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NATALIE POV
Blacklight
I fiddle with my keyboard, typing furiously with the 100 thoughts in my head.
"Woah hon, slow down", Joshua says, inching near me to sit on my desk near the laptop.
"What's wrong Natalie?"
"I just can't get this software, I'm trying to transfer it to my phone so none of my calls get tapped or anything", I say running my hands through my hair.
"That's what the tech crew is for, hon. Let me see."
Joshua takes the laptop, his eyes focused on the screen, brows furrowing. A few taps later he hands me my laptop, which has started to transfer the software on my phone.
I look at him. "How the frick-"
"I dabbled in technology before becoming a trainer", he smiles proudly, flashing straight white teeth.
I almost see them sparkle. "Did you ever have braces?"
"What? No, why?", he replies, using my phone camera to check his teeth.
I laugh. "They are perfect."
He winks. "I am perfect, baby."
Lucas enters the office, tablet and Bluetooth earpiece in hand. "Okay", he says.
His eyes meet mine and he hands me the sleek tablet, and the earpiece. "It's Boss, he wants to talk to you."
I take it and see Boss at home, making coffee.
"Ah my daughter, how are you?"
My heart smiles at "daughter". "I'm good Boss, you?"
He sighs. "Doing much better, but don't have the strength to do any physical labor. I need to speak with you."
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2:00pm
I enter the office, where Joshua and Lucas are lazily sitting back, conversing.
Both young men look at me when I enter the room.
"Boss has information for us. Someone call the twins please."
Joshua calls for them, and Jayden and Jasmine enter.
"Whats up, fam?", Jayden says sitting next to Lucas on the couch while Jasmine heads to Joshua.
"Boss doesn't have plans on coming back at least for a while, so all of us will be running this agency for a while."
Lucas' brows furrow. "Why?"
"He said he can't bother to do any physical labor and said he will do 40% of the work for now, but all of us will handle in person dealings. He also said he got word about Sam."
Everyone's ears perk up.
"His whereabouts aren't completely known but he's still with H.E.X.A, but unable to do much because of an incident in China."
All of our eyes go to Lucas and he speaks.
"Confidential guys, I can't speak on it."
Jasmine exhales. "Come on, I wanna know what happened to him."
Lucas shifts. "We questioned him, he answered most of my questions to me only. The Boss of the Bejing BlackLight agency dealt with it. I can't say any more."
We all nod in respect.
Some stuff needs to be confidential.
"To be honest, I don't mind", Jayden speaks. "Yeah I get exhausted like crazy but this became our habitat now ."
Jasmine laughs, agreeing.
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2:30pm
Once everyone leaves I get up from the desk and grab a cold water bottle. April was being a little moist this year, emitting humidity from April showers.
I back up from the fridge and feel Lucas behind me. I immediately turn to be greeted by his gorgeous "bad boy" face.
His eyes look down to scan my face and he lingers at my lips.
"I'm tired, Natalie."
My stomach lurches. "Me too."
He stays motionless looking at me, waiting for me to make a move. I slowly wrap my arms around his toned torso, resting my head on his chest.
I hear him sigh, playing with the loose curls that were not confined in my ponytail.
I close my eyes, listening to his heartbeat as my mind slowly eases.
"You want to get some food after our meetings today?", he asks, voice low and near my ear.
I nod and he kisses the top of my forehead.
"We can ge-"
Security alarms start blasting and heavy footsteps thump around the office.
Both of us look at the door, and then to each other.
We get our guns, cocking the ammo in place and heading out.
We see a few of our own agents, also confused and in front of us to protect us.
I see Laura, one of the agents in our class.
"Laura what's happening?", I ask her.
"Must be a break-in. There's agents in every section so they won't go anywhere. Come on, we need to keep you two safe."
Her raven hair whips around as we head into one of the abandoned stairways to go down.
The alarms were still going off.
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2:40pm
We rush down to see more agents nearing the entryway of our agency.
Lucas and I push around until the agents make way for us, keeping an eye on us for safety.
When people clear I see a blonde short hair figure, arguing with another agent and once our eyes meet she smiles.
"Ms. Rodriguez."
I don't show any expression, inching towards her cautiously as all the agents surround me.
"Ms. Russo. What's the meaning of this? Quite an entrance you made."
She laughs, brushing nothing off her long silver overcoat. We faced each other while her agents where behind her, BlackLight's agents near her and me.
"My apologies, we meant no harm." She says that as her eyes move to broken glass on the floor which was from a glass wall.
Well that wasn't expensive.
"Why are you here, Carina?"
"Well I hoped we would hear from you soon, apologizing maybe. But you didn't so I decided to come over and see what's holding you."
Apologize?
"And what do I need your forgiveness for?"
"You insulted H.E.X.A, broke into our safe houses and stole our-"
"You held my family captive-"
"I'm not finished Natalie. I gave you a chance to solve this minor issue in peace, but you decided to stay on your high horse and not do anything about it. That's going to cost you."
I inch forward but Lucas detains me with his hand.
Carina notices, eyes following up to Lucas.
She actually checks him out.
"BlackLight has better looking agents, unfortunately ", she says rubbing her acrylic nails together. "Who's this?"
"None of your-"
"My name has nothing to do with your interference.", Lucas says bluntly.
Her smile grows wider.
