Note: What was supposed to be a short little five times fic has since turned into my epic tale of how Eliot and Nate got to know each other before the series started. There will be five chapters in this fic. Each chapter can stand alone. Updates should be fairly frequent.

Disclaimer: I don't own Leverage.

Chapter 1: Target

1998

"The target's name is Nate Ford."

A hand appears from the darkness, its nails sharp and painted crimson, and pushes a thin file across the table. On top is a picture of a man in his early 30s, with dark hair and thoughtful blue eyes.

"Are you familiar with this man?"

Eliot shrugs. He's a little nervous—this is only his third solo job as a retrieval specialist, but more importantly it's his first time retrieving a person and his first job for the Regina Consortium, a coalition of European thieves with a nasty reputation—but he thinks he's doing a good job of staying cool. "I've heard the name, but I've never met him. "

"Ford is an insurance investigator for IYS—or perhaps I should say he is the insurance investigator for IYS. He retrieves more stolen items than the rest of his coworkers combined."

There's a slight pause. If he had a little more patience, Eliot would wait her out, make her say what she wants, but his palms are sweating and his heart is pounding and so he says, "Do you want me to kill him?"

There's another pause, and he could swear this one's tinged with surprise.

"I wasn't under the impression that you were an assassin, Mr. Spencer."

"I'm not. I just don't understand why you'd want me to kidnap an insurance investigator."

"Mr. Spencer, you don't need to understand. You just need to do your job."

The rebuke draws him up short. He'd never have dared to question orders at his previous job—the one that took a naïve high school valedictorian and molded him into a killing machine. It hadn't taken him long to get used to keeping his mouth shut and doing as he was told. Going into business for himself was supposed to be different, though. He's not a mindless drone any longer.

"I'm sorry," he says with forced politeness. "I was just curious. Where and when do you want me to deliver him?"

"Ford is here in Rome. He's scheduled to leave in two days. Bring him to me tomorrow. The address for the drop is in the file."

"My payment—"

"You will be paid upon delivery. A hundred thousand, as we agreed."

Blood money, he thinks, staring at the file but not touching it. He can't quite keep his expression blank any longer.

She taps her nails loudly against the lacquered table top. "You came highly recommended, Mr. Spencer, but I am sensing some squeamishness. If you are incapable of doing the job, I can find someone else."

He growls and snatches the file off the table, feels it bend under his fingers. His chair scrapes against the floor when he stands. "You can find someone else, but you won't find someone better. I'll do it."

With the information in the file—credit card numbers, a list of hotels Ford has used in the past—it's easy enough to hunt Ford down to a luxury hotel in the heart of Rome. A quick call to the room establishes that Ford isn't there. Eliot takes up residence at an outdoor table at a café across the street, giving the waitress an easy smile that ensures she'll keep the coffee coming. It'd be more professional to wait for Ford in his room, but Eliot doesn't know when the man will be back and he has no intention of watching Italian soap operas for the next four hours until Ford shows up.

He skims the file again while he waits. Ford's smart, he sees. Very smart. Eliot recognizes the names of at least five of the guys Ford's taken down, and Eliot hasn't (yet) heard of all that many people in the business.

The sun's beginning to set and Eliot's trying to decide whether to risk a bathroom break when Ford strolls by. The man is dressed in black slacks and a black button down shirt. Eliot takes a last sip of his coffee, leaves a couple of bills on the table, and casually follows Ford into the hotel.

Ford gets into an elevator and Eliot walks in a moment later. He can feel Ford's eyes on him as he walks past to claim the back corner of the elevator. He leans against the wall, his arms crossed over his chest. Ford's room is on the twelfth floor and it's a slow elevator. The ride seems to go on forever.

"American, right?" Ford says abruptly.

Eliot blinks. "What?"

Ford turns his head just enough to smirk at him. "Like I thought. You're American."

"Yeah. How'd you know?"

Eliot had done his best to blend in, after all, combing his short hair, wearing an inconspicuous black shirt and jeans.

"An Italian would never wear those boots. You're too clean-shaven to be Eastern European. You don't look French or Spanish. And if you were German, you wouldn't have done such a poor job of hiding your gun under your jacket."

