He'd found her apartment. An apartment with no paper trail and only a handshake as a lease agreement. Elizabeth shrugged to herself, muttered "not bad", and crossed her arms over her chest. A two-bit government hack couldn't find someone who'd gone to the extent she had to conceal herself, but naturally Hobbs could. Clearly she'd underestimated his abilities and determination. "How'd you do it?"
"I have eyes everywhere." Where would the fun be in admitting God's Eye existed and that he could track them across the globe without having to leave his bed? The less they knew the better. Till he was certain none of them were working for Cipher, he'd keep everything compartmentalised.
There really was no hiding from him, was there? No matter which country she picked, or what rock she lay under, Hobbs had some inescapable advantage. "What's the offer this time?"
"There is no offer," Deckard said, "no deal. We're finishing what we started, it's as simple as that."
More like what they started. She shoved Deckard's arm down and walked towards the ramp. And what Hobbs had said about the kid, was he lying or had Cipher finally lost it? All that talk of holding the superpowers of the world accountable, the billion dollars, only to allegedly kidnap a child. Christ, what'd happened in the past two years?
"Shaw, wait." If he had to buy her, so be it. It was a temporary solution to a longterm problem; a solution that could buy him enough time to find a more permanent one. Luke sighed and glanced over at Eric with a hopeful look on his face then said, "I expunge your record, you help us track Cipher."
That was the most ludicrous thing she'd ever heard. If Hobbs did that, she'd be on the fast track to an early grave. The mob would notice something as miraculous as her criminal record suddenly disappearing, and they'd know. It didn't take much more than that to figure out she'd caved and bent the knee to the government. It wasn't as if she could ever return to Moscow and get her old job back anyway, but what further proof was there that someone had turned traitor. Elizabeth shook her head and descended the plane's ramp only to find herself facing five men in tactical gear when she reached the bottom.
Who was she kidding? It didn't matter what Hobbs offered, she'd never take his deal on principle.
"Fine," Eric muttered. The hard way it was, irregardless of Hobbs' approval. He put his cellphone to his ear and said, "Bravo Team is green."
Owen was on the floor with a rifle in his face before he had a chance to react to the movement in his peripheral vision. Deckard, on the other hand, stood tall and glared daggers at Reisner as two men approached him with their sidearms drawn. He shook his head, muttered "wanker" and shifted his focus to Hobbs. "You're really just gonna stand there and let this bastard screw us over, Hobbs? I thought you and me had a thing, Twinkletoes."
"We need all three of you," Eric said.
"No, you only need the two of us, plus Toretto's crew. Does that sound about right?" Deckard said. This was the exact same argument they'd just had, and God knew Deckard hated repeating himself. "I already told you I was looking for Cipher. You could've waited! One more month and we'd have found her."
Eric scoffed and stepped forward to approach Deckard. If he wanted to play, they'd play. He signalled the two men on Owen and they hauled him to his knees. The moment he gave the word, Shaw would be behind bars again and Deckard would be on his knees kissing their ass to get his brother free again. "Have her how? We've got God's Eye running twenty-four seven and she hasn't pinged it once. Cipher's out there and we can't even find her with it, what makes you think two washed out British Special Forces soldiers could find her?"
"Well good luck finding her with Toretto's crew alone. Nice knowing you, Hobbs. I'll take that plane ride back to London, thanks."
Goddamnit! "Why do you have to make everything so difficult, Shaw? She's alive because of your screwup, not ours. This is your mess to clean up. If you'd killed her when you had the chance, none of this would be happening."
"And if I had, Marcus would be dead. Your arse was on the ground, Reisner, not on that bloody plane saving the baby. I made my decision and I stand by it!"
Elizabeth paused midway up the ramp, listening intently to the argument. Cipher really had kidnapped a child it seemed, and Deckard had gone all Captain Britain on them. She swallowed and shoved her trembling hands in her pockets, focusing on the solid metal beneath her bare feet in an attempt to slow her heart rate down. Deckard was the ones making things difficult? Of course, it wasn't as if this Yank in a suit and his friends had kidnapped them at gunpoint from their mother's home or anything. Typical Americans. They stirred the pot then got out of Dodge and let everyone else stand in the way when the shit hit the fan.
Luke looked to his left and noticed her standing there but said nothing. If she'd been listening for even half the time, maybe it'd sway her compass in their direction. That was the deal with the Shaws, wasn't it? Every man has to have a code, Owen said that night, Mine? Precision. God only knew what Deckard's code was. Shaw had earned his respect over those few days, but if Deckard had a code, Hobbs couldn't pinpoint it.
And her. She'd taken the dive, remained silent on the Owen front the entire time. Was it honour, protection, or justice? Or something as simple as greed? Something had to be ticking in that head of hers, else why throw away two years of her life only to hole up in an apartment and live on rice and beans and fix things for free?
