At The Edge • •

[elise sheridan morello]

Elise looked over at Morello’s from the upstairs gallery and smiled. Downstairs was as busy as ever, but they kept upstairs closed off for private events or exceptionally large bookings. Tonight they had neither, so the red rope was stretched across the staircase the lights were off upstairs, and the only person up there was her. She spent more time at the restaurant than people realised. Sometimes she was working in one of the two offices; only one of which was easily found with the other being hidden deep in the back of the cellar. The rest of the time she was watching both the staff and the customers, looking who might be interesting to keep an eye on, and who should be escorted out of the restaurant as soon as elegantly possible. She might have been a crime boss with more blood on her hands than Lady Macbeth ever imagined were on her own, but as a restaurateur there was a level of decorum she had to maintain. Unfortunately that meant she couldn’t manhandle annoying customers into the back office and put a bullet in their brain no matter how badly she wanted to. She could, however, take their reservation name or remember their faces and instruct staff to always tell them they were fully booked whenever they called or came in.

She trailed her hand along the iron balcony, walking slowly as she surveyed what was probably the smallest part of her kingdom. Morello’s was just a front after all. It kept her looking innocent and stopped people asking questions about her money or her occupation. She had a business degree, so it all slotted together nicely. Beyond that though she was a woman to be feared. She had some of the best criminals in New York City under her control, and if they betrayed her in any way then they’d be taking a swim down the Hudson in several smaller pieces. She had her fingers in a little bit of everything since framing Landon and taking over what was left. There were still people very upset about that, but in the two and half years that had passed, no one had managed to get close enough to Elise to cause any harm. She had seen them coming a mile away and taken them out. She wanted more though. Twenty-eight was too young to sit back and swap her high heels for slippers, or her black dresses for a nightgown.

Elise crossed to the smaller upstairs bar. She poured herself a whiskey, wishing the ice bin wasn’t empty, but walked away anyway, raising the glass to her lips. It was good, but not the good stuff she kept in her office. Elise liked to keep Morello’s stocked with good brands and not any old cheap liquor that could be bought in any dive bar in the city. She headed to one of the wall seats – long cushioned wells that sometimes made her want to put her legs up and just lie down – and sat back. There was nothing to worry about tonight, at least not yet. She could go home if she wanted to, but Elise wasn’t the type to curl up and watch television. No, she liked to be in the heart of the action and to see everything that was happening. She heard footsteps on the curved staircase and turned her attention towards it, eyebrow raised expectantly as she waited to see what he wanted. Only one person would really know she was up here, and if it wasn’t him, someone was about to be in a lot of trouble.

• • •

TAGGED! Bentley Grayson Glass
WORDS! 604!
OUTFIT! Seductive Siren!
LYRICS! Falling - - - HAIM
NOTES! <3

[Bentley Grayson Glass]

Love wasn't a word Bentley used for anything. Even if it could sum up his feelings about his job quite well. He didn't relish in what he did. It was a job that needed to be done and he just happened to be a good fit for it. He had been called heartless plenty of times through his life but he really wasn't. There were too many complexities for that to be true. He habitually donated to charities for children and drug rehabilitation. It would never, ever make up for what he did but it did clear his conscience. The donations didn't line up with any jobs, they were made at random and so far had never gone to the same place twice. Though when that did eventually happen, he had a plan in place. If anyone knew, they didn't say, though Bentley figured they were probably confused about how he kept it all together. The only paper trail he had was the one connected to the restaurant.

Of course what he did for Morello's included a hell of a lot more than just managing the classy restaurant. But he was good at covering those things up. And he was only ever involved when it was top priority important or the first idiot didn't do the job right. Bentley had never understood things like that. Why bother taking on a job if you were just going to fuck it up and give up. Some people just shouldn't be contract killers. It was as plain and as simple as that. Or maybe he just didn't have a heart. He had been told that plenty of times by the women he went home with; when he did share a bed with someone who wasn't Elise anyway. It rarely happened and Bentley preferred to keep life simple, which usually meant staying away from pesky one night stands and certainly relationships. He didn't do those.

He'd finished up the job that had needed his attention, thanks to someone's lack of planning skills and attention to detail. Bentley really didn't understand what the point was in going into a career like his if the little things went unnoticed. Those were the most important parts. He did a walk through of the restaurant when he got there, just to make sure everything was put away like it was supposed to; he hated things out of place, and then he headed up to Elise's favourite hiding spot. She liked keeping apprised of any and all situations. And knowing he dealt with the problem and the reason they had a problem to begin with would put her mind at ease on that particularly nasty affair. "Elise." He said with a nod of his head as he moved off the stairs.