Ford has to grunt out the last words, because by then Eliot's shoved him up against the wall and said gun is no longer under his jacket but instead is pressed hard against Ford's spine.

"When the elevator opens, don't say a word or I'll kill you," Eliot says quietly. "If you try to fight me, I'll kill you. If you do anything but walk calmly to your room, unlock the door, and let me in, I'll kill you."

"Anything you say," Ford says, way too calm for someone in his situation. "Mister…?"

There's no reason to lie. Even if Ford somehow survives the next few days, it's not as if Eliot's chosen a subtle line of work. His name's going to get out there, sooner rather than later. Sooner, if he handles things right. "Spencer. Eliot Spencer."

"You're new," Ford says. "Interesting."

A chime sounds and the door opens. Ford walks out, nods a greeting at the old couple waiting for the elevator. Eliot follows just behind him, using his jacket to hide the gun.

"You must be very good, Eliot," Ford continues as he walks. "I mean, you must be something really special for the Regina Consortium to send you after me on what has to be, what, your third job?"

"I thought I told you to be quiet," Eliot snaps, jabbing Ford with the gun as a reminder. "And anyway, how'd you know this is my third job?"

Ford shrugs. "No way anyone hires you to come after me on your first job, unless they plan for you to fail, which wouldn't make sense in this particular circumstance. Most people wouldn't hire you for a second job, in case it turned out your success on the first job was a fluke. And if you'd pulled off three jobs, the entire criminal underworld would have heard of you, and so would I. That's how things work, with retrieval specialists."

Despite himself, Eliot's impressed. Ford has a comfortable way about him. It'd be easy to underestimate the man.

Ford reaches into his pocket and pulls out a key, uses it to unlock the door. He steps inside and doesn't try to close it before Eliot can come in after him.

"How do you know I'm a retrieval specialist and not an assassin?" Eliot says.

Ford's lips twitch. "Let's call that wishful thinking." He sits on the bed, leans against the headboard with his legs stretched out in front of him. "So," he drawls, "what's the plan?"

Eliot sits in a chair, his gun still pointed at Ford, and wonders why this is going so differently than he'd imagined it would.

"I'm gonna hold you here tonight," Eliot says. "Tomorrow, I'm taking you to the Consortium."

Ford shakes his head pityingly. "Rookie mistake, Eliot. You should have picked me up tomorrow."

Eliot's eyes narrow. "Why?"

The other man just smiles.

"Why, Ford?"

"Oh, please, we're past these formalities, aren't we? Call me Nate. And as for why…you'll see."

Eliot doesn't know what to say to that, is annoyed and unnerved by Ford's—no, Nate's—ominous words. He decides that the safest thing is to say nothing, and so shifts himself into a comfortable position on the chair and allows silence to fill the room.

They don't talk for maybe an hour. Eliot's always a man of few words, but even he's starting to get bored. It's a relief when Nate breaks the silence first.

"So, where are you from?"

"What does that matter?"

"Just making conversation," Nate says, crossing his arms behind his head. "Small town, right? Somewhere rural. You liked the people there, but the lifestyle didn't suit you. That's why you joined the military, I'm thinking."

"You think too much," Eliot tells him.

"There's two kinds of insurance investigators. The ones who think too little, and never get the big cases, and the ones who think too much, and always get the job done."

"Don't forget the part where the ones who think too much find themselves kidnapped by the Regina Consortium. What'd you do to piss them off, anyway?"

Nate waves his hand airily. "Oh, I obtained evidence that Adrian Michaux was involved in a child prostitution ring here in Rome."

Eliot flinches, just a bit. Child prostitution…the very thought is enough to make him want to tear someone's head off. He can't allow himself to dwell on it. "I've never heard of Adrian Michaux."

Nate's smile sharpens. "Of course you haven't. He's been a key member of the Consortium for the past five years, but he's always stayed under the radar. Until now."

"You're an insurance investigator, not law enforcement. What does any of this have to do with you?"

"I found the evidence while I was investigating a stolen Monet," Nate explains. A muscle leaps in his jaw. "As for what this has to do with me…I don't like people who hurt kids."

