Flashpoint: Conviction

Plot: [Takes place 8 months after the Keep the Peace part 2's ending scene of season five.] How far would you go to save someone you love? How far would your drive take you when all other options are exhausted? What would you do? A targeted home invasion leads to Winnie's disappearance, a neighbor dead, and nearly Spike's death, but he survives; which sends him down the dark path of revenge when he begins searching for those who did it and why they took Winnie.

Disclaimer: Flashpoint and the characters aren't mine. Only doing this for entertainment purposes only.

A/N: This fic isn't my first rodeo, but it is my first Flashpoint fic. I miss Flashpoint so much that I had to write my own. Also, I was pretty much inspired to write this from Watch Dogs (a video game that's coming out near the end of this month, which I've been pretty much excited for since it was revealed back in 2012. The only thing similar to it is the phone Spike is using; other than that, I'm not even going to consider this a cross-over). Anyway, enjoy. I'll try to update as fast as I can, so don't worry about that. If I don't...feel free to light a firecracker under my butt to get me moving.

I have also changed a few things in the timeline - advice given to me from my friend who thought I should extend the time before Spike started his search for Winnie, which to me sounds a lot better now. It also gave me a chance to add in an idea I had when writing chapter two.

Prologue

230am

If anyone he knew would see him right now, they probably would almost not recognize him right off the bat. He had a scruffy look since he hasn't bothered shaving for several weeks now. Not only that, he didn't look like he was getting any quality rest, with the dark circles under his eyes. Michelangelo "Spike" Scarlatti sat in the back of a rented black van, across from another alley that was in between a busy night club and a restaurant. He held a professional camera in both hands as he waited for a vehicle to stop in the alley he was keeping an eye on. He straightened up a little, eyes wide in alert. He brought the camera up to peer into the view finder and zoomed in on the three men in business suits who got out of their car when another man walked out of the night club's exit.

Right on cue...he thought.

He continued taking snapshots of each of them and their vehicle. They were talking about business, but not about the night club, it was a front – their real business. As for what they were saying to each other, he didn't know, nor did he care all that much because he learned what they were really doing in there once he focused on the one who walked out of the club. The whole investigation he was doing was on his own accord, and was becoming rather an obsession really. Once the meeting was finished, and he took enough pictures, he placed the camera back inside it's case that was lying next to him, and took the case back with him into the front. He sat down in the driver's seat after placing the case in the passenger seat next to his phone and a leather-bound journal he picked up when he started this.

Scarlatti took a deep breath and sighed, sitting there for a few minutes to collect himself. He glanced down at his watch, and then absentmindedly moved the black wristband that had his friend's name on it around until he could see Lewis Young's name. A small smile slowly spread along his lips, thinking about his best friend.

"Lou," He whispered, "You would smack me around at first, tell me to get a hold of myself, but then...then I think you would help me. Right, buddy? You would help me find Winnie."

He chuckled lightly, but it sounded more sad than amused.

'Everyone who gets close to me...' He trailed off, reaching over to the journal and pulled out a pen where he last left it to bookmark the page he was on. He glanced through the times and short descriptions he wrote down of the people he was keeping an eye on, and then ended the page with the new information before slowly closing the book.

He looked up, and stared out the window at nothing until his phone started buzzing. Slightly startled, he picked it up after dropping the journal back where it was, and then gazed at the screen to see who was calling. Frowning, he swiped his thumb across the screen and pressed the phone to his ear to answer.

"What?"

"Oh, sorry, buddy," It was Ed Lane, checking up on him. "Did I wake you?"

Scarlatti hesitated for a moment, biting his lower lip as he glanced around. "Yeah."

Lane replied, amused, "Spike, you're a terrible liar, you know that?"

He sighed, but didn't respond. He was tired, and needed to get home to upload the pictures he took, and finish up before getting some form of sleep. If one would call it that.

"What? No witty retort? Wow...I'm shocked."

"Ed, I'm tired and..."

Lane chuckled. "Look, Spike. I know. As your boss, I just wanted to call in and check up on you. Wanted to see how you were doing on your leave the commander ordered you to have."

"I'm fine, Ed..." Scarlatti rubbed at his eyes with his free hand, and then started to buckle up. While adding, "Really."

"Are you going to the grief counseling?"

"Yeah," He replied.

