Chapter One: The Deal
Invitations had gone out rather quickly. All of her living relatives-- Mom, Dad, Aunt Marianne, Uncle Harry and their three terrors-- along with a few close friends, such as Cynthia and her new beau, were all invited without a thought. She wondered minutely if Jackson would want to invite anyone, then quickly erased the thought from her mind. Even if he had any relatives, she was quite sure that they didn't know he existed anymore. Lisa signed the bottom of the invitation card with the RSVP just as Vivian began fussing in the highchair beside her.
"Shh, fussy-gums," Lisa said as she doled a spoonful of lukewarm oatmeal into the child's mouth. Vivian devoured the bite and giggled happily. The baby's black hair was longer now, growing at a steady rate. Today Lisa had pulled it into a ponytail topped with a red bow. "Do you think your Daddy will want to bring any of his shady friends to your birthday, Vivi?" The girl burbled, totally unaware of the noises coming from her mother's mouth. "I didn't think so," Lisa murmured, sealing the envelope and addressing it.
She pushed herself up from the table centered in the kitchen to head for the mailbox. As she passed the entry to the living room, she called over the sound of rustling pages.
"Jackson, please sit with Vivian while I mail these."
There was a grunt from the other room-- his sound of unwilling compliance. He set down his book and climbed from his armchair to vault into the kitchen. Lisa smiled to herself as she heard Jackson place a kiss on his daughter's head before she closed the door to her apartment.
She'd managed to domesticate him as much as she possibly could. He stayed for two, maybe three days at a time before disappearing during the night. But he stayed, and that was what counted to her. Vivian was the anchor that kept him in Lisa's harbor. The woman had hardly seen the softer side of Jackson Rippner, let alone the hints of compassion he was able to show the tiny girl. But his job was as present as ever. Lisa couldn't count how many times she had cleaned a cut, poured rubbing alcohol receiving a sharp hiss of pain. And his poor ear. He had told her the story eventually.
His enigmatic boss had given him orders to seek out the head of a rival syndicate and off him. Jackson was the best qualified and was sent in all haste. Of course the man was dead. But he didn't go down without taking a bit of Jackson with him. Armed thugs had been hiding and assaulted Jackson just after his target hit the ground. Jackson's ear was torn nearly in half by a fast 9mm bullet. He was lucky to get out with his life. The ear had healed, but it had never looked the same. The only marring aspect of his otherwise flawless features.
Lisa slipped the last invitation into the mailbox nailed to the wall just inside the main entrance to the apartment building. From inside her apartment, she could hear a loud clang followed by a low cursing from Jackson. Lisa held back a smile. He tried so hard to be a father to his little girl, but Lisa felt that he wasn't quite cut-out for the job. He wanted to badly to be the father that Vivian needed, but he could never achieve that dream as long as he followed the orders of the inscrutable Mr. Vore.
Oh, of course she had tried to talk him out of every job he told her about. In the dark hours of the morning as they lay together, she would implore him-- "think of the baby, think of yourself, think of me, Jackson"-- but he would always be gone within 24 hours. There was only so far she could pull him into her world before he drew back into his cloak of darkness. He was still Jackson Rippner and she was still Lisa Reisert.
She entered the apartment again to see Jackson angrily tossing the empty oatmeal bowl into Lisa's sink. Vivian's head bore a crown of oatmeal, and she loved it. Lisa took a cloth to her daughter's face as Jackson stalked back into the living room to collect his book.
"I'm leaving," he said from the other room.
That was always the way he told her. Never to her face, always facing some other way or out of her sight completely. Lisa looked up as her entered the kitchen again, wiping some stray flecks of oatmeal from his tie. The book in his hands this week was a collection of poems by Robert Frost that was dog-eared and book marked into oblivion. He worked his fingers past the oatmeal on Vivian's head to tweak her ear in a nearly affectionate way.
"I'll see you when you're one year old," he muttered before heading for Lisa's bedroom. That was the window he used most often to avoid any surveillance cameras in the parking lot. Lisa stood quickly.
"Jackson." It wasn't a question. She demanded his attention. He turned, as he always did before he left. "Everyone's going to be here tomorrow." With a sigh, she approached and rested herself against his chest. "I'm worried."
"What, you didn't backorder the cake?" Sarcasm was his native tongue, it seemed. Lisa spoke, unchanged, into his shirt. He smelled of oatmeal now.
"I'm worried about you."
"There's something new," he said almost scathingly. But his hand was in her hair, fingers teasing her curls sympathetically. She paused. Vivian giggled as the oatmeal dripped onto her chipmunk cheeks.
"Are you sure you want them to see you?" He would have interjected, but she continued quickly. "We could have another celebration, just you, me and Vivi--"
"Leese," he interrupted, putting a finger to her mouth. "One of your relatives rats me out, I find a convenient way to escape from prison again. It won't be the first time, and if it's my last then it's probably because you killed me for pissing off your dad." She breathed unsteadily into his shirt. She was going to cry. Jackson took her chin in his hand and lifted it to look at him. "I hate it when women cry."
"I know," Lisa muttered, steeling herself. "But the last time that you and my father were in the same room he shot you." She placed a finger over the spot the bullet had entered.
"Look," Jackson tried to reason, stepping away from Lisa to clean up Vivian's face. "He already knows that Vivian's my daughter, right? And he didn't run off on a rampage then, so I'm guessing he'll just stew in a corner for a while."
"He shot you, Jackson."
"I can't quite remember--" He was heading for the window again. "--was that before or after he learned that I fathered his one and only grandchild?" He stuck his head out the window to check for clearance, then levered himself out. Once his feet touched the grass outside (for Lisa's apartment was on the first floor) he stuck his head back inside. "I'll see you tomorrow." And he was gone.
