LALA pulled a shirt out of the top drawer in Leon's room and pulled it on over her sports bra. This is the second night she spent at the Toretto house, both nights ended with her in Leon's room. She silently hoped this wasn't a pattern she was creating for herself.
As she fixed the shirt, leaving it open, Leon came into the room. "I'm headed to the shop to grab lunch, everyone else is at the garage already." He informed her and grabbed his keys from the dresser. This all felt very...domestic to her. For some odd reason she felt extremely comfortable with him, hell she was even wearing his clothes.
"Alright, I'll see you at the garage then. That Brian guy is bringing Dom's car today?" She acted like she had no clue who he was as she grabbed her bag and keys off of the nightstand. Leon shrugged and nodded in response while snagging his work shirt off the back of the door.
"Yeah he should be, we'll see what he brings by. I gotta run before your sister kills me." He shoots her a cheesy smile and runs out. Speaking of sister, they never got to talk to the others about her and Letty's relation to each other. Mia obviously knew since she was around her in school as a kid. Leon found out the night of the party and she figured Letty or Mia had told Dom by now.
Lala sighed and headed out to the garage. She found a spot in the parking lot that was pretty filled from the crew's personal cars and project cars.
Letty greeted her with a quick side hug as she grabbed a box from one of the shelves. "Hey, everyone's here except for Leon. I sent that dude to go get us some food almost two hours ago. Oh and Mia should be here in a few minutes." She rolled her eyes in annoyance and set the box on the work bench. That was Lala's fault. She may have distracted him in the process of him grabbing his work clothes before getting the food.
Just as she was about to open her mouth, Leon came walking in with three bags full of take out. "Look who it is." She said coyly and went over to him to grab one of the bags. He looked at her with a smile and set the other two on the clean work bench.
Letty clapped him on the back with an irritated expression, "it's about damn time, Lee. Where'd you go for this? Mexico?" She pulled two containers out and set them aside for Mia and Brian.
Leon shook his head and passed a container over to Jesse. "I got distracted, Letty. Can't say it won't happen again." He grinned at Lala and she rolled her eyes before sitting on the bench.
Soon enough everyone but Lala and Vince had finished eating and started talking about the game plan for the garage that week. Jesse gathered the trash and tossed it away as Mia came in with her books. Letty put her container on top of the stack of books she had in her arms. "Now that the whole family is here, I just wanted to let you all know that Lolita isn't an old friend. She's my baby sister." Letty spoke up to the group which gained everyone's attention.
Lala sighs and nods before speaking, not knowing Brian had come in the main door of the garage. "Mia already knows this, Leon found out the other night. But yes, I'm Letty's sister. I moved away with my father in elementary school and haven't really been around since."
Mia smiled at the fact that she was already first in the loop about something not illegal. She took a seat to Lala's right, Lala being by the wall on her left.
Brian hesitated slightly and stepped backwards leaving the garage. She really is Letty's sister? His captain had told him that she was related to Letty when assigning him to the case but he didn't believe him. But her name is Lolita? Lala had told him that her name was Adrianna Aguilar when they met in that diner years ago. He'd known her as Adrianna or her nickname, Lala, for years! She lied about who she was...to him. It was hypocritical of him to be mad about her lying about her identity since he was doing the exact same thing to everyone else right now but he'd be lying if he said it didn't hurt. He walked off down the street to the junkyard to pick up the new car.
Dom nodded at the two sisters, he knew that Lala wasn't just a stranger or a friend from the past. They looked similar, had the same laugh - that part caught him off guard, they even had the same eyes. Only difference being that Lala's were softer and lighter, more innocent versus Letty's darker and matured eyes.
"I put the pieces together the second you kicked your end out in the race. Letty has the same bad habit." He gave his girlfriend a look as she shoved his arm playfully. "Kidding."
Vince shrugged and tossed his trash in the can near them before sitting across from Lala. "We knew there was a sister, just not that it was you or that you were alive."