Well, he did go for a while, at least. A week before he didn't bother to show up anymore after that. He figured his team would know, like they knew he checked himself out of the mental health hospital a couple of months back after what happened at the Barn when the detectives told him they had to close the case due to a lack of evidence six months after Winnie was taken from him. It somewhat helped, being in the hospital, but he couldn't just sit around. He needed to do something, or else he would have lost his mind.

"Spike, if you need to talk, I'm here for you, buddy."

"Ed..."

"Listen, after my shift is over in the evening, we're going to have a barbecue over at my place," explained Lane, "Everyone will be there, Greg included. So how about it? I think it will be good for you to be around everyone. Maybe you can sit down and talk with Greg - "

Scarlatti let out a short laugh; an angry, pained laugh. He breathed in deeply and shook his head. Part of him wanted to see them, hang out, and enjoy being around friends and family, but he couldn't wait anymore. He closed his eyes, picturing Ed's concerned face, picturing everyone's concerned looks, and let out the breath he was holding.

"Sorry," Scarlatti muttered into the phone. "I have things to do. Thanks for the offer though, but maybe next time, okay?" He heard Lane call out his name as he ended the call and glanced down at the screen before placing the phone on silent mode and returned it into the inside of his leather jacket's pocket over the left side of his chest.

He started the van, stared at the steering wheel for a long moment before he started punching it as he let out a frustrated yell during his short, angry outburst. It was frustrating for him to try and keep them away, but he needed to. He didn't want to see anyone else he knew to get hurt. Outside of the van, a homeless man was searching through a dumpster, and when he heard the off-duty officer's little outburst, he stopped what he was doing and looked over at him. Scarlatti eventually noticed, and stopped punching the wheel and screaming, and stared back with a bleak expression.

"Damn, crazy drunk drivers," The homeless man muttered under his breath. He shrugged, shaking his head and continued dumpster diving when the Italian finally drove back home for some much needed rest - he needed to be focused later tonight.

Over at Ed Lane's house, everyone was asleep upstairs while Ed was sitting at the kitchen table, staring down at his cell phone when the bomb tech hanged up on him. He was slightly surprised by the way Scarlatti was acting, but he understood, or at least tried to understand what the younger man was going through.

"Spike..." He whispered. Setting his jaw a little, he shook his head and laid his cellphone down onto the table and sat there for several minutes. He contemplated on what he could do to help his friend and team mate, but he didn't want to push him any more than he already was to get him to open up again.

He knew Spike stopped going to the group counseling sessions, which Commander Holleran ordered after the incident at the Barn since he checked himself out of the mental hospital after spending a couple of weeks in there. Dr. Amanda Luria even offered to talk to him if he needed to talk, but the stubborn man refused. Lane had to tell Holleran what was going on, but he was having a hard time not to. He sighed, rubbing his face, and stood up as he decided to call Greg later in the day to talk to him about it and what he would do. Right now, he needed to go back to sleep.

930pm

The oblivious man was being watched on this cool evening. Mike Scarlatti was keeping an eye on him for a well over a month now. He learned his pattern; where he went to work, where he lived, and where he secretly went for his real occupation. He found out his name, his age, marital status, occupation, and the questionable activities based on the man's salary and CCTV camera footage. The man he was tracking had a family, and hid behind an identity of being a well-loved school teacher, which fooled everyone. He found out what he really did, and the police officer in him wanted to call it in, tell his friends, but the other part of him refused to. He needed to do this himself. He needed to know, and the only way was to follow the man into the club, and question him.

Whatever it takes...he thought, glancing up from the smart-phone's screen. His chocolate brown eyes glared at the back of the man's skull beneath his eyebrows and the bill of his baseball cap he wore. He then glanced down again at his phone, staring at the screen with the man's information he illegally obtained just by hacking into the other man's phone.

Mr. Thomas Boyer, age: 49, marital status: married, occupation: teacher.

While he read other bits of information, he thought, I wonder how you would feel if someone took your pregnant wife and nearly killed you, Mr. Boyer? You wouldn't be doing what you're doing behind your family's back. Then again, you probably don't feel a thing, you sociopathic asshole.

