Vince couldn't remember much of what had happened after he'd had his little "conversation" with Maria in the alleyway. He supposed he'd just sat there for a while. He could recall picking up a rock and tossing it at the metal doorway across the way. He could also recall the metallic clang that had erupted from that contact. What he couldn't remember, however, was how he had ended up back inside the large garage with a brother that he hated, a woman he wasn't sure about, Maria, and a crazy coked up lawyer.

"Wait, wait. Hold on! Simon, I can't understand you when you…what?!"

Vince awoke with a start, nearly toppling off the couch he had somehow gotten stretched out upon. Vercetti was across the dimly lit room, pacing back and forth as if he couldn't bear to stand still, a cellular phone pressed to his ear. Vince remained quiet for a moment, content to just watch and listen.

"They did what?! Jesus Christ…Okay. Don't move. I'll be right there." Vercetti calmly pressed the power button on the phone and patiently listened to the melodic chiming as the device turned off, and then promptly threw it to the ground, satisfied to watch it break into three or four pieces. He noticed at his little brother was watching him from the couch with a somewhat amused expression on his face.

Vercetti looked a little sheepish for a moment before turning. "Vince, look, I'm sorry for what happened earlier. It was stupid of me to jump to conclusions. I was wrong okay? I really need you on this, so if you're not going to help me then you'd better get up and cart your ass all the way back up to Liberty, because I can't afford to have you here otherwise. Understand?"

Vince rolled his eyes. He was mute, not stupid. He didn't need to have things spelled out for him. He stood up, ran a hand through his hair. He wanted to comment on the fact that a promise coming from Vercetti was just about as trustworthy as a cat setting a mouse trap and calling it a burlesque house. Then again, what else was he going to do to pass the time? Going back to Liberty would earn him some package boy gigs, maybe a few burn jobs, but nothing as intriguing as what had been going on here so far. So, why the hell not?

"You in?" Vercetti asked with a half hopeful, crooked smile.

Vince nodded. Yeah, sure, no big deal, right?

"Okay," Vercetti said. "This is what I need from you. We're going to go over to my print shop for a few minutes to check on Simon. Apparently, he's been worked over real well. Then, we're going to go on the hunt for these guys. That's where you come in. Come on." He led the way out to the alleyway where Vince had escaped to earlier, and then around a corner to an idling Sentinel. "Get in."

Vince barely had enough time to pull the door open before Vercetti gunned the accelerator and was off down the street. Vince, momentarily panicked, grabbed the top of the door and swung himself inside. He pulled the door shut and breathed a sigh. Sheesh, and they said he was inconsiderate with passengers in his car. He settled into to the passenger seat, turning his head to glance at Vercetti for a long moment before looking out the window and the landscape that was zipping by at an alarming rate.

He grabbed a map from the glove compartment and opened it. It spread about the length of his arm span, and Vercetti made an irritated noise as his brother hit him in the face. Vince's eyes scanned the large paper for a long time before he carefully folded it back up, having memorized a base knowledge of the entire city of Vice. He was quick like that. He settled back into his chair, satisfied.

Vercetti guided the car around a few bends in the road, darted through a narrow alleyway (which actually made Vince scoot over in his seat for fear of being scraped against the wall outside the door), and skidded to a rather violent halt outside what looked like an empty warehouse. Vince looked around for any signs of life, but there didn't seem to be any. The parking lot, prior to their entrance, had been desolate.

Vercetti exited the vehicle and slammed the door behind him, his eyes sweeping the area carefully to insure against unseen attackers. He then moved across the parking lot to a metal utility door tucked in the shadows on one side of the building. Vince followed him, and they filed inside, the heavy door swinging shut behind them. Vercetti turned.

"Stay here, okay? Try not to touch anything," Vercetti instructed before disappearing into a back room of the establishment.

Vince stared after him, feeling offended. Vercetti had said that as if Vince wasn't a grown man himself. He wasn't some little kid in a candy store. He knew what he should get into and what he shouldn't. At least, he knew that from his own set of morals. His code of conduct wouldn't seem particularly normal to just your average Joe on the street. That was for damn sure. He shook his head, his mouth forming a well concealed snarl. He suddenly wondered why he was helping Vercetti in the first place. He was beginning to feel like a tool locked in a shed…only to be brought out when he was needed the most.

He leaned against one of the printing machines, folding his arms across his chest. He reminded himself that he was doing a job, not just hanging about for Tommy Vercetti to bark orders at. There was resentment in the thought. He glanced at the printing presses, narrowing his eyes at the very real looking money being expelled on large sheets of paper. Well, whatever floats his boat.

