Damian sat on a bench across the street from the ocean. The breeze was soft, but the air was cold, not cold enough for a coat, just cold enough for him to know it would storm later. It was springtime, and the dandelions on the grass beside him were yellow and bright. They'd turn into puffballs soon enough, but Damian wouldn't be there to see them.

He waited, his dark hair and dark outfit standing out against the light brown of the bench and the green of the grass surrounding him. The ocean in the distance dazzled a bright blue, and the sand in front of him was soft and tan. He was the darkest thing that the eye could see. Damian thought that was fitting.

A hand hit the back of the bench next to him, and Damian held back his instinct to jump. He wasn't afraid. He had no reason to be.

"Dee," The voice said, harsh but familiar. His boss. "How goes it?" They spoke as Sea walked around the bench to sit next to Damian. They looked the same as they had last month; their check-ins were not often enough that Damian felt suffocated, but enough that he still didn't feel free.

"Pretty good, Andrei gave me a job the other day," Damian said, his eyes stuck to the horizon. Any eye contact with Sea would be a weakness, and it would be treated as such. Sea was a predator, and everyone else was prey.

Sea chuckled low, under their breath, "Andrei Kuznetsov gave you a job?" They seemed to find this funny, whereas Damian found it to be abhorrent. Jobs for the head of the Bratva in New York usually involved collecting money or sending a message. Usually, from people who don't deserve it, who borrowed money without knowing the consequences. It wasn't kind work, and though Damian was used to unkind work, he didn't like it.

"There is a cop, Kyle Winston, looking into the family," Damian said, his eyes trained towards the ocean. Any facial expressions Sea made were probably not important. "They want a message sent."

"Dead or injured?" Sea asked, their voice low. Damian has to assume that they were continuing to stare off into the distance. If not, then they might have been staring at him, and that would be more disconcerting than not.

"Injured," Damian said, his voice incredibly serious. Even if Abscess greenlit it, there was no world in which Damian was doing it. He wouldn't hurt a man just to put money into the hands of the Bratva. "If there is no compliance, then figure out what he loves and take it from him. It's fairly standard for the Bratva."

In his peripherals, Damian noticed Sea nodding a slight bit, not enough to seem enthusiastic but just enough to remind Damian that they were listening to every word. "Abscess has green-lit anything happening to the cop, Kyle Winston, and any family members he may have. Do whatever you have to do to complete your mission."

Damian nodded, making a note of it in his head. He wouldn't do anything. He was done with all of that crap, but he still needed to know what Abscess was expecting of him. If he knew what they wanted, then he could figure out how to keep that away from them.

~

Damian didn't really have a plan. He didn't know what he was supposed to do. Sitting on a bench across from Kyle Winston's idyllic house, Damian knew he wasn't going to hurt them. He wouldn't hurt Kyle, and he wouldn't hurt the wife, Sara, or their two kids, Jackson and Mariella.

None of them deserved that.

The rain beat down on the umbrella he held above his head. The tapping was almost soothing, but the wetness seeping through his sneakers was definitely less soothing. He tried his best to take himself out of the moment, to focus on what he was doing here. On another bench.

Damian went through the facts in his head. Kyle borrowed money from the Bratva. Truth. He borrowed the money to pay off the house that Damian sat in front of. Truth. The house was small. Truth. Therefore, the amount of money borrowed had to be around 15k.

15k was a lot. Truth.

Either way, Damian had more than 15k just sitting in his bank account. He couldn't access it without Abscess noticing. But there really wasn't much else to do here.

The curtains at the front of the house were open, and Damian watched as the family ate their dinner. He watched as the two children scuffled at the table, both of their dark heads bobbing as they laughed and stole food from each other's plates. The mother smiled softly at her husband and the back of the father's head cocked slightly and Damian had to assume he was smiling back.

He couldn't let them be hunted or hurt by anyone, not himself and not whoever the Bratva would send after him.

Damian didn't want to sign his own death certificate either, though. He didn't have a death wish, and he didn't want to have to mourn the life he was building here. There was too much he'd be leaving behind. From the job he'd gotten to the friends he'd made, Damian couldn't just disappear. And he didn't want to.

His cat would miss him.

So, Damian had to either get the money from the man in the window or he had to find it for himself. Finding it for himself would mean he needed a safe bank account and a way to make fifteen thousand dollars in... oh, three days? He wasn't sure how long he'd have, but it probably wouldn't be long. Andrei wasn't ever in the mood for waiting.

Either way, it felt like Damian was dead.

The cold of the metal bench under his jean-covered legs tried to ground Damian. The wetness under him, from the rain dripping down the back of the bench, was cold and real. He wasn't dead yet; he was fine. He was sitting on a bench outside Kyle Winston's house in the suburbs. The air was chilly and wet, and the jacket that Damian was wearing wasn't necessarily warm enough for how cold it got at night.

He wasn't dead yet. He needed a plan.