End Transmission

AN: *grins* oh i cant wait until you read this... heheeheheh.

Anyway, sorry for the LATE update as I was supposed to update early…. But RL is dreadfully busy and is going to continue to be busy ALL WEEK so idk when I'll update next week. Might be my normal Monday might not. We'll see.

Suggested Listening: King of the World by Porcelain and the Tramps (i can so see this as Mello's song... totally); Nothing Is What It Seems (Without You) by Saosin

Chapter Eighteen: Bow

The wind whipped his blond hair around, the parts left uncovered by the hastily thrown on helmet, but Mello ignored it even when the sharp strands bit and stung his eyes. He was on his way back to his base to receive information that he couldn't get on the phone. He had made some calls to a few men he trusted, and that was a stretch, and had requested they find out anything they could about any new people in the area, anyone looking to make a move on the area or anyone acting stranger than normal.

He trusted them only because he was assured they knew he wouldn't hesitate to have their families killed should they betray him, that and they were some of the only few who had been with the Mafiya since his fathers time, who had respected him.

Not that he hadn't earned his own version of respect in the years he'd been in control. He showed mercy IF and only if it was deserved but had no problem dismembering someone if it came to it and in front of his men if it was required.

If they would not respect him, then they would fear him. But either way they would follow and obey him. And should they fuck up then they were useless to him. He was good at reading people, but that didn't mean everyone was an open book, and he wasn't around them all the time or on the streets like they were.

His men would know better than anyone if something abnormal was going down, though they might not have thought anything of it at the time as Mello had them on other projects. The L projects. Only now they were on a different set of project for him against L. Because L had crossed a line that shouldn't have been crossed.

There was no evidence it was L, but Near was certain it was his doing somehow, and after the entire story had spilled from the albino's lips, Mello was convinced it was L as well. It was too coincidental to have been anything else, and Mello no longer believed in coincidence.

He pushed the machine faster and hunched slightly more foreword as it roared around him and he felt the rush at going far beyond what he knew he could handle, but it didn't matter so long as he got back to base as fast as possible. Matt's life depended on it.

If he wasn't already dead, his mind supplied.

He ignored that voice even though it had been days since the abduction. Days that Matt had been in their care. Near had left him fifteen messages in that time, but Mello had been so busy he had shut his phone off.

Mello knew he never should have done it, and it was entirely his own fault that Near had been the only one aware of Matt's disappearance. His gloved hands clenched tightly around the throttle and pushed it harder still. He whipped past oncoming cars and ignored the blaring horns directed at them. They were nothing to him...

And Matt...

Matt was everything.

.

Mello sped to a stop outside of the abandoned factory that served as their base. It looked like shit on the outside but had been remodeled inside and even had rooms for most of the men to sleep in should there be a need.

He tossed the helmet aside not really caring where it landed, with how fast he had been going a the damn thing wouldn't have saved him had he crashed, and strode back into the building that he had only left hours earlier.

Mello went in through a side door, not because it was less conspicuous from the outside, but because no one other than three people knew he was back. And he wanted to keep it that way for the moment.

The hallway was dark, only lit by pale and flickering lights, but he knew his way around. Mello's hand rested on the gun shoved in the front of his leathers and made sure the safety was off. If something went wrong he would have more to worry about then having his junk blown off.

He rounded the corner and headed toward the only open door with light blaring out from underneath. He didn't bother to knock and simply pushed the door open and raised an eyebrow as a gun barrel was aimed at him.

It was lowered immediately when he was recognized.

"Sir..." a tall brown haired man, in a typical black suit minus the jacket, named Yuriy greeted him. He eased his fingers off the gun ever so slightly as he stepped from the dark of the corridor.

Mello immediately spotted the other two, who were seated in the middle of the room on rotted looking boxes. The one with the short black hair, graying in patches, pulled back with a thing leather strap at the base of his skull was Sasha. The other, a bulky kind of man with a shaved head, the typical thug type, was Kain.

They were his three most trusted, Yuriy being the one he trusted to run things while he was gone. Normally if something were to go wrong he would be blamed, however Mello liked to blame the actual individuals who created the mess. Probably the only reason Yuuri had survived so long with him despite things generally being calmer now-a-day.

He also took note of the blood spatters that coated one wall of the room and that reached out across the floor in a spider web like manor.

"I did as asked, with the help of Sasha and Kain, and we discovered that after putting together our individual experiences that Viktor had been missing for a long period of time during the time frame given for your friend's disappearance." Yuriy said, while not quite staring him in the face, more of off to the side.

Mello narrowed his eyes and had no need to tell Yuriy to continue. "The three of us lead him here on the pretense that we wanted to discuss a possible way to get ride of you..." Yuriy trailed off, uncomfortable. And Mello understood why. Such talk was usually grounds for elimination.

"We were able to subdue him and after a bit of persuasion coaxed the truth from him." Sasha took over. Viktor had always been weak. He was young and thought he knew everything because he was three years Mello's senior. He was a fucking idiot.