"It's your call, Deckard," Luke spoke finally. "Either Owen goes to prison, or he helps the team."
Her footsteps echoed in the plane as her feet slapped the metal floor and Hobbs couldn't help but chuckle. All he'd had to do was make a threat and she was ready to go to war. Now Luke understood. Her code was family, and protection. She'd taken the dive for Owen, and here she came marching towards them looking like she'd been sent by the Devil himself at the mere mention of Owen going to prison. Luke smiled at Eric and nodded. They didn't need to buy her, they just had to keep Owen's head on the chopping block and she'd jump the second they gave the word.
"You!"
"Let me guess," Luke said with a chuckle, "you want your corgis back."
"Hobbs." Deckard scowled. The British jokes had worn out their welcome after the first 'Your Majesty' crack. He knew how to take a joke, but some things you just got over after the first half dozen times they were said. What happened next, well, Deckard couldn't say he was surprised, however unexpected it was. Elizabeth went straight past Hobbs without another word and rammed her knee into Little Nobody's junk then jabbed him in the face with her fist, leaving him with a bloody nose and the choice of whether to stand with his head tilted back or double over and protect his crown jewels.
"If you ever threaten either of my brothers again, Reisner, you're gonna wish I understood the concept of self-restraint," Elizabeth spat. She turned on her toes and walked towards the SUV with its still-open door. Her shoes were inside it, along with her fears. She leaned in and found her boots then sat in the doorway and tugged them on, all the while never taking her eyes off Hobbs and his bloody friend. "So when do we start this little carnival of horrors?"
"We don't," Owen said, shoving one of the guns out of his face. If they weren't going to shoot him, he wasn't going to kneel there as if waiting for the executioner to put him out of his misery. "We're going back home. To Mum."
"Oh, are we now?"
Deckard rolled his eyes and leaned back against the car. One minute they were saving each other's skins, the next they were flogging each other or picking fights over some tiny thing like how to marinade a piece of meat. He supposed this was what happened when you left two kids with 'me vs the world' attitudes to fend for themselves.
"Yeah." Owen turned around and closed the gap between them. She was already two steps behind and didn't even know it. It figured she'd lost her touch given he'd been in prison and she'd been living it up in Cuba. "The next flight out will have tickets with our names on them."
She crossed her arms and glared at him from where she sat. If he thought she'd last a minute on a plane without medication, Owen had clearly forgotten how many bags she'd needed on their school trip to Dublin. "I'm not getting on another fucking plane when I just spent the entire night locked in that car."
"I didn't say we'd be physically onboard," he murmured, "got it?"
They wouldn't be—
Oh.
She shoved him backwards and out of her face. Putting their names on tickets would surely ping Cipher's radar, if she was actively looking for them. "You're an arse, you know. You get out of prison and don't write me a bloody letter to say you're alive."
"What would've been the point? You didn't even know I'd ended up in a coma."
"Common courtesy, Owen. Mum's been trying to teach you it for twenty-nine or more years but it never gets through your thick skull."
Luke caught Deckard's attention and jerked his head towards the ramp. Whatever had just happened between them, he'd need Shaw keeping tabs on his siblings if things were to go off without a hitch. Hobbs glanced back at Reisner and his bloody nose before he descended the ramp but didn't say a word. They had other problems to deal with, one of which included how he was going to get Owen and Letty in a room without someone ending up dead. "Are they always like that?" he asked as Deckard caught up to him, "I don't need any more damn problems. Eric and Roman are bad enough, but those two—"
"You should see them when they're actively trying to kill each other." He hadn't liked the way Owen got so close, but it was easier to let them sort their problems out than step in and play any variant of peacekeeper. Sometimes, you just had to know when to walk away and mind your own business. "But don't play her like that. She'll join the team of her own volition soon enough, it'll just take time."
"We don't have time." That was half the problem. The longer it took to find Cipher, the higher the risk she'd find them first. Sure enough they'd chosen a new facility to be Nowhere 2.0, but Luke didn't want to sit around and just do nothing while he waited for Shaw and whoever else to make up their minds. "And I didn't play her, Little Nobody did, and you've seen how well that's worked out for him so far."
"Yeah, sorry about that. She's a little . . ."
"Aggressive?"
Deckard shrugged. Close enough. Owen and Elizabeth seemed to have inherited their father's violent streak, along with his propensity for mischief. He, on the other hand, was the supposed spitting image of their mother. The phrase 'still waters run deep' had been used to describe them both at one time or another, though he also had no qualms about embracing his father's attitude towards life.
"Have you heard from Toretto?" Deckard said.
"No." Luke had wanted the three of them onboard before he and Dom spoke. Hopefully, it'd mean Dom would feel this wasn't just some suicide mission. Without him and his crew, the four of them didn't stand a chance against Cipher and they both knew it. "He's been helping to raise Marcus."
