Fucking hell--

My door was open. I sure as fuck hadn’t left it like that when I went off to visit Kianna. A man was stepping out carrying my television, he wore the uniform of a moving man. For a moment, I thought maybe one of my girls was trying to get me to move in with them, then I spotted the pistol hidden under his jumpsuit.

I kept walking as if I was heading to another apartment, “He moving out?” I asked.

“Yeah.”

“He borrowed two of my coffee mugs, mind if I grab ‘em?” I asked, glancing inside. There was another man, probably a third in the white van I’d seen outside the building. This was dumb. So very, very fucking dumb. But I didn’t have pictures of myself in my apartment, or anything. And I’d been a cop for ten years, I couldn’t be robbed. That would be so fucking embarrassing.

“Sorry man, can’t do it, company policy.”

I nodded and leaned forward into his face, he leaned back, Intimidating Presence doing its work. Between it and Parley this wasn’t as dumb as it otherwise would have been. But it was still dumb. I glanced down like I was looking at the badge on his jumpsuit. Then I reached forward and pulled the pistol out of its holster before he could react. His hands being full of my TV helped.

“Put my fucking property back,” I ordered.

His eyes went wide and he squeaked. I didn’t point the gun at him, or at the other man who was coming out with my laptop. “You, put that down, then take your gun out and put it on the floor.”

The other man obeyed instantly. They both went back in, putting my stuff back. Half my fucking furniture was gone! I glared at the pair of them, both hands now full of guns. “Here’s the deal, boys, you’re going to go get the rest of my shit, and put it back. This was all a big misunderstanding. And we don’t need to get the cops involved.”

They both nodded and headed for the door. “Sure, thing boss.”

“Uh, uh, one at a time, the other stays until I get all my shit back.”

“And then we get our guns back?” one asked hopefully.

I laughed.

They looked upset, but one remained behind and over the next half-hour all my shit came back up. They didn’t abandon one of their own, who could testify against them. Then I had them fuck off. They’d picked the lock, so no replacement needed there, though I was sure as fuck upgrading my locks…then I had to turn in the guns. Yay, $200 bucks from the local precinct, no questions asked.

That paid for the new lock, which I installed. I doubted my landlord would give a shit and if he did, I’d deal with it. Fuck, I needed to get out of this goddamn neighborhood.

As I lay down, something finally popped up.

Achievement Unlocked: King of the Castle:
You successfully defended you home from intruders. Reward: A Man’s Home Is His Castle, Perk.

A Man’s Home Is His Castle, Perk:
Your home will no longer be targeted by random crimes. Crimes specifically and deliberately targeted at you may still occur.

Fuck…had the app waited for me to buy a new goddamn lock before sending me the achievement? Or had there been some risk they would come back? No way to fucking know, unless it gave me a passive aggressive hint…which it didn’t.

Achievement Unlocked: Tongue is Mightier than the Sword:
Congratulations! You finally actually won a physical encounter without fighting! You’re making progress towards being a civilized human being. Reward: Intimidating Presence upgrade to 4 adversaries.

Well, that was helpful…and it reduced the cost of removing the enemy limit altogether to 9 credits…yeah, that was my next goal. It wouldn’t help with real supervillains, but their goons? That should be enough to make me almost immune to them.

Fucking hell, that was a long day, and Tuesday wasn’t much better. A bunch of mundane bullshit in the library, fucking Penelope actually did come to me for help which was incredibly unpleasant and only gained me +2 SP (Penelope: -26), getting me closer to her second challenge…

But finally it was time for Peyton’s visit. The girl was furious. “We got a problem,” she said, her voice entirely different from before…this couldn’t be the Scarface personality, or I’d be fucked.

“What is it? Scarface says you need to be getting out of here, soon for his plan to work.”

“Then he’s got to get that bitch Penelope to back off! She wants something I can’t do!”

“What is it?” I was confused, Penelope hadn’t mentioned anything much about Peyton, and surely she would have bragged if she’d come up with something new…

“She wants me to let them fix my fucking face. Like I’m goddamn Two-Face or something.”

“Tell me the problem, then.”

“The boss likes my scars, messenger! I got them on my wedding day when he saved me from Johnny Sabatino, that abusive fuck and took me as his own girl. Johnny nearly caved in my skull before Scarface saved me and he loves my scars! Just like he loves me.” +2 SP (Peyton: +62) She pulled her hair back to reveal the empty eye socket and ugly scar tissue that covered that side of her face.

I flinched, despite my best efforts.

”Most men can’t even look at it, but his expression never even changes when he sees it!”

I paused. “Wait here, I’ll go see him and be back…”

I actually did head down to the infirmary, just in case she had any friends who would tell her what I was doing and headed into Penelope’s office. I used the excuse that Peyton was looking to check out a book on plastic surgery, which had made me nervous, so I needed her to tell me if it was okay.

She happily agreed and gave me a lecture on her treatment plan and its brilliance…and no fucking SP gain, because she did it before I could ask and visibly, clearly, unashamedly wanted to do it.

I got back before her hour was up and found a book on plastic surgery for the look of it. All the while I was thinking about what to say to her…I hadn’t known that was how she joined up with Scarface, still didn’t know the details, but the scars were obviously important to her, as was her appearance.

Unfortunately, due to our audience, my first thoughts wouldn’t work. Also, I wasn’t even sure I could ‘prove’ I found her attractive, despite/because of her scars. They were honestly pretty hard to look at.

Finally, I went with…sweet? Sweetish? Sorta? I mean, I was pretending to be part of her psyche pretending to be a cursed-puppet-crimelord…it wasn’t exactly straightforward.

“The boss says get the surgery.” She opened her mouth angrily, but I spoke over her, quietly, “Shut up.” she did. +2 SP (Peyton +64). “This is what he told me. You dress like you do and cover up the scars so that everyone else knows what a hot piece of ass he’s got on his arm. You’re his girl, his moll, his sugar, so everyone has to want you. This’ll help with that.”

“But--”

“Shut up.” She did. +1 SP (Peyton +65) “Because he already does and always will, this don’t change nothing except that it’ll be easier to make everyone else wantcha. So, do it.”

She nodded. +7 SP (Peyton +72)

“And as punishment, for doubting the boss,” fuck…I hadn’t thought of anything for this… “you can only cum this week if you can do it solely from anal stimulation.”

She smiled, nodded and gave a throaty chuckle. Complete personality shift…

“What’s so funny?”

“The boss isn’t really mad, he knows getting my tight little ass pounded,” she twitched her hips, drawing my eye, then smirking at me, “by him, always makes me cum. I know other girls don’t like it, but I’m special.”

In more ways than one.

Fuck, I couldn’t manage to get any additional points, so her next checkpoint was out of reach for this week. Goddammit.