This story is AU. A few things that didn't happen and a couple that did:

Garrus was never recruited in ME1.

Saren is thought to have saved the Citadel in what everyone believes was an act of noble sacrifice.

Shepard is a traitor, the Normandy is missing, and both have since faded into obscurity.

Thane Krios has become the biggest and most successful criminal kingpin outside of the Terminus systems.

But the Reapers are coming.

Let us begin, the stage is set, the curtain lifts...

In the beginning...

"No, what I'm saying is, I think we need to branch out."

"Branch out how?" Said the salarian across from her, his large eyes flickering in amusement as he sipped his steaming beverage. A salarian drinking coffee, and to all appearances, enjoying it immensely, she hid her own smile of amusement. His guarded tone was belied by the eager twitch at the corners of his mouth.

Kasumi felt a touch of pride rise in her chest at the thought of how she'd taken this man, formerly an agent of the law and bent him to her will, not that she was completely unaffected by his earnestness, or how he gave so generously when they made love. She played with her bottom lip as she replied, "Big heists are fun and all, but all the planning, all the meticulous surveying and finding the right fences for the goods after we lift them, it can get tiring..."

She let her words drift off as she studied Bau. She loved to watch him think, especially when she was leading him to a thought, a trail of breadcrumbs in the forest of sin. Honestly, if she was being strictly honest with herself, all this clever manipulation sometimes left her feeling guilty, but she dismissed it. It's not like she was ruining the man, just giving him some...dimension.

Who would have thought that she'd have found a worthy partner in the very man who'd been chasing her down for years? A man who, in many ways, outshined poor, dead Keiji. Bau measured his words carefully as he tilted his head playfully to the side, "A little spontaneity, then?"

"Oh, yes please." She simpered at him, enjoying how the skin around his eyes flushed at her frankly bold lick across her lips.

His hands twitched as he set his mug down and she sensed all that boundless energy he kept so tightly in reserve come undone at the edges. She loved his enthusiasm most of all. Once committed, it was very hard to stop former Spectre Jondum Bau. He looked around with an air of disinterest, but she knew that in those few moments, he'd cased the diner they were eating breakfast in, much as she had when she'd first walked in. It wasn't quite the habit for him yet as it was for her. He said, with a quirked brow, "Here?"

"Maybe." Her tone was flippant and she shrugged to hide the growing excitement that flooded her.

"Wouldn't be much of a take..." He would be the one to point that out.

"The take isn't the point, the 'taking' is." She purposefully loaded that word with double and triple meanings and nearly laughed when his control slipped further and he gave her a look that was as close to a leer as he'd ever been capable of doing. She leaned across the table toward him, drinking in the sight of what was surely desire coiling and uncoiling deep in those huge pupils. He was so odd for a salarian, though it pleased her to no end to think that it was she who could inspire lust in the lustless. She pocketed that small vanity to examine later, perhaps when they were alone.

She crooked a finger to beckon him closer, which he did and she put her mouth close to his aural canal and said in a breathy moan, "Thrill me, honey bunny."

He trembled and she felt a wash of triumph. Now he was licking his own lips and clearing his throat, "How far?"

"Just short of lethal. Show me that killer salarian that hunted a thief so tenaciously. He didn't know how hot that made me, how I ached for him to catch me and punish me." She gave him a rather naughty little bite on the jawline and giggled to hear him gasp. Oh, but she loved larceny, and his virtue was something she'd nicked gleefully and kept locked deep in her heart. She couldn't care less what the patrons of this dismal greasy spoon of a restaurant had lining their pockets. Bau was a goldmine that kept giving and she loved to watch him, to know that he was a changed man because of her.

A subtle movement under the table told her that he'd drawn his weapon and she held her breath as he said, his voice now cold, chilling her with its deadly undertones, "Plan?"

She ran a finger under his collar, across that slick salarian skin that felt so cool and smooth under her hand, "You're on crowd control. I'll handle the staff."

His eyes danced with manic anticipation as he dove in for a heated kiss, which she returned eagerly, tongues dancing in and out of each other's mouth, winding, twisting. She felt heat pool in places that were sure to distract her in the next tense minutes and made to pull away when a sharp nip on her lips made her gasp in delight. Oh, he could be so...wicked.

