Two Birds One Stone [Alastair, Antonetta]

There was plenty of angles to approach this delicate situation but the more time that she spent undercover and trying to gain a greater pool of knowledge as to Alastair it became a bit more troublesome. He was acquainted with high-ranking people, he was powerful himself. It was a trial that kept testing but Antonetta had been not playing to her strengths.

She was approaching this like her older sisters instead of how she'd approach it. Diplomacy and deception. Wrapping something around her finger and having it dance to her tune like a mouse in the claws of a cat.

So with just a plain sundress, a handbag full of assorted possessions like make-up, a purpose and other accessories which weren't exactly strange. Leaving her cat behind was necessary and unlikely to make a difference if she failed anyway so the completely unarmed fullbringer gave a couple of gentle knocks to Alastair's door.

She'd kept a broad brim hat to hide the upper part of her face, leaving him with just the tight coloured lips to determine her identity. It was completely unnecessary but she had thought it looked more purposeful in trying to look incognito which could muddy his first impression.

"Hello, Mr. Eisfluch. I'm Antonetta."

Her voice was refined, so much so that she could replicate the faint flightiness and stain her calm, professional words with hints of concern and hyperawareness. All the signs that she was fearing that someone could be behind every corner ready to pounce.

Of the many ways that Alastair had considered that Arlette's sisters would try to silence him, walking up to his front door and asking was a little down the list. But a direct approach was never entirely out of the question, though he would have expected the task to fall to Eliane instead. Still, he had been provided with perhaps at best a surface-level description of Antonetta's capabilities so perhaps this was well within her wheelhouse. She had infiltrated the city, after all. Bypassed what rudimentary precautions he had put in place to hamper her at the airports and found out his address. Though one of those was likely a little easier than the other, neither was exactly an insignificant task.

He approached the door warily, Falke already lingering in his free hand as the other went to slowly crack the door open. It was probably unwise to even expose himself at all, he knew that, and yet he was compelled to at least hear her out. If it came to it, he could probably rip the door off its hinges and use that against her.

"Ms Ovide, I presume. Do I need to ask what you are doing here?"

There was little use in subtlety, his voice belied that, as rusty orange eyes peered at the woman through what little space in between the door and its frame that he had given.

What a question, as proper as it was to ask her business how could he not just assume it off a glance? Maybe she was giving a bit too much credit to others though. She had mapped a couple of pathways about how she could manipulate or try to coerce the situation. Even if it all went badly she had accepted that it didn't matter given her capacity to come back.

As many times as it took, she could afford to lose right now. It was just more delicate because the first chance was the best one.

"I need Arlette. I need her before Mama kills me."

She hesitated to say it but Antonetta made a display of looking to her sides after saying it. Bright blue eyes fixing back onto him after she'd checked her surroundings. Give him a couple of signs of paranoia and worry, do-good men could get such a conflicted heart at the sight of a damsel in distress.

It was a little pathetic really is how she thought about it and she saw it as a blessing that she didn't have a father to fall under that spell. Every single one of her relatives were a different poison but to her they also served as medicine.

Alastair's eyes narrowed with an undeniable sense of confusion at those words, so innocently spoken that they pulled at the strings of his heart. Did he not know what he did then it would have been almost trivial for her to wrap him around a finger and do what she needed to. But he was not so easily swayed as to lower his guard before an enemy, even one as unassuming as Antonetta.

"You would need to offer me more than a vague cry for help to accept that you had turned against your employer."

His gaze hardened then, the weakness fading away as he focused on the woman again. He would not disappoint Arlette by letting her sister force him into a trap with a few errant words. She would have to work to deceive him, more so with such a delicate starting point.

"And that is what it would take to get me to help you."

Employer. What a disgusting simplification of her family by him, this gnat that didn't understand. He couldn't comprehend what their lives were like. If she had less self-control she might've attacked him or even shown it on her face. No no, she needed to play her cards right and hold them close to her chest. No errors.

She brought her hand up to her neck to fondle the choker, it looked fashionable enough but her hand rubbed it like it was uncomfortable. It was a collar and something ready to explode at any minute. It was all her sister's fault that she was stuck with this.

