Even though his good friend was talking to somebody, who was pretty sure some kind of sleezy mafioso Brian couldn't focus on that problem right now because Mira's announcement had knocked him off his feet...literally. He first leaned against the open Charger, then sat down before his knees got weak. Twins. "How on earth did that happen?" He muttered to himself.

Next thing he knew was that Mira had to be incredibly disappointed by his reaction so he looked up and attempted to smile. "Since when have you known?" He was still trying to steady his shaky hands and breath normally but for some reason his heart rate was going up and up.

Mira sighed. "Since the crash in Japan..." She glanced up at him and gave him a small smile. "I didn't tell you cause I figured you didn't need that weighing on your mind." reaching out she held one of his hands. "I'm sorry."

That was surprise number two. Mira had known this for almost three weeks.
So he gasped. "That long?" He raised his hands to his head in desperation but he was aware that at the time of the crash things weren't exactly rosy between them so he kept his anger in check and simply said. "You should have told me."
Absentmindedly he played with her hand.
"What now...? How do you have twins? We need a place to live!"

Mira sighed again. " We will have to find a home then." She neeled down in front of Brian. "We have done more difficult things Brian then raising kids. We were cops." She stood back up and stared at the sky before looking back at him. "If you don't want them we can put them up for adoption...." the thought of letting someone else raise her babies was breaking Mira's heart. But she didn't want to lose Brian because of the babies either.

"Don't even think that for one second, Mira." He replied almost angrily to her adoption suggestion. How could she think that Brian would want to give up his kids for somebody else to raise them.
"They are our responsibility and I'm not going to let anybody else raise them. What are you thinking?"
He then reached for her hand to squeeze it. "Hey, I was just a little shocked that it's not going to be one but two babies but I can handle it, okay? It's going to be fun."
The last bit was probably true to a certain extend but secretly he wondered how to feed so many hungry mouths without being able to work as a cop any more.
"I need to find a job and I doubt they'll ever let me back on the force again even if they drop the charges. There's too much dirt on my name. You"ll have to go back asap, though. Unless you want me to ..."

For a moment he contemplated Cole's words. "race for the mob and make a lot of money that way."

Mira could not beleive what she was hearing. "What the hell have you two gotten into this time?" Before Brian could start to talk she walked over to where Cole was talking to another racer and grabbed him by the back of the shirt. "You have some explaining to do." After dragging him back to Brian she let him go. "alright boys time to fill me in on whats going on." her arms crossed over her chest waiting.

Brian watched with an amused smirk how Mira walked over to Cole to drag him back by the collar of his shirt. Only she could do such a thing now that she was pregnant. It gave her a certain leeway that nobody else had.

When they returned Brian scratched his head..."You tell her, bro. You came up with this."

Cole sighed, it was inevitable that Mira was going to chew him out for this, so he just laid it on her. "The idea is that I'll race for the mob, make a fortune, and we'll all live happily ever after." Cole exaggerated but to some degree wasn't kidding. "Not one of the best things I could be doing, but its better than being broke all our lives."

Mira reached out and smacked both boys upside the head, not hard enough to hurt them but it was enough to get her point acrossed. " You are both idiots! We just got out of trouble and now we are gonna dive head first into it again!" She ran her fingures threw her short white blonde hair. "The mob will never let you leave alive...you know that."
"whats the deal?" Sighing she leaned back against her Charger. "How much would we be making?"

Brian tried to duck away from her slap but Mira was faster, so he gently rubbed his cheek and muttered. "Why did you smack me...I'm not even in."

His was pretty stunned when she actually showed some interest.
"Mira, shut up. You're not considering this stupid offer, damnit!"
Instantly he got worried that she, for some reason, might agree and put herself and the babies in danger. For some reason his carelessness had changed a bit lately. Brian was feeling the weight of responsibility.

"I'm not going to become a member of the mob, I'm going to be an associate. There's a difference." Cole persisted. "I'm not looking for you guys to join me in this, I want to be alone in this deal. But, I think it could really benefit all of us if I get in."
Cole too was surprised when Mira suddenly asked about the details, as if she did have some interest in it. "I get a 25% cut of the winnings, and while that may not seem like much, I'm sure there will be a ton of money on these races, it'll add up quick."