"I love you, pumpkin." He said, all seriousness.

Her heart swelled at the words, though her mind admonished him with, Of course you love me. Have I not spent the better part of a year making it so? None of this made it past her lips, only an echo that she made sure to reinforce with steady gaze, so he could see how sincere it was. And it was sincere, to her chagrin, "I love you, too, honey bunny."

She burst into motion, pulling out a pistol she'd hidden in her clothing and leaping atop the table that held the remnants of their meal. She shouted, "Everyone be cool, this is a robbery!"

Bau leapt to his feet, growling out in ringing tones laden with threat, leaving no doubt in any mind that heard it that he was fully capable and on the very precipice of carrying out said threat, "Any of you fucking pyjaks move, and I'll execute every motherfucking last one of you!"

Kasumi shivered with arousal and thought, Let the games begin.

Earlier that day...

"Okay, so tell me again about the sandbars." Same gravely voice, same deadly calm under that scarred countenance that was creased with years of bitterness and battle. Massani really hadn't changed at all.

Garrus found an odd comfort in that as he replied, "Okay, what do you want to know?"

"Sand is legal there, right?"

"Yeah, it's legal but it ain't a hundred percent legal." He slumped further down into the aircar's seat so his fringe wouldn't keep bumping the ceiling every time Zaeed took a hard turn, or dropped into the lower lanes suddenly as he was wont to do, "I mean, you can't just walk into a restaurant and cut a line and snort it. They want you to do your business at home or in certain designated places."

"And those are sandbars." A statement that curled upwards slightly at the end, not quite a question, but Garrus decided to treat it as one.

"It breaks down like this." He started ticking off points on his talons, "Yes, it's legal to buy it. It's legal to own it. If you're the proprietor of a sandbar, it's legal to sell it. It's illegal to carry it, but that doesn't matter because get a load of this."

Zaeed watched him out of the corner of his eye, rolling and yawing easily with the busy traffic in this extremely run down part of the wards. The Citadel was getting to be a really dirty place, probably why they'd recalled Garrus from abroad to do some house cleaning. The old merc waved at him to continue.

"If you get stopped by the cops on Thessia, it's illegal for them to search you." He made a satisfied hum in his throat and stretched his legs out, wishing they'd put more leg room in these vehicles, "That's a right that cops on Thessia don't have."

Zaeed chuffed a hoarse laugh and took a drag off his smoke, spitting out the window, "I feel a vacation coming on. Think those blue bitches'd give the time of day to an old sod like me?"

"Flash enough cash and you can probably snort a line right off their taut little bellies." Garrus grinned at the thought. The merc's appetites had become nearly as legendary as his reputation for being the last man standing. As for himself, he was a long time user but the sand had no pull any more. He didn't miss the way the long binges seemed to make it feel as though his eyeballs were charged electrically, and spinning non too gently in their sockets. Garrus had moved on to...better distractions. He mused quietly as he said, "You know what the funniest thing about visiting alien homeworlds is?"

"What?" Zaeed's accent turned it into 'wot' and Garrus suppressed a grin.

He went on to say,"It's the little differences. They've got the same shit over there that we've got here, but over there, it's just a little different."

Massani rumbled, "Example."

Garrus sighed, "Alright..you can walk into a titty bar on Thessia and see women of all races, and a few men too. The asari are a minority in those joints, unlike everywhere else I've been. There was even a krogan stripper there."

"Don't tell me you bought a lapdance from a krogan." Zaeed laughed, a bark of a laugh that shot around the cab of the aircar concussively.

"What can I say, I felt sorry for the guy." Garrus was inordinately pleased to put that shock there on that human face. Humans had such odd...conventions. "Even took him out for a bite to eat after. Guy was shit at his job, and ate like a starving man. Turns out he used to be a battlemaster, so I thought I'd see if Krios had a place for him."

"Compassionate. Didn't know you had a soft spot for krogan males."

Garrus ignored what he was insinuating and continued, "And that's another thing. Thessia even has pizza joints. You know that asari vat grown protein, the one that's compatible across chiralities? Real popular?"

