The Duchess {OHSHC}

It was late. Later than usual for a handoff.

I stood in an old, dark wharehouse that the... client, if you will, chose as the meeting point, my two brick walls of brothers behind me.

Damian, the oldest of us three at twenty-eight, carried a large duffle bag with our... merchandise, so to say, in his beaffy arms. Dominic, the middle child at twenty-five, stood stoically next to Damian and behind me, holding a gun in his meaty hands. My brothers almost looked like CIA agents.

The thought made me chuckle.

"Something funny?" A voice called from the shadows in Japanese.

I put on my signature puckered smirk and flicked a strand of long blonde hair over my shoulder. "Not entirely." I replied in the client's language.

The Japanese man stepped out of the shadows, along with his two bodyguards. They were like Japanese mirror images of my brothers, only one had a briefcase instead of a duffle bag.

"I take it I'm speaking to The Duchess directly?" He said with a quirk of his brow. I nodded and curtsied. "In the flesh. You made a very unusual request to meet me, Mr Hishama. Not many men wish to do buisness directly with the head of the world's largest underground mafia, and the great granddaughter of Al Capone."

The client smirked and with a snap of his fingers, brought the man with the briefcase to stand next to him. I did the same with Damian.

"It's odd how you only brought two men to protect yourself, Miss Duchess." He muttered as we showed him our merchandice.

Over the years, after my great grandfather had been arrested for tax evasion, the mafia that everyone had thought vanished had only melted into the underworld and spread to dozens of countries across the globe. We had to find a new import after alcohol had been legalized, and moved on to drugs. This was the merchandice we had in the duffle bag.

The client smiled and nodded.

"So where's our cut?" I asked coldly.

"Ah yes, about that..." The client trailed off as he whipped out a gun and fired it at me. The bullet hit my shoulder and I fell to the ground with a shreik of surprise and pain.

The briefcase guy dropped his burden, which sounded hollow as it hit the ground, and charged at Damian while the other man lunged towards Dominic. I watched with a snarl as my brothers were beaten, and the client grabbed the briefcase and duffle bag.

"LET'S GO!" He shouted to his guards. "THE POLICE ARE ONLY MINUTES AWAY!"

The two guards broke away from my brothers and ran after the client and out the door.

I growled and my brothers stepped forward to help me. "NO!" I ordered in English. "The police are coming! Get into positions for the date rape con."

They nodded, and proceeded to punch each other so hard they collapsed, unconscious.

I hissed in pain as I tore open my black dress, and unhooked my bra, making it look as though someone tried to force themselves onto me.

I was just finishing positioning myself on the floor and messing up my long blonde hair, when the footsteps of police officers met my ears. I smirked, before screaming in terror, fake tears easily sliding down my face.

"HELP!" I screamed to the men in english they burst into the warehouse. "A MAN JUST TRIED TO RAPE ME! PLEASE HELP! MY BROTHERS NEED MEDICAL ATTENTION! HELP US, PLEASE!"

-*-*-*-

"Now tell us, what happened?"

I was sitting in the back of an ambulance car, 'crying' my eyes out as a Japanese woman bandaged up my shoulder. A Japanese police officer was looking down at me with simpathy in his eyes.

"Well..." I sniffled. "I-I met s-someone online... I-I really th-thought w-we hit it off..." I paused and took a shaky breath. "H-he asked to meet me th-there, and I f-figured 'why not?'... I know I'm not th-the b-brightest, and my b-brothers t-told me not to g-go... But he seemed so nice...! Well, I g-got to the w-warehouse, and th-three men were there..."

I paused for a second and forced more tears to well up in my eyes.

"They... They tried to..."

I squeezed my eyes shut and began to 'cry' again.

"It's alright, dear. Take your time." The police officer went to pat me on my good shoulder, but I flinched back, making it seem as though I were emotionally traumatized.

His gaze softened and I continued, almost feeling bad for making him believe such an absurd lie. Almost.

"M-my brothers sh-showed up t-to help me, but the men b-beat them unc-conscious... That's when the p-police showed up..."

I hung my head low and the policeman sighed. "We'll find your assaulters as fast as we can, miss..." "Alicia." I interjected. "Alicia Ford." Only part of that name was an alias. My first name is indeed Alicia, but I'm proud to brandish my infamous last name: Capone. And it should be safe to use my name. The Duchess is my title as the leader of my great grandfather's mafia. Not many others other than my brothers knows my real name. Well, I guess they do now...

"Well, Miss Ford, you have to be more careful with people you meet on the internet. You're American, are you not?" I nodded my head. "Then you must be wary of those around you. Japan is not like the states." I nodded again and thanked the ambulance nurse as she finished with my shoulder.

"You know," the police man began again. I almost scowled in annoyance at his persistency, but kept up my frightened little lamb act. "Your Japanese is nearly flawless!"

I had to physically stop myself from raising a prideful eyebrow and scowling at the word 'nearly'. I prided myself on having the ability to fluently speak the national language of every country in which I had dug my heels. 'Nearly' wasn't good enough.

"What is it that you mean?" I asked, trying to sound polite and not dig my nails into the bastard's throat.

"You lack the use of respective titles. Like, for an older brother you would say onii-san."

I grimaced inside, but smiled sweetly outside. "Thank you sir. I will be sure to keep that in mind." He smiled and looked down at a notepad in his lap that he had been writing all that I told him on. "I'm going to have to ask what school you will be attending when the school year commences in a few days."

That made me freeze for only a heartbeat. I never went to school. I had no need to. From a very young age I had been taught how to be the successor to my great grandfather's business, and that was pretty much it. Of course, that also included math, science, languages, and history.

I looked to my right and out the ambulance window as the vehicle passed part of a large, pink school. I looked back to the police officer and smiled sweetly. "Ouran. I will be attending Ouran Academy."