Chapter Six

Ever

“R ight, the program is all set up and is doing what I need it to do,” Pete says after ten minutes. “Let’s have a look through the cameras and see if we can find any footage of this mystery third person inside the safe room. The camera set up here is pretty sophisticated, far more so than I would have expected a home security system to be, but then again, knowing what we do about Luc’s father, it shouldn’t surprise me that he has such a good security system in place.”

“Hopefully, it means that it is complicated enough that whoever did something to the cameras made a mistake somewhere,” I reply with a frown.

“Hopefully, but there are a lot of cameras and a lot of footage to go through. I'm going to have to check it from when that first guy that we caught entered the house. There is a possibility that he came with someone else.” Peter suggests.

“I hadn’t even thought of that but it’s a really good point,” Jensen replies. He then claps Peter on the shoulder and adds, “If you need a hand to go through it all let me know, I can pull a couple of all -nighters.”

“Thanks, man, I’ll probably take you up on that,” Pete replies.

The room falls silent once again as Peter does his thing.

“Anything?” I can’t help but ask after twenty minutes; I have never been good at being patient.

Pete nods, “I think I may have found a camera inside the safe room. There are so many cameras in this place we might all have to go through the footage, or it is going to take me weeks to do it by myself.”

“I’m pretty sure we can do that,” I reply, and then add with a grin, “Besides, that means we can do it in our PJs, and I will never say no to work that means I don’t have to get dressed.”

Both Jensen and Pete chuckle, but neither of them disagrees with me, and I know that they love pyjama days as much as I do.

“Alright, so this is from the camera that’s in the safe room; as far as I can work out, I may be wrong, but for now, this is as good as we’re going to get until, I can go through them all properly with a fine-tooth comb.”

“Got it,” I reply, as I lean closer, my curiosity has been running at full throttle ever since we realized there was a mysterious room, and I have been musing about different scenarios of what could have happened in there and where the fresh blood came from.

We all watch the screen, and it quickly becomes evident that the person knows exactly where the camera is. There is a tall, broad figure dressed entirely in black with a balaclava over his head and covering his hair. I'm assuming that the figure is male purely from the height and the broadness of his shoulders, of course I could be wrong. We watch as he stands completely still and silent as if he is waiting for something.

The door opening seems to shock him, and he pulls out a weapon. As Luc’s mom rushes through the doors, she heads straight for the door on the other side of the room and pulls it open. She has only taken one step through the door when the masked man takes aim and shoots, hitting her in the leg. She clearly yells in pain, although we can’t hear it, and falls to the floor, looking around. As soon as her eyes land on the masked man, she stares at him accusingly. He lifts his mask as soon as her eyes land on him. We can't see anything that could be used to identify him, but the beard does prove that the person is male.

“That’s not the look that you’d give someone who shot you,” I mutter. “She is looking at him like she recognizes him.”

“You’re right; there is no fear or anything. If anything, she looks pissed off,” Jensen agrees.

“Can any of you tell what she’s saying?” Pete asks, his eyebrows furrowed.

Jensen shakes his head at the same time as I reply, “No, but we can show Rafe; he is really good at lip reading. Hopefully, he will be able to pick something up.”

We carry on watching as the masked man rushes over to her and scoops her up, still being very careful to make sure that the camera doesn’t see his face. They quickly disappear through the door.

“So, we know that there were definitely three people in the house today, the one that we caught, Luc's mom, and now this guy, and we know that this one shot Luc’s mom, but he didn’t mean to, and that there’s no reason why she wouldn’t survive the wound. We don’t know who he is, who he works with, or who he works for.” I summarize for everyone.

“Yeah, that pretty much sums everything up, or at least some of it at least,” Jensen replies. “This whole situation went from kind of confusing to extremely confusing.I’ve only just gotten used to the fact that Luc’s dad was involved with Hunt, and now, his mom’s back in the picture, and let’s face it, most likely has something to do with Hunt.”

“You’re right. She recognized the guy in the balaclava before he lifted it, so he had most of his features hidden, which means he is someone she is very familiar with. She knows some dangerous people.” I agree.

Peter’s laptop makes a noise, and he grabs it, “Well, my laptop has got all of the information that it needs, so that we can head back to the safe house now. Luc should be discharged by now.”

“Good, we need to fill everyone in,” I reply. As I move toward the door, my stomach growls loudly, and I add, “And I need to eat. Apparently, I’m hungry.”

“Me too,” Jensen agrees.

“We can pick up some food on the way back,” Pete suggests, “we hadn’t planned to stay this long, so Rafe hasn’t gone shopping or anything, so although he will hate that we are not eating healthily he’ll most likely be just as hungry as we are.”

I chuckle. “Yeah, he loves the unhealthy stuff just as much as we do.”

We lock up as we leave the house, and I make sure to put the blood sample that we got into this special container that we keep in the car. We are going to have to drop it into Headquarters before we head back home, which is a bit of fucker, since I wanted to head straight back as soon as we can.

