Speciality: Stealth || Dialogue:#E3662B
As the late morning sun streamed through the apartment window, Gala finally let her head fall back onto the pillow. She had just come back from a long, nighttime heist with the incompetent men of New York’s finest Russian-American mob. She could admit that everyone had their strengths and weaknesses, but these men had been horrible at their job -nearly killing the job midway through- and the heist had been a relatively easy one. In the end, Gala had to do most of the work herself while those morons stood guard, as per usual.
Gala breathed in and let out a long sigh. ‘At least it’s over now. They got the information they wanted,’ she thought. Gala reached down and ran her hand over the envelope near her, smiling mischievously to herself. ’And I got what I wanted.”
Inside the envelop was a good amount of money that could get her through the next few months if another job failed to come along. ’The life I always dreamed of right?
Since the Ward had shut down, Gala had been stuck doing odd jobs for the Russian-American mafia. Their boss, Ivan Petrov disliked Gala but she was good at her job, and Petrov had made a promise to her father that he would protect Gala and her brothers, Alexei and Yuri, while they were in America. Gala thought of her father and how much she missed him, and her mother, and her two other brothers back in Moscow. She absentmindedly ran her hand over the scar that ran across her abdomen -the reason her father had sent her to America. Her kidnapping was over 10 years past, but it was still fresh in her memory.
Gala shook herself out of her own mind and sat up straight in bed. Even though she had not slept the night before, she knew that she needed to keep herself awake for most of the day or else her sleep schedule would be messed up. She grabbed the envelope of money she had received and made her way to the bathroom. In the bathroom, Gala looked at herself in the mirror. She looked haggard with her red hair frizzy, strands falling out of her ponytail. Gala splashed some water in her face and then looked back at the mirror, this time placing her palm on the right portion of the mirror. A light flashed around her hand as her palm was read. A short series of beeps and then Gala stepped back to allow the mirror to swing open into a wide vault. Gal placed the money inside and closed the mirror again. She had a good chunk of about $30,000 stored in the vault. It was too much money to be carrying around and it was too much to put in the bank without suspicion, so the money stayed in a vault that only gala could open.
Gala turned on the shower to the hottest setting and stepped out of the bathroom to grab her towel. However, as she neared the bathroom door again, a letter on her nightstand caught her eye. She had taken in the mail when she’d returned home as usual. Her mail was always mostly flyers and pamphlets that people had dropped in the mailbox, or the occasional bill addressed to Gala Redmond, her American pseudonym. What caught her eye was the letter addressed to Gala Sokolov, her real name, with no address -meaning someone had dropped it off by hand. Upon closer inspection, Gala saw that the return address was a stamp for the US government.
Gala quickly walked to the bathroom and turned the shower off before rushing back out and grabbing the letter. She sat cross-legged at the edge of her bed and stared at the envelope. A letter from the US government could either be a good thing -commending her for her time in the Ward, albeit that would be five years too late- or a horrible thing -telling her that her years of less than lawful acts had consequences. Gala guessed the latter, and she had already began to mentally prepare herself to pick up her life and move somewhere new. In any case, there was no use waiting to see what was inside. She ripped open the envelope rather aggressively and opened the letter inside.
After skimming the letter, Gala shook her head in disbelief and reread it a second time, this time more thoroughly. ’They want us back?’ Gala questioned to herself. ’Why the hell do they want us back?’
Gala placed the letter gingerly on the bed beside her and ran her hands through her disheveled hair. The Ward had been a type of family for so long. A dysfunctional, bitter family brought together by money and bribery, but a family no less. They had worked well together, and they had been a team that Gala had trusted for once -much unlike the teams of Russian-Americans that she worked with on a regular basis now. The only member that Gala had spoken to in the last five years was Josie. After the birth of her son, Gala had felt the need to make sure that Josie was alright, and after that, they had kept in touch occasionally. Aside from Josie, Gala had kept tabs on the other members out of loyalty and duty, if only to make sure that nothing bad happened to them. But the thought of actually seeing them and working with them again gave Gala a strange feeling. She was a criminal now in the most plain of ways. She broke the law for a living. How was she to explain to them what she did now? And how could she work for the government when she so plainly disregarded their laws?
Of course, the Ward would give her a break from the monotonous jobs and heists she pulled on the regular -and she was glad for that. But what would she tell her family? They had not liked to idea of her working for the government, but they had accepted it when she was promised immunity for herself and her brothers. Still, everyone, especially Gala’s father, had been glad to see the Ward broken up. It meant that Gala could return to safety under the wings of the Russian-American mafia. But Gala didn’t want to be safe. She wanted to have fun and exploit her talents to the best of her ability. She wanted to work with a team that could give her some competition, a team that could keep her on her toes. But most importantly, Gala wanted to feel purpose.
Glancing back at the letter beside her, Gala smirked. 'Well, this should be fun'