Some days Angelo Innocenti went to sleep at night knowing exactly why his line of work was worth it. Today was not one of those days.

He didn't like Chicago very much, for a start. He found the city ugly and uninviting, filled with gray and concrete and too many cars; and to make up for it, Angelo had yet to find a drinkable cup of coffee anywhere in it. There should be some, he knew, because a lot of his fellow countrymen had once come into this city and presumably brought their drinking habits with them, but apparently they had become assimilated over the years. And that didn't even touch upon the rain. Allegedly Chicago had nice days too, but it always seemed to rain when he came here. Maybe the city was trying to tell him something.

And yet here he was, huddled up in his best wool coat—in September!—and waiting for a call back from his men. The only light at the end of the tunnel was that after today he could finally pack up and head home, drive to the East Coast with that stupid suitcase full of money and turn his back on this country for now. He just needed the suitcase first. Where had Pietro gone with it? He was supposed to have called ten minutes ago!

"Call him again," he told Luca, his second-in-command. "If that idiot ran off with the money, he'll be dead within the day, go tell him that!"

Luca nodded, the phone already in his hand. "But I don't think he ran off," he replied as he dialed. "He's too stupid to—hello, Pietro?—What?—No, no, I wasn't talking about you! Where the devil are you?"

An innocent bystander who happened to overhear the conversation and also know Italian might have gotten the idea that their dealings had something to do with dirty money. This couldn't be further from the truth. The money was perfectly clean; in fact, it was so clean it came fresh from the laundry. And since that hadn't been shiny enough yet, some of it had been embezzled too. Point was, it was very pretty, nice-looking money, not to mention in uncommon amounts, and Angelo and his men would really hate to lose it.

"He says he's stuck in traffic," Luca said when he hung up. "And all because these people all take the car instead of riding the train or the bus." He pocketed his phone. "Do we change our plans?"

Angelo sighed. "No more changes," he said, wiping a hand over his face, which was slowly getting damp despite the umbrella his sidekick was holding over him. "We stick to the plan. Is someone keeping an eye on our man in the car rental?"

Luca nodded. "My men are on it," he said. "After Pietro gets here, all we need to do is go to him and rent the car, and then we can drive away. There's almost nothing that can go wrong anymore."

Adjusting his coat, Angelo breathed some life into his clammy fingers before burying his hands deep in his pockets. "Good," he muttered. Just a little longer now, he repeated in his mind. The wait would be worth it. Once he brought the money home, the Innocenti family wouldn't have to worry (or send him abroad) for some time, and he could kick back at home in Sicily instead of making shady deals in foreign countries.

Because, of course, Angelo Innocenti was neither innocent nor an angel. That much should be obvious from his name alone; no parents named their kid that unless they had something to hide or wanted them to get bullied. In Angelo’s case it was probably the latter, although his family also happened to be mafia.

"Good," Luca agreed, adjusting his grip on the hilt of the umbrella. "Can we go inside now?"

Angelo smirked to himself.

"Yes," he said. "And then we wait."

~ ~ ~

To call the line at the car rental long would be an understatement. Indeed it was much more than just long; it wasn't even a line, as it had long transformed into a surreal, psychedelic pattern with no visible beginning or end. Neo scanned the situation for a moment, then made straight for the nearest loop, pushing past a row of strangers and ignoring their protests. Zeke shouted apologies at them, mostly to spite him, but he doubted anyone had noticed.

"Move, Grandpa," Neo said casually as he brushed past an old man with a walking stick. "You're blocking the line."

The old man lifted his cane in obvious outrage. "What the—I'm part of the line!"

"For the car rental?" Neo scoffed. "Can you even reach the pedals without your stick?"

"Wh—Why you—I'm about to reach your face with my stick, young man!"

"Okay," said Neo, taking off through the crowd with those annoyingly long legs of his. "Catch me if you can."

The old man shot a long string of curses after him, but Neo ignored them all as he led Zeke through the crowd. A few people turned around to stare at them, but before anyone could say anything they had already moved on, on and on through this impromptu maze made of lost and angry travelers. Finally Neo found a spot to claim somewhere near the middle of the line, or what appeared to be something close to the middle anyway, and he took a look around. "People are staring," he said. "Someone's gonna recognize us thanks to that blue-ass hair of yours."

