"Lauren Malone", The boss looked at the woman and said quietly in a cold tone, with no expression on his face, "It’s been a long time."
"It certainly has, Giovanni." The woman took another step and then Jessie could recognize her.
"I should have known you’re behind all that. No one can lie and scheme as well as you do."
"Don’t forget who’s the boss of a crime organization. And let’s not forget who turned it to be so evil and vicious." She said calmly.
"The way that it supposed to be!"
"The way you want it to be", her tone didn’t change, "The way that will make more money for you and give you more power. Your mother wasn’t like that. She’d be ashamed of you if she saw what you turned her organization into."
Giovanni seemed very upset to hear that and he took a few big steps towards her, but she didn’t seem to be scared at all. In fact, she gave him a relaxed smile.
"You’ve never known what’s best for you", he said, " I could have given you everything you ever wanted but you chose to stick to your priggish ways. And you still don’t know what’s good for you. If you did, you would have stayed the hell away from me and stop those pathetic attempts to destroy me!" Giovanni looked frighteningly mad.
"Somebody has to stop you from doing all the evil things you do."
"You are still stubborn, Lauren. You haven’t change a bit."
"Neither did you."
"I should kill you all right now!" He screamed maniacally at Jessie and James, and turned back and looked at Lauren, "Right now!"
"I... I wouldn’t suggest you do that", the voice was Jessie’s voice, who weakly sat up on the floor. "If you do, everyone will think that those accusations I threw at you were true. And there’s always Sherry Terner to prove it."
Lauren smiled, and Giovanni looked at Jessie with wide opened eyes.
"I guess I still have the power, sir", she said in great courage, and even tried to smile.
He looked at her, shocked, and then spat: "I want you to drop all your accusations."
"I will, but first you will free all of us unharmed, and furthermore, James and I will both get our jobs in Team Rocket back, together, and you will never ever tear us apart again. And also, you’ll give money to Sherry Terner so that she will help her sick brother."
"That’s absurd. You want your old jobs back? And money for that little brat who tried to file a complaint against me?"
Jessie didn’t let the boss get to her, and she continued, as calmly as she could: "You will do it, and we will both cancel all our accusations. If you won’t- we will go public and ruin your reputation completely. Plus- if you think that after the accusations are canceled, you will be able to get rid of us- think again. Because as you’ve seen in the last few days- there are a lot of people who are just dying to get back at you and destroy you. It won’t be any problem to find more girls like Sherry and convince them to do what I did."
Giovanni looked at Lauren. "You taught her well", he said.
"She’s her mother’s daughter", Lauren smiled calmly, "And she might be the most powerful Rocket member you’ll ever have, so keep her at your good side."
Giovanni looked at her for a moment and then looked back at Jessie. "Very well, girl. It will all be done. Now get the hell out of my sight. And Lauren, I’d like to have a few words with you."
Jessie didn't like to leave Lauren alone with the boss, but Lauren smiled at her and nodded, assuring Jessie that it's alright to leave.
James was the first to jump out of the room and run out of the Team Rocket headquarters. Jessie ran after him but she couldn’t catch up with him, because she was still under the influence of the drugs.
"James, wait!"
James froze in his place with our turning around to face Jessie. "You lied to me." he said shortly in a cold tone.
"I’m sorry..." She put a hand on his shoulder.
"How could you? Do you have any idea what this whole thing did to me?"
"I know... I’m sorry... please let me explain."
"How can you explain? How?! You lied to everyone!" He turned around
and she saw that his big green eyes were wet.
"James, you have to understand. The boss... he wanted to separate us, and I thought I’d never see you again... and just that day, that woman Lauren told me that he was responsible for my mother’s death, and..."
"Your mother?" James didn’t understand.
"Yes, she said that he was the one who advised his mother to send my mother to a suicide mission... she said that she had known my mom and that I’m strong like her, and that the boss is ruining Team Rocket... you understand now?"
"Hardly", he looked confused, "But I can understand why you wanted to get back at him. And at the end, you prevent him from tearing you away from me, so..."
She looked into his eyes and whispered: "Don’t hate me, James..."
"I’ll never hate you, Jessie. I can never hate you..." He hugged her tight and she clutched onto him, "To be honest, I’m happy that it wasn’t true and that he didn’t really hurt you."
"No, he didn’t."
"You shouldn’t have lied like that. It tore me apart on the inside, I could have killed him for what I thought he did."
"I know... James... I’m so sorry..."
"Lets just go find Meowth now, ok? Tell him everything, and lets hope that he will forgive you."
"Yes, I hope so", thinking about Meowth’s reaction frightened Jessie, and she was sorry that she hurt him so much. She was afraid that he will never forgive her.
James started walking down the hill and Jessie was about to follow him when she suddenly put her hand in her pocket and pulled out the little piece of paper with Lauren’s phone number on it. She looked at it for a few seconds and was about to throw it away, but then changed her mind and put it back into her pocket.
*** END***