"Mmhmm, my mate's call it asari bacon." Massani tossed his cigarette away, disregarding the fact that it could fall on someone and burn them or catch a park on fire or any other number of things.

Garrus shut down that part of his brain that cared forcefully, thinking how his conscience only served to get him into trouble but never back out of it, "They put it on everything. You know what they call asari bacon on Thessia?"

"They don't call it asari bacon?"

"They're asari, man, that'd be a little redundant."

"So what do they call it?"

Garrus schooled his expression to completely neutral, thinking, Just like Joker said, timing is everything, and waited til he had Zaeed's undivided attention before saying, "Bacon."

The merc shot him an incredulous look before grinning in a way that made his scars writhe on his face like serpents, "Bacon? Ha, funny."

They pulled into the parking garage in the base of one of the slummier apartment buildings and Massani said as they both got out, "Open the boot, will you, sweetheart? Get my gear out while I'm off for a piss and I'll see if I can't get a krogan to sit on your lap later."

"Oh yeah, you're a real crack up, bet you got all those scars on your face because you were so fucking funny."

"Yeah, an' you got yours because rockets ain't got no ears to talk off."

Garrus made a rude gesture toward the human's retreating back. He unpacked their weapons as Zaeed wandered off to take a leak. A pistol, he sighed, not his weapon of choice but it would do. They were here after all to send a message. He turned his head as the merc reappeared at his elbow, picking up his own gun. Garrus asked, "How many up there?"

"Three or four."

"That's counting our guy?" Informants were always useful, but never trustworthy. He hadn't met one yet that wouldn't flip flop from side to side in a fight, or wait it out to see who came out on top.

Less comforting was Zaeed's response, "Not sure."

"So that means there could be up to five guys up there." Not the worst odds, but disconcerting because Garrus was in the habit of leaving nothing to chance.

The merc grunted and straightened his coat, a long affair that hid the micromesh armor he was clad in. Garrus was wearing much the same, it was slick and easy to hide under clothes and was marginally more effective than nothing at all. Massani said, "Should have brought Jessie."

Small talk filled the space between the two killers as they walked into the apartment building and the topic turned, as conversations do, to their enigmatic employer and his new wife. Garrus said, letting his eyes roam for possible hostile targets, "What's her name?"

"Jane."

Garrus echoed it thoughtfully, followed by, "How did Thane and her meet?"

"I don't know. However people meet people." Massani shot him a sideways look, "She used to be a soldier. Had her own ship."

"Oh, really? Was she in any engagements I might have heard about?"

"Naw, I think her biggest deal was some sortie on Feros or was it, Virmire? I forget. Alliance ex-military."

"Oh, she's human." He was intrigued. How did their drell boss meet and marry an Alliance ex-officer?

"She might've been on the extranet a few years back." Zaeed waved a hand dismissively.

"I don't do the extranet." Not strictly true, but Garrus hated the convoluted way the thing worked. He'd search for one thing and get hundreds of results, whittling them down to usable data was worse than calibrating a heavy weapon. And just as maddening.

Massani paused and turned at the inner doors to the lobby, giving him a sardonic glare, "Okay, but you are aware that there is an invention called the extranet and on this invention they sometimes have current events of note that some people call the 'news', correct?"

Rolling his eyes, Garrus responded with a sarcastic, "No, Zaeed, I've had my head buried in the dirt for the last thousand years or so."

"Or you were too busy burying your tongue in some blue pussy, more likely."

"That's just crude. And off topic." He followed the merc into the building, where he could already see the double doors of an elevator that heralded the inevitable and frustratingly long ass wait inside a tiny box that all lifts on the Citadel seemed to enjoy torturing its residents with.

"I'm a crude fellow. Anyway, she made some headlines a few years back. Rising star, Spectre candidate, blah blah blah." Something in Zaeed's tone begged clarification.

"What happened?"

"Nothing came of it." Interesting...If Garrus didn't know any better, he'd think Massani was being deliberately evasive. Only to be thrown by Zaeed's next words, which were soft but unyielding, "All stars burn out or fall. There ain't no heroes, not really."

