𝐏𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐜𝐞𝐬𝐬

𝐭𝐫𝐨𝐢𝐬

"I'm gonna miss you, Tara," Juni mutters, keeping her arms around Tara's hips securely. She returns the gesture, tightening her grip on her best friend's hip,

"I'm gonna miss you too."

"Promise to keep in contact?" She asks, pulling out of the hug and waving her phone around, to show that she would, in fact, contact me. Frida, being Frida, jumps into Tara's arms, her tattoos showing from the jacket sliding off her shoulder.

"I promise," Tara says sincerely, getting a muffled reply from the woman stuffed in her shoulder. Frida pulls out of the embrace and repeats what she said that the others couldn't hear,

"You better. If you don't contact us, I will come to wherever you're staying and pull you by the ear back to Australia." She says crossing her arms and standing in a very relaxed posture, hands in pockets.

Tara tenses and looks over at Frida, slightly disturbed by what just came out of her friend's mouth,

"You do know that that's called kidnapping right?" The disturbed girl asked her best friend. Frida shakes her head unfazed,

"NO, it's called caring for your best friend." She says, moving closer to Tara and grabbing her shoulders.

"I'm just kidding, have fun over there. Just let us come over there once in a while." She smiles, getting a vibrant smile back from Tara.

"Sure." Tara smiles, pulling out two sheets of paper from her backpack, both pieces having some kind of silhouette on them. She hands the first piece to Juni.

Juni turns over the sheet of paper and is wowed. The paper had a painting of a plant, full of all types of vibrant colors beautifully blended together, painstaking detail being shown in the careful outline. Tara awkwardly swings back and forth, quickly explaining herself,

"It's a cover for your botanical book. You said that nobody could produce the right thing for you. So, I just thought that I could, maybe help you." She says, a very faint blush appearing on her face.

"It's perfect," Juni says, speechless. Tara's smile grows, she had helped one of her best friends and nothing could beat that feeling. She quickly moves on to Frida, handing her a much bigger paper, one that had been rolled up.

Frida unrolls the sheet of paper to reveal a drawing of a woman and a star. She traces her hand over the charcoal heavy paper,

"Mami." She whispers, tearfully looking up at Tara,

"Thank you." She mutters, getting a nod from Tara. A short burst of static comes from the intercom of the large airport,

"Attention all passengers, you have five minutes till the check-in desk for the flight to Versailles closes. You have five minutes till the desk closes."

Frida rolls Tara's luggage towards her, keeping a firm grip on it.

"Here you go." She mutters while walking back to Juni who waves goodbye to Tara.

Tara starts to walk towards the entrance, her bag in hand. She stops right in front of the automatic doors and looks back, towards her best friends.

Did she want to leave her friends for an uncertain future? Or did she want to risk their friendship?

No. She was going to go to Versailles and then she's gonna come back as soon as she got a job in Photography.

She steps into the airport and a wave of the AC meets her skin, causing her bangs to mess up.

"Ugh." She mutters, fixing the brown hairs that were blocking her view.

*

Ding.

Atlas had just gotten a text from Tara, the younger telling the older that she had just left for his city.

His city. Correction, their city.

Versailles was shared with three mafia groups, groups that were hidden as small businesses in the everyday world but when night set, they rose to be the biggest.

As soon as Tara sets foot into their city, Atlas would have to try his best to make sure that she has no connection to his group and is viewed as part of the innocent.

Atlas was part of the smallest group of the big three. Maurice was the leader of their group, DARK. A bad name he knows, but Maurice's grandfather came up with the name.

DARK had the least amount of connections but was the easiest group to get into. You didn't need to have connections in order to join and you got to choose what position you wanted.

The second strongest group in Versailles was EQUAL. EQUAL was run by Max Breveaux, the only one out of the city he made lots of friends in the high places, causing EQUAL to have the most connections hands down.

When Max had started running EQUAL, he had needed a right-hand man, or in this case, a right-hand woman. In comes Sienna Fin, Max's childhood friend, and trusted advisor. EQUAL is all about having as diverse a group as possible, but their only rule makes it hard to join.

In order to join EQUAL, you had to be from a major mafia group, or have ties to one. As a direct result of this rule, EQUAL is known to have the least amount of people in their group.

The most powerful group of them all, ACE. ACE was run by Japan-native, Cai. Cai has a real name but calling him by that name would be a bold statement that could cost you your life.

Atlas could attest to that. When he had tried out for ACE, a man had tried to impress Cai by calling him by his real name, Poppy. Needless to say, that now walks around the street without a home. ACE was co-run by Cai's resident bestie, Min Park.

Min was born in China and had become very close to Cai in high school, causing him to be Cai's first choice when it was time for him to step up.

The recruitment process was brutal though. Atlas had originally tried out for ACE since they had vowed to protect their group's families. There were three cuts and Atlas hadn't even made it past the first one.

For all Atlas knew, as soon as Tara would step foot in Versailles, the game would begin.

And so the game begins. 

Please make sure to star, comment, and share if you liked it!