3:45 PM
Los Angeles
December
6 six days before Christmas Day...
(TW: blood, violent scenes, gun violence,gore, and shooting!)
"What the hell did you call me for?", Parker gazed at his friend, curiously with a bright smile on his face.
"I thought we could go somewhere together", Leon replied, flatly. He wanted to look at the decorations for the Christmas tree that he got for his daughter, she was so excited seeing her dreams come true, and while he knows he shouldn't spoil her too much, he doesn't care at this point.
"What do you need anyways, huh?", Parker asked him, putting his hands inside his the pockets of his fur, warm coat.
"Christmas decorations", Parker nodded his head in response, he usually doesn't celebrate Christmas as people would do. But now that his daughter has grown, she's able to ask for what she wants, and that was a Christmas tree with decorations.
"So you not going to the Christmas party?", Leon scoffed at him blunty, he wants to spend time with his family, his only family.
"Fuck no, I'd like to rest and have a fatherly bond with my kid, how does that sound?", Leon told him, while walking to the holiday store.
Parker simply laughed, he snickered before staring over at Noel, who's been quiet for a while.
"And you? What are you gonna do?", Parker asked Leon's bodyguard, he stared at him back.
"I'm going to see my mother in Mexico, sir", Noel responded to him calmly.
"That's fun, well make sure this man doesn't do anything stupid, eh?"Parker asked Noel a request.
Noel gazed over at Leon, he nodded quietly in affirmation before they both went separated ways, Leon went inside the store, he could've just asked his servant to do this for him, but he wanted to go out somewhere all by himself.
"Noel, what Christmas lights should I get?", he asked his bodyguard, looking towards one of the boxes with the colorful lights.
He crouched down inspecting each box in front of his eyes, he checked they were the right measurements. After a while, he grabbed a couple of boxes of Christmas lights before looking at the decorations, they looked through the aisle, someone passed by them while Leon gently touched one of the decorations.
Noel stared at him closely, he crouched down beside him before his hand reached out to find a decoration of glistening, sparkly white dove. "This one looks good", he placed the tip of his finger towards it, Leon noticed the decoration, it was beautiful to his eyes, knowing he refers his daughter as his "sweet little dove".
"I think I'll get all of them...", he later grabbed a lot of decorations from different varieties, even the one Noel suggested.
He payed a good amount of money on what he got, but afterwards he left and moved around to look at the stores around him while carrying the heavy bags aroind his hands. He walked looking at every person with their family giggling and having fun, such a peaceful scenery.
As he passed down the street in the shopping center, he saw finally saw his friend, Parker, talking to someone whom he never thought he would bring along.
"Leon, my grandson, come on here!", the old man called out to him, he had a slickback, his hair was dark gray with blue, diamond eyes. He was wearing a long black coat with a black buttoned up shirt and blue pants.
"Adrik...", Leon blurted out, he wanted to turn around and leave the moment he saw him. "Come on, kid, feel the Christmas sprirt!", Adrik scolded him jokingly as he wrapped an arm around Leon's shoulder.
Leon sighed in frustration, he has a rocky, but maintained relationship with Adrik, his biological grandfather. Anya had raised him since she was 18, they lived in his grandfather's house at the time until he was a teenager. She moved away to an amazing house she could call her home.
Importantly, living with his grandfather was a chaotic mess, seeing drugs around him often as a kid, scolding everyday, getting beat up for making a single mistake, women coming in and out. He has seen everything as a kid, but somehow his grandfather did show huge amounts of love towards him.
"It's been 8 months since I last seen you, don't dissappear from us now. Look at how much you've grown", he ruffled his hair aggressively, Leon lowered his head as he pushed his arm away from him.
"Haha...still the same as always", Adrik chuckled joyfully, with a genuine smile.
Leon turned around to take his leave but suddenly a man with a black mask pointing a gun towards him tilts his head a little before raising his firearm to point at Adrik.
°~4:22 PM~°
Noel took out his firearm before he finally shot the man twice causing him to fall to the ground. The loud and deafening gunshots were heard from across and herds of people started to sprint and run for their lives.
"Hijo de su madre! Watch out!", Noel ran towards something on the ground, everyone else ran away from what it appeared to be a grenade, what the hell are they doing with bombs?!
Noel picked it up from the ground before rapidly throwing it back to where two other hooded men were standing behind some plants, it went off immediately causing them to blow up, deteriorating their bodies into pieces of flesh into the ground.
"WHAT THE HELL?!", Parker frowned in disbelief, he reloaded his gun before handing another one to Adrik.
"For your safety, mister Cashmere", he told him before looking as Leon dropped his bags before he pulled out his firearm as well.
Noel stepped backwards as he saw masked people in all black clothing appearing out of their hiding places, bringing their guns and rifles towards them.
"RUN!", Noel shouted at them before taking off, they all ran for their lives in a hurry.
A whole thunderstorm of gunshots were lunged towards them, miraculously dodging them all.
They ran through the streets as they shot the people chasing them like rabid dogs.
"Shit! I need to call Andrew for fuck's sake!", Leon hollered as his gunshots rang out like wildfire, three men fall down at once.
"Noel, cover me!", Leon pulled out his cellphone and dialed Andrew, the second- in command of his mafia group.
"Yes, sir Cashmere?", Leon saw two men going in front of them about to aim their guns at him.
His other hand pulled the trigger a few times before they were knocked out.