They approached the elevator. The merc at his side said, "You remember Conrad Verner? 'Bout my height, bit youngish, 'specially in the mental department?"

It did conjure an image in the back of his mind. Human, pale, pathetic in the way a kicked pet varren stays loyal, "Yeah, maybe. Useless."

"Everyone's got a use, Vakarian. And this one's was to set an example."

"What about him?" He watched the counter above the elevator slowly count down to zero, or in this case, lobby.

"Thane fucked him up good." Zaeed hacked and coughed a large wad of phlegm onto the dusty, threadbare carpet at their feet, "Word around the campfire is it was on account of Thane Krios' wife."

Finally, the doors opened and the two men stepped in. Garrus let Massani pick the floor, he was mostly here as backup anyway and was content to let Zaeed lead. He let silence reign for a bit but his curiosity got the better of him, "So what'd he do? Fuck her?"

"I said he was fucked up, not dead."

"Then what did he do?"

Zaeed flashed him a smirk, "Gave her a foot massage."

Quizzically, Garrus stared at the paneling in front of him, its mirrored surface pocked and stained, distorting his image into a wavy blur, "A foot massage? That's it?"

Zaeed rumbled in agreement, "Thane had some heavies take the idiot to the top of the Presidium and dropped him off the edge into the lakes up there. That moron fell over a quarter mile. I hear he hit that shit flat as a pancake and sank like a stone. C-Sec was there but they know better than to interfere and they fished him out after Thane's boys left. Resuscitated him, but since then, he's developed a bit of a speech impediment."

Garrus frowned then snorted, "That's a damn shame."

With a soft ding, the doors opened once again, letting them out onto the third floor, Garrus was glad to note. Glad that it hadn't been at the damn top of this tower. He really had better things to do than spend hours in elevators. He followed Zaeed into a long hallway, narrow but tall enough to accommodate his height. He continued the conversation, "Still, I have to say, you play with grenades, you're liable to lose a hand, or foot...or bodypart of your choice."

"What do you mean?" Zaeed was looking at room numbers as they passed.

"You don't give Thane Krios' new bride a foot massage." Turians might have a looser definition of what could fill the capacity of 'significant other' than some races, but they had very clear definitions of 'mine' and 'not mine'.

"You don't think he overreacted?"

"Conrad probably didn't expect Thane to react as he did, but he had to expect a reaction."

Zaeed made a negative noise in his throat, "It was a foot massage. A foot massage is nothing."

"It's laying your hands in a familiar way on something that's not yours. I mean, is it as bad as sticking his cock in her azure? No." Garrus could already read a hearty disagreement coming his way in a few seconds and tried to head it off with a human idiom, "But it's the same, what do you call it, ballpark."

"Whoa, stop right there. Buggery and foot massages ain't nothing like one another." The pair paused in the hallway and faced each other.

He rejoinded, "It's not. It's in the same ballpark."

"Ain't no bloody ballpark neither. Now, look, maybe your method of foot massage differs from mine. But, you know, touching his wife's feet and sticking his winky in her japs eye ain't the same fuckin' ballpark. It ain't the same league. Hell, it ain't even the same fuckin' sport." Garrus was amused to note how Zaeed's accent deepened with anger. It was almost worth trying to decipher the nonsensical euphemisms that human language was rife with to see the cold merc lose his cool just a little. Now the man's hands were waving animatedly as he debated, "Foot massages don't mean shit. I'd give my own dear mum a foot massage."

Garrus decided to go for the kill, knowing a bit about human conventions himself, he drew a little closer to Massani and rumbled, "Would you give a guy a foot massage?"

The stunned look that again graced Zaeed's face was well worth this whole absurd argument. In that moment, Garrus knew he'd won and so did Massani, who growled, "Fuck you."

The merc spun on his heels and continued their leisurely stroll down the hall, with Garrus in his wake, who said, "You give them a lot?"

"Fuck you."

"You know, I'm kind of tired. I could use a foot massage myself." Massani shot him a look that screamed bloody murder and the turian finally relented, holding his hands up in mock surrender.

Zaeed rounded a corner and said, "There it is."

Garrus nodded agreement and drew alongside his partner, facing the door they'd come to find, "Yep."