He frowned, clutching the smart-phone in his hand while he sat outside of the bistro, where he was keeping an eye on the man who was sitting alone a few tables down from where he was. The custom smart-phone was definitely a beautiful piece of technology, and extremely illegal. Convincing his hacker friends to give him the schematics to make it was easy enough. Easy, as in, after promising none of the fallout will go back to them if the authorities ever catch him with it. It was his phone after all, with the extra applications from the schematics he needed to have in order to do what he needed to do. It was a lot better than hauling around his laptop with him, as the phone was far less conspicuous when he needed to hack something to get information on the fly, like viewing CCTV cameras, or finding out who someone was just by hacking into their own phone by a press of a button – though, sometimes, that wasn't the case, as he would need to do more than pressing a button on the screen.

He could do a lot more, oh so much more that made him really want to move away from being a blue hat. It was so tempting, but he made a promise to himself that he wouldn't use it anymore once he found Winnie and their baby. It was in beta stages when he approached the hacker group for help several weeks after finding out the investigation into Winnie's disappearance became a cold case after nearly six months of not being able to collect any leads or evidence for the case. At first, he was furious, almost hysterical when his raw emotions came out all at once when he was told the news by the detectives who visited him in the Barn after shift one night.

Once he calmed down enough, something tugged at the back of his mind that she was still alive, and needed help – his help. Not only her, but their child who was due a month after she was taken. His baby boy he hoped and prayed every night that was still alive just as much as he hoped and prayed for Winnie. A baby boy, and they were even thinking of naming him after Lewis. He bit his lower lip and closed his eyes for a moment. He thought about his late friend and losing him to that bounding mine, and then the thought of losing his wife and his own son...not being able to keep his neighbor's seven year old son he and Winnie were babysitting while his parents were away on a business trip was hard enough on him. Finding out who were the home invaders wasn't only for his family's sake, but for his neighbor's sake. He felt like he betrayed them, even though they weren't mad at him for what happened. It wasn't his fault, but he felt as if it was.

Survivor's guilt, Greg would say.

He breathed in a sigh. Focus, Spike. Winnie is alive, and so is your newborn son. You just need to find them.

He wasn't the type to give up like the detectives did, not by a long shot. Not when Winnie and their child's lives were at stake.

After convincing the hacker group, he helped them finish all of the coding to bring it out of the beta stage and into its final form, and then added it in, which was a chip that replaced his GPS tracker in his phone. Good, he needed to be off the grid for a while, while conducting his own investigation. He was a lone wolf, and wanted to be so no one else would get hurt...or worse. He knew his friends wouldn't have any of it – they would help him without a second thought if he asked. He sat there, feeling guilty for not going to them when they told him if he needed anything, just tell them.

He lifted his hat off of his head for a moment to run a hand through his hair and grimaced a little. It pained him when he thought of each of them – Ed, Sam, Jules, Greg, Leah, and even Wordy – they were family, and all of them would have his back.

"Sorry, guys..." Scarlatti murmured with a hint of regret in his voice.

He put his hat back over his head when he returned his attention on the man who was still sitting there, finishing his cup of coffee and sandwich. Spike patiently waited for ten minutes, drinking his own large cup of coffee every now and then. He leaned back, brushing his fingertips over his left ear to make sure his blue-tooth headset was still on when he spotted Mr. Boyer rummaging a hand into his coat pocket to pull out his cellphone to answer a call he was getting.

Scarlatti quickly hacked into the man's phone, and quietly listened through his headset to the conversation.

"Do you have the new shipment in?" Questioned Mr. Boyer in a hush tone.

The bomb tech's upper lip twitched in contempt at the man's use of the word 'shipment'.

That's all those poor victims are to them...? Cargo and not another human being? Damn them.

He was half-tempted to shoot him on the spot right then and there if he didn't have anything to lose.

"Yes, sir," responded the voice on the other line. "Sending you the new password for tonight to get inside so you can give your final view of the new products before they are shipped out. Anything else, sir?"

"No," Mr. Boyer replied in satisfaction. "Well done. I'll give a glance at the password, and then I'll head over there in a few minutes once I'm finished here."

"All right. See you soon, sir."

The conversation ended, and Scarlatti intercepted the pass-code to get inside the VIP section of the club where Mr. Boyer did his dirty work, and did a mental note on what the code was before putting his phone away. He looked around, watching people walk pass him or drove down the busy street, but kept a watchful eye on the man. After five minutes passed, Mr. Boyer left, and Scarlatti waited a couple more minutes to get up and follow the man down the street toward the night club.

Feedback will be much appreciated. Thank you for reading. Will update real soon.