"He had been an informant for one of L's presumed contacts. Though it was never confirmed by him if the man actually worked with L, and he had never given away your appearance in hopes for lenience on your part should he be caught before his end of the deal, the take over of the Mafiya, be complete." Sasha cleared his throat for a moment.

"The only reason your friend was taken was because of... his association with you." Sasha finished hesitantly.

"And where is Viktor now?" Mello asked calmly, a dead eerie calm. In truth he didn't feel a thing. He had known that someone in the ranks was a traitor, feeding information to an outside source. But it hadn't affected him yet and he had wanted to see how it would play out while he solidified things with the people he knew he could trust should things go bottom up. He honestly hadn't thought it had anything to do with L.

His emptiness was suddenly filled with an almost gut wrenching guilt. Matt had been taken away because of his oversight, probably hurt because of it and even possibly...

And the guilt turned to anger.

"He is dead and disposed of." Kain replied, being the first time he had spoken the entire time.

"Pity." Mello commented stonily and Sasha shifted uneasily on his feet, being the closest to him.

"Why is that?"

Mello turned his icy gaze on him and took a sick pleasure, in that entirely grim situation, in the way he flinched. "Because I would have pealed the flesh from his bones and fed him to the rats had he still been alive."

His fists were unconsciously clenched by his sides and his head dipped allowing his hair to shadow parts of his face and give him an almost demonic expression. "I need to find out where he was taken." he growled.

"Kain was able to pry the location out of him..." and when Yuriy said pry Mello had no doubt that he had literally pried it out of him in some form. The problem being was that they hadn't told him immediately.

"You needed to be informed of the entire situation before gallivanting off into the sunset." Kain commented quietly. He was probably the only one Mello would allow to get away with such a comment. If only because should he shoot him, and the bullet didn't kill him, Kain could probably break him in half with his bare hands. That and he was sort of amusing at times. Scared the piss out of the new recruits at the very least.

And, though Mello hated to admit it, Kain did have a point. While Mello was brilliant, if he was too emotionally invested in something he often let his rational thoughts get swept away with his emotions. And in this case, it could cost Matt his life.

"Fine, I have the entire situation in my knowledge, so where is he?" Mello asked with as much calm as he could muster. Though it really wasn't much. He needed to get Matt. Needed to fix his mistake...

His men looked hesitant and not for the first time Mello saw the loyalty in their actions. Had they not been in this with him they wouldn't have cared if went out half-cocked and got killed. "Sasha you are coming with me so fucking give me the damn location." he snapped. That was as close to caring as he would get with them, he had an image to maintain and he wouldn't break it.

"Get me a map." Kain requested. He may have looked the typical thug type, and acted a little bit like it, but just because he was silent did not mean he was stupid. Far from it. But then again, the other two weren't idiots either.

Sasha didn't hesitate to leave the room in search of a map and the silence he left in his wake was riddled with a tense unease. The minutes ticked by, made ever longer by the situation, and Mello had contemplated leaving to get one himself by the time the man finally reappeared.

He offered no information on what had taken him so long and simply handed the map over and slunk into the background as though his lateness wasn't enough to get him killed. And it was really, but Mello had neither the time nor the attention span at the moment to deal with it; especially when he had a feeling they probably hadn't left a map just lying around randomly in a corridor near them.

Mello trained his eyes on the map and paid close attention to where the lines were drawn and the route explained. It was clever, hiding Matt in such plain sight. Though the location was also slightly worrisome. With so many people in that area, it was hard to believe no one had seen anything, unless Matt had been drugged or the people paid off.

"We're leaving now, grab what you can carry." he said and turned heal. It was, without speaking, understood what he meant. Arm yourself with as much shit as possible but don't slow yourself down. His plan was simple. Barge in and get Matt. From the size of the building there could only be so many people in there, especially with nothing strange having been reported for Near to have picked up in his search for the redhead, and with Sasha as a backup he had no doubt they could get Matt out of there. Not with both of them alive, but Matt would get out of there.

No matter how many people he had to gun down or gut to do it. Mello didn't care about the amount of blood or bodies tied to his soul so long as his friend was safe. Mello supposed it was stupid, but perhaps that was love in its finest.

Or stupidity. Same thing really.

He could go in there with just himself and Sasha and have a five percent change of success or he could go in there with fifty people and risk Matt being shot by a trigger happy dipshit who didn't give a fuck what they were doing so long as they got to shoot someone. Despite how demanding he was concerning his men, there were still some in there who acted like that, only kept around due to other skills.

It was almost a suicide mission and the fact that Sasha walked calmly beside him, acting as though everything was fine, was calming to the stressed blond. He may not completely trust those men, wasn't sure he even could, but they were useful enough.

It was also unspoken, that while he was gone, Yuriy was in charge. Though none of the other men were to find out unless absolutely necessary. As in he was temporarily incapacitated or dead. Mello didn't like to leave anything to chance... despite the situation stating otherwise.

He wasn't worried that Yuriy would attempt a coup, he wasn't the type and Mello knew the thought had never crossed the man's mind. The others though, while they followed him because he got them money, had no real reason to stay loyal despite the fact that he would blow their knee caps right off the second he found out about any plots. Though that apparently hadn't been enough in the past if the current fiasco was anything to go on.