Neither does Eliot. In fact, if there's one thing in this world he hates, it's when kids get hurt. He doesn't say this to Nate, of course—can't afford for his hostage to think they're building a bond between them—but he does pause to consider what's going to happen after he turns Nate over to the Consortium. They'll torture him, no doubt, until he tells them where the evidence is. Then they'll kill him, find the evidence, and get Michaux released. Maybe even start up the child prostitution ring all over again, but smarter this time.

He's starting to feel a little nauseated.

"Why'd you leave the military?" Nate says. "Were you tired of taking orders, or was it just that you were tired of fighting for someone else's causes without having any say in the matter?"

"Shut up."

But Nate doesn't shut up. He's on a roll, now. "It's the latter, of course. You were a good soldier—a great one, maybe—and you had no problem following orders from people you respected. It was the fact that you didn't get to pick your wars that bothered you, wasn't it? And this wasn't a slow building thing for you, either. Something happened to set you off. Something terrible."

Eliot's out of his chair and standing over Nate, fist pulled back, before he even realizes that he's moving. "Shut. Up."

Nate raises an eyebrow. "Are you going to hit me, Eliot? I'm just speculating out loud. Why are you so angry?"

Eliot glares at Nate for a long time. He's acutely aware of his harsh breathing. He wonders if Nate realizes how close he's come to death tonight. (Then he thinks: Nate knows. Every word Nate's said thus far has been deliberate. He's trying to provoke Eliot.)

"What about you?" he demands, because it's that or punch a hole in Nate's skull. "Why do you do what you do?"

Nate relaxes minutely, and Eliot decides that Nate wasn't so sure that Eliot wouldn't just kill him, after all.

"It pays the bills, and there's a lot of those these days, since my wife is pregnant." Nate's eyes bore into Eliot's. "Plus, I'm good at it. And it's the right thing to do. I catch thieves. It's an honorable profession. Unlike some."

Eliot is the first to look away. He returns to his chair, only then realizing that he dropped his gun when he went after Nate. He picks it up, feels the coolness of the grip in his hands.

"Who did you lose?" Nate says quietly. "What was his name?"

"Sam," Eliot replies, and wonders where his anger has gone. "His name was Sam. He was my best friend. He died in my arms. And for what?" He glares at Nate, wanting to know if the man has an answer to this, as he seems to have an answer to everything else. "For what?"

"I don't know. I'm sorry."

Nate's kind of a bastard, Eliot thinks, but at least he's an honest man.

By morning, Eliot's exhausted. Sometime in the night he made Nate handcuff himself to the headboard, but the insurance investigator had seemed so unperturbed by the command that Eliot had been unable to sleep, too worried that Nate would find his way out of the cuffs. He seems like the type to have a few tricks up his sleeves.

He's starting to understand Nate's warning that he should have waited until today to make his move. Back when Eliot was part of a unit, hostage taking had a different flavor. No one was ever left alone with the hostage, and the watch was rotated every few hours, so the hostage never had a chance to get inside their heads the way Nate's getting inside Eliot's.

The worst part is, Eliot likes Nate. He likes that the man's trying to help kids. He likes the way Nate's eyes still go soft and misty when he talks about his wife, Maggie, to whom he's been married almost two years and who is very pregnant. He likes Nate's descriptions of the various thieves he's chased over the years and the various cons he's used to catch them.

Eliot wonders what kind of man he's becoming, that he's about to deliver a man he likes to be tortured and killed. And for what? Money. Just money.

"Don't second guess yourself, Eliot," Nate says softly, reading his mind. "A retrieval specialist can't afford to have doubts. They'll get you killed."

"Why the hell are you being so civil to me?" Eliot snarls, dragging the heel of his palm roughly across his weary eyes.

"You're not the first of your kind to come after me. You're just the first one who's actually caught me who didn't truss me up like a turkey. I appreciate that." Nate smiles crookedly. "And what can I say? I like you."

Damn him.

When it's time to leave, Eliot uncuffs Nate and lets him change into fresh clothes. Nate dresses swiftly and even takes the time to put on a tie.

"It was a gift from Maggie," Nate explains when he catches Eliot's incredulous stare.

Eliot escorts Nate out of the building with a firm hand on his elbow. His rental car is parked in a garage around the corner. He makes Nate drive, keeping a gun on him as they navigate Rome's busy streets to the address the Consortium provided.