"What would you like to know? I don't know if there's any information I can give you that my older sister doesn't already have. If I don't get this collar off, I'll die. I haven't heard from Eliane in a while, I'm worried that she's getting rid of us."

"And if Eliane happened to get rid of you, Lady Duvalier could always make another. A morbid truth, perhaps, but you are not quite as mortal as you seem, are you?"

Still, despite himself, Alastair could not deny that concern that lingered in her mannerisms as she began to fiddle with that collar. Would Claudia be so sadistic as to put a bomb collar on her own bodyguards? It certainly seemed unlikely that she would take a betrayal very well, so perhaps she would. And only Claudia would have devices that were capable of bypassing the usually stringent security measures in the City that had only been heightened in recent weeks. If she was bluffing then it was working, because he could not risk her exploding in a public residence.

"Still, I know technicians that are more than capable of disabling such a device. But they would need to do so in a laboratory, not at my front door. So, if you truly want to survive, then you will have to submit and be taken in."

That was a bluff of his own, though perhaps one founded more in innocent belief than a genuine intent to mislead. Frankly, he did not know the exact capabilities of the device that bound her let alone whether the disposal unit could handle it, but there was little to be gained without stirring a little false hope.

At his remark she took a backstep, tense and guarded at the idea of submitting to him and being taken into custody. She did not like that idea and she conveyed that there was no trust to justify that kind of action. Plus, there was the distinct possibility that it could blow up in her face literally. It was not a comfortable feeling to imagine going back and having to explain that she failed. Her mother didn't like failure.

Now of all times for certain.

"If I die she might not bother making me again though..."

She ventured, playing the part of being confronted by the reality of the whole situation. If his technicians failed then she would die, right? What if he didn't even keep his word? A slimey man like him that took her sister from her would surely never keep his word, she had plenty of experience with men who had weak morals. Talking so high and mighty of their good ethics while trying the hide the blood of their sins under the carpet.

"I am under the impression that Lady Duvalier is a shrewd woman. I do not see why she would give up an asset for no gain."

Alastair was not exactly a compassionate man, not when it concerned potential adversaries, and yet he found Antonetta so quickly brushing against the wall of his morals. She was an enemy, a threat to him and Arlette, and yet the prospect of consigning her to termination still made his gut ache. What did it matter if she was stringing him along? He would overcome whatever challenges were put before him, and if he could not then he would fall with his principles uncompromised.

"You can either come with me and take the chance that you might live, or die and take the chance that you might not be remade. I would much rather you chose the former, but the choice is yours all the same."

The door swung open in its entirety, revealing Alastair properly and the blade that rested easy in his hand. He was dressed casually, this being one of his few days off, but there was an undeniable tension that lingered behind a cautious gaze. His trust was not so quickly earnt, only his desire to help anyone that threw themselves into his arms.

"I.. need to think for a moment."

She feigned a bit of stress, he'd just presented her two overwhelming possibilities after all. Wouldn't any normal human react the same with so much pressure on their shoulders? Trust a stranger and maybe live, deny him and likely die. Antonetta spent a good moment of just standing there full of trepidation, eyes on his but unfocused and gazing at nothing. She hadn't acknowledged the sword, the act could not falter here.

Her out of place blue eyes amongst the purple hues of her sisters' own finally found some focus on him and she conveyed through those windows to her artificial soul that she didn't know what to do. Her whole body frozen between two decisions and pleading for him to help her find an answer to the impossible choice.

Were he in her shoes, the choice did not seem as hard as she was making it out to be. That did give Alastair pause for thought as Arlette seemed to be weighing everything up. She had surely already processed the likelihoods of both scenarios, so now there had to be a purpose to this continued struggle.

It was either dealing with someone that she had known all her life, a woman who was directly responsible for her very creation, or taking a chance on a stranger. Was Claudia's position so untenable that this was a serious problem? Still, he would apply pressure.

"If you intend to accept my terms, it is likely that every second you waste increases the chance that Claudia determines you to be compromised."