"I'm not too sure the others picked up on it, but you seem to have a personal vendetta against L. I won't ask what it's over, but I think you should know there is a chance that he or his proxy could be there, so if they know what you look like... you might not want to simply storm in there..." Sasha trailed off.

Mello didn't once stop in his brusque paced walking as they weaved out of the complex, using the same crappy lit way he had used to get in, but he was slightly surprised Sasha had reasoned that out on his own. He wasn't stupid, far from it actually. But at the same time Mello liked to believe that he had hidden his emotions better than that.

But if L got there... if L was there, then Matt would have been recognized. And L would have known for certain that they were alive and there would be no doubt L would know Mello was one of the Russian Mafiya leaders. It was hard to say what he would do to Matt. It made as much sense to keep him alive as it did to kill him.

Use him as a bargaining chip or use him to break the enemy...

He clenched his teeth as he threw a leg over the seat of his motorbike as he signaled for Sasha to follow him, discreetly. Matt couldn't be dead... not after all he did to make sure he was protected, though that hadn't turned out very well, now had it? He reminded himself grimly.

No, it hadn't turned out well at all.

Once he was assured that Sasha was indeed following him he sped up. It wouldn't matter if the man lost sight of him as they both knew the way there, but it was always best to have someone watching your blindside.

He revved the engine again and sped further on down the road but nowhere near the crazed speeds of his journey to the base. It had been idiotic doing something of that nature when all he'd really needed to do was get Matt back safely.

And for that, he couldn't afford to die in a traffic accident.

The rout there took them out through the more secluded parts of town before, after one simple turn, they were thrust back into apartments and housing facilities. It was strange how one small stretch of road could bring someone to the middle of nowhere and hardly five minutes later back into the gritty sounds of life.

Mello slowed down at the next intersection and glanced at the street signs; only two more roads to go and he would be there. It was the address of a local business, or rather what had once been a local business before it had moved to a larger place leaving its previous residence as rented space.

It was unclear to Mello, however, if they had actually rented the space out or had simply taken it as their own to use in the abduction plans. Though even if it had been rented he doubted that the paper trail would lead back to anyone pertaining to the act, and if it did then someone had fucked up on a grand scale.

He neared the final street and slowed to a stop and as he did he noticed the sight screeching of brakes and glanced through the rear-view mirror to watch as Sasha pulled up behind him. They were in the parking lot of some bakery, though with how late it was the business was closed for the night.

Sasha didn't say a word to him in greeting nor did the man ask any questions, though Mello was certain he didn't have to worry about something going wrong. It was an unspoken thing, that Mello was going to lead in and that Sasha was there as support fire.

Because Mello wanted to down as many of those bastards on his own as he could manage.

His uneasiness at the situation only grew as he noticed the back door of the business, a sort of butcher like place, was open. Had the guns not already been his hands he would have done so then.

All around then was silence, an unnatural silence, and Mello narrowed his eyes into the darkness. There was definitely something wrong, and Mello couldn't help the fear that crept into his belly and turned his posture rigid.

His boots clunked noisily on the tiled floor as he entered the darkened place and hearing no response, nothing at all when someone should have heard something, should have done something by then, he flicked on the lights to find the place a mess.

The room he was in looked to simply be a loading area though there was a table and chair in the corner and a crushed package of cigarettes on the floor. A folder lay on the floor with its contents scattered about but he ignored those. He continued on, flicking on light after light in room after room.

Mello felt cold settle all around him as he found the empty rooms. All of them were empty and in disarray. All of them. It was as though they had gone about crazily packing things up and had simply left, despite the fact that they shouldn't have known they had been found.

He continued on down to the cold storage area, the bolt hanging open uselessly though the door had been too firmly shut and had not opened despite the lack of support. He wrenched it open, frigid air spilling out into the room before the temperatures settled, the cold storage having been on the most minimum setting.

Sasha followed him inside and the lights flickered despite having turned them on. It was like something out of a horror movie with all of the empty meat hooks hanging from the walls and stainless steal tables. He strode foreword, glancing back and forth but it was the same as the rest of the place had been, though it was slightly cleaner, as though there hadn't been much going on in that room.

He came upon the end of the storage, it being a rather large room, or perhaps the vast emptiness attributing to that, and glanced at the out of place structure that neared the wall before his eyes caught sight of a small tag on the ground. He picked it up and scanned it.

He stared in front of him, taking a step back as it dawned on him, and couldn't help but feel a little bit helpless as he finally saw the supports that had been used to hold up a casket.

He had gotten there too late.

Far too late.

And god knew what they had done to Matt because of it.

-End Bow-

AN: Mwahahaha! I told you that you would love the ending. And I meant that as the cliffhanger. :)

Um, there MAY be errors in this, probably are. I tried to get them all but here's the thing. This chapter has been sitting on my flashdrive for a few MONTHS, and for whatever reason, my flashdrive likes to delete words off of documents. So today I had to deal with things like 'Mello sped to a stop outside of the abandoned factory that served as their .' it deleted 'base' at the end. So….. I'm probably missing lots of stuff XD