Tag || elise sheridan morello
Words || 462
Clothes || Dressed to Kill
Music || 50 Shades of Crazy --Chase Rice
Notes || <3!

[elise sheridan morello]

Elise had been four when her parents had died. It meant she had only one very fuzzy memory of them and then stories from her grandfather. Ronald Morello had told her for the first time about his son’s fears only after Elise had claimed her first victim; her ex-boyfriend and cheating scumbag, Sheldon Lloyd. Apparently the moment he had seen the dark Morello eyes in his baby girl he had been terrified that the bad blood had been passed onto her. If only he had lived to see his fears come true. Elise had voiced those words only once and Ronald had shuddered before her very eyes, telling her that her father would probably prefer to be six feet under than be witness to the life Elise had built for herself. Ronald was different, he had blood on his hands just like his granddaughter, even if he hadn’t been quite as ruthless, or as cold as she was. Still, blood was blood, and he wasn’t going to turn his back on her while his heart was still beating. He had taught her all she needed to know to survive, and her skills had come from the best; days when the city was controlled by men who gambled with lives and treated people like puppets. Elise would give anything to make the city like that again, but with the power in her hand, of course.

She was no idiot. She took out those who posed a threat to her and didn’t believe in second chances. It had gotten her where she was today and Elise was comfortable. Not too comfortable though; she knew better than to let her guard down. Even those who she trusted might be waiting for a chance to knock her down and take her place. It was, after all, just the thing she had done to Landon before sweeping in and turning his business into one of her own, making it greater and more expansive than he could ever have imagined. It was his own fault. If he had just listened to her she might never have pinned a murder on him and sailed him down the river to a pretty prison sentence. The blood on her hands was worth it, and it sent a nice clear message to those who might oppose her; Elise Morello was not a woman to be trifled with. Her revenge came ice cold, and she didn’t need a reason to pull a trigger on someone. People vanished from this city for far less than what her ex-boyfriends did to her.

If there was another side to Elise, she kept it hidden away. She didn’t want people to spot a weakness and use it against her. She would rather appear cold and heartless than have someone find that button that they could push, or the strings they could pull. She blinked slowly as Bentley appeared, though she didn’t move from her seat. Instead, she swirled the contents of her glass and took a sip before fixing her dark eyes on him, a dangerous twinkle there. “My favourite man only comes to me with bad news, or to tell me something I really want to hear. Which is it tonight?” She asked, pursing her blood red lips before smirking. Sometimes with Bentley she enjoyed playing a little too much, but he was like her. They both knew what the other was. There was no hiding behind masks or pretending that they were creatures of innocence. He was probably the only other person she knew as guilty as she was of shocking crimes, and she loved knowing that about him. It was probably why she was so drawn to his company.

• • •

TAGGED! Bentley Grayson Glass
WORDS! 619!
OUTFIT! Seductive Siren!
LYRICS! Falling - - - HAIM
NOTES! <3

[Bentley Grayson Glass]

Bentley was good at what he did. He had no heart and an epic aim. He had no qualms about killing for profit and quite enjoyed the travel. The restaurant was an excellent cover as well. They picked up ingredients from all over the world and he could use the excuse of looking for specific ingredients when a vacation seemed out of place; or when he'd used that excuse the last time. He could lie so easily and make people believe him, even people who were trained to spot people like him. And yet, he always managed to walk through customs and security checks with little interruption. He was like a ghost who just skirted through these pesky barriers and continued on his way. He lost count of how many planes he'd boarded knowing there was a very impressive gun waiting for him when landed, he'd also lost count how many times he'd walked through with people genuinely believing he was trying to get into their country to look for specific spices or fruits or whatever for Morello's. He was just that good.

It didn't hurt that he loved to kill. It wasn't some God complex, knowing he had someone's life in his hands and was about to extinguish a life with a slip of his trigger finger. It was that he thrived on the chaos that came with someone just dropping from a gun shot in the middle of the street, or room, surrounded by people who didn't see it coming. The screaming, the shock and the confusion. Bentley didn't stick around for long, just long enough to watch the chaos begin, which was about as long as it took him to dismantle the gun he'd used; if he went slow. From there, it had always been so easy to just slip away into the pedestrian traffic, just another face in the crowd, dropping pieces of an expensive but no longer viable rifle here and there until he'd tossed them all. It was usually then that he did something for the restaurant to at least make it appear that he'd done what he'd gone there to do under false pretenses.

