Coffee & Criminals

33. Actions Have Consequences

*In regards to the comments in the previous chapter, I would just like to say ᶜᵃᶫᵐ ʸᵒᵘʳ ᶰᶦᵖᵖᶫᵉˢ it is not that serious, my friends. We are all just lil breadcrumbs walking the endless sea of possibilities. Rude comments will be deleted. Let's be mature about this. Florence's choices are part of a bigger plot line and I wanted to make it realistic. Or, well, as realistic as a story could get. Don't use cursies or bad wordies ᵒʳ ᴵ ʷᶦᶫᶫ ᶠᶦᵍʰᵗ ʸᵒᵘ ᵃᵍᵃᶦᶰ (ง'̀-'́)ง

The next morning passed in a flurry of activity. I woke up with the flu. My head ached and my throat was sore. The last thing I felt like doing was answering questions, but I couldn't avoid it. My parents and Clancy were too upset to give me a proper conversation. They stared at me with big eyes and my mother occasionally broke down into tears. Clancy was not talking to me either. We didn't get much time to discuss anything because at the crack of dawn, an officer came by to pick us up for another round of grilling questions.

Detective Rossen didn't stop pressing me until four hours later. By that point, I was ready to fall over. Taking an unexpected swim in the freezing Atlantic was the worst thing that possibly could have happened. Question after question, he stared me down with those brown eyes and kept on scribbling things down on a stupid yellow notepad. I answered every question numbly but honestly. Well, as honest as I thought it needed to be. There were certain things I kept from the detective when he pried, such as the whole kissing situation and the Ade thing. And when he asked for a description of Brice, I made sure to leave out that he had an awesome beard.

In other words, I didn't lie. I just withheld information, that's all. The FBI didn't need to know everything. I told Detective Rossen just enough that it only took a moment to ask the next question. But not enough that I believed it was strong enough to actually help capture Wolfe. After all, if he was caught, then I was as good as dead, too. I'd be forced to testify against them in court. The media would eat me up as the doe-eyed innocent teenage girl just trying to protect her parents. They were crime lords. No one would hesitate to give them the death sentence. And if it was under my name that Wolfe Sterling finally passed, then I had absolutely no doubt that some other member of the Crowns would kill me to avenge his death. 

Also, I just didn't want to ruin their lives. If it was a Monday, then maybe I would have. But Saturdays was for Netflix (no chill) and FBI investigations, not dismantling infamous American mafias.

The news and the media sources hadn't put out any information about me or the Crowns just yet. Since it was a pending FBI investigation, things were kept very hush hush. They didn't want any hushes to get out until they were absolutely sure Wolfe Sterling and his reign of terror had been put to an end. Also, I think that they understood how panicked people would get once the news had gotten out. 

By the time the interrogation was over, it was noon.

My parents and I drove back to Brooklyn in complete silence but as soon as we walked through the front doors of the apartment complex, the phrase 'all hell broke loose' seemed too pathetically trivial to describe the argument that ensued.

"Honestly, Florence!" Mom glared at me as she shed her coat. Her face was pale and her eyes were red around the edges. "I leave you alone for one hour. One hour! And this is what you get yourself into? Are you trying  to get yourself killed? What is wrong with you, Florence? We raised you better than this-"

"I never want to pick up the phone and hear that my daughter has been arrested again!" Dad fumed. He had a lot more to say than my mother did. "Is that clear, Florence? This is madness! What have you gotten yourself into? You are 18! You have your entire life ahead of you. You can't just go around completely screwing it all up like your actions won't have consequences. Do you understand how much trouble you're in? Do you have any  idea what your mother and I went through the past few days? Goddammit, Florence. You're better than this. You know better than this. We taught  you better than this-"