They end up—no surprise—at a warehouse a good distance from the city. The tires crunch against gravel as the car comes to a stop and for a moment they sit there, neither wanting to get out of the car.

"Well," Nate says at last. "I guess this is it."

"I guess so."

Nate doesn't move. "Tell me about him? Your friend Sam?"

Eliot sighs. "He saved my life the first time we met, then kept saving me until I found my feet and started to return the favor. He cared about people, you know? About right and wrong. But he didn't like to ask questions, never considered disobeying orders. He was a good soldier. Good at blindly obeying orders. And that got him killed."

"What do you think he'd say if he could see you now?"

Eliot flinches. "I'm sorry about this," he says, avoiding the question.

Nate gives him a long look at that. It's a look that makes Eliot feel like the scum of the Earth. "Not sorry enough."

Nate doesn't wait for Eliot to reply, just climbs out of the car and strides toward the open warehouse door as if coming here were his idea.

The warehouse is empty except for the woman from the café, who stands in the center surrounded by four hulking men in suits. Assessing them with a swift glance, Eliot decides that he could take out two of them for sure, if need be; maybe three. No way could he handle all four.

This is his first good look at the woman. She's tall, with long black hair and a face that shouldn't be attractive but somehow is. She ignores Eliot in favor of smirking at Nate.

"Mr. Ford! I am so pleased you found the time to join us."

Nate smiles and prowls across the floor towards her. Her guards stiffen but he doesn't even grace them with a glance. "How could I resist an invitation from such a beautiful woman? Eva Senatori, isn't it?"

She laughs. "You really do know too much for your own good. I'd heard that about you."

"I like to stay informed," Nate says dismissively. "It keeps me alive."

"It gets you into trouble," she counters. She spreads her palms. "What are we to do with you, Mr. Ford? It's one thing for you to bring down petty criminals. It's quite another for you to go after one of my partners."

"You don't strike me as the type to approve of a child prostitution ring," Nate points out.

Her lips form a moue of distaste. "Oh, I assure you, I'm not. I tried to talk Adrian out of that ridiculous idea, but, alas, he's quite the stubborn man. I'm also not the type to allow my partner to languish in prison. Which is why I have an offer for you."

"I'm all ears."

"Join us."

Surprised, Eliot shifts his weight from one foot to the other. The slight movement is enough to attract Senatori's attention.

"Mr. Spencer," she says, as if she'd forgotten he was there. "How remiss of me not to give you your payment. You did an exemplary job. It's in the duffle bag by the door."

Eliot glances at Nate, trying to reassure himself that the man will be all right, but when Nate gives him a tiny nod he realizes that it must have seemed as if he were looking for the man's approval. Scowling, Eliot stalks over to the duffle bag and picks it up. He opens it and finds that it's filled with cash.

He slings the bag over his shoulder and nods curtly at Senatori. By then she's already dismissed him from her mind, and once again she's looking at Nate and not at Eliot.

"Mr. Ford," she says. "I'll ask you once again: join us. As an equal partner. I believe you could be an asset to our group—and surely you realize that if you become one of us you will be financially set for life. There are other perks as well. Women, houses, excellent medical insurance—anything you could possibly want."

Eliot's near the door now, with Nate's back to him, so he can't see the man's face.

"By 'us', I presume you mean Philippe Soleil, Gustav Weiss, and Cecilia Clay?"

"You've done your homework. I have spoken to the three of them, and they have agreed that if you assist us in exonerating Adrian we will welcome you with open arms."

"Ms. Senatori," Nate says, his tone almost suicidally patronizing, "I am not a criminal."

Senatori stares hard at Nate before letting out a sigh. Apparently that's a sign for her guards, who immediately surge forward. Two of them grab Nate by the arms while the third slugs him, hard, in the gut.

Eliot backs away, his fingers white-knuckled as they clutch the strap of the bag. He can't watch this.

"There are three things I want to know, Mr. Ford," Senatori says, her voice cold and deadly. One henchman grabs Nate's hair to pull his head back and force him to look her in the eye. "Where is Adrian being held? Where is the evidence you have against him? What is the evidence you have against him?"

"I'm afraid I can't tell you any of that," Nate says, not sounding at all apologetic.

Her face darkens with fury.