Tonight's job was technically nothing to do with the restaurant itself but more to do with its' owner. Bentley was the man in the shadows, the one who watched and took care of things when they needed to be taken care of. No one who actually worked at the restaurant knew that, not really, they just thought he was the manager who spent the better parts of his nights when he was there, sitting at the bar looking over paperwork or in rare cases, mixing drinks. He had fine tuned hearing and liked listening in on all the conversations going on around him. He heard before the wait staff was notified if something was wrong and he took care of it when tempers started to rise. He was a smooth talker though he could just as easily escort customers out because they've done something to piss him off. There were things not sold at Morello's and there was no way in hell Bentley was going to let people believe they were. The only Iced Tea sold there had more alcohol than tea and that was all there was to it. But that wasn't normally an issue. Tonight's issue had more to do with the behind the scenes work than anything else. Bentley hated people who threatened to talk. It was pointless to threaten to do something. It only led to exactly what had just happened. "That little problem we were having has been taken care of." He told, pouring himself a generous three fingers of the good stuff she kept in her office and enjoyed the burn as the liquid slid down his throat.

Tag || elise sheridan morello
Words || 635
Clothes || Dressed to Kill
Music || 50 Shades of Crazy --Chase Rice
Notes || <3!

[elise sheridan morello]

Elise knew that if she was ever caught there would be a whole list of psychiatric terms for what she was. She had no remorse for what she had done or how she had done it. The night she killed Sheldon Lloyd she knew she was going to do it, and there had been no shaky nerves, no guilt for the parents who would bury their son. She did it, and knew in the aftermath that she could easily do it again. Elise didn’t keep track of the blood on her hands. People died, and she forgot about them once they were disposed of. The earth was over populated, or dangerously close to being so. She was simply getting rid of the bad eggs, the let downs, and those who couldn’t be trusted. It was like weeding a garden, only a little messier. Crime was in her blood, and like her grandfather, she wasn’t afraid to get her hands bloody to live the life she wanted. No one was going to fuck with her or mistake her for being just another pretty face. She had done so well to build up Morello’s from nothing, but if they only knew what went on behind the busy kitchens and booked up diary. It made her smirk to think about it while diners ordered their bottles of wine and picked between fine Italian cuisine in the restaurant below.

She could have been a hell of a lot more reckless. Sheldon’s murder had been messy, and she’d hurt herself in the process. It was sloppy work, left her with a few faint scars she didn’t talk about. That was before she had her grandfather’s guidance, before she thought about her steps. Sheldon had been an emotional kill. She’d been young, hormonal, and still wild as hell. Now she thought her moves through, even when she was seething with rage and burning to shoot every single person who dared to speak to her. Elise wasn’t stupid. She wasn’t going to throw away her dark and glorious empire because she made one silly mistake. No, she was clever. She stole it all from her ex-boyfriend by playing it clever, and no one had suspected that she was out to steal his crown when she framed him for murder. Her darkness was masked behind coy smiles and charismatic small talk. Innocence was something she could fake like a Broadway star in a leading role.

That was the whole point in owning a thriving business. Even some of New York’s elite clientele dined at Morello’s and Elise kept them sweet. It was the best cover, and a simple way to hear some of the city’s news before it officially went public. It also made it seem like some of them were in her pocket when in reality they thought her just another pretty businesswoman. They knew nothing of the real Elise Morello. “Excellent. I’m glad we didn’t need pest control.” She said casually, like their real work was as easy as idle chit chat and weather talk. Elise drained her glass in a long gulp, and then put it down on the table, pushing herself to her feet. She walked over to Bentley and rested her hand gently on his chest, her eyes meeting his with a look she reserved for their other business talks. “I need you to stay late tonight. Aranea is meeting with Mr Reynolds about supplying Oscars as well as us, and I expect it’ll be after closing when she returns with an update.” Having a little pet to scout out any problems was proving very useful. Aranea’s sweet-talking was exceptional, and there had been few lips she couldn’t get talking once she was in something short and tight, and pouring the men drink after drink. Elise was certain it had been an idea that had saved her thousands in the long run after they had been disposed of.

• • •

TAGGED! Bentley Grayson Glass
WORDS! 659!
OUTFIT! Seductive Siren!
LYRICS! Falling - - - HAIM
NOTES! <3