Something about the old print shop reminded him of his father. It could have been the smell of flowing ink…or the sound of shuffling papers, but whatever it was, it brought him back to the old days. He could remember visiting the printing shop where his father held his third job. The place had smelled like year old newspapers, the raw stench of working men rising from warm bodies like heat. The continuous cranking of the machines and the permanent stamp of the words was a droning background noise. Vince had liked being in the print shop, especially because his father often got him out of school to "teach him the tools of the trade."

This print shop was certainly nicer than the one Vince had been to as a kid, but he didn't like it as much. There was too much resentment already floating about in the air. He couldn't put his finger on why, but the place was unsettling to him. There came the soft sounds of a conversation from the back room Vercetti had disappeared into, and after a moment, Vercetti emerged once again, this time supporting a much smaller man with gray hair and broken glasses. The old man limped along, his arm around Vercetti's shoulders as a crutch. Blood had dried and crusted in a thick river down the front of his face from a gash near his hairline. He looked pained as Vercetti helped him along, and Vince wondered just what it was that they were doing here.

"Simon," Vercetti said, gesturing with one hand, "this is my brother Vincent. He's going to be helping me out a little. Now why don't you do us a favor and let us know what happened here?" Vercetti winced inwardly. Had he really said that? That was something cops always said when they thought they knew but wanted it confirmed. Vercetti had echoed them, succeeding in sounding as if he was talking to a child.

Simon Kelly shrugged painfully. "I was checking on printer three when these six toughs with New York accents came in and started pushing things around. I was trying to tell them to stop, Tommy. I was really was. I like to keep things organized in this place. They asked me where the vault with all the asset money was, I told them I didn't know what they were talking about, and they beat the shit out of me. Then they went into the office. That's all I remember," he said, unwittingly falling into the role of witness.

"You see where they went?" Vercetti asked, feeling stupid. Of course he hadn't seen…

"No," Kelly answered without batting an eye. "I remember hearing something about the 'other places,' like this was only their first stop or something." He shrugged. "They look all the money out of the vault in the back, and not the fake stuff either. Seemed like they knew what they were doing."

"My other assets," Vercetti growled. He spun on Vince, nearly knocking Kelly over. Vince blinked, taking a step backwards, almost as if afraid that Vercetti would strike him again. Instead, the elder brother snapped his fingers, startling even Kelly, who up until this point had seemed unfazed. "No, no. They're screwing me over! The damn mob is fucking me up!"

"You mean that Forelli guy?" The question came from Kelly.

Vercetti nodded. "The bastard is trying to take me for all the money I got. He blames me for the damn raid on the coke deal that went down about a year ago. Now he's taxing me damn it! I can't believe this!" He pulled at his short hair for a moment before spinning around again, pointing at Kelly without saying anything. Then he looked at Vince.

"Okay. Okay. They're not going to stop at Print Works. As a matter of fact, they are probably halfway around the city by now. They probably paired off and went in separate directions. You know, to cover more ground. Vince, I want you to find these punks. Pick them up in places you know I own. The Malibu…you've been there…and the taxi company. You've been to both those places. Check them out. I need to pick some stuff up at the boat house. Then I'll wait at the ice cream shop. They couldn't have hit everywhere yet."

They moved out of the store together, Vercetti nodding his brother as a way of telling him to get going. He'd have to take care of Kelly, who still looked a little bewildered. Vince shrugged and moved away from the building, looking both ways down the streets as if he was afraid of being hit. Vercetti watched him, shaking his head as his kid brother apprehended a blue Sentinel from an elderly tourist couple. Vince had a reputation of being a "reckless" driver, and as he pounded the gas without bothering to properly feather the clutch, Vercetti could see why.

As Vince's car zoomed away like a rocket ship with the wrong coordinates, Vercetti turned to his own task at hand. He instructed Kelly to go into the back room and lie down, to take it easy while he got some work done, and promised that he'd return to assist him as soon as he could. He then climbed into his own car and sped off, leaving the sounds of his tires squealing to rise to the darkening sky. A storm was brewing.

Vince sped back to 8-Ball's garage, jumping out of the stolen car almost before it had a chance to cease movement. He bolted through the doors and rummaged through some of Vercetti's belongs before finding what he was looking for, a shot gun, which had been carefully hidden. He smiled and grabbed the extra pellets. Then he stood and ran back his car. He didn't have a lot of time to waste. Just as he pulled away from the garage, the sky broke and rain began to pour.

He decided it would be easiest to check out taxi company first. He shifted gears and wove his way through the slow moving traffic, squinting through the windshield. Visibility was very low, but it wouldn't slow him down. It never had. He simply turned on his windshield wipers as high as they could go and plowed forth. Other cars on the road puttered along as if they had all gained about seventy years, and Vince sped on past them. Thunder rolled around in the clouds, almost as if pathetic fallacy of Tommy Vercetti's waning patience.