Thug #3 punches Nate in the face. Nate's sagging in the grips of Thugs #1 and #2 now. Even from his poor vantage point, Eliot can see blood dripping onto the floor.

He turns and walks out. He goes to his car, tosses the bag of money on the back seat. He puts the key in the ignition, hesitates, starts the engine. He drives away, away from the warehouse, away from Nate Ford, away from Rome, leaving on a different road than the one they came in on.

He makes it maybe half a mile before he slams on the brake. He sits there for a moment, then punches the dashboard hard enough the dent it.

"Damn it!"

He turns the car around. As he speeds down the road, he tries to figure out how he's going to do this. He has one gun with him and another two in the trunk. He's going to have to come in hard and fast, but even then there's no guarantee that they won't kill Nate the minute they see Eliot coming.

Damn, damn, damn.

He crests a hill and slams on the brakes once again, taken aback at the sight of about ten police cars and two nondescript town cars arrayed in front of the warehouse's main entrance. The cavalry's already there. He doesn't know how they could have arrived so fast, but that's not important right now.

For a second he thinks that everything's okay, that he can leave Nate in capable hands, that he can take his money and go. There's more than enough manpower down there to contain the situation, as long as they handle things the right—

Oh, no.

Eliot's stomach sinks. The cops should have gone in already. The fact that they haven't is a good indicator that Senatori and her people must have heard them coming and had time to put a gun to Nate's head and use him as a hostage. Eliot revises his confidence in Nate's survival from ninety percent to about five.

Unless Eliot does something to help. He gets out of the car, pops the trunk to retrieve the other guns. There's no time to second guess himself. He's a retrieval specialist, isn't he? So he's going to retrieve Nate. It's simple. Straightforward. Just like back in the old days, except that in the old days he'd never have had to do this alone, and he'd be following orders, not trying to think up a plan on the fly.

He gets off the road and approaches the warehouse from the back. Senatori chose this location wisely; the building has only one entrance, making it easily defensible, though it's also something of a rat trap.

At least, there had been only one way in or out, yesterday. Just as Eliot made a mistake kidnapping Nate the night before he was to be delivered, thus giving Nate time to somehow pierce Eliot's iron-clad emotional barriers, so Senatori made a mistake providing Eliot with the address to the warehouse so far ahead of the drop time.

Eliot creeps along the back of the warehouse until he reaches the far corner. Squinting, he can barely make out the outline of the man-sized rectangle he'd carved into the thick wood with a chainsaw yesterday. It's not visible from the inside, but all it should take is a good kick from within or without to knock it down. He'd intended to use it as a quick exit if things went south. He supposes it'll be just as good as a surprise entrance.

On the other side of the building, someone is shouting through a loudspeaker, "Release the hostage and turn yourselves in immediately!"

Eliot adjusts his grips on the two guns he's holding. He's tucked the third behind him, in the waistband of his jeans. He takes three deep breaths to slow down his heart rate then kicks the door in.

As he suspected, one man has an arm around Nate's neck and a gun to his head, while the others are milling about, unsure what to do. In the half-second it takes for everyone in the warehouse to whirl around to gape at him in surprise, Eliot shoots two of the thugs who are flanking Senatori. The third thug—the one not holding Nate—manages to aim his gun in Eliot's general direction, but doesn't have a chance to fire before Eliot squeezes the trigger again and a bullet hole appears in the center of the man's forehead. Senatori dives behind the thug holding Nate—the final thug—using him as cover.

"Stop!" she shouts. "Stop, or Ford dies!"

And everything freezes.

Eliot's panting, adrenaline pumping through him. The thug's face is pale, but that doesn't stop him from grinding his gun against Nate's skull and tightening his grip on Nate's throat. Nate winces in pain but is otherwise calm, his arms resting loosely by his sides. His eye has swelled up, there's a cut on his lip, he probably has a few cracked ribs, and his nose is broken and bleeding, but he looks almost bored. (What does it take to rattle this guy?)

Senatori steps out from behind the thug, straightening the hem of her blouse. Her cheeks are flushed. She's not as calm as she's trying to appear. "Very foolish, Mr. Spencer," she says. "Very foolish, indeed."

