Meeting

The days passed by but Puck did not meet up with her boyfriend as things were being set into motion.

Her excuse was that her work had become very busy recently and that she did not have much time to meet up.

Puck promised him that she would make it up to him when it was all over while offering some apologies for being unable to meet him during that time.

If translated to someone who knew about her real line of work then they would only guess that Puck was being included in an important task within her criminal organization.

That meant that perhaps there would be some form of action being taken very soon or that there was some important resource that needed more attention being put towards.

If someone was smart enough to guess such a thing was happening then that information would soon be passed on to others.

Depending on who got that information and how they understood it, it was possible that they would begin trying to figure out if such things were true or they would take some form of action if they thought it would be an opportunity to take advantage of.

Her boyfriend had lied to her and approached her with a purpose so she no longer felt guilty about lying to him so she began to cooperate.

The time spent away from him would allow her to sort out her feelings and come to terms with certain matters.

Meeting him in her current state was not a good idea for her and not for the sake of her organization either.

Max had advised her that it was unwise to meet up with her boyfriend since every small change in her behaviour toward him could end up alerting him that she knew about his purpose for approaching her.

It was better strategically to let her boyfriend believe that nothing had changed between them for the time being so that false information could be passed over and so that the people behind everything would not be wary of anything going wrong.

Very few others were told about everything which meant that it was kept very quiet and within a close circle.

If it ended up being exposed then one among them would be the first to be suspected would be them.

As the days passed by and things were being prepared, a call was made to her boyfriend as she was being looked over by several people in the same room.

Puck needed to show that she would not be swayed by her feelings and that she had no involvement in what had happened.

While there were already clear signs of her being deceived, there were still some doubts in the minds of some others.

Naivety could be used as an excuse for such things but not always when it concerned matters related to their interests.

There were always others who did a lot of selfish things and when they got caught, they would choose to act innocent and like they had been tricked by others so that they could place the blame on another party.

If someone was capable of something like that then they would suspect others for the same thing.

Puck may have had some support to help clear her name a little but others were not so quick to believe in such things.

Even if they did believe her, there were still many other reasons for them pushing to have her innocence questioned further.

Jealousy, spite or a desire for power was always a good enough motivation to make anyone wish to target her in such a way and to make things difficult for her.

If someone showed even the slightest weakness in such an organization then they would become easy prey for the others and there were no real rules to follow when it came to punishment and evaluating the guilt of each person.

What made the situation worse was that Puck was someone close to Butch who was someone who others wished to target for such reasons too.

It would be perfect to use Puck as someone to set an example for Butch and if Puck was put to death then that would leave an empty spot where she had been leaving the forces of Butch much weaker.

Not only that but Butch did suffer some losses during the previous attack so many eyes were looking over him more than usual as they assessed if they could gain something from his weakened state.

They did not act on such thoughts for only two reasons.

The first reason was that Butch did not show weakness during such a time and although he lost some people, he ended up uncovering a large plot that could have caused a great deal of damage to their organization.

The second and most important reason was that Max had returned to take charge of things so they could not act as they pleased.

The phone rang before finally being answered so everyone in the room became very quiet.

Puck heard the familiar voice of her boyfriend and then began to speak. "Um... yeah. I just finished with my work so I will be free again. Another date? Sure! How about the old theatre, the one we passed by last time?

I think there was a local play being held there soon so we could go see it. Yeah! That sounds fun!"

Max smirked as he watched Puck behaving like normal and he felt a little relieved. 'Not bad.'

Butch narrowed his eyes as he felt jealous of the way Puck was talking to her boyfriend. 'That jerk... he hurt her. He will pay.'

Max had made Butch more aware of his feelings earlier so he had yet to sort them out completely.

A part of him wanted to offer Puck comfort and punish the person who deceived her.

Another part of him was unwilling to put her through such a plan since it would only force her to endure the situation further.

It was not very nice to see her putting on such a sweet act on the phone especially when that person had deceived her like that.

After seeing the call come to an end, Butch was the first person to approach her as he said with some concern in his voice. "Are you doing good? Sorry, you had to do that."

Puck let out a sigh before replying. "No... it is fine. I needed to do this. I cannot cause any more problems for the organization... or you. I can already imagine the trouble this might have caused if I continued to remain ignorant.

Butch... I am sorry for all of the trouble I have caused you. I..."

Butch shook his head while patting her shoulder. "None of this is your fault. You did nothing wrong. Now that you have done your part, you can sit this out and leave the rest to me. If it is too much for you then you do not need to see him again."

Puck put on a relieved smile before responding in a determined voice. "No... I need to do this. I want to be involved. I cannot let him get away with this and... I need to know why he went to the trouble of getting close to me like this."

Butch sighed in resignation while stepping back which showed he no longer planned to convince her any further. "Fine."