"You gave me no offer of "peace". " I walk dangerously close to her, and her men move as my men stop them.
"If you think you can barge in this agency and threaten me in front of our people with lies, you have been mistaken."
Her smile goes dead.
"Ms. Russo, this issue could easily be solved if you own up to stealing our information and giving it back. We could form a peace contract and leave this in the past. It's your choice."
I stand tall, waiting for her answer but inside I'm mad.
Mad that she has the audacity to enter my agency like this and try to make me look like the bad guy.
"It's our information now."
"It will never be your information. H.E.X.A would be built on lies", Lucas adds.
"Hm, too bad you're not as nice as you look. And damn, you are a sight."
My face goes a little red in anger.
How dare she hit on Lucas?
Carina looks around the entryway.
"BlackLight isn't bad looking. Too bad it will be blown into ashes."
All of the agents cock their guns in time.
"What?", I say.
"There will be no peace offer, there is no peace to give. Everything I took from this agency will be mine. Otherwise I worked hard for nothing. " she walks around the room, the sun glinting blonde hair.
"Don't worry, I won't blow this up yet, I need some more materials first." She looks at me and smiles.
One of my agents grunts, and our eyes shift to a H.E.X.A agent and a BlackLight agent fighting, as all the agents go to break it apart.
A uniformed chaos breaks away, as Laura takes both of our hands and takes us away.
Lucas and I run to another hallway.
"She's really going to convert to violence for her own mistakes?", Lucas states, tone angry.
"This isn't right. What she's doing is so-"
We hear a few footsteps and both of us point our guns towards the noise.
Three H.E.X.A agents emerge and two in the back point their guns at us while the front one tells them to stand down.
They do, and the front one looks at us.
All three have a silver suit on, with black masks.
The front man takes his mask off and comes near us while Lucas pushes me behind him.
The man puts his hands in surrender.
"Lucas?"
This man's tone is in disbelief and Lucas' brows furrow.
"Yes."
"Wow, you've seriously grown. Look just like your Dad with your Mother's eyes."
I take a look at him. He seems to be in his 40's, toffee skin and slightly balding hair, but not in too bad of a shape.
"Who are you, sir?", Lucas asks.
"Please put the gun down no-"
Instead, Lucas cocks his gun in warning.
Hands still up the man speaks. "I-I knew your parents. Not well but they had quite the reputation."
"How did you know them?"
"I worked with your father once. I wasn't always a H.E.X.A agent. Your father was one of the best assassins in Spain."
"Assassin?", I ask.
"Oh yes. Any difficult job would be given to him and he would execute it effortlessly. I'm so sorry for your loss."
He looks at me. "Your mother was well known too. She would be on BlackLight news every week. "
My eyes well in confusion and anger.
Who is he?
"I know what happened to both of your parents. "
I move and Lucas stays in front of me, hand snaking back to hold mine.
"Lucas, your parents were in Madrid on mission and asked Natalie's parents for backup."
"O-our parents knew each other?", I ask in awe.
"Yes. All four of them were helping your father Lucas, as his job was to assassinate one of H.E.X.A's leaders at the time. They would have almost succeeded but one of the agents opened fire on your father, who just in time opened fire to him."
I see Lucas swallow, his body inching backwards towards me. I place my plans on his back, telling him I'm here.
The man looks down. "The other rivals took both of your mothers who managed to defend themselves pretty well as Natalie, your father went to tend to Lucas' father. They were able to succeed the mission, but none were able to make it out alive."
I feel my heart sink in my chest.
"They threatened to take you Natalie, so your mother sacrificed her life for yours. I saw it in front of my eyes. Your name was the last thing she said before she-"
He goes silent as my eyes start to well up.
"How do you know any of this? If you are lying-", I put my gun closer to his head.
"It's the truth, I promise. I'm alive because they forced me to leave BlackLight and join them if I wanted to live-"
"So you left our parents? Just like that?", I yell in anger.
Lucas places his hands on my hips, for his comfort and to detain me from hurting the man.
"Natalie, they were all already dead", he says softly. "And I still made sure all four had a proper burial and ceremony, but this was kept under wraps. Not many know."
My mind thinks to Boss. Didn't he know? He never told me.
He gets on his knees. "No one can know I told you this, or I would be dead. Everyday I think about this and I just had to tell you two when I realized who you both were."
Lucas stays motionless, hands by my hips for his comfort.
The man leaves quickly when he sees his agents come to him and leaves Lucas and I alone in the hallway.
Lucas keeps his eyes towards where he left and even with my shock, I wrap my arms around him from the back.
"Is he telling the truth?"
I kiss his black leather jacket. "Seems like it. No wonder why I hear my name at night, it was probably my mom. How could he know that?"
He still stays quiet but I know he's considering my words, eyes in deep thought.
I hug him a little harder, and he responds by putting his hand over mine, appreciating the action.
It was a shock for both of us, but mostly him as he didn't know what happened and neither did I.
Knowing it was my mom made me less scared to go to sleep.
Maybe I can speak to her and feel at peace.
I try to leave his grasp to hold his hand but he tightens his grip around my hand.
"Don't let me go", he says.
I smile, hiding the swell in my heart.
"I was just going to hold your hand. We need to see if Carina left or not."
He turns around to face me, eyes intense.
"Not now. A few minutes." He wraps his arms on my hips and nuzzles his head in my curls.
And I let him.
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