Maybe so, but Eliot's feeling better now than he has in months. "Sorry, ma'am," he drawls, his Southern accent coming through stronger than ever. "I know we had a deal and all, but I just couldn't quite stick to it."

"I'll triple your money if you help me escape," Senatori says, sounding a bit desperate.

Eliot starts to walk slowly toward them. "Well, now, that's awfully tempting, but I'm afraid I'm going to have to decline."

"Stop!" Senatori says again, her voice about an octave higher than it was a second ago.

He obeys. He's already halved the distance between them.

"Put the guns down, or Ford dies."

Eliot smirks and tips an imaginary hat in her direction before slowly crouching and putting the guns on the floor. He straightens slowly, and as he does, his eyes meet Nate's.

Nate reacts perfectly. In a sudden burst of motion, his hands fly up to knock the thug's gun away from his head, while simultaneously he twists himself in the thug's grip enough to knee him in the groin. The thug groans but doesn't let go of Nate's neck. He starts to squeeze.

Eliot pulls the last gun from his pants and shoots the guy.

The thug hits the ground with a thump, already dead. Nate doubles over, coughing, hands massaging his throat. Senatori lurches forward as if to grab the thug's gun, but Eliot aims at her and says, "Just try it."

Trembling with fury, she stops and crosses her arms over her chest.

"Nate, man, you know how to fight," Eliot says, impressed.

"I grew up in Boston," Nate wheezes. "I know how not to die."

They stay like that for the three or so minutes it takes for Nate to catch his breath. Finally he straightens up again. He lifts his tie toward his face and says, "It's all clear, fellas. You can come in now."

The warehouse doors burst open and the cops swarm in. Eliot drops his gun and raises his hands in the air. Two Italian policemen seize him by the arms and force him to his knees. He can't help but glare at Nate, feeling a little betrayed.

"You told me that tie was a gift from your wife. You lied to me?"

Nate tries to smirk, winces, touches his nose gingerly. A medic comes over to dab at his face with a cloth, but Nate waves him away. "I didn't lie to you. I just didn't mention that Maggie happens to work in a similar line of work to my own."

A wife who gives her husband a tie with a bug in it. "What a woman," Eliot says admiringly. "I have to meet her."

Nate looks a bit alarmed. "Yeah, you're not going anywhere near my wife."

A man in a suit comes over with a set of handcuffs. Before he can slap them around Eliot's wrists, Nate says, "Hold on there, Agent Costa."

The Interpol agent frowns and fires off a few sentences in Italian, pointing at Eliot. The only part Eliot can make out is his own name.

"Eliot Spencer?" Nate repeats, sounding surprised. "That's not Eliot Spencer. Eliot Spencer's long gone by now."

"What?" Senatori screeches from a few feet away, where she's already been put into handcuffs. "That's Spencer right there!"

Nate shakes his head. "You can't believe a word she says, of course. Would I lie to you? I assure you that Eliot Spencer took off with the money the minute she gave it to him."

"Then who is this?" Agent Costa demands. He's a tall man, with black hair and blue eyes. He has a faint Italian accent.

Nate looks sidelong at Eliot. "His name's Sam. He's a good friend of mine. I asked him to follow me as backup, in case things went sideways. As they did."

"Sam," Costa repeats, unconvinced.

"Well, yeah. I mean, you Interpol guys are good, don't get me wrong, but I was putting my life on the line here, helping you get Senatori to incriminate herself and her partners. I wasn't going to do that without taking a few precautionary measures."

Costa's eyes narrow. "Very well." He doesn't believe Nate, Eliot thinks, but he's not going to challenge his word, either. "You may go," he says to Eliot.

"Can't," Eliot says with a shrug and an angelic grin. "I promised Nate's wife I'd keep an eye on him until he reached the hospital or the airport, whichever came first."

Nate prods his own ribs gingerly, says, "Hospital, I think."

"I'll take you," Eliot offers.

Costa's eyebrows draw together. "I do not think that is such a good—"

"Not to worry, Giovanni," Nate tells the agent, patting him on the arm. "I trust Sam. He'll see that I get where I need to go."