Once we have started the drive to the safe house, Pete asks, “How do you think Luc is going to react to the news of his mother being back in the country, in the house, shot, and quite possibly working with or for Hunt?”

“Well, when you put it like that, it does sound like quite a lot to deal with,” Jensen replies with a frown.

“I think he will handle it quite well. He handled coming back here much better than I thought he would.” I reply.

“I think he’ll be angry as fuck,” Jensen adds, and when Pete and I look at him curiously, he goes on to explain, “His mom got out, we were leaving her be, and she could have stayed on that island, living her lavish lifestyle and stayed out of everything to do with criminals but instead, for some bizarre reason she’s back in the country, illegally since we have no record of her entering the country otherwise and most likely involved with Hunt, who is one of the biggest bads out there. I would be pissed.”

I think about it for a moment and realize that he is right, she had the perfect out. We were leaving her alone.

“Why didn’t we look any closer at her?” I ask curiously, “I mean, she clearly knows her shit, and she got shot and then got angry as hell. Most people would not only be terrified but also screaming in pain.”

Jensen frowns, “I’m not sure. I know that we did the usual checks and then deemed that she had no involvement with the shit that Luc’s dad was doing and was actually as much a victim as anyone else in the situation. That is why we left her alone.”

“Well, she is clearly involved now, even if she wasn’t back then. Which makes me wonder what changed over the last few years that would mean that she would willingly get herself involved in all of this shit and risk the easy life that she had.” Peter replied.

We all fall silent as we pull into a drive-thru and order food for everyone, earning some raised eyebrows at the sheer amount that we order. I have to admit that it is a lot, but my men eat a lot. Fortunately, between Pete, Jensen, and I, we remember everyone’s usual order, or at least I hope we do; otherwise, someone is going to end up with something that they don’t want. Although, to be fair, someone will eat it. No one wastes food. It doesn’t take us long to grab everything and then we are heading back to the safe house. We never intended to stay long enough to use it, but then again, a lot has happened over the last couple of days.

“Oh, thank fuck you brought food,” Rage says as soon as we walk through the doors with the food bags.

“Nice to see you too,” I tease with a smirk.

He gets a mischievous twinkle in his eye and pulls me close, wrapping one hand around my neck he kisses me like a man starving for air and then leaves me gasping as he pulls away, and grabs the bags of food out of my hands, a dirty smile on his face as he winks at me.

“That was hot,” Cash mutters as he pulls me into his arms and kisses me, too, making my toes curl as he quickly takes charge of the kiss.

The whole room is smirking at me knowingly when Cash pulls back, and I stumble slightly. So, of course, I do the mature adult thing and stick my tongue out at all of them before I take my fresh coffee and sit my ass down on one of the couches because the table here is tiny, and there is no way that we’re all going to fit around it.

I narrow my eyes at Cash and Trick, “Where are your casts?”

Trick grins sheepishly as he hands me a letter and two folders. I raise my eyebrows and then burst out laughing as I read the letter.

“I think you guys should be worried that she is laughing,” Rage mutters.

I shake my head, “You guys really thought I wouldn’t believe you?”

Trick shrugs, “Nope, especially since I haven’t exactly been the best patient with it.”

I move over to where he is sitting next to Cash, “Are you sure that you are, okay? I know what the doctor's note said, but now you have had it off, does it feel okay?”

He nods, “Yeah, it feels great, actually, a little bit strange but not painful.”

“It’s the same for me,” Cash adds.

I grin, “Then I’m super glad you managed to convince the doctor to take them off.”

I kiss both of them softly, I know they were both struggling with their casts, although Trick was slightly more vocal about it then Cash was, neither of them were coping too well with being out of action. It is great news that they are healed enough that they can get back into everything again. I have a feeling that we are going to need all the help that we can get.

The food is quickly handed out, and Luc comes to sit next to me on the couch, one hand on my leg while the other picks up his fries.

When everyone has nearly finished, Trick asks, “Okay, so what happened? How come it took you so long? We expected you back within an hour, maybe two max.”

I turn to face Luc, “Before we get into everything, I need to tell you that your mom was the one that tripped the cameras.”

Luc’s eyes widen, “My mom? I thought she was on the island.”

“That’s what we thought too; we asked Alaric though, and as far as they are all aware, that’s where she is,” Jensen explains.

“They have no record of her leaving the country?” Atlas asks, his eyebrow raised.

We all know what it means if she is in the country with no one officially being aware.

Jensen nods, “Yeah.”

“Fuck, she was out of it. She was away from my father and all of his shit, stupid woman.” Luc curses.

I share a look with Pete and Jensen, we called it, well Jensen did. Luc's mad as hell that she is back in the kind of life that she barely managed to escape.

“We don’t have any other details than that she was there.” I reply, “There is a chance that she wasn’t pulled back in voluntarily. It is obvious from the security footage that we have that she is more knowledgeable of this world than we had originally assumed.”