Lisa got Vivian out of the clothes that were covered in breakfast and began to draw a bath for her daughter.
"You don't have the balls," Jackson said daringly, staring across the dim room at his superior Dieter Vore. He was an older man, perhaps in his mid-50's. But it was impossible to tell anymore. He had changed himself so many times that no one who worked for him could remember how he had looked before he got into the business. At the moment, Vore had a long, hawkish nose, broken several times, and heavy-set German eyebrows flecked with white. His hair was cut short, gray fringing his bulging temples and cheekbones so high and so hollow they cast long shadows across his face. He was dressed in an expensive Italian suit, a long cigarette between his mustachioed lips.
"I assure you, Rippner, that I do have the balls." The voice was thick, dark as velvet but not as comforting by far. This was the voice for intimidation, not sweet-talking. There was no accent despite his heavy German features. Jackson kept his eyes at the bodyguards at all times, flicking them back to Vore intermittently.
"I'm the best Goddamned man you have!" Jackson lost himself, face flushed red in the moment. A long draw on the cigarette from Vore, and Jackson knew what to expect. But he had never been on the receiving end before.
"No, Rippner. You used to be the best man I had. But you slipped up on the Keefe assassination and you've slid constantly down from there." Another long draw and it came. "Now you're dead."
The first attacked was from his right. Jackson grabbed the oncoming wrist and twisted it against the grain, cracking it instantly. The next was from the left and unavoidable. The bodyguard tackled Jackson to the floor, fist meeting fleshy face until Jackson brought his knee into the man's groin, causing him to roll sideways off of Jackson in pain. The bodyguard with the broken wrist was back up, swing a knife with his off-hand. Jackson dodged animatedly, almost enjoying it despite the taste of blood in his mouth. He caught the hand with the knife only to be caught from behind by another knife-wielder-- a third bodyguard that he had missed in his initial count.
The knife slashed across his back, spilling blood, but not as much as the attacked had hoped on. Jackson turned on him and gave a swift head-butt to the large fore headed man. He dropped by the other bodyguard moaning on the ground. His one hand still wrapped around the wrist of the first knife-holder; he twisted the wrist and tripped the man, the knife flying from his hand and into Jackson's. With a cocky flourish, Jackson turned to face Vore, all three of his men lying at Jackson's feet.
"Good, but, as always, short of expectations," Vore rumbled simply. Jackson gave a low growl.
"Just a lab rat here for your amusement," he said behind clenched teeth. Vore rose from his padded chair and dumped his cigarette in the ashtray on his desk.
"Why didn't you kill them?" Vore asked simply. Jackson glanced down at the wounded men at his feet.
"I was going to kill you first," he said plainly with a light air, raised eyebrows and a hint of a smirk.
"I do think you'll change your mind when you've listened to what I have to say, Rippner." Vore began to walk around his desk, taking his time and adjusting the knick-knacks on the desk. His fingers stopped on a revolver. Jackson noticed all of this.
"Oh? Going to offer me my job back?" The infliction in the younger man's voice indicated that he could have cared less about working for Mr. Vore at this point.
"No, no, of course not." The revolver was in his hand suddenly, and he made a great deal over inspecting how many bullets were in their chambers. "You're a little too mindful and volatile for my organization now. When you were young and stupid, it was easier to control you." He snapped the revolver shut, glaring at Jackson. "Now you're just getting on my nerves."
"I have a tendency to do that," Jackson spat. His hand was still clutched around the grip of his assailant's knife.
"I know about the woman, Rippner." It was a threat, a deep one that reverberated in Jackson's chest. He felt the fear palpitating inside of him with those words, but with a practiced ease he concealed his emotions.
"Woman? If you're talking about that Dunthorpe woman from January, that little job was taken care of--"
"That Reisert woman," Vore continued as if Jackson hadn't interrupted him. "The one that started all of this trouble for you, yes?" He looked almost longingly at the revolver before his steely eyes met Jackson's again. "And the little girl."
Jackson couldn't stop the words that came from his lips at the sudden fright that gripped his chest.
"You bastard!" His entire body was rigid. "You lay one fucking hand--"
"Mr. Rippner," Vore said loudly, although Jackson was sure that the man hadn't even raised his voice. "My men-- hell, your men-- are converging on her apartment. You know how I enjoy a good chase. If you can keep them from the scope of my gun for three days, you'll be the only one who dies." Then he smiled-- a devil's smile, full of yellow-stained teeth under the white-flecked mustache. "I find them-- any one of my men finds them-- and they die, Rippner. Then you. Only then."
Jackson was frozen to his spot, scenario after bloody scenario running blindly through his mind. The knife had long-since dropped from his shaking hand. He stared straight forward, empty, frightened, a Jackson Rippner that Vore had never witnessed. The older man glared at his previous subordinate.
"Do you think I'm kidding, Rippner!"
Jackson was already running down the hall at his top speed, fear like lead in his heart.
AN: TAHDAH! Chapter one of the new story is up! I came up with the plot for this story as I was goin to bed the other night, so if it's a little weak it's because I was half-asleep. But it'll get better as I go along. Ooh, and some Action!Jackson... woot. Oh, and as for the bad f-bomb I dropped here: I'll only use it that once or maybe one more time. Jackson only uses it when he's reeeally pissed and I feel that the occasion called for it. The next chapter will be much fun, methinks. Please, tell me what y'all think of this new story and the whole idea. If anything seems off, just tell me and I'll fix it, promise. Much love to returning fans and new readers! Thanks for reaing and I hope you have a lovely day!