"What time is it?"

Garrus blinked to flip his visor's display over to a chronometer and replied, "7:22, morning."

"Ain't quite time yet. Let's hang back." They walked a nearby open stairwell and Garrus wondered if it might have been faster to take the stairs, but seeing as they were early anyway, he guessed it didn't much matter. Massani swung round to him and said, "Look, just cuz I wouldn't give a man a foot massage, doesn't make it right to throw a man off the top of the goddamn Presidium, fuckin' up the way he talks. It just ain't fuckin' right."

Garrus stared down at the human, deciding not to take exception to the finger that almost, but didn't quite poke him in the chest in the man's fervor to make his case. Anyone else would probably have ended up in a pool of their own blood by now, but Zaeed was a comrade, hell, he was almost a friend, though people in their line of work didn't make friends. And the fact that when Garrus had been at his lowest, on that dirt heap affectionately known as Omega, the target of every major merc company that frequented the place, it had been Zaeed who'd pulled him out instead of snuffing him like he'd been paid to do. Showed him a different way to live and honestly, most of the people who'd fell under his scrutiny as a paid assassin were pretty awful people to begin with. He'd buried his conscience as best he could and just...carried on.

Yep, Massani was allowed much when it came to trespassing on Garrus' person. And sometimes, if he watched close, he could almost see something there, under the bitter hard shell that Zaeed presented to the uncaring universe. Or maybe that was just wishful thinking and the reality of it was that boy deep inside Garrus who had believed in justice and mercy wasn't quite as dead as he'd hoped. Garrus could feel the itch creeping along his spine and was suddenly eager to get this business done with so he could go make some 'connections'.

Nevertheless, and because it wasn't in him to just give up, he said to the glowering Massani, "I'm not saying it's right, but you're saying a foot massage doesn't mean anything, and I'm saying it does. I've given dozens of ladies dozens of foot massages, and they all meant something. We pretend that they don't, but they do. And that's what's so fucking cool about them. There's a...sensuous thing going on, where, you know, you don't talk about it, but you know it, and she knows it. Fucking Thane knew it. And Conrad should've fucking better known better. I mean, that's his fucking wife. Thane isn't a man with a sense of humor about that kind of shit. You know what I'm saying?"

He could see the human visibly calming as his words sought to do exactly that and finally after a long pause, Massani said, "It's an interesting point. C'mon, let's get into character."

They walked back to the doorway and stood before it, waiting. Garrus shifted to resettle his weight comfortably on the balls of his feet, just in case. He turned his head fractionally to say to the silent merc at his side, "What was her name again?"

"Jane."

Again, he echoed Zaeed, "Jane..."

"Why are you so interested in boss man's wife?"

"He's taking a trip off station, asked if I can take care of her while he's gone." Garrus said absently, wishing that door to open.

Massani shot him a look, miming a cocked gun pointed at his own head, saying in a voice slightly horrified, " 'Take care' of her?"

"No, you merc bastard." Garrus shook his head in consternation. Zaeed, and more importantly, Thane knew his rule, 'no women, no kids', though he'd broken the first a couple of times, but he'd consoled himself with the knowledge that they were really, really bad people. "Take her out, show her a good time. Make sure she doesn't get lonely."

"You're going to be taking Jane Krios out on a date?" If anything, Massani's voice conveyed slightly more horror, as well as a touch of humor. Strange, the range of emotion humans could communicate with their flat, hollow voices.

"It is not a date." Garrus sighed, wishing the conversation had steered clear of this particular factoid. Damn his curiosity. "You know, it's like if you were going to take your buddy's wife to a movie or something. It's just...good company, is all."

Zaeed shook his head, Garrus could just see it in his peripheral vision and clenched his mandibles closer to his face. When the human shot him a doubtful look, he couldn't help but blurt, "It's not a date...It's definitely not a date."

The deadbolt sliding open stopped any further protest he was planning on making and he put on his game face, thinking grim and forboding thoughts to make his face reflect how very screwed these little pyjaks were. A salarian face peeked out at them and they shouldered past to stride purposefully into the room. Garrus' gaze swept the room in perfunctory fashion and he felt a small flash of disappointment. There was no challenge to be had here.

