VIPER ♱ b. o'conner

interlude part one

"Where is he now?" He questioned curiously. Mia looked over with her brows knitted together, wondering if Lala had any idea where he was hiding. They hadn't talked about Dom or the others in years, it was too painful to take themselves back into that history. 

Lala shrugged and wiped a cloth along the work bench she was sitting at. "He was in Mexico." 

Mia set Leticia in her playpen with her bunny and made her way over to Lala. Her hand planted firmly on her hips as she stared with a hard glare at her best friend. "You talked to Dom?" 

"Briefly, just updates here and there but now that he knows I married Brian - and that Brian joined the FBI - he hasn't been as in touch. Last I heard, he was heading overseas but wouldn't tell me where." She frowned at the look of betrayal in Mia's eyes. "He sends his love, but he can't come home." 

"Why wouldn't you tell me that you talked to him? I've been trying for years to get any sort of contact from him but it never happened. All this time you've been keeping tabs and hiding the truth from me?" 

"I'm just gonna...yeah." Rome walked over to the playpen and entertained Leticia while the women talked.

Lala leaned forward on the table, sadness evident on her face. "Mia, he never wanted you involved in all of this. That's why he hasn't reached out to you - he doesn't want you to throw away your life here to go be with him."

"What if it was Letty?" Mia pleaded with her. 

"It is Letty." She countered her thought. "She won't come home without him, Mia. He won't come home unless his name is miraculously cleared which won't happen anytime soon. It's how our lives are now, okay? I promised Dominic that I would look out for you and keep you safe. So that's what I'm doing." 

Mia had no response for Lala in that moment, she knew that she was doing her best to adapt to their new lives. It was recently sprung on Mia that her family history was a different story than what she was told after all this time which was a hard pill to swallow. Mia always held her father and her family on a pedestal and thought she knew everything there was to know but she was wrong. 

She decided the best choice was to walk away before she hurt her or Lala's feelings in anger. 

"That was...something." Rome piped up after a few minutes of Lala staring at the door in silence. "You good?" 

Lala nodded and shrugged, "I was expecting it to be a lot worse than that. At least I got to tell her before Brian spilled about it." 

"Where's his ass at anyways?" He questioned, picking up Leticia and carrying her over with him. 

"You already know the answer to that." She rolled her eyes and grabbed her keys. "Let's go to Toretto's, ready?" 

April of 2007 - Los Angeles, California

Lala set the cake on the table in front of her. She was currently decorating for a graduation party for Mia. The younger woman had finally gone back to school and got her degree in nursing. Lala couldn't be prouder of her best friend, she was so unbelievably happy for her and her accomplishments. 

She turned around to be met with Brian carrying boxes of soda, the veins in his arms popping out at the weight he was holding. Her eyes raked over the man she got blessed to be in love with.

"Hey, Lita. Mia is going to be here in 5 minutes." He set the boxes down on the table with a grin. "I also got this." 

"Did you pick up the necklace?" She asked while looking inside the tiny box that Brian held in his hand.