Ethan stared at the screen, after trying to log into the system for the fourth time.
He swallowed hard, frowning with his head down and whimpered to Wes that he couldn't break the code. Ethan lifted his head slightly, turning his eyes up to the blonde man sitting on the table across from him, with a foot on the edge of Ethan's table and his arms crossed.
Wes looked displeased at the redhead's whining and abruptly stood up.
"How can you not open it? You are the smartest fucking kid in this damn country! And a measly code is unbreakable... even for you?!" he shouted, strutting around the table to get in Ethan's face.
The red head flinched and started trembling once more.
He was deathly afraid of these men. They could kill him any moment and Ethan had tried--he really had--on looking into the US National security system to try and shut down the protective force on the financial account.
"I'm sorry! I've tried everything!" Ethan leaned back as the man's red face got closer to his. He swallowed shaking his head, "I've used everything I know! I don't understand this type of encoding!"
Wes stood up and whirled around, glaring at the group of engineers in the room. He pointed at Ethan when he looked at him, again, and demanded what it was that he needed to know.
"If you can't do it, then I know for damn sure that these fucking idiots behind me won't either!"
Ethan flinched again and sat up slowly. He sighed, running a hand back over his hair. He licked his lips, glancing at Chambers whose green eyes shot a warning at him. The redhead, however, crumpled under the pressure and shook his head, "I can't figure out the code! You need someone who knows about viruses."
Wes narrowed his eyes, scoffing that he didn't know what the hell that meant. He pulled back his arm and brought it back down to meet Ethan's jaw. Ethan fell sideways, banging his head against the table and groaned on the floor.
The blonde man shouted at Ethan that the purpose of finding him was so that he would be able to know whatever it is that could open the account. He grabbed Ethan's vacated chair and threw it across the room. The chair smashed against the wall and slid onto the floor, its wheels turning slowly.
Huffing, he turned to Elena and pointed at the group, "Pick a hostage!"
The woman grinned, her blue eyes turning on the group as Ethan's horrified face looked at Chambers and his niece. The small child started crying in his arms, hugging her toy, as Chambers winced and looked over at the redhead.
Wes looked down at Ethan and growled, "You best starting digging in that brilliant brain, Mr. Cunningham. Because for every five minutes that you don't open that damn coding, I will allow Elena to shoot someone of her choosing."
"I'm telling you that I don't know! I can't figure it out! There's a particular kind of string coding that I have to learn in order to open it up!"
Ethan, desperately, tried to beg the man to not hurt anyone, that he'd keep trying if he wouldn't hurt anyone else. Wes glared down at him and kneeled down, sneering at him.
"You aren't exactly in the position to be making demands, Ethan."
He rose and turned around to give a nod to Elena. She pursed her mouth into a grin and made a beeline for a short woman and yanked her up. She dragged the woman by her hair to the wall behind the group, and shoved the shivering woman against it.
Lifting her pistol, Elena's blue eyes sparkled with excitement and pulled the trigger, the gunshot's echo bouncing throughout the room as the woman's head knocked backwards. Her body slid down, falling into a lifeless heap on its side.
The strawberry blonde turned to look at the group once hearing a small child crying loudly.
Sneering, Elena looked over at Ethan and grit her teeth, "I shouldn't warn you, but I will anyway... I fucking hate kids."
Swaying her hips, Elena made her way over to Ethan and stood beside her partner.
"So I suggest you start thinking reaaaaaaalllly hard about those codings. Because the next bullet is going in a little girl's head."
Ethan's eyes widened, glancing over at Chambers whose face had darkened.
The redhead wasn't sure, at the moment, which of the three was more reason to be afraid of; Wes, Elena, or Chambers. But Ethan's eyes lowered to Darla's little red face and tears streaming down her rosy cheeks as her head laid against her uncle's chest.
Elena turned around shouting, "SHUT THAT BRAT UP!"
