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Despite how late into the night it was, Mia Winters sprung out of bed and clutched the security bat with the alertness of a stalking hunter going for prey unfortunate enough to make too much noise. She had an infant daughter to think of now. Anyone foolish enough to try breaking into her home would feel the wrath of a mother bear.
However, as she heard a familiar yelp erupt from the figure she smashed the back of, Mia leaned over to flick on the lights to the small living room. There, crumpled on the floor, was her groaning husband. Which was odd to her, because she was sure he had still been in bed.
"Ethan?" she asked with a voice still groggy. "What the hell are you doing up so late? I thought you were an intruder!"
Attempting to feel up the forming bruise on his back, Ethan Winters gave one more moan before answering. "You...Rose...you gotta...get outta here!"
Now Mia was kneeling by his side, hands on his shoulders. "Huh? What are you talking about? What's going on?"
"No time..." He shook his head, as if his pains would fall away with the action. "Get Rose...go hide! No matter what, don't come out until it's all clear."
Before she could ask for more details, a rough knocking at the door startled them both. The force was enough to make the hinges creak. Ethan locked eyes with his wife.
"Go!" he whispered hoarsely.
In the past, Mia would've argued with him about staying by his side. But regardless of her worry of what her husband had gotten into, the fear of how their daughter might get dragged into it took priority. She gave him a remorseful look before shuffling towards the bedroom they shared with Rose. By now, the baby girl had been woken up by the commotion; but Mia fortunately reached her in time to bundle her in blankets and muffle her agitated sounds.
At the same time, the knocking turned into a thrashing against the door.
"Hold your damned horses, man!" She could hear Ethan shout. "Let a man put on his robe, will you?!"
Knowing that Ethan probably couldn't buy them much time, Mia approached the window. Their small apartment was on the third floor, but it was the type of building that had an emergency staircase on the outside. Carefully exiting through the window and closing it afterward, she stood on the platform and briefly regretted not taking a brief second to grab a coat or blanket for herself. Hearing the door get knocked down inside, though, made her realize she wouldn't really have had the time to. Instead, she ducked under the window, pressed her back against the wall, and held Rose close to her chest. She wasn't yet sure of the intentions of the intruder, nor how much they knew of their family, so she didn't want to flee into the cold night just yet.
"Jesus! You know how close you were to seeing my ass there?!"
"No more fucking funny business, Winters," an unfamiliar man's voice spat back at him. "We both know you're bullshitting."
With the apartment being small enough, as well as the conversation using the exact opposite of "indoor voices", it wasn't too difficult for Mia to eavesdrop.
"Shit...I'll help rebuild the thing you were showing-" There was a crash as Ethan seemed to have been pushed into a standing lamp.
"You keep your klutzy fingers off the rest of my shit!" the angry man snarled. "And if you're so keen on being helpful, why'd you run?!"
"Everyone was looking at me with murderous intent! Of course I ran!"
As their conversation happened, Mia could hear the additional sound of footsteps in the bedroom. Very quickly, they stepped away.
"Hey boss..." a new voice said. "There's a crib in the other room. He's not alone."
"You leave them-" Ethan was again cut off, this time by something that sounded like a punch. She assumed it was from the angry man - the "boss".
"Well now, why didn't you say you had your own little family before, Winters? C'mon pal, why don't you introduce us..."
At that point, it became clear to Mia that whoever it was that was in there, she did not want to meet them. Nor did she want them reaching Rose. While still keeping her body low, she started to make a crawling descent down the staircase. It would lead into the alleyway next to the building, so even if the others went down the building the usual way, they wouldn't immediately cross paths at ground level. She just would have to avoid the front door.
But that also meant that she'd need a place to go. Like hell she was going to try coming back - these people might hide out in there waiting for her to do just that. Plus, they knocked down their apartment door anyway. She didn't like bringing Rose to a place where she wouldn't be able to lock it up.
Then, a thought came to mind. One she should've had much earlier, but well...everything was happening so suddenly and so fast, it didn't occur until now. With one hand, she reached for her back pocket-
And realized she had left her cellphone back in the bedroom. Bringing it along was also not a thought that had occurred within the moment. Now she cursed her tunnel-vision.
Reaching the alleyway, Mia decided that she would just have to find a phone elsewhere. Preferably in a business that was still populated with people - being alone and cut off from everyone else made her vulnerable with these people searching for her. They might get away with plucking her off the streets or dragging her from a near-empty shop. She picked up the pace as she darted around the corners, eyes on any potential back doors to knock on or the other end of the alleyway she could exit from.
Before she descended on the lit up sidewalk she saw in the distance, Mia suddenly threw herself behind a dumpster as she heard screams. Her jumpiness had saved her - driving along the road next to the sidewalk was a van, with the sounds of Ethan still struggling coming faintly out of the rolled-down window a man was looming his head out. They had just missed the sight of her.