"Hey, kids. How you boys doin'?" Massani grinned with false humor as he speared all three men in the room in turn with a look, letting them no in no uncertain words that they had no chance whatsoever should they try some thing. He took up the central space between the three of them, and Garrus let him have the stage to himself, posting up in the back of the kitchen, keeping an eye on their hands relative to what could be considered weapons. The merc continued, "You know who we are?"

The volus who was obviously their leader sat a little straighter in his chair, tense, nervous. Garrus was surprised he couldn't smell piss, but the suit probably blocked all of that. Zaeed, the grand showman, spoke, "We're associates of your business partner, Thane Krios. You do remember your business partner, don't you?"

Still no words from the gasping rotund alien and Massani was made to speak again, trying to draw these idiots out into the open. Garrus could see frustration building in the merc's eyes, "Now let me take a wild guess here."

He pretended to consider the value of the men before him, resting elbow on wrist while stroking his chin in thought, then pointed at the volus, ignoring the batarian on the couch, "You're Niftu Cal, aren't you?"

"Yes." Breathed the now named Cal, panic showing through in his brittle tone.

"Thought so." Grunted the merc, "You remember your business partner, Thane Krios, don't you, Cal?"

"Yeah, I remember..."

"Good." Zaeed loomed over the smaller man, looking around at the evidence of a meal in progress, "Looks like me and Garrus caught you boys at breakfast. Sorry about that. What are you having?"

"...Uh, pizza-"

"Pizza! Breakfast of champions." Garrus met Zaeed's amused glance and smirked at the merc's snide tone, "What kind of pizza?"

"...bacon and pineapple."

"No, no, no. Where did you get the pizza? Dominoes, Killer Krogan, Citadel's Finest..?"

The volus turned his head to the batarian on the couch, but the cowed creature just shrugged, equally mystified, "Um,...Cobalt Palace Pizza?"

"Cobalt Palace. That's that asari pizza joint. I hear they got some tasty pizza." Massani grumbled, smiling in a way that didn't comfort one iota and Garrus had to admire how deftly the merc kept these fools off balance, "I've never eaten pizza from there. How is it?"

"They're uh,...good."

"Mind if I have a slice?" He pointed at the volus' plate, "This is yours right here, isn't it?"

The volus nodded. The old merc plucked the pizza wedge off the plate and took a prestigiously large bite, chewing it loudly and extravagantly, his eyes never once leaving the pinned volus' face. Zaeed said, "Hm. Now that is some tasty pizza. Garrus, you ever had Cobalt Palace Pizza? Wanna bite?"

Garrus shook his head and searched the cabinets for the thing they'd come here to retrieve. "Naw, that levo cheese gives me gas."

"Well, maybe our friend Cal here will be considerate enough to order dextro friendly next time." He was just playing with them and didn't they just know it. Everyone in the room knew there wasn't going to be a next time.

Massani lifted a finger, saying, "You know what they call asari bacon on Thessia?"

"Um, no."

"Tell him, Garrus."

Garrus snorted then said, "Bacon."

"Just...bacon." Toying with their terror like a cat with its prey. Massani was almost gloating over there. Garrus wished he'd just make it quick and clean, but was resigned to drawn out. Zaeed dropped the slice back on the plate where it splashed in its own puddle of grease and that same oil splattered onto the volus' optics. Garrus was amused to see that the little fucker was too scared to wipe it off even. Zaeed said, "You know why, Cal?"

"Be-because they're asari? And it would be, like...redundant?"

"Check out the brains on this one, eh? You're a smart little shit, aren't you?" Zaeed stood a bit straighter and turned to the batarian, "You, four eyed git, you know why we're here? Why don't you tell Archangel back there where the damn case is?"

The batarian's mouth opened and closed as shock washed over his face. Garrus resisted running his hand over his face at Massani's ill considered remark. It wasn't his fault that the reputation of the vigilante he used to be had never quite eroded completely. He was embarrassed every time it was brought up. The salarian by the door stuttered, "It's-it's over there-"

"I don't remember askin' you a goddamn thing!" Massani leveled a hateful glare on their informant, who cowered beneath it.