Chambers lowered his head to keep from her looking at him and quietly hushed Darla. His niece's crying was wilting, but hiccupped loudly and buried her face in his shirt. Wrapping his arms around her protectively, Chambers swallowed thinking about his cell phone back in the room. He had no choice, but to use it to get a message out to his brother about what was going on.
Once he heard the team arguing with one another that it was a waste of time waiting for Ethan to open the coding shield, Chambers kept his eyes on them as he leaned his head to the side and whispered to Nia for her to take hold of Darla.
The brunette looked at him wide eyed, shaking her head in question of what he was going to do, as she took the sniffling five year old into her lap. Sid had wrapped an arm behind both of their backs, to hug them to him, as he too was looking at his friend, worriedly. Kitty, behind Chambers, had leaned forward to grasp onto him, shaking his head and mouthed for him that it was too dangerous.
Chambers grinned at her, shaking his head and covered her hand with his raising his brows. Her green eyes softened and swallowed, nodding in reluctance before letting go of him.
The twenty-two year old turned away from her and leaned forward to kiss the little girl's nose, smiling widely and whispered, "You be a good girl, Rosebud. Stay here... and stay as quiet as you can, okay?"
Darla's eyes widened, hearing the tone of her uncle saying goodbye to her. She frowned, her bottom lip trembling and he shook his head, lowering his brows.
"No, no, no... I'm going to be right. Back. I'll be right back, Darla. But I need you to be a good girl for Nia and Sid... okay?"
She whimpered quietly, her grip on his hand tightening.
"You promise?"
Chambers smiled, nodding silently. She then leaned over and kissed his nose and whispered, "I love you, Chamby."
"I love you, too, Rosebud."
He looked at his friends, silently begging them to protect her, and they both nodded in understanding. Chambers nodded firmly, turning back around just as the large man---Vesile--- glanced over at them. Once the man's eyes were turned away, the college student looked around, trying to figure out how he was going to get to the room without being unseen. He was six-foot-six and broad shouldered. There was no way that he'd be able to get past the group without one of them seeing him.
Chambers tried to get Ethan's attention who was sitting beside the arguing team and eyeing them all warily.
When Ethan felt eyes on him, he turned his head and his competition competitor raised his brows at him. The red head frowned, scrunching his nose in indication that he wasn't clear on what was going on. Rolling his eyes, Chambers mouthed and discreetly pointed in the direction of the room that they'd occupied earlier and mouthed, "My phone."
Ethan lowered a brow and glanced at the group beside him. Turning his eyes back to Chambers, he watched as the tall guy was already scooting himself along the carpet and would pause, looking over at the team, then moved again. He repeated this a few times and Ethan swallowed, worried that he was going to get caught.
'Fucking Henry! He's going to get me SHOT!' he frowned.
Glancing at the team, Ethan blinked at Elena raising her gun at one of her team members, snapping at him about being a lazy ass and that if he was any better at working with computers that they wouldn't be locked in a room that required a code as well.
She scowled, shouting, "It changes every fucking five minutes! Why don't you make yourself useful and try to figure out how the hell we are getting out of here after that pansy ass gets us what we want!"
Again they began arguing, now all of them raising their own weapons at one another.
Ethan lowered a brow, silently wishing that they'd all just shoot themselves and leave them all alone. But he knew that was unlikely with how desperate these people wanted money that was in the US International account.
He gulped loudly, and glanced at Chambers who was now more than halfway to the room but froze along the wall. Ethan internally growled that he was going to kill him if he got the chance. The redhead knew that to help the guy's damn niece, Ethan was going to probably suffer being beaten at what he attempted to do next.
The rolling chair he sat in, provided as a good distraction. He planted his feet firmly on the floor then pushed off. The chair rolled him all the way against the wall, on the opposite side of where the group and Chambers were. As the chair came to a slower roll, Ethan simply stared at the lethal team until he bumped in a halt against the wall.
He sat there staring at them and the team stared at him with offended scowls.