What concerned her, though, was how easily it seemed for them. They could just invade their apartment with no one in the three stories it took for them to reach it moving to stop them. The same could be said when they had to have forced Ethan yelling down those three stories and into the van outside. They didn't even try to hide the sounds inside. The whole street was just letting them get away with this!
So...what did that suggest about who Ethan had pissed off? And what did that imply for her in her attempts in getting help?
It meant that Mia Winters had to stealthily evade captors across the city as she followed any lead of help, infant Rose in hand. While some had initially been sympathetic in the beginning, whenever they learned of what had happened, they suddenly withdrew support. A while later into the night and people stopped trying to help her at all. And now a manhunt was after her - and she doubted it was for good reasons.
Unfortunately, it was only a matter of time before Mia slipped up. When she found herself cornered by thugs right outside the corner-store that had held her hostage and summoned the thugs there, she had no way for her to fight back without potentially putting Rose at risk. She could only close her eyes and hold onto the bundle tightly.
She flinched at the sound of gunshots. Then opened her eyes when she realized she felt no pain. Her first instinct was to check Rose; but while she found the baby crying - of course - there was no blood. Turning her head back up, though...
Officer Chris Redfield was standing over the collapsed bodies of the thugs. He nodded back at Mia as he lowered his gun.
"Ma'am. I've heard you might be in a bit of a pickle?"
Mia allowed herself a sigh of relief. Out of anyone in the city, she could trust Chris. He was a good friend of the couple. In fact, he was the one she was trying to get into contact with, even when it seemed that the police station was trying to trap her to help the ones that were after her.
"Thank god, Chris..." she said. "Everything's been going crazy tonight and your colleagues tried to hurt me! What the fuck is happening in this city?!"
Shaking his head, Chris helped Mia past the bodies and led her to his car. "I know. I had to go rogue in the end to come find you. Ethan...
"Ethan's pissed off the entire fucking mafia."
"What?!"
When they were safe in his personal car, Chris launched into his explanation.
"You know how we've had a mafia problem, although the public isn't privy to all the details...basically, one woman by the name of 'Mother Miranda' united four separate families under her loyalty: the Dimitrescu, the Moreau, the Beneviento, and the Heisenbergs. With her guidance, they've all gotten a considerable amount of influence over the city. I didn't even realize that extended to the police force until recently.
"I've been catching details while trying to find you and Rose, but basically Ethan was in their general service under our noses. He was doing well enough that he was brought to one of their gatherings...and everything that could go wrong did. After accidentally offending the Dimitrescu daughters enough that their mother was on his ass, he bumped into the head of the Moreau and caught a forbidden glance of the guy's face. And it freaked him out so bad he knocked the latest Heisenberg invention showcase into the prized doll of the Benviento...pretty much a Looney Toons cartoon."
"Do you know what he was doing?" Mia asked, still in disbelief.
"He was just a regular servant that did chores, thankfully. Nothing really illegal I should arrest him for...except maybe technical assistance of the mafia?"
Her head could barely keep itself up - both from exhaustion and from her emotions. "He...he was supposed to be working fast food...I've seen him at work before!"
"And that's probably where it all started. The joint was one of the Dimitrescu's lesser fronts."
"We both promised not to do anything risky for money..." Her voice was wavering.
"Yeah..." Chris sighed. "But, like...that was before a baby became involved in your lives."
At the reminder, Mia rubbed her thumb on Rose's cheek. It was a fair point. Just as she had been fighting basically the whole city to protect Rose...Ethan had to have been thinking of her too, when he decided to involve himself with the mafia.
"And that's the other thing..." Chris spoke again. "They know about Rose. And it just so happens...
"Mother Miranda's been looking for a new daughter."
Her protective and shielding hold on Rose returned. "She can look elsewhere, then!"
Chris briefly took a hand off the wheel to squeeze part of Mia's arm. "I agree. And Ethan doesn't have much longer before the heads of the families tire of his presence. Now that I've found you, I just need to get you somewhere safe. Then I can go fix this."
"With what I saw at the station..." Mia lowered her voice back down. "It sounds like you'd be doing that on your own."
"Yeah, well...someone's gotta do it." He gave her a look. "And someone needs to stay with Rose."
Pulling into a gas station a little ways away from the city, Chris pointed Mia towards the truck that belonged to his sister's out-of-town buddy. When he realized that the city wouldn't have any place guaranteed to keep her and Rose safe, he had rung up Claire to ask for assistance. As it turned out, she knew a guy that was close enough to drive over and take the Winters girls elsewhere.
As he watched the truck go down the road in his rear-view window, Chris Redfield prepared to return and hopefully get Ethan Winters out of there as well.