Chapter 2: Welcome to the family

a scene in the town car after Payton Sebastian has made her purchase and a look into the relationships between the three characters that were introduced in the first chapter

Payton climbed into her town car holding the child close to her as if someone would come and steal it away just as she had just done in the warehouse mere moments earlier. The door on the other side of the car opened and in entered Mark and Griggs.
" well gentlemen? " she asked as she smiled down at the small child. Griggs scooted up further on his seat holding a record book in his hands. He smiled at her while her brother merely glared at her in a silent chastisement.
" well Payton this shipment is going to cost you close to three million dollars." He displayed confidence but his voice betrayed his fear. The Sebastian twins were known to be deadly and Payton was not one you wanted upset with you. The last collector she worked with was found dead, cut open like some animal on an examination table, nailed to the front of his house, his entrails spilling out of his abdomen and onto his door step for his girlfriend to find in the morning. When they took him down they found that his eyes and tongue had been cut out and in their place was crimpled dollar bills. 
" how much was the baby?" Payton asked.
" nothing. The baby is yours as a gift." He said, his voice still shaking. She smiled up at him and thanked him for his generosity. " as for the next shipment is there anything in particular the two of you were looking for." He looked back and forth to the twins.
" this is my sisters business not mine I don't care either way, trips like this are a waste of my time." Mark said harshly. Griggs swallowed hard and looked back to Payton silently pleading with her to not kill him.
" don't worry about him. He's just a bit preoccupied at the moment." She smiled a reassuring smile letting him know all was well." As for my next shipment, I would like a bit more of a criminal element to them. I don't care where you get them from I just want strong able bodied men and women that aren't afraid of a little violence." He shook his head in understanding before exiting the car. After the door shut she instructed the driver to drop Mark off at his home and then drive her uptown to do some shopping.
" why do you still do this Payton? After all these years you could have branched out and not have to buy your bodies yet here we are every damn year picking out people like you're pick out fish at a pet store." Mark asked. She knew he never liked the idea of human trafficking, but it was what supplied him with most of his men and with the way they treated and protected them they had no reason to rat on the two of them. After what happened to some of the bosses on the commission she didn't want to chance being betrayed by her own, that was something Mark never understood, that fear. " I mean hell now you have a whole family of little dolls you can play house with in town house 30. Is that all they are to you livestock and playthings?" Mark knew he hit a nerve when she laid the child on the seat next to her.
" if you don't like it then I will just sell all of your men and cut you off from all of the profits, how does that sound. I helped you to the top and I'm not afraid to take all of that away. I treat them all not as slaves but as people and employees. I give them good lives they don't live in piss poor conditions but like normal middle class citizens hell several of them I got citizenship here in the U.S.. I'm not playing house with that family I'm gonna reunite them and then I'm gonna get both of the parents a job and the kids in a good school." She yelled at him, completely oblivious to the crying of her new child.
" then why take the baby?" Mark asked calmer now. Payton picked up the baby and tried to calm it down. She started to cry.
" I went to the doctor at the fertility clinic there in town and tried getting pregnant; I went back a month later after experiencing some sever pain and bleeding and he said that I had a miscarriage. So we ran some tests, did a few scans and he told me I can never have a full term pregnancy. He said the fetus would only make it to 15 weeks at the most before I lost it." Payton held the baby close to her again and kept telling it shh shh. Mark crossed the distance between them and hugged her. He never knew she wanted a child of her own they were both always so busy though that they rarely talked about their personal lives. 
" I'm so sorry sis." It was a short while later when they arrived at Mark's apartment building. He exited the car and Payton rolled down her window to talk to him a bit more.
" happy birthday Mark." She said as she handed him keys to one of the apartments that they owned. He smiled and laughed a little before kissing her on the cheek and thanking her. She rolled the window back up and they stated for Manhattan. 
One the way to the numerous boutiques that catered to new mothers and their babies she started to think about what to name her new baby. The baby was a little girl and clearly at least 3 months old. After some debating she decided on Naomi Cassandra as her name.

Author's Note

this shows a bit more about how Griggs, Payton, and Mark are and it also sets up for the relationship between Mark and Naomi