He came up on Kaufman Cab Company from behind, still struggling to see. Much to his surprise, two men ran in front of his vehicle and he swerved this car to avoid hitting them. He silently fumed. Damn pedestrians thought they owned the whole damn road. It took a moment for Vince to regain his bearings, and it took another moment for him to realize that the men who had scampered into his path were now mounting a small scooter parked on the wrong side of the road. One of them was toting a large black briefcase. Vince stared at them.

Then, as if be second nature, he raised his hand, put the car into gear, and sped forth through the rain. At first, it looked as if Vince's renegade vehicle was going to zoom right on past, but this was not a scene one would see on a regular basis. Vincent Vercetti was not a fool. At the very last moment, he spun the wheel, jamming on the emergency break all in one fluid movement.

The car skidded and whipped around, fishtailing on the slippery surface of the road. The back end swiped the two men and their moped, knocking everything astray. The men fell, one falling under the wheel of Vince's still moving Sentinel. There was sickening crunch and Vince winced as the sound of bone cracking echoed up through the floor.

The other man, realizing what was going on, scrambled to his feet, half falling and half crawling to get to the briefcase that had been knocked from his grasp. Vince revved the engine, almost threatening to run the guy over. Where was he going to go? The scooter that had served as his only transportation had been destroyed. Vince shook his head. He grabbed the shotgun from the seat next to him and got out of the car, racking the slide.

The man turned to him, the expression of horror absolutely priceless as he met Vince's hard gaze. Forgetting all about the money he had collected from the cab company, he attempted to get far enough off the ground to run away. Vince watched him in silence. Pathetic.

Without a second thought, he raised the gun and fired, sending the man to a well-deserved death. Well, that was two of Forelli's henchmen down. Vince turned back to his idling car and wiped his free hand on his jacket. This proved to be a rather pointless motion, as he was soaked to the bone from the rain. Blood, diluted by water, began to pool at his feet, running in thick streams from the dead man in front of him. He shook his head. Some people were so stupid.

He stooped to pick up the briefcase before heading to the car. He skirted around more blood that seemed to coming from underneath the chassis, and got in. He gunned the car down the road. He had more vermin to find. Behind people who had witnessed the horrific slaughter stared after him in stunned silence. He'd be long gone before anyone had enough sense to call the authorities, and he knew it.

Normally, Vince had an impeccable knack for memorizing his surroundings, but Vice City was very different than Liberty. All of New York's cities were laid out on a bunch of interlocking streets, so if one were to look down on them, they would resemble a large grid. For Liberty, it was all a matter of knowing the way the grids worked on the three separate islands. Vice was spread out over two different islands like an octopus with way too many tentacles. As a result, Vince got lost.

This wasn't exactly what he was used to. He couldn't even get a good landmark. He drove around aimlessly, trying not to attract too much attention to himself, and for some reason, he couldn't help but feel insecure. He narrowed his eyes and let an irritated sigh. This was getting tiresome. His gaze slipped to one side and he blinked saw a man fall out of the window of one of the houses that lined the road. He blinked, then he made a face. Stupid crack houses. People couldn't even stay sane enough to distinguish the door from the window anymore.

He looked the other way, slowing the car to a halt, much to the annoyance of the woman in a minivan behind him. He ignored her angry shouts as he looked at the building to his right. Now, why did it seem like he should know this area? Had he seen it somewhere? Then it hit him. This was Vercetti's filming company! He was on Prawn Island. InterGlobal Films had been marked on the map. Vince nodded with the satisfaction of having finally figured out where he was.

He took a turn down the road and again ignored the woman in the minivan as she flicked him off. By pure stroke of luck, he spied a scooter parked in front of the gates of the company. It looked suspiciously like the one that the other two Forelli collectors had been riding. He marveled at this. And to think, he had been trying to get the Malibu club. He'd have missed them had he not gotten lost. He sat back in his seat, waiting for them to finish raiding the Vercetti owned establishment.

They appeared, taking no notice to the idling Sentinel with the bloody undercarriage. The rain still had yet to get it all off. It was really starting to come down now, and thunder continued to beat mercifully against the sky. Vince leaned over the steering wheel to get a better look at his next victims. They jumped on these little scooter and were about to take off when they noticed something was wrong.

Vince flicked on the headlights again, sending shaking beams of light out to them, highlighting the rain. They stared at the light, stuck like a deer in a hunter's gaze. Vince revved the engine of the car, almost daring them to scamper off like scared rabbits. They took his invitation and started the engine of the scooter.