Luc sighs, “Honestly, it would not surprise me. She was with my dad for decades, and she was aware of what he was up to. I was always under the impression that she kept out of it, but maybe I was wrong.”

“She went straight to the floor safe and was really pissed that it was empty,” I tell him.

“I had no idea she knew that it existed,” Luc mutters with a frown and then looks at Pete and asks, “can you show me the footage?”

“Sure, let me just pull it up,” Pete says as he moves his food out of the way and pulls his laptop out of the bag that he always carries.

“How come you never told us that you had a safe room in the security room?” Jensen asks Luc curiously while we wait for Pete to do his thing.

Luc’s eyebrows dip in the middle as he runs a hand over his beard, something that he usually does when he is confused or thinking about something particularly hard.

“We don’t have a safe room in the security room, at least not one that I knew about,” he replies.

“They’d really install a safe room and not tell you?” Rage asks.

Luc nods, “Oh yeah, definitely. They are assholes, and I was a burden and not someone that they wanted around. They would only think of themselves in a situation that would require a safe room. I am curious though; I have spent quite a bit of time in that room keeping an eye on my father and what he was up to and deleting footage that showed me in places where I shouldn’t be.”

“You deleted footage?” Pete asks, interrupting Luc and changing the subject.

Luc nods, “Yeah, I had to; otherwise, he would know that I knew far more about his business than he thought I did.”

“Awesome,” Pete replies with a grin and then frowns, “Not that your father was a raging douche canoe, but that you deleted stuff. I am presuming you know if there are changes to the original footage that would give away that it has been altered?”

“Yeah, it’s subtle as shit, but if you know what you’re looking for, then you can tell,” Luc replies.

“Are you thinking that the footage has been tampered with?” Riot asks.

Peter nods, “It definitely has. There was another person that was in the house, we have no idea how long he was there for, but it could have been ever since we found the first guy in the house.”

“There was someone else there, while we were there?” Cash asks, a heavy frown on his face, he absolutely does not like that we made an oversight.

“There’s a possibility that there was, yes,” Peter replies.

“We went through the cameras when we followed your mom through the house, but we didn’t go through all of them. If the person was already in the house before the outside cameras were set up, then it is possible that they knew your mother was coming and then disabled them for her.” Jensen starts to explain.

“They can’t have known that though because otherwise they wouldn’t have been surprised when she went into the safe room,” I point out.

“Shit, you’re right,” Jensen replies, “which means the person disabled the cameras outside and most likely knew they were there because they watched Alaric set them up.”

“So, what we need to do is go through the footage properly, then?” Trick questions.

“That’s the plan. At least we now don’t have to go back to the beginning.” Pete replies.

“Erm, I hate to burst your bubble, but it would probably still be a good idea to go back to when the first guy entered the house,” Rafe suggests, “that way we will know for certain if he came with anyone else, and if they got away when we found the first guy. I mean, it is the second time that the cameras have gone down. The original cameras that were set up went down a couple of hours before we got to the house, and headquarters just thought that it was us. That’s why Alaric had to go back and set up more.”

“I don’t know how I forgot about that,” I reply with a frown.

“A lot has happened in a short space of time, and Luc deciding he needed an extended cat nap was not something that we prepared for,” Atlas replies, being serious and yet teasing Luc at the same time.

“Yeah, that’s true.” I reply, “We checked the outside though and there was no sign of anyone else.”

“What if the guy that we caught, the one that was pretty fucking chatty and we thought was unprofessional, was actually a decoy?” Rage suggests.

“Fuck, you may be right.” Trick replies, “Distract us and give us just enough information to keep us happy while someone else has enough time to hide in the safe room that we didn’t know about.”

“They would have to know the house better than Luc did. Which means they would have to have direct knowledge from either his mom or dad,” Cash points out.

“He got the information from his mom,” Pete replies, and then turns the laptop to face the majority of us while the rest move so that they can see the screen, “just watch.”

Everyone surprisingly stays silent as the video plays. Peter does not waste any time and quickly switches it over to the video feed that is inside the safe room.

He pauses it as Luc says, “I have been through those cameras so many times, and I never knew that there was a camera there. I didn’t know that there was a room, so I didn’t know to look but every now and then, I went through every single camera just to make sure that I hadn’t missed anything. Not once did I find that camera.”

Pete shakes his head, “You wouldn’t have. It wasn’t easy to find. Even if you knew security systems really well, you still wouldn't have been able to find the camera; it was hidden pretty sophisticatedly and password protected.”

“Really?” I ask. “You got into it really quickly.”

“Why thank you,” he replies proudly.

“There’s clearly a lot that I didn’t know about my parents,” Luc frowns.

Jensen claps him on the shoulder, “You knew enough about them. We also had our own shit going on, and don’t forget the way he treated you. You found out as much as you safely could. He could have decided that you were a serious threat and done something else about it.”