"So there hasn't exactly been a good time to ask 'how do you prefer to die?' yet."
"Nobody's dying, Shaw. Not on my watch." Hobbs was being cautious first and foremost. With two loose cannons on the team already, he couldn't afford anyone going rogue and flying off the handle. They'd come up with a plan and unless something went wrong, they'd stick to it. Luke knew Toretto could improvise, and that the others would follow him, but Owen and their sister — well that was a disaster waiting to happen.
"How's your partner?"
Deckard wasn't quite sure how someone was meant to ask about the wellbeing of a woman they'd once tried to kill, but he had come to like her. She was a decent person in his eyes, and the way Hobbs spoke of her was nothing short of admiration.
"Elena's good. She's healing, and she's on paid leave for the moment till Marcus is old enough then she's gonna start putting him in daycare and come back to the DSS." Unfortunately, Elena hadn't gotten away from Cipher unscathed. One bullet in the shoulder and a deep cut to her arm with both requiring stitches, but Luke supposed it was better than her dying. "Marcus is almost ready to start running too."
Deckard chuckled and glanced over his shoulder at Owen. He'd been eight years old when his little brother was born, and not a day went by when a part of him didn't regret pulling Owen's arse into line then and there. "Yeah, I remember what that was like."
"So?" Elizabeth whispered, sliding back further into the SUV till she could comfortably lay down with her feet dangling out the door. She propped her head up on her arms and stared at Owen's back as he seated himself in the doorway between her ankles. Funnily enough, she almost wanted the dark solace of the SUV to be hers again. Two hours ago, there were no questions inside of her and no hesitations. Now . . . Now she was stuck wondering if a child's life was worth a billion dollars. "I'm in, fine, but what the hell are we supposed to do? Deckard's going to be on our arses twenty-four seven with Hobbs and I don't fancy having him follow me to the loo every time I need to pee."
"Let's just find out where we're going first," Owen said, keeping his voice low. Reisner had taken to finding the bathroom so he could clean his face up, although the damage was minimal. She'd made him bleed without breaking anything obvious, and that knee to the bollocks — oh what he wouldn't have paid for Deckard to film that. She'd appeared to be going for Hobbs, ready to flog him half to death, and walked right past him instead. "The more we know, the easier it'll be to find Cipher."
"One of us is gonna have to leave, y'know."
Yeah, he'd figured that out several hours ago. Owen had been thinking it over, attempting to find the best outcome with the least pain involved. With Hobbs and Deckard around, along with Reisner and his team, not to mention Toretto, things would have to happen way below radar. "Don't worry about it."
"Course it will. I suppose you're Adler then, and I'm Moriarty," Elizabeth joked. She pushed herself up with her arms and turned her head slightly to the left, noticing something metallic reflecting light from beneath the seat. Was it a knife, or had one of those goons forgotten a bullet or something? She slid back further into the SUV till the toes of her boots grazed Owen's thighs and blindly reached behind her to slowly run her fingers over the carpet.
Her fingernails knocked it first, whatever it was, and Elizabeth moved her fingers slow and steady till she could feel the two sharp edges on either side. She followed the metal down to the hilt and rolled her eyes. What idiot locked two Majors and a civilian in a car and forgot to check it for weapons? How she'd missed it while laying on the floor during their journey was beside the point now. Elizabeth lifted her foot and nudged him in the ribs. It'd be easier to hide on her, given she was female, but he was the one who knew how to wield it better. "Oi, Owen."
"Yeah?"
"Stick your hand out behind you."
"You're not gonna smash it, are you?" he said. She'd pulled that trick once or twice in their youth and Owen had quickly learnt not to place blind faith in her so easily. That said, times had changed, and he leaned back, arm stretched out backwards and flattened his hand out with his palm facing the roof of the car. Something hard touched his hand and Owen hesitated before closing his fist around it. "Where'd you find that?"
"It was under the seat, and it feels like military grade too. Certainly not something I'd be carrying around."
"Deckard's?"
"I don't know, but it might come in handy if they use zipties."
Finders keepers rules applied at this moment. If they openly asked Deckard about the knife, Hobbs would know he'd come armed. If they kept quiet, Deckard would no doubt ask them, yet if it wasn't Deckard's, the soldier who'd somehow misplaced his blade was unlikely to go around making it known he'd allowed a weapon to fall into the hands of their quasi-enemy.
"Shove it back where you found it," Owen said, letting it go and pushing it back towards her. They didn't need the trouble that smuggling a weapon would bring. "C'mon. Let's just get this over with, then we can figure out where to go from here."
"Owen—"
He scratched the left side of his face and flinched when he hit a small sore spot. His scars still seemed tender, and if he itched them too much, he'd break through the skin and draw blood. Unfortunately Owen did that a little more often than he liked. "Please."
"It's gonna take a miracle for us to get out of this alive."
"Then I suggest you start praying to St. Dismas."