Almost unnaturally quickly, Vince was upon them. He stepped out of the car just as the driver henchman had managed to get the scooter running. He brought up the shotgun and fired, the spray of the pellets hitting both men. The one closet to Vince, who had been clutching the black brief case full of money from the film company, met a very untimely end almost immediately. Vince took a step back as blood sprayed on this clothing.

The other man proved to have a bit more life in him. He floundered around on the ground like beached fish for a moment before turning over, giving Vince a blood filled grin. Vince raised an eyebrow. He bent down and pried the briefcase from the dead henchman's hands, wondering if, for comic detail, should walk over and beat the other guy to death with it. These expensive Italian briefcases had sharp corners. He should know. Maria had once caught him in the eye with one, and he had felt as if he was going to go blind.

The thought was quickly fleeting, but in the midst of his inner inquiries, he had lowered his guard. The dying man on the grass beside him seized this momentary lapse and pulled a small hand gun from somewhere in his clothing. He fires once before Vince realized the mistake he had made.

The shot spun him, and before he could fully comprehend what was going on, he was on the ground. The wet grass began soaking into his already drenched cargo pants. He released the breath he had been holding. Wow. That hurt. His whole body hurt. He struggled to sit up. He got to the point where he was balancing his elbow and moved his other hand to feel out what had happened. The henchman's bullet had hit him square in the stomach, but it had been halted by the bullet proof vest he didn't remember putting on. He supposed Maria had gotten him to wear it "just in case" sometime in between sitting in the alley and waking up to Vercetti's furious ranting on the phone. His belly hurt from the impact, but the vest had saved his life. Again. He slowly got to his feet, gingerly rubbing his midsection before standing fully erect. He them stooped down, picked up his fallen weapon, held it steady and fired. The man died.

Vince spun on his heel and grabbed the briefcase yet again. He threw it angrily into the back seat and climbed into his car. Yeah, he was going to have a bruise there tomorrow. He sighed, put the car back in gear and started his drive back to his rendezvous point with Vercetti. He had said the boat house, right?

Vince pulled up to the Folded Tactics Boatyard a little over fifteen minutes later and got out of the car. He could hear someone banging on something inside as he closed the door. He shoved his hands into his pockets and went around to the rear entrance, peering inside. There were two teenaged kids sitting in one of the large Catalina 22's hanging from the ceiling. Vince found this slightly odd, as they were leaning over the side, staring eagerly at something that was out of his line of vision.

"Damn it!"

Vince smirked, recognizing Vercetti's voice.

"Try tightening that's bolt, dude," one of the teens offered.

"Shut up, Jayson. I am fully capable of – Oh. Thanks," Vercetti's voice answered. A moment and a few dry rip cord pulls later, the sounds of a chainsaw filled the boat house. Vince stepped inside, his hands still in his pockets. Now, there was interesting development. Was Vercetti going to go all woodsman on him now? Vince turned around, still holding the running chainsaw. Vince stayed a safe distance away.

"Hey Junior," Vercetti greeted, "did you get that business we talked about all sorted out?"

Vince nodded and cocked a thumb over his shoulder as a signal to tell Vercetti that all the money was in the car. Vercetti nodded. "Good, good. Well, There's only one pair left then. If you hit two of them, the others are going to have to stop by just about everywhere the now dead ones didn't. I'm going to the ice cream shop to check if anyone's been bothering them."

Vince looked at the chainsaw and then back at Vercetti, his eyes asking the question.

Vercetti looked at the chainsaw too as if seeing it for the first time. He switched it off and laughed a little. "Oh yeah, this. Well, I figured since I know you'd have my shotgun, I'd get a little more creative. When I stopped by here to it up, it was a little broken. Too much…er…work last time I used it. So I was trying to fix it. I guess it works now."

Vince nodded in agreement.

"Okay. Well, do me a favor. Head back to Print Works and pick up Simon. Then meet me back at Cherry Poppers. You remember where that is? It's right up the road from here. I'm going to call Mercedes and Rosenberg and tell them to head over my place on Starfish Island. I think the cops have given up on watching the place. If these guys don't report in soon, there's no doubt that old Sonny Forelli himself is going to come looking for me."

Again, Vince nodded and turned to head out the door. Good, maybe finally he'd get some action around here.

A/N: All right guys, I'm back. I'm sorry that I left this story for a long time. In fact, I haven't been on the in quite a while. I've been having family problems as well as problems with my own personal health, but I think it's getting better now. I'll try not to neglect you all so much. Anyway, this chapter is sort of weird because I started writing it about two months and I was having difficulties figuring out where I had been going with it. I'll answer questions in review or by AIM. My name is on my profile page. I accept flame, but please make it comprehensible. I don't want, "man you sux0rz, dude! Yer stori is not da bomb!" If you hate the story enough to make comment, please explain yourself and use proper English. Anyways, enjoy guys.

- Maverick