Zeke put a self-conscious hand on his head, but he also glared. "Oh, and you're not gonna stick out in this crowd, huh?"

"I have something you don't," Neo replied with a scoff, pulling out a black bucket hat and pulling it over Zeke's head, ignoring his protests. "Self-control. I can turn off my aura and avoid getting recognized whenever I—"

"Hey, isn't that Neo from The Heist over there?"

Neo froze. Zeke turned to follow the voice to its origin, which was a trio of girls perhaps a few years younger than himself, regarding them with wide eyes.

"Nope," he said, pulling off the bucket hat and plopping it on Neo's head. "He just looks like him from behind, trust me, he's really ugly from the front. But look!" He grinned, gesturing to himself. "I'm here! It's Zeke!"

The three girls exchanged a glance, then they shrugged. "No, you're not," said the tallest. "You do kinda look like him though."

"That's true," the shortest agreed. "But you can't be him, the real Zeke is way shorter."

Sputtering, Zeke watched helplessly as the girls kept walking and disappeared in the crowd. "I'm not short!" he called feebly after them. "I just have some giant bandmates!"

There was a low chuckle beside him, and it took Zeke a moment to realize it came from Neo. "Smooth response, Mr. Taller-than-expected."

Zeke stuck out his tongue. "If you mean me saving you from getting recognized, you're right," he shot back. "What was that about turning off your aura? You're lucky I distracted them!"

"And you just had to do it with that stupid hat?" Neo retorted, although he made no attempt to take it off. "It's ruining my outfit."

Zeke shrugged. "It's black. Your outfit's black," he said. "Where's the problem?"

"Ugh, you don't get it." Neo rolled his eyes. "It's killing my vibe, not that you know anything about style—hey, asshole! Stop cutting in line!"

The self-important businessman who had tried to get in line in front of them took one look at Neo—tall, decked out in all black, with heavy boots and ripped jeans and a studded leather jacket and a glare that screamed murder to boot—and seemed to decide he didn't need a car quite as urgently yet. "Sorry, sir," he muttered, backing away. "Just a misunderstanding."

"It damn better be!" Neo shouted after him. "Have some manners, you dick!"

Several more people tried to cut the line, only to be met with the same treatment as the businessman. All of them scrambled off on sight, except for a particularly stubborn mother who threatened to call the authorities until Zeke made friends with her nagging kids and effectively calmed her down. The line-pattern-thing moved slowly, but at least it moved, and after about an hour the two of them had finally come within sight of the front desk.

"Do they even have enough cars left for everybody?" Zeke mused, letting his gaze drift through the still-crowded hall. "Their parking lot's gotta be huge."

Neo didn't bother to comment on that. He just stood there like a tall, annoyed Finnish tree in a landscape of bushes and glared at everything and everyone. At a glance one might mistake him for a statue, except that he'd been tapping his foot non-stop for the better part of an hour.

And then there they were, and Neo wasted no time in slamming both hands on the counter. "We need a car to L.A., now."

The woman across from him simply gave him a tired look. It had been a long day, and Allison from the front desk had two kids, a useless husband, clinical depression, and also enough.

"Sorry, sir, but you'll have to wait," she said in that typical autopilot voice people in customer service took on after dealing with too many idiots in a row. "I've already told the last five people, we're all out of cars. You'll have to wait at least until tomorrow, and even then we've already got a long list—"

"No, no, no, lady." Neo's voice was dangerously low. "You don't understand me. We need a car now!"

"And I need a raise, but who's asking?" Allison muttered under her breath. "Sir, I completely understand," she said out loud. "However, if there are no cars, I can't make a new one appear out of thin air. I'm not a magician. You'll have to wait until tomorrow or find a new means of transportation."

"Tomorrow? Tomorrow?" Neo's voice doubled over with panic and anger. "Do you think we'd be here if we could wait until tomorrow? We've already missed our fucking plane and if we don't make it to L.A. by Friday, we might as well quit!" He slammed both fists on the counter. "This is our jobs on the line! Don't you know who we are?"