Letty looked at them before giving Dom a look almost as if she was asking for permission. He gave her a tight nod before he spoke up. "You're a good driver, with Race Wars coming up we're definitely gonna need your skills on the team. You in?"
"Hell yeah, I'm in." She beamed and sipped her soda, her eyes drifting down to her sandwich to take a bite. Leon shot a look to Dom and Letty shook her head quickly. He gave the same look to Letty before Vince gave them all a confused look. Jesse was doodling on a notepad. Mia stood up and grabbed her books and food from the table.
"I'm going to study and then I'll start on the invoices." She pat Dom's shoulder as she passed him and walked to the back office, closing the door behind her.
Dom watched her walk away and waited until the door was closed. Then he sighed and gave Letty a 'please forgive me' look. "Lo, do you have a job right now?"
She nodded and swallowed her food. "Yeah, I'm on leave for now but I might end up leaving the job once my bereavement leave is over. I'm...relocating."
Letty gave Dom a warning look. If they brought her in then there was no going back from it. She'd had an invisible target on her back for as long as they stayed in the game.
"Hear me out on something here, Lo." Dom stated pleadingly. He then explained everything to her about what they do, the trucks and stealing their loads to sell off to buyers. How much money a cut everyone got, even went into detail about a guy who can get them in on boosting cars. Then he told her how their next job was the night of Race Wars. Dom trusted her, and Lala had all the information Brian would need to take them all down. "How would you feel about joining the actual team? Not just for races but for the trucks as well."
Lala's mouth dropped open and she looked at Letty. She could tell that Dom wasn't joking around based on the look her face held. "You trust me enough to do this with you guys?" She glanced around at everyone, they all held the same faces as Dom and Letty.
"Of course we trust you, you're family." Dom smiled at her and she felt her face getting warm from emotion. She didn't have any family left apart from Letty and Haley, her stepmom. She had some close friends but family was a foreign concept outside of them.
Lala nodded, "okay, I'm in."
Dom then stood up, "welcome to the team, Viper." He tapped the bench with his knuckles. "Let's get to work."
The others scattered across the garage to their own projects. Lala stood up and looked over at Dom.
"Thank you for trusting me...and I just...I wanted you to know that I would never do anything to jeopardize the safety of my sister, and I would never ever turn my back on her or you guys. Ever. Like you said, you're my family now." She spoke softly and Dom squeezed her hand in a brotherly way.
"You're not on your own anymore, Lolita." With those words he let go and walked away. It had been obvious on the young girl's face that she was in fact lonely and based on what Letty said, there wasn't anyone in her life to help her through the loss of her dad.
Lala walked up to the office and helped do the business invoices from the Market, while Mia did the ones for the garage. Not too far into the papers, she got fed up and went to Dom about a sale. Lala tuned out what they were saying as she calculated at the table until the sound of a rollback was heard outside the open door.
She rolled the sleeves up on Leon's shirt as she walked over to the others who were standing in front of, surprise surprise, Brian. Her arms folded over her chest as she stood next to her sister against her car.
"You couldn't even tow that across the finish line." Letty quipped causing Lala to laugh and Brian looked over at her. More like looked through her, as if she was just an obstruction in his eyesight like the sun glaring into your vision. The look lasted not even two seconds but for her it felt like everything stopped when those bright blues looked her way. His shit eating grin faltered slightly.
He looked over at Dom, "No faith!" He accused in a light tone while Lala was trying to recover from the eye contact.
Dom shook his head at the blonde and motioned to the car "I have faith in you but this isn't a junkyard, this is a garage." The oldest Toretto stated and Brian grinned again just like the night he lost.
"Pop the hood." He said smoothly.
"Pop the hood?" Dom rose a brow like he was being punkd.
"Pop the hood." He repeated and Lala walked over to the front of the clunker. She popped the hood open and her face lit up in surprise.
Jesse, who was right next to her now, almost climbed head first into the beaten up car in front of them. "2JZ engine...no shit!"