"I need back up NOW! GET EVERYONE IN HERE, WE MIGHT BE IN TROUBLE!", Leon told him the location before Andrew dashed through the door.
-"We're over there in 12 minutes!"
"It's too many! Get over here beforehand!"
"No, I can't! I'm sorry, Sir Cashmere!", Leon was absolutely flabbergasted, what does he mean by that?
"Please hold on until then!", Andrew advised him before hanging up, Leon cursed under his breath as he ran down looking for his vehicle.
Noel turned himself to kill another couple of people before running towards to his boss. "They're from EXCEED!", Noel blurted out, he sprinted towards the parking lot. What is EXCEED doing here? Before they could go any further, Alvarez suddenly pulled up in front of them with his black car.
°~4:37 PM~°
Leon got inside in the passenger seat without second thought, Noel went inside in the back seat.
Parker's car driver also went up to them in the car, him and Adrik jumped in inside before both of the cars dashed away into the scene.
Leon's phone started ringing, he answered it to see it was Andrew.
"We're almost there!", Leon almost rolled his eyes, he's not in danger anymore, so what's the point of sending people down to begin with?
"I don't need you anymore", Leon scowled angrily, he doesn't like waiting at all, to him it's just wasting his time.
"Alright, Sir Cashmere", Andrew simply responded before ending the call. Leon sighed in frustration, he leaned against the car seat before his head looked at the store, he dropped all of the bags he had in his hands, meaning he had no decorations for his Christmas tree, he was in rage.
°~4:51 PM~°
"
You forgot the stuff you bought?", Alvarez asked him confused, he nodded his head as a response.
"I fucking did! I just want to get out of this goddamn mess!", Leon hollered at top of his lungs before giving a hard punch aggresively on the dashboard.
They went quiet for a while before someone had a phone call and picked it up, Noel.
"Oye, vos, que puta esta pasando? Casi me matán esos cipotes mal criados!", he cursed at the caller in Spanish, Alvarez tried his best not to laugh.
"Mira, dile al señor que le agarre sus cosas. No me hice una puta pendeja del demonio para que le lleve estas putadas, eh? Por un poquito y me fuera dado un gran tiro, maje!", a girl called him in Spanish, their accents sounded as if they aren't from Mexico, how strange.
"What?", Noel was confused, how did she have Leon's Christmas bags? That was insane on her part.
"I have the bags!", the girl raised her voice through the phone enough for Leon to hear, his brain felt like it stopped working.
"I'm sorry for intervining, but what is she talking about?", Leon turned his head to look at Noel.
"She has...your bags", Noel stuttered, trying to figure how did she get the things in the first place.
"What?", Leon was so astounded, he frowned slightly.
"I have the bags, sir! Some of them were broken, but the rest are okay! The bags were really huge and heavy, so I dragged them to my car", Noel put the call on speaker, Alvarez was also shocked at the ordeal.
"I could deliver them to you somewhere", she suggested kindly, Leon looked up at Noel.
"It's fine if she would deliver them near my home", Alvarez looked at him, what if she exploits where he lives?
"Don't worry, Alvarez. I have the power of killing her anyways", the girl heard his remark, she surprisingly laughed.
"¿Que vivo que te salio el jefe, no?", Noel laughed softly, a bright smile appeared on his face.
Leon stared at his face while he smiled so happily, his wrinkles showing in the corner of his green eyes, it reminded him that people do have feelings, emotions. Noel is usually reserved, and really hard to engage on a conversation to have good laugh, so this is strange to him.
Leon turned around to look in the front of the car window, wondering how all of this happened.
°~5:12 PM~°
They parked outside of the corner of the street.
"That's her, Sir Cashmere...", Noel got off the car before opening the door, Leon stood up before staring.
A woman with light brown wavy hair and eyes appeared through the door, wearing a black jacket and skinny jeans. She opened the trunk of the car before getting all of the heavy, full bags of Christmas bags and showed it towards Leon.
As she walked towards him, she gave them to Leon, he grabbed them in his hands. "Thank you", Leon said, she stared over there towards Noel.
"Can I talk to him?", she asked him happily, Leon told her to go ahead. Alvarez hopped off the car when he turned it off, Leon and him saw as the woman ran towards Noel like a little kid before hugging him tightly. He lifted her up in his arms as he wrapped around her waist. He spinned one time before bringing her to the ground. She squealed joyfully, Noel laughed hysterically as they hugged each other again.
"Is this your girlfriend?", Alvarez asked, teasing. "He's my brother, it's been almost a year since I saw him. I missed you so much, pendejo. ", she responded as she rubbed his cheek softly.
"I have to go, but about Lianelle, she's trying to get a little girl's name for intel", she told Leon before waving towards Noel and blowing him a kiss.
She got up to the car before going away, Alvarez chuckled delightfully.
"What was she talking about?", Leon asked him,confused. "She told me about Lianelle, so I thought I had to share that with you", Noel explained to him.
"How does she know about Lianelle?", Noel stared at him, Leon immediately knew what he meant. "Fuck...", Leon mumbled under his breath, she works for EXCEED.
"She gets paid to give out intel from other groups, including from P.O.K.E.R. In this case, she's betraying her mafia group", Noel explained to him, he placed his hand on his pockets due to how cold it was outside.
"At least we can finally decorate, right?", Alvarez joked around, Leon punched his shoulder as a response.
They placed their stuff in the trunk of the car before driving off to his home.