Ethan raised a brow and without looking at Chambers, could tell through his peripheral vision, that he'd taken advantage of the team's attention drawn away and disappeared from sight. The redhead gulped loudly as Wes turned around with his arms folded and a raised brow.
Ethan pulled in his lips and raised a brow in return, shrugging wide eyed, "I've always wanted to do that."
~Ɣ~
Chambers frowned at the silence from outside the room and looked over his shoulder to listen in, but then heard Ethan say something. Taking that as indication that everything was alright for now, he turned back to what he had come into the room for.
Crawling under the table, Chambers snatched his phone up from where it remained. He used his thumb to press the button on the side of the phone frame and it lit up to show the remaining battery life.
He grimaced, hissing softly, "Shit!"
There was three percent left. It was only enough to be able to send out a message to Nathan, but no guarantee of Chambers knowing his brother got it unless Nathan showed up with Adam, Rory, the SWAT team, or police department. He knew, though, that he had to try and that he had to keep protecting Darla until they were all safely out.
Scrolling down until he found his brother's number, Chambers glanced at the doorway to keep watch as he was texting a short message.
Darla SOS. 4 floor, Graham Hall. Security system active
He quickly pushed send and cursed under his breath when a small black box with white lettering let him know that the message would send when there was a better signal. Apparently, he was in a spot that had too low of reception from the one bar in the corner of his screen.
Glancing at the door, Chambers knew that to send the message, he was going to have to go back outside. The only problem was Ethan no longer being able to distract the team and having him looking at the computer again which was facing the same direction as the room Chambers was in.
Frowning as he put the phone on silent, Chambers stuffed it into his back pocket. He crawled out from under the table and stood up, leaning against the wall and tilted his head to listen for any way of knowing that he could return back to the group. But he could hear the man, Wes, informing Ethan that he'd had enough of his stupid games and that because the student wasn't as brilliant as everyone thought he was, it was going to cost him the life of a child.
Chambers' eyes widened at the words spoken and could hear his friends shouting for Darla who was screaming through her cries.
Forgetting his own safety, the senior pushed himself off the wall and ran into the room, seeing his niece in the arms of Elena. Darla was screaming for her daddy and uncle while kicking and smacking her arms around. Her little face reddened the more the woman squeezed her little body.
Elena shouted at Darla, dropping the little girl onto the floor and pulled out a smaller gun that had a longer barrel and was a shimmering gray.
"NO!"
They all turned around as Chambers held up his hands and shook his head, panically looking at the man in charge.
"I know the code!"
Wes narrowed his eyes, tilting his head and leaned his head forward. Raising a brow, he asked the man to run that by him again. Chambers nodded, glancing at Darla before looking back at Wes.
"I can help you break the encoding... but you have to leave my niece alone."
Chambers' jaw clenched tightly, narrowing his eyes at Wes who was sizing him up slowly; pursing his mouth, narrowing his eyes into slits and pointed at Ethan, "Does he know the code?"
Glancing at the redhead, Chambers lied, nodding, "He does. But we learned it differently. He knows it by a different name."
Ethan frowned in confusion and the silent quick look Chambers threw him forced the redhead to play along.
"Remember...? That encoding is what you know as a consecutive string?"
Ethan's eyes widened, hearing what Chambers was asking him to do to the computer. And it could either be in their favor... or the insane team holding them. He slowly nodded, feeling Wes and the others eyes on him.
"Rrrrrright... Right! I know! I know what he's talking about."
He nodded, looking up at Wes.
The blonde man shifted his gaze between the two college students and growled at Ethan, pointing at the screen, "THEN DO IT!"
As Ethan was typing away, glancing over at Chambers, Wes straightened and pulled out a Glock, pointing it at the guy across from him. The man in charge and the standing senior stared one another down silently as Elena frustratingly growled at Wes if she could kill the kid. The man said nothing, just stared back at Chambers whose green eyes narrowed at the sound of the computer, Ethan sat at, blinking and locking them out of the system completely.
