A Man of Honor.

Chapter 33: Hello Oz.

"Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in." Michael Corleone, The Godfather Part III (1990).

When I came too I found myself being pushed into the familiar passenger seat of my car. My vision was blurry and my head was throbbing with the pain all focused in the back, but I could smell the leather of the seats. Instinctively I moved my hands to feel the back of my head and realized that my wrists were bound together.

Then I remember the last thing to happen to me. I remembered Blake, the fight in my bedroom, and the blow I had taken to the back of my head. And the words she spoke just before knocking me out.

I looked over to the side and stared down the barrel of Gambol Shroud as Blake Belladonna pointed it threateningly at me. She climbed into the front seat with my car keys. "Don't try anything!" She hissed at me fumbling with my keys and starting the vehicle up. The high performance engine roared to life as she turned the key and set the vehicle in motion keeping her weapon trained on me.

This was bad, in so many different ways.

"Blake... I need you to listen to me," I told her calmly and evenly. I didn't think she'd shoot me. I had a hard time imagining any member of team RWBY being a killer. But apparently Blake was a former member of the White Fang. If anyone in that team could kill me, it'd be her.

"Be quiet!" she said to me as she drove one handed out of the alley and down the street. "Whatever you have to say to me you can tell it to the police."

I doubted that she'd shoot me for just talking. She wanted to take me in and that meant I was pointless to her as a corpse. "You don't want to take me to cops Blake," I warned her with the calmest, most even voice I could manage given the situation.

Her eyes moved from the road to me, two amber slits that observed me with suspicion and anger. "You're not going to talk yourself out of this Jaune," she told me. "I gave you a chance to tell me the truth, I wanted to help you but you turned me down. So now you're going to have to deal with the consequences."

I stared at her for a long moment. I briefly considered trying to make a break for it. I could take my chances trying to tuck and roll out the door but I doubted I'd be fast enough to escape her with my hands bound. She'd be able to grab me before I could unbuckle my seatbelt she had generously secured for me and unlock and open the door, not with my hands bound as they were. I considered trying to fight, I had a couple of handguns stashed both in the center console and in the glove compartment. But I doubted given the tight confines that I'd be able to match her in a fight. And despite what was happening I didn't want to harm her.

Talking really did seem to be my best and only option here.

"And what is the truth Blake?" I asked her, keeping my voice calm and unthreatening as I could.

She gave me a look as we stopped at a light, even while trying to kidnap a mob member to drag to the cops she was diligently obeying traffic laws. "You work for Torchwick! You're helping him and the White Fang steal dust!" She told me. "Or at the very least you're working for that Gentleman guy I've heard rumors about. But I saw you there that night at the docks. You're stealing from the SDC, from Weiss's family company."

I almost wanted to chuckle. She had no idea that I was the Gentleman she was referring to. "Why didn't you tell anyone else about seeing me?" I asked her, there was no point in denying that it had been me at the docks that night. But I had expected her to tell her whole team, so far it seemed that she had kept quiet about this to them and I wanted to know why.

"I... I thought my eyes were playing tricks on me," she mentioned to me with a shake of her head. "It was chaotic and dark and I wasn't sure what I saw. I thought it was you but I wasn't about to go slandering your name to Ruby or Pyrrha or anyone else on mistaken identity. I didn't believe my eyes anyways because I couldn't believe that it was..."