In Allison's defense, most people wouldn't react well to a six-foot-something, very angry Nordic man looming over their desk and yelling, even if said man was too lanky to pose any real physical threat. She gulped, then she opened the database in her computer, going through her e-mails. "Actually," she said in a shaky voice, "I, uh, may have a solution for you? A car's just been brought in, but we haven't refueled or cleaned it out yet, so I can't promise what state it's in—"

Neo wordlessly slammed his credit card and his license down on the counter.

"…Alright, one moment," she replied, taking both cards and inspecting them. "Uh, Mr. Niko…Karvonen? Is that right?"

"Close enough," Neo muttered, even though she had horribly butchered the pronunciation. This was exactly why he had given himself a stage name. Part of the reason, anyway.

"Why do you have to rent it?" Zeke complained beside him. "I'm old enough to drive too!"

"I got us the car, I'm renting the car," Neo replied. "Now shut up."

"But he's a horrible driver!" Zeke said to the car rental lady. "He's got a DUI, you know."

Neo flushed. "I was eighteen!"

"Gentlemen, there is no string of words in this language to describe how little I care," the lady said tiredly. "You can rent the car too, if you want. May I ask how old you are?"

Zeke went pink. "Uh…twenty-four," he said sheepishly. "And three quarters."

"That'll be underage fees if you drive the car too," she replied without looking up from the paperwork. "And no renting under your name. Wait three more months, and you can be a grown-up with your own rented car too. There you go," she finally said, handing them the finished paperwork. "My colleague over there will hand you the keys. Have a safe trip."

Only a few minutes later they were finally holding a car key. Well, Zeke was holding it. "Hooray!" he shouted, holding it up before Neo could get his hands on it. "Road trip time!"

"We have three days," Neo muttered, staring intently at the map on his phone as he followed him to the car. "The GPS says it's a thirty-hour drive. That's two full days if we leave time for breaks, food and sleep…that gives us another day in case we hit traffic or anything goes wrong, so—"

"Road trip, road trip!" Zeke chanted as he got into the passenger seat. "I've always wanted to do this! We can get snacks and go sightseeing and stop at fun places! The whole plane thing still sucks, but I think I could get used to this!"

Neo turned the key in the ignition. "You want to miss the release party on Friday?"

"Come on, you just said we had a day to spare!" Zeke lowered the window and stuck out his arm as Neo pulled the car out of the airport parking lot. "Why not make the best out of this shitty situation?"

Snorting, Neo followed the instructions of the GPS to head towards the highway. "I thought you didn't like me," he replied, a slight spark of hope fluttering up in his chest. "And now you want a fun road trip with me?"

"I don't like you," Zeke said at once, and Neo's insides deflated like a bouncy castle that had been stabbed with a fork. "But a road trip's a road trip."

Neo stifled a groan. They were only a few minutes into the trip, and he was already in dire need of a drink. But since he'd just had to take the driver's seat for whatever ungodly reason, he couldn't even get drunk. That was just great. Zeke's company was going to be completely insufferable sober.

But hey, at least they were finally on their way now, headed down to L.A. at last—down, down in an earlier round, but at least they were going down swinging. And it was only two days, he reminded himself. Three, tops. He would survive. With a lot of fresh gray hairs and wrinkles, sure, but he would survive.

Now he just needed to make it through this trip in one piece.

~ ~ ~

"Signore!" the rent-a-car employee shouted as he ran across the parking lot, and Angelo made a mental note to give the kid some lessons in subtlety. "Signore, there's been a problem!"

Angelo grimaced. "What now?" he shot back, clammy and impatient and very, very irritable. "I'm still waiting for my car! Where is it?"

"…That's exactly the problem."

Breathless, the young man came to a skidding halt on the wet concrete, the rain running down his face in rivulets and dripping from his hair. There was something frantic in his voice as he spoke, barely waiting a second to catch his breath after the sprint.

"The car," he gasped out. "Someone else took it…it's gone!"