Wes blinked, looking at the screen and shoved Ethan out of the way to stare wide eyed and gaping at the blue screen now turned black with a small green lizard starting at the top of the screen and virtually eating away at the screen.
"NO! NO! NOOOO!"
He grabbed onto the sides of the suitcase screen and shook it as the lizard was eating the screen away.
Wes stood up, glaring at Ethan as he raised his weapon again this time at the frightened red head, "What the fuck did you do?!"
He screamed at Ethan to fix it, but the red head shook his head and muttered that he only knew how to set up the viruses. That he was unable to remove one that was powerful as the one now in the computer.
Turning the barrel towards Chambers, Wes lifted his chin glaring menacingly at him.
"Fix. It." he grit through his teeth.
The college student staring back at him was no longer looking frightened. Instead, Wes realized that he'd been played from the dangerous look he was receiving from the lime green eyes. Chambers' lip curled and seethed through his own grit teeth that if wanted the virus removed, that he was to let his niece go.
The blonde scoffed a laugh, "And if I don't...? I should fucking fill her up with every fucking bullet we all have for what shit you two pulled!"
Wes shook his head, gripping tighter to the handle.
"You fix this shit now, or I'm not only going to kill that little fucking brat! I'll kill everyone in this room!"
"And then where does that leave you!" Chambers shouted back, his arms now lowered beside him in tight fists.
He stepped forward, clearly showing Wes that he was unafraid of him or his weapon aimed right at him, and raised a brow.
"If you kill Ethan and I, I guarantee that the virus will remain in that computer, and you will remain inside this damn room. Permanently."
When he saw the realization hit Wes, Chambers tried to bargain with him. He held up a hand and lowered his chin.
"I will remove the virus... and I will even stop the security system that will get you out of here, but you have to--- have to---let my niece and the others go."
Chambers watched the way the man's jaw clenched and unclenched, obviously thinking over the proposition. Wes took a deep breath, pushing the safety back in place on his gun as he ordered Elena to release the little girl.
The strawberry blonde scoffed, "Are you fucking kidding me?!"
Wes whirled around and roared, "I GAVE YOU AN ORDER!"
She narrowed her eyes, struggling to comply, and kept his gaze as her gun arm lowered. She then bent down to yank up the sniffling child. Elena shoved the little girl towards the group, but Darla ran past Wes and into Chambers' arms when he knelt to pick her up.
Darla started crying softly and Chambers' heart pounded in his chest, relief overwhelming him now that she was safe again--for now.
"Alright..." Wes growled.
He nodded at the child in the man's arms and sneered.
"I gave you your niece back. Now fucking fix this shit!"
He shouted the last part as he pointed at the computer with the gun in a downward motion; clearly frustrated.
Chambers kept the man's gaze as he walked over and handed Darla to Nia. He sighed, taking his niece's face in his hands and smiled whispering, "Going to get out of here soon, Rosebud."
Darla sniffled, hiccupping as she nodded and leaned her head under Nia's chin shutting her eyes tightly. Chambers rose and turned around to glare back at Wes.
The Italian brothers grabbed hold of Ethan and pulled him to his feet, holding him off to the side as the second college student took his place in the empty seat. Staring at the screen, Chambers licked his bottom lip and wiggled his fingers over the keys before typing away. He had to pull together strings of codes and then add specific values to the already set up string before the computer returned to the blue screen that it had before with the rotating globe.
He turned around in his seat, leaning back with his arms crossed and legs in a wide stance. He raised a brow narrowing his eyes again at Wes who grinned down at him.
"I can see that the school was obviously mistaken about who they thought was the smartest in the country."
The student in the chair frowned up at the man with his jaw skewing to the side.
"Tell you what..." Wes grinned, suddenly returning to his calm demeanor that he first presented himself with.
