LA FEMME ROUGE

Countess Cleo

Carmen's POV

After my little talk with Agent Devineaux, I walked out of the alley and got on my motorcycle.

I rode out of the city.

The place will be swarming with ACME Agents, I had to move fast.

I remember when Chase Devineaux was fired from ACME.

He was known to constantly destroy vehicles.

ACME later rehired him.

I pulled up to the hotel I was staying at, changed my clothes, then rode to the nearest train station.

I got a ticket, first class, then boarded the train.

~~~3 days later~~~

I was wearing my vigilante clothes while riding through the streets of New Orleans.

V.I.L.E. was harassing the homeless around here.

Their stronghold used to be a homeless shelter, then they bought it an kicked out all the people.

They had to start sleeping in cardboard boxes while eating trash.

That's unacceptable to me.

Countess Cleo herself was here.

I haven't seen her in person for 5 years.

Even before then, she wanted nothing to do with me.

I remember when I was 12 and asked her for a hug.

She scoffed and told me that she'd never hug me.

Those words still hurt.

I managed to get information about Countess Cleo's illegitimate affairs.

If any of her crimes get out onto the media, her image will be ruined.

For someone like Countess Cleo, humiliation is worse than actually serving jail time.

I'm feeling generous, however.

As much as I could easily destroy a good fraction of V.I.L.E. by leaking the information on the web, I didn't want to take the fun out of everything.

I'll just tell her to remove the stronghold from New Orleans.

Countess Cleo's POV

I was walking in the parking lot to my limousine.

A couple of guards were accompanying me.

"Keep someone to manage." I said. "Beef up security. And make sure those ruffians doesn't interfer with our stronghold."

I stopped at the limo door.

I turned around to face the guards.

"While La Femme Rouge is one of our biggest problems, Carmen's team are a bunch of blokes who needlessly destroy our bases." I said.

"Wow!" Said a voice. "They started to destroy your bases? I wouldn't of though to do that in 35 years."

I turned around to see La Femme Rouge standing on the top of my limousine.

She shot darts into my guards' shoulders, knocking them out cold.

She jumped down, standing a few feet away from me.

"Hello, Countess Cleo." She said. "You know why I'm here?"

"Why?" I asked. "To blackmail me into paying you more money?"

She shook her head.

"Move this stronghold out of New Orleans." She said. "And build another homeless shelter."

I scoffed.

She can't be serious!

Can she?

She pulled out her phone and played a recording.

"Look, we need to continue our illegal affairs or the criminal underworld will view us as jokes."

That was me.

How did she get that?

"You really need to make sure your secure phone lines are secure." She said putting her phone away. "I don't think the media will be too happy about this."

She... recorded my phone calls?

She's blackmailing us?

Again?

"Ok." I sighed. "We'll remove our stronghold out of New Orleans... and build a homeless shelter."

She was about to walk away, I asked her a question.

"Why are you using our daughter's nickname?" I asked. "Why are you following HER goals?"

"Daughter?" She scoffed. "I talked with Carmen a bunch of times. She said you would never hug her. That you didn't like her."

My eyes widened.

"That's what I thought." She said before walking away and disappearing into the night.

Tears were coming out of my eyes.

Black Sheep, Carmen, never thought I loved her?

She was my daughter too.

Not just Shadowsan's or Brunt's.

I might not have spent time with her much, but that didn't mean I hated her.

The only reason I didn't want Black Sheep to be adopted in the first place, was because I didn't want her getting hurt.

She would've eventually joined the 1 year schooling V.I.L.E. program, and she could've be seriously injured.

My phone rang.

I answered it.

It was Maelstrom.

"Countess Cleo, we just wanted to make sure that- are you crying?" He scoffed.

"La Femme Rouge is here." I said. "She said she knew our daughter."

"I'll send the team after her." Said Maelstrom.

He hung up.

When we capture her, I'm going to ask a lot more questions.

And I want answers.

How does La Femme Rouge know my adopted daughter?