Mira shook her head. "Cause you are supposed to watch the kid."
She rubbed her face with her hand. "You could race for yourself and keep all your money..." Leaning her head against Brian's shoulder she sighed. "Here we go again. What's the guy's name?" It was in no way this was a good idea, how Cole though it was, was beyond her. Her mismatched eyes were focused on Cole. "You are really gonna do this?"

As he typically would, Cole took offense to Mira's statement about Brian being responsible to watch him. "You know, I'm not some underage highschooler, I don't need or want anyone watching me." He said changing the subject a little.

"I'm not going to make any big cash anytime soon racing for myself all the time. Mafia's going by hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars, I would expect no less with this deal. They said themselves they're here to make money." He took a careful look around them to make sure nobody was listening in. "The bosses name is Stephano Dieseli, so he tells me." He shrugged. "We gotta make a living somehow, cause we ain't gonna get jobs with our records."

Brian shot Mira a glance at Cole's last words. He was right. Nobody would give somebody a job awaiting a trial and they needed to live of something. His eyes met Mira's as he shrugged. "Unfortunately Cole is right. Who's going to give us a legal job...I'm broke and have no car."

Then he turned to Cole. "But you do and you should use it to drive you ass as far away from Calif as you can. Get out of their grasp and keep a low profile."
He already knew that the money was too tempting for Cole but he gave it one last try.
Inwardly he had already decided to watch Cole's back, no matter how stupid he might be.

Cole shook his head vigorously. "Since when have you known me as a runner, Brian? Running from your problems doesn't help things, it only compounds the situation. And if I'm gone, they know you two, and god knows what could happen."
He let out some air and crossed his arms. "I know both of you are thinking I'm incredibly stupid for taking this on and possibly drastically uninformed, but I really think it's a viable idea. I have hardly anything to live for these days. You two are pretty much the only people I even have any contact with, I have practically no future ahead of me, I'm a highschool dropout, and the only skill or talent I possess is driving. I literally live off the streets. The way I see it, I might as well just bet all my cards and see what happens."

"We need to look out for each other, if we didn't we would be in jail or dead by now." Mira's mismatched eyes scaned the crowd as the other drives started to leave. "Cole is the money worth putting your life on the line? I don't think your pretty girlfriend cares if you have money or not."

The boys were starting to piss her off. "Will you please stop bitching?" All they seemed to be doing is complaining. They were just gonna take the easy way out. She pushed herself off of her Charger. "I'm going to go and get something to eat. You boys can come if you want." Walking to the driver's side of her car she looked at Brian. "By the way the babies are do next week sometime..."

Cole's attention was diverted solely to Mira. "And if we don't come up with something clever, we may be dead or in jail anyway." He tried to think of some smart 'it's not about the money' statement, but fact of the matter was that's what it was all about. "It's not a death trap, I just have to prove to the boss that I am one of the best drivers he's going to get. If I become valuable then I'm not expendable." A look of surprise came across his face when Mira mentioned Neela. How did she know about her? "She dated me when I was broke, had the FBI breathing down on us, and my health was even worse than it is now. I'm not doing this for her, if anything she's the one thing making me rethink this."

Cole became a little annoyed with Mira's attitude. "I'm not the one bitching, I'm the one sucking it up and pressing forward." He watched Mira walk away and then turned to Brian to see if he was going to follow suit.

The talk had taken a pretty unfriendly turn and it was obvious that Cole was in it for the car and the money, maybe also to help them but he didn't care about the dangers.

So Brian crossed his arms in front of his chest but only shrugged. "Hope you know what you're doing cause nobody can help you against the mob."

He watched Mira walk away and heard her words so he nodded towards Cole. "I'll see you at Jack's place. Gotta go with Kira...little hormonal." He added in a whisper.

Then he followed Mira. Right now the babies were priority number one to them.
"next week? The baby is...are due next week? Do we have what we need? A bed or diapers or something? Milk?" Brian had no idea what they needed for newborns because Tokyo had taken up his whole brain capacity.

"I'm fully aware of that, and I don't want anyone's help. This is my deal." Cole's voice had a lot of stubbornness in it. "Desperate times call for desperate measures, Brian. You should know that."

He watched Brian walk away and dug his hands in his pockets. "See you later." He thought a little about Mira's hormones. 'She always acts that way, I don't even want to see her at her peak.' He thought.

Cole slowly started the trek back to his R35. The one major concern he had, was how badly his personal life would be affected. Did he actually belong to the mob now? Or was it simply a weekend job? He hoped to god it was the latter, but conscious told him it was more complicated than that.