He crossed his arms and stood in front of his team, taking a glance at the wary posture of the red head and then the way the one seated didn't seem very frightened at all.
"Since you seem to be the only one capable of removing a virus not even the supposed smartest student can... why don't you just go ahead and remove the security system on the account we need."
"Why should I?"
Wes blinked at the snapped remark, and then grinned widely.
The dark haired man in the seat was still glaring back at him and Wes could admit that he was impressed with the sneakiness that caught him off guard. He'd always been able to sense when the rug was going to be pulled from under him, but this particular college student had been able to not only tug the rug, but also wrap Wes and his team around in it.
Chambers' eyes followed the blonde man as he stood in front of him and was simply trying to stare the senior down. But Chambers wasn't afraid of this man. After seeing what had almost happened to Darla, there was no way that he was going to fear these assholes. His brother wouldn't have. So neither would he.
A movement from the corner of his eye had Chambers turn his head and met Elena's gaze. She had stepped forward with a strange expression, tilting her head slightly with her chin down. She narrowed her eyes and lifted her pointer finger at Chambers.
Her blue eyes were looking him over from head to toe and she asked slowly, "Do I... know you?"
Chambers swallowed hard, but otherwise remained his relaxed posture. He lowered a brow, shaking his head silently, then looked away from her scrutinizing ice gaze.
Wes looked at Elena and frowned, "What the fuck are you jabbering about?"
The blonde turned her eyes to him and narrowed them.
"Was I talking to you?"
Wes pivoted his body and stepped in front of her, staring her down to which Chambers saw that Elena slowly--but reluctantly--became submissive to. She pursed her mouth to the side and glanced at Chambers once more before growling and turned away. Wes stared after her with a lowered brow until fell back in her place again.
"Now look..." the blonde man returned his attention to Chambers.
The one looking up at him raised his brows, eyelids half mast and tilted his head to the side.
Wes shook his head, grinning and shrugged, "You and I both know that this would be so much easier if you cooperate. All you have to do is get the account open, transfer it to a few other accounts, and we're gone. We leave you all here, unharmed, and never see us again."
He lowered, squinting his eyes and nodded as if Chambers was a child, "Now doesn't that sound better than being stubborn like you are now?"
As much as Chambers wanted to punch the man, he knew he couldn't. He had to keep Darla in mind, and physically harming any of these people would most definitely cost his niece's life. And Chambers couldn't let that happen. Especially because of who her father was.
He continued to sit where he was, staring blankly back at the man and lowered a brow, jaw slanting sideways.
"No."
Wes' blue eyes widened, quickly pulling himself up and growled under his breath. He pulled the Glock from his side again, the barrel pointed right at Chambers' face to which the student merely glanced at before looking back up at Wes.
Pulling back the safety, the blonde stepped back a few steps, grinning as he shook his head, "Surely you know that you made the biggest mistake of your life..." then turned around, startled, when someone from the group behind him shouted, "Darla, no!"
The blonde blinked repeatedly staring dumbly as the small child ran over and jumped into Chambers arms. She hugged him tightly and shook her head, whimpering, "Not my Chamby! Not my Chamby!"
Chambers swallowed hard, glaring up at Wes who stared at them for a moment before raising his gun after shrugging.
"Two for one then."
The senior's eyes widened and instinctively threw his body backwards, wrapping his arms safely around Darla as they tumbled off the chair. But the sound of the gun going off never came. Instead, there was a small explosion, and gray smoke lurking into the room from the vent above, a few tables away.
A figure dropped from the vent, into the gray mist and their feet landing loudly on the table. They swiftly moved through the smoke, jumping the other tables until landing on their feet smoothly, holding up their weapon of where the blonde man stood.
Wes' team already had their weapons drawn; sneering at the person in front of them.
As the smoke cleared, Wes peered over the gun his arms held out in front of him. His blue eyes narrowed in recognition, then grinned, slowly drawing out, "Samuel Travosky... what an unpleasant surprise..."