Cleaning Crew

Zero crouched down and squatted down next to the fallen Boss. He gave him a few hard slaps to wake him up and when he saw the eyes fluttering open, Zero turned back to look at Lily.

"Do you want to do it?"

Lily blinked rapidly at Zero, then looked at the brute on the ground, groaning.

"Do what you want," Zero said, tilting his head, "I'll protect you."

"Anything?" Lily asked tentatively.

Zero smiled warmly at her, nodding.

With a gulp, Lily took a step closer. She was nervous, even with Zero there. However, when she looked at Zero, she got braver and took several deep breaths.

The brute was starting to wake up and Zero grabbed his neck, flicked his wrist a few times, and then waited patiently for Lily to come nearer.

"Don't worry, he can't move," Zero assured her, knowing the reason for her hesitation.

The man's arms were already useless, so even if he could raise them, they would not do any harm. His legs were frozen due to the needles he had flicked out. In fact, Zero didn't need to hold his neck to hold him down, but he did it for two reasons.

One, to make it seem like his grasp on the neck immobilised the man.

Two. Well, he was pissed, what else? Did he need a reason?

Lily kicked the guy softly at first, then when she saw that he couldn't retaliate, she started kicking him harder.

"You brute! You animal! You're not a human being!!" Lily shouted, getting more and more agitated as she remembered all that he had done to her.

She kept on hitting him until finally, she felt strong arms wrapped around her and his breath on her cheek as Zero said, "That's enough. He's completely unconscious now."

Lily, breathing heavily, seemed to come out of whatever haze she was in and gasped upon seeing the mangled form of what used to be a human being there. Instead, he resembled a pig.

He was so swollen everywhere that his face was no longer recognizable and his body was black and blue. No wonder all those novels she read had the description 'slapped so much that the face was like a pig'.

He really did look like a pig.

"Is-is he dead?" Lily said in fear.

Zero shook his head, "No, don't worry. He'll live."

"I'm going to get into trouble, aren't I?" Lily said. Though the guy was a brute, she was also guilty in the eyes of the law for hitting him when he was defenseless.

"No," Zero answered, "Don't worry."

"But the police -" Lily began.

"Won't be bothered with some street thugs being beaten up," Zero answered, hugging her tighter.

The MIB team were heading here already and would clean up the area anyway. The men would be dumped somewhere and they'll make it look like it had been some gang fight.

The security cameras around here had already been manipulated to show fake images, completely deleting everything that happened from the moment Lily stepped out of the bus. They had taken images from previous footages and seamlessly integrated it remotely into all the security feeds.

Such advanced technology was never made available to the public, of course.

"Realy?" Lily asked in disbelief.

"Really," Zero replied.

Lily seemed to have a weight off her shoulders, completely trusting Zero's words. She suddenly felt tired, but it did feel good to vent just now.

It also allowed her to get over her fear of the brute. He had made her completely helpless, so seeing the state he was in right now due to her own hands gave her some kind of release.

"Feeling better?" Zero asked.

"Yes," Lily replied, leaning into Zero's strong arms.

Zero looked up upon seeing a few black vehicles come by, "My men are here."

"Huh?" Lily asked, perplexed.

She saw as some guys in non-descript clothes come out of two vans and a car. One group from one van started putting the thugs into it, the second group came out with cleaning supplies and started clearing the area of any debris and blood, while two men from the car came over to Zero.

"All's clear, Sir," one stated, trying not to stare upon seeing their legendary ice-cold boss hugging a woman.

"Good," Zero replied, "Make sure she is out of all of it."

Then, as an afterthought, he added, "List C, cafe, me." The two men appeared surprised, then nodded upon realising the obvious, and left.

Lily looked at Zero, wondering what sort of codeword he was using to talk to his men. This was the first time she saw him 'in action', so to speak and she found Zero to be completely different than the Zero in the office.

She was curious as to what he really did at the Smith Industries, but she didn't ask. Zero remained silent as he thought of all the loose ends to tie up, not wanting to leave anything out.

One of the things that they would need to do was scour the internet. Although they had cleaned up the area, there was a possibility that there had been people taking videos of the whole thing. This part would be handled by the clean-up crew, but while thinking of that, Zero thought it was best to put Lily on the list.

There was a special list that had names on it, and the role of the IT Team was to ensure that any news about them would be tagged and erased according to importance. 'A' was the top, of course, and this means any unsolicited news about the listed people would go POOF. This full-blown protection was only given to the Smiths and Lianne.

'B' meant only negative news would be erased whilst 'C' would have average protection, in the sense that the moment the crawlers got a hit about the person, it would go through the 'vetting' system to determine what would be done with the news.

Zero actually wanted to put her on List A, but had no valid reason to do so. Even 'B' would not be suitable as Lily was a cafe owner. She would need to have an online presence, even if it may be 'negative' news as that would seem suspicious and too obvious.

There is no such thing as a 'perfect' cafe (no matter what he thought about her cafe being perfect) as there would undoubtedly be some who loved it, and some who did not.

Thus, he was only left with C (one would not even look at D or E). He stated 'cafe', which meant that the standing order would be any news that was related to the cafe, would remain. Anything else, would need to pass through him first to know whether it would be deleted or not.

Once he was satisfied that he had gotten all matters settled in his mind, Zero finally let go of Lily as he took her hand, and said, "Don't speak of what happened here at all, okay?"

Lily nodded.

Anything Zero asks her to do, she'd do it with no questions asked.

Although the whole scene looked like some sort of drama, Lily felt it wasn't important. Zero, was Zero.

A straight, honest young man that came to save her.

How he knew, how he did it, and what he's doing now … all of it wasn't important at all. What was important was the simple fact that he was here right now.

Lily leaned on his arm, glad that he was here and she felt utterly safe with him beside her. Although she felt sad that he wasn't hugging her anymore, she knew that he couldn't keep on doing so.

"Do you want to go home, or the cafe?" Zero asked as one of the cleaning crew members came over with his motorcycle.

Zero nodded his thanks and took it, looking at Lily.

Lily bit her lower lip, not daring to ask what was in her mind.

Zero tilted his head, got on his motorcycle, and reached out his hand towards her, "Anything, anywhere."

Lily stared at his outstretched hands and took it, "The beach."

Zero nodded, turned towards the men who were about to leave, and shouted, "Helmet!"

One woman quickly dashed over, carrying a helmet and handed it over to Zero before returning to the van. Zero took it and placed it on Lily, then waited for her to climb on.

"Hang on tight," Zero told her as he put on his own helmet.

Lily leaned on him, wrapping her arms around his waist and held on tight. She would never forget the strong back that protected her from the brute. She squeezed Zero harder, wanting to blend herself into him for he was the only one right now that was keeping the dark thoughts at bay.

All she wanted right now, was just to be with him until it went away.

Zero patted Lily's arms that were around his waist and started the engine. Only after he left did the MIB team leave as well.