King of Hearts (House of Cards Series 2) [Student/teacher]

Queen of Spades

A/N: Yes, this chapter is fairly slow and jumps quickly through time. I want to wrap this story up soon, and I want it to end only after I get Alice and Malcolm married, which means I have to get us to December tout suite (very quickly). There's also the whole baby thing near that time as well, so I figure you all don't mind me hurrying to the good stuff ;)

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Plotting revenge is never as easy as Hollywood makes it look. That was the very first thing Maddison learned, and the first thing West warned her about. It was a lesson that he'd learned watching Malcolm reap bloody vengeance against his sister's killers many years ago. And in the end, West knew that just being involved in this would change his Angel. A normal, rational person cannot simply plot the downfall of a group of men and NOT find themselves a different person afterwards. It worried the Cubano, because he loved his Angel, and she was supposed to be the last good bastion of his soul. But his Abuela deserved vengeance.

While the men folk went about discussing different forms of pennance that sounded more like torture, Maddison and Alice were trying to discuss a slightly less neanderthal version of street justice. Maddison seemed to be the only one of the four without a blood thirsty streak and the others were thankfully listening to her calmer, more rational head. How strange that Maddison had been freaking out not two days ago, and yet now, with something to actually DO, she felt cool as a cucumber.

"We need someone to help with this next part. Someone who's face Joao or any of his dogs haven't seen yet. That's going to be a problem...." West muttered, tapping the table top. Although he didn't realize it, the Cubano was tapping out the beat of a song with his fingers and Maddison used it to help alleviate some of the tension in the air. She started to softly dance to the beat her lover's fingers drummed out. The moment Alice realized what the shorter woman was doing, she jumped up and joined right in, bringing an amused smirk to West's face, and a proud grin to Malcolm's.

With school over for all four of them, time was flying by ever quicker and Maddison was feeling a little overwhelmed. Alice was now obviously pregnant, her belly showing every moment of her 5 month long pregnancy. The hardest part about the month or so was being patient. West wanted to retaliate immediately, make sure everyone knew that messing with him and his was a death sentence. Cooler heads prevailed and Malcolm talked the fiesty Cubano back from the brink of a very foolish assault. So while Joao and his dog's all swaggered about, feeling awfully proud of themselves once they belived there was nothing West could do without Los Santos to back him up, the quad squad put their heads together and plotted a most suitable punishment.

The first of the ideas trickled in from an unlikely source. Salali, Alice's friend and sometimes guardian, had suggested that to free men, there is only one punishment short of death that is more cruel. If you do not wish to grant your enemy the mercy of death, there are ways to make them beg for release without ever physically hurting them. Keeping that in mind, Maddison and West had agreed that maybe if they could get the whole lot of the dogs taken off the streets, it might appease their need for revenge.

Those men and women that West had called on so long ago to deal with Joao and his trap were called in again. Having heard about what happened, most volunteered to help, claiming that it was for Abuela and not West so that he wouldn't feel indebted to them. A few flat out couldn't help and several were entirely unsuitable for what they wanted, but the help was always appreciated. When and where they could, those men and women had been stalking the Dog's, taking down details of every drug deal, car stolen, everything. Pictures, tape recorder, everything they could think of to catch the all male Dogs in illegal acts. Unsurprisingly there were an abundance of prostitutes involved and Maddison spared a moment to feel guilty for making those women's lives even harder. But this was the cost of vengeance. As was Abuela's death.