleek black car was coming around the corner, speeding right towards them.

It was ironic how her mother's words managed to calm her, even for a few moments.  Naomi knew that most of America was still reeling from the pain of the Great War and few people wanted to think about the struggles overseas when everything at home seemed so bleak.  But Naomi still had memories of Vienna, of her mother and father whispering in the dark and of the seemingly unending trip they made to America when she was only five.  And then, less than two years later they were both dead and Naomi had been rescued by the woman she now called mother. 

She swiveled her head to match the line of sight Marietta had from the rear view mirror and gasped as she saw the faces of the men in the car behind them.  With barely enough time to turn back around she threw her arms over her head as the other vehicle slammed into the back bumper of the truck.

"Oh mein Gott." was all she managed to whisper before they were rammed again and again. She coud hear her mother cursing in Italian and was glad she didn't know what she was saying.

"FU-haha- well, isn't this a prickly situation? Marietta asked with a falsely cheery tone.

Her eyes darted away from the rear-view mirror to look at Naomi briefly. And what a prickly situation it had become indeed. While it was normally a taxing feat to keep the world of crime away from the young girl, when it was blatantly interfering with her life like this, it was even harder to keep a situation light and friendly. Especially when things could be said. Gun could be drawn. Bullets could fly.

Heart hammering in her chest at the thought of Naomi being shot, she suddenly cried out in surprise. Once more her body jerked forward towards the steering wheel as they were rammed from behind by the blue sedan. With the car close enough to see who was in it, her green eyes glanced back towards the rear-view mirror, surveying the figures of the two men in the front seat of the car. One had dark hair, the other a fedora. They both had determined looks on their face; the driver's gaze was locked neatly on the back of Pedro's truck. He also was gripping his steering wheel with an intensity that frightened her.

These men were here to kill her, or certainly die trying.

Wrenching her eyes away from the man's crazed gaze she scrunched her eyebrows together and grit her teeth. Stepping on the gas she put a little distance between the two cars. She knew what she had to do, and it wasn't going to be easy to accomplish it while pretending nothing was going on for Naomi. And speaking of which...

Giving a high pitched, false laugh, Marietta glanced over towards the red-headed young girl.

"It seems as if these men don't know how to drive very well! Naomi, darling, I'm going to need you to hang on very tight to the car, okay? We need to get out of their way. I think they're driving while intoxicated."

The girl nodded back numbly, and hesitating a moment Marietta made sure that she was safely secure in her seat before trying her hand at the risky maneuver she had only seen Rourke do before.

"Chase me now, assholes," she hissed, wrenching the wheel to right and making a very sharp U-turn. The wheels made a squealing sound as they skid across the pavement, the body of the truck turning slowly before she lost brief control. In that moment, however, her car careened into a small, white picket fence; one of the marks of suburbia in the neighborhood that Edward lived in. The two men were flabbergasted at the move, slamming on their breaks.

"C'mon c'mon! We can't be stuck!" Marietta cried hitting the dashboard of the truck as she hit the gas once more, the car bumping over the fence and clear of the obstacle. Navigating the car out of the yard, she began to drive in the direction they had originally just come from. In the rear-view mirror she noticed the men were attempting to make a speedy turn around to regain momentum in the chase.

"Good luck, mother fuc-funny men," she said, taking a quick left turn and putting the gas pedal to the floor of the truck cab. She needed to put some serious distance between the two cars if she was going to make it to Edward's without the men catching up again.

Naomi scrunched down as far as she could get and tried to remember the words to the bedtime prayer her mother had taught her.  But the words wouldn't come.  Hot prickles of fear ran up her spine at Marietta's falsetto laugh and the girl tucked herself deeper into the seat right before her mother executed a turn so sharp it threw her sideways into the door.  She heard her mother mutter,

"Good luck, mother fuc-funny men."  and dared to look up again.  Her mother's face was pale and drawn into a look of fury and concentration, her right foot pressed hard onto the gas pedal.  Naomi looked out the window and saw a familiar hedge of trees coming up.

"Mama! Zere is Uncle Edvard's!"  She pointed, hoping her mother didn't zoom right past it.  She was so flustered by the car chase she hadn't even noticed her accent had crept back.  She hastily sat back down and grabbed the door in case her mother made another wild turn.

Alarmed at Naomi's sudden outburst and pointing, Marietta slammed on the brakes in front of Edward's modest home, attempting not to slam into the large bushes out front. Quickly turning the wheel she drove the car past the red brick house, studying the windows for any signs that her associate may be home. Winding around, she entered the empty backyard, full of nothing buy dying grass and a few weeds here and there.

Listening hard for signs of a motor approaching, she put the car into park and glanced around. It seemed as if everything was safe. They had officially lost those two men. For now, at least.

Turning to Naomi she forced a smile onto her face and clapped enthusiastically.

"Alright sweetheart. Grab your book bag. You're going to study while Uncle Edward and I make dinner and talk about a few things. Sounds fun, huh?"

Though she was faking the cheerful mannerisms for her daughter, deep inside she felt stressed and worried. Even... could she possibly admit a bit scared? Exiting Pedro's truck she slammed the door to the cab shut and waved for Naomi to follow. Crossing the desolate backyard she knocked on the back door of Edward Rossi's place, sighing heavily to herself.

Her day was far from over. A chilling feeling was creeping up her spine as she thought about the murderous gaze of the man driving the sedan. She could see it in his eyes, however brief of a time she had to examine them. The man was out for blood. But why? What was he after? Her death? Her wealth? And at what length would he go to get such a thing? Briefly she thought of everyone she knew and loved, dying one by one in the path of this crazed man. The thought was frightening.

Shuddering, and with a sinking sensation in her chest she looked over at Naomi, the young girl who had already suffered so much trauma in her lifetime. This was the last thing she needed. To be stalked by a man with a gun because her mother was involved in some unsavory forms of employment. Reaching out she pulled the young girl into a hug and sighed softly, wrapping her arms around her daughter's small frame.

"It's okay. Just a bad day is all," Marietta said, though she wasn't sure just who she was trying to console.

The back door squealed from dry joints as as Edward answered their knock. His mouth was open in surprise, but after taking one look at his Boss' face his expression quickly turned to one of shock and alarm.

"Edward," Marietta said flatly. "We need to talk."

To be continued...