Brian gleefully yet cockily smiled at Dominic. "What did I tell you?"
He rolled his eyes at the younger man. "I retract my previous statement."
Lala agreed with him while looking at the engine with Jesse. "Ditto." She spoke before tuning back into Jesse's mumbling to himself about the parts. "I'm thinking about $15k into this one, kid." She looked at Jesse and he nodded eagerly before looking at everyone else.
"Lala has it right. You know what? This will decimate after you put about $15,000 into it...or more." He tells the two men and Lala pipes in.
"It'll only be more if you have to overnight parts from Japan." She grabbed the rag hanging from Jesse's pocket and wipes the oil and grime mixture off of her hands from touching under the hood of the car.
"We'll put it on my tab at Harry's." Dom turned to Brian as Jesse celebrated giddily about the new project. Lala watched the younger boy with a soft smile, he was so gentle, kind, and reminded her of a child. One of the sweetest guys she's ever met.
She went to walk away before Dom held an arm out using the universal sign to stop walking.
"I gotta get you racing again so I can make some money off your ass. There's a show down in the desert called Race Wars, that's where you'll do it." He told Brian and looked her for the last part. "You're in for the races too, you stirred up a lot of questions about Viper's return to the West Coast. Now you gotta answer the demands. Which brings me to my next point, I need you to help him." He motions to Brian.
Lala had to bite her tongue to stop from rolling her eyes and looked over at her sister who gave her an encouraging smile. "Alright, I'll help him."
Dom gave her a satisfied expression before looking at Brian again. "When you're not working at Harry's, you're working here or running tracks with Lo. If you can't find the right tool in this garage Mr. Arizona..." Lala had to stop herself from scoffing. Arizona? Really? That was his cover state? "...then you don't belong near a car."
With that Dom walked away and Lala picked up her car keys from the bench near them. She gave Letty a swift hug, giving a half assed excuse about needing to handle work before walking back over to exit the garage. Mia passed her with a pink tint and girly smile to her face, walking away from Brian. The sight made her want to throw up from the amount of jealousy and hurt twisting in her stomach.
She walked past Brian, harshly shoulder checking him as she exited the garage. She hated the way he acted like nothing ever happened with them. He quite literally disappeared on her out of nowhere almost a year ago. Like a coward.
She heard the door swing shut as she walked around the back of the garage to the parking lot. Somebody had followed her and called out her name.
"Lala." Brian said while following behind a distance.
She, naturally, ignored him.
"Lala." He tried again to no avail.
"Adrianna!" He gritted his teeth and stopped by the entrance to the parking lot. She stopped a beat in her tracks before whipping around on him.
"What do you want, O'Co- ohhh that's right, it's what Spilner now?" She scoffed in his face and he gave her a look.
He narrowed his eyes at her trying to think of the best approach without either pissing her off or making her upset. "You have no right to say shit about me having a fake alias. That's the job, you know that. Unlike you! You lied to me, Adrianna...Lolita...whoever you are. You lied. You hid your sister, you hid your identity. I didn't even know your real last name until today and I've known you for almost three years." He was hurt, he felt betrayed and lied to. He hated the way she made him feel in that moment. The girl who made him feel on top of the world just blew it all up and wasn't even going to tell him.
Lola knew she hurt him, she knew it was like a dagger getting shoved into his chest. He made her feel the same way. "I had to keep my identity private to ensure my sister's safety and she did the same thing for me. Our family has been through a lot, Brian, more than you'll ever know. I'll do whatever it takes to protect her." The underlying threat in her tone made him stiffen up. "The way you were supposed to protect me. Our family, Brian. You just up and left me in the middle of the night with no explanation other than a shitty note about how you hope I'll forgive you. Well guess what? I don't fucking forgive you."
"I don't expect you to forgive me or to understand. I couldn't tell you about this investigation, Lala. I have a job to do here, no distractions. I can't run around making sure you're not throwing yourself into the line of fire every day." He ran a hand through his wavy hair and Lala laughed bitterly.