They exit via Eliot's makeshift door at the back of the warehouse. Eliot sets a fast pace to his car, though he's careful not to go too quickly for Nate, who's obviously in pain but trying to hide it. They reach the car and climb in. Eliot glances in the rear view mirror, sees that the bag of money is still there. He pulls the car in a u-turn, driving past the warehouse, past the cop cars, toward Rome, toward a hospital.

They drive for a while in silence. Nate, who was so chatty last night, seems to have nothing to say.

Eliot has a lot to say.

"Damn it, Nate! You work with Interpol?"

Nate makes a face. "Only on very rare occasions. I don't work with law enforcement all that often, but the Regina Consortium was a special case. They've been stepping up their operations lately, and this thing with Michaux was the last straw. I had to take them down."

"You knew they were going to have you kidnapped."

"Well, yeah. I mean, of course they were. I knew too much about their operation to be allowed to live, and there was a chance I had information that could get Michaux off the hook. What I needed was a way to take the rest of the Consortium down with Michaux. That's why I wore a wire, so Interpol could listen in until Senatori said what they needed to hear."

Eliot mulls that over in his mind as he drives. "But how'd you know I was going to come back for you?"

"I read people," Nate says. "It's a skill."

Eliot slams on the brakes. (He's had to do that way too many times today.) He looks Nate in the eye. "You had no idea whether I'd flip on Senatori, did you?" The flash of guilt in Nate's eyes is all the confirmation he needs. "Hold on," he says, and reaches out to hold Nate's chin steady. The other man tries to pull back, but there's nowhere to go. "Hold on," Eliot repeats roughly. "You've got something on your face."

He grabs Nate's broken nose and sets it with a quick jerk of his hand.

Nate howls and rears away, whacking the back of his head against the window. Blood pours out of his newly straightened nose; he uses the sleeve of his ruined suit jacket to wipe it away.

"What the hell was that for?" Nate demands, his words coming out muffled.

"You've got a wife," Eliot snaps back, easing the car back into motion. "You've got a kid on the way. You don't have the right to risk your life like that, Nate, not when you've got people depending on you!"

Nate prods at his nose, groans. "You're right," he says after a minute or two. "You're right." He leans back in his chair—truly relaxed for the first time since Eliot met him—and taps his fingers against his leg. "This was going to be my last time taking stupid risks, anyway. This little operation with Interpol is going to get me promoted to head insurance investigator at IYS. That means I get to pick and choose what cases I work on. I can spend less time in the field." He pauses. "And what about you?"

"What about me?" Eliot glares defiantly through the windshield. "I'll be a retrieval specialist who specializes in retrieving objects rather than people."

"That's going to significantly cut down on the number of jobs you get offered."

"Maybe." Eliot smiles a little. "But I'm plannin' on being so damn good at what I do that I can pick and choose which jobs I want to take."

He pulls the car to a stop in front of the hospital.

"I guess this is goodbye," Nate says.

"You want me to come in with you? Keep you company until the Interpol guys show up?"

Nate laughs, then winces and touches his ribs. "It's just a hospital, Eliot. I'll be fine." He holds his hand out. "Thanks for coming back for me. I won't forget it."

Eliot shakes his hand with a strong grip. "Don't thank me. I should never have gone after you in the first place."

Nate shrugs one shoulder. "What's done is done. Now you know what kind of jobs you feel comfortable pulling in the future. Who knows? Being a retrieval specialist isn't all that different from what I do. Maybe we'll work together someday."

Eliot snorts. "Yeah, that'll happen."

Nate cracks his door open. "Goodbye, Eliot."

"Goodbye, Nate."

Nate gets out and makes his way slowly and painfully toward the hospital's front doors. By the time he steps inside, Eliot is long gone.

Several days later, an article about Interpol's operation to take down the notorious Regina Consortium appears in newspapers around the world. Most of the article is devoted to detailing Interpol's heroic efforts to protect innocent children, but there is a short snippet from an interview with Nate Ford.

"The man who kidnapped me for the Consortium is named Eliot Spencer," Nate is reported as saying. "He was brutal and extremely competent. I've never been more afraid in my life. It's a very good thing for us he wasn't around when Interpol arrived, or things might have turned out differently."

The article also makes a brief mention of the promotion Nate is receiving largely thanks to this operation.

The next day, Eliot receives four job offers. He takes the one in Argentina, though it pays the least. He's never been to South America before.