The batarian, who finally found his voice, said, "It's in the cupboard."

Garrus opened the ones by his head and heard, "No, the one by your knees."

He bent and rummaged through the lower storage, eventually coming up with a dark case, two by four and about a foot deep. He set it on the counter and flicked the combination to '666'. He hadn't been told what would be in it, only that he'd know if it was what they were sent for. He thumbed it open and was suddenly inundated by blue light. Past that and his mind seized up and he froze. He never froze and yet here he was, awestricken by this...thing he was staring at. Is that-?

Zaeed's voice cut through his reverie, "Garrus? We good?"

And he realized that it was in fact the second time Massani had called to him and he swallowed, nodding, "We're good."

"I'm-I'm sorry. I didn't catch your name. I got his, he's Archangel right?" The volus was pleading with them with every gesture, asking mercy, please mercy. Garrus closed his eyes to it. Too late, much too late. If they'd valued their lives, they would never have thrown them away like this.

"You don't need to know my name. In fact, very shortly you won't know anything at all. You only need to know this one thing," Massani grinned in ghastly fashion, "I'm the horrible cunt what was sent to take what you stole. With interest."

Cal bravely and foolishly kept talking, "I just want you to know how...sorry we are...that things got so...fucked up with us and Mr. Krios-"

A bang, one loud report as Massani drew his firearm and ended that batarian on the couch. He made not a sound as his life soaked into the cheap fabric of that sofa. And Zaeed growled after a long moment of letting the volus fully comprehend the magnitude of his folly, "Oh, I'm sorry, did I break your concentration? Please, continue."

The volus was wheezing heavily now and seemed utterly shocked at the casual brutality he'd just witnessed. The merc frowned, "Oh, you were finished. Well...allow me to retort."

He leaned closer to Cal and growled, "What does Thane Krios look like?"

Panic and confusion suffused the volus' voice, "What?"

The table that was the only thing separating Zaeed from his quarry was tossed aside and the merc drew himself up to glare down at the smaller man, "The fuck planet are you from?"

"What-?"

" 'What' ain't no planet I've ever heard of. They speak Standard on 'What'?"

Helplessly, "W-What?"

"Standard, motherfucker! Do you speak it?!"

Cal recoiled under the onslaught of words, managing a short strangled, "Y-yes!"

"Then you understand what I'm saying!"

"Yes-"

"Describe what Thane Krios looks like!"

"What?..I-"

The volus was suddenly staring down the long barrel of Zaeed's gun as the merc shouted, "Say 'what' again! Say 'what' again! I dare you! I double dare you, motherfucker! Say 'what' one more goddamn time!"

"H-he's green..."

"Go on."

"He's scaley-"

"Does he look like a bitch?"

"W-what-?" The volus shrieked in pain as Massani's gun fired, not into his face as expected but into his knee. Cal clutched the suit desperately as he reeled back.

"Does. He. Look like. A. Bitch?"

"N-no." Groaned Cal.

"Then why'd you try to fuck him like one, Cal?"

"I didn't."

"Yes, you did! Yes. You. Did. Cal." Massani was really hitting his stride now. Only bloodshed made the man cavort like this, put that gleam in his eye. "You tried to fuck him. And Thane Krios doesn't like to be fucked by anybody but Mrs. Krios."

Garrus could tell that the man was planning on prolonging this...torture even more, maybe make it into torture in fact and found that he had little stomach for it and caught Zaeed's eye, shaking his head ever so slightly. The merc harrumphed and stood up straighter, sighting along his weapon to target the volus' bulbous head, "You're lucky I got Garrus here to think about. Or else I might think about having a little fun with you before you snuff it."

The turian breathed a nearly inaudible sigh of relief but tensed again as his partner said in an insolent drawl, "Oh, fuck it."

A rapid series of blasts later as Massani seemed to shoot Cal in almost random places, his screams punctuating each non lethal hit. Garrus swallowed bile and stood, firing his own gun, five shots, one right after another, all into the volus' head. The suited alien was hardly recognizable after they were through and Garrus turned his face from it all, and closed his eyes wearily.