"I don't know what it is you're looking for here, Brian, or what case you're on. But I will not allow my family to be hurt because you want to come into their lives and turn everything upside down. Do your job and get the hell out of here." She finally got into her car and drove off from the lot.
Her gut told her that Brian being here wasn't a good thing at all. She knew that everyone would go down for whatever it is he's looking into, herself now included. Lala wanted to know what happened to get them on the watch list but she couldn't without making them feel like she was against them.
She parked her car in her mom's driveway and sat for a few minutes before heading inside the home. As she stepped inside the house, the only thing running through her mind was one simple yet complex word.
Brian.
-
Lala sat with an annoyed look on her face and stared at the wall across from her. All she wanted to do was take a walk and not even a block from her mom's house, she got picked up. Now she was sitting in an interrogation office of sorts at a small desk.
The door opened to reveal a man with a folder in his hand. He closed the door and sat across from her. "Miss Aguilar, my name is Special Agent Bilkins. Do you know why you're here?"
She rolled her eyes, "no but I bet you're gonna tell me." Brian. It had to be Brian.
"We have a mutual friend, officer Brian O'Conner. Your name came up in conversation regarding an ongoing investigation and I figured that I may as well come see the person myself." He opened the folder and set a paper clipped pile of papers in front of her. "Recognize this?"
She looked at the papers, it was her file from before she joined the force. A file that wasn't supposed to be touched. "Why are you showing me this? It's all petty crimes, street racing and car mods."
He nodded at her words. "That may be the case, but there's this too." He pointed to a photo clipped onto it. It was of her and Brian back in 2002. "You want to explain to me how you are somehow here, two years later - dead center in my investigation?"
"I'm not here for Brian, I'm here visiting family." She spoke lowly and leaned back in the chair. So what if she was engaged to Brian? So what if there's a history? It's all dead and gone now.
"Visiting or aiding and abetting?" Bilkins asks and sets photos down of her at the race she had joined with Dom and Brian. Her and Letty were photographed in a few of them. Then he set photos down of her with the others in numerous places. The Toretto family's market, Dom's place, the shopping mall, the garage. "You seem awfully cozy for somebody just passing through, Miss Aguilar."
Lala shook her head and slid the photos back over to him. "There's no crime in hanging out with some friends. Are you charging me with something here? You do know I'm on the force as well, albeit on leave at the moment but I'm still a part of it."
"I'm here to offer you a deal. You help O'Conner bring down Toretto, we can get your record completely expunged. You can't get any promotions with your previous charges. If you help us then you could be promoted, get a pay raise. It's not cheap raising a kid on your own after all." She swallowed hard, the fact that he brought her daughter into it made her believe there was more he knew about her.
Did she want to turn on them? To do what Brian is failing at doing and tear them apart from the inside out? She already had Dom's confession, all the others as witnesses to said confessions about everything they do. They'd never see it coming.
Bilkins stood and Lala looked over at him as he opened the door, leaving it open. "I'll give you a second to think, I'll be in the hall." He stepped out and Lala put all the papers in the folder.
She put the photos in the waistband of her jeans and pulled her shirt over it before picking the file up and walking out to where Bilkins stood, he was leaning against the wall while talking to somebody who sat in a chair against the opposite wall. Brian.
"Well, what's your verdict?" Bilkins asked as Brian stood up slowly. He took notice of the file in her hand.
Lala handed it over to Bilkins with a smile. The older man smiled and Brian's smile slowly grew on his face. "My verdict is that you can take this file and your deal, wrap em real tight, and shove em up your ass. I'm good." She then walked past the two of them and out of the building.
Brian groaned and hung his head. "Shit."
Bilkins shook his head with a smile. "Clock is ticking O'Conner." He walked back into the office they'd previously come out of.
Lala took her phone out as she walked and dialed a number she recently memorized. Once they picked up she cleared her throat.
"Hey Dom, I have a problem."