Word Count: 3,805/?
Author's Note: Hey, Y'all. First of all, I apologize that I didn't get this chapter up last week. I had a friend in town and ended up forgetting all about posting. Second of all, I hope you enjoy. I kinda had fun with parts of this chapter. :D
Let me know what y'all think.
Fae
Chapter Four
They finally made it back to the warehouse about three hours later, taking a circuitous path, just in case anyone was following them. Brian knew they weren't, but now wasn't the time to explain all of that. They bypassed Vince's house, heading up to the top of the favela to the garage Vince owned.
Brian didn't like this at all. Blake was scrambling the e-trail, but if Vince had worked with these guys before, they probably already knew about it.
Still, he still felt that his relationship with Dom was on shaky ground and he wasn't going to risk upsetting the status quo by questioning Vince's loyalty. That's what had driven the wedge between Vince and Dom six years ago in LA and there was no way Brian was risking that.
Fortunately Chase and the others were keeping an eye on the surrounding hill and would give him a heads up if anyone came looking who wasn't supposed to be there.
Dom paused with his hand on the door. "I meant what I said back there," he said. "I'm not mad at you, Bri."
"Yeah, sure," Brian said, not really meaning it, but whatever. If it made Dom feel better to say it again, then fine.
Dom searched his face for a long moment and Brian tried to show him whatever it was he wanted to see. Since he had no idea what exactly that was, he was pretty sure he failed. Still, Dom let it go and opened the door, stepping back and motioning Brian in first.
"Mia?" Brian called when he saw the car but no Mia.
She came out from behind a pillar. "Hey," she said, giving him a tight hug. "You're all right."
"Yeah. You all right?" he asked, holding her at arms' length and checking her over for any injuries. Blake would have let him know, but he still felt better checking for himself. As soon as he had assured himself that she was okay, he stepped back, letting her go to Dom.
When Dom pulled back, he caught sight of the wrench in her hand and he took it from her with a grin. "Yeah," he said. "Just like a Toretto."
She sent him a matching grin and Brian smirked. It wasn't healthy or normal for them to joke about something like that, considering the sort of damage Dom had once done with a wrench, but then again, he wasn't normal.
"Where's Vince?" Mia asked, glancing over Dom's shoulder.
Brian met Dom's gaze. "That's a good question," he said, speaking to both Dom and Chase.
"We haven't been able to pick Coyote up on traffic cams. Wherever he is, he's hiding good," Misaki said. "Jayne and River are out searching on foot."
"We'll let you know if we find anything," Rakel said.
"He'll be here," Dom said, a slight warning note in his voice and Brian let the subject drop.
Mia glanced between the two of them, noting the tension, but unable to make out what it is. "Guys, we're all over the news," she said, changing the subject. "They're blaming us for the killing of those DEA Agents on the train."
Brian sighed. "Which means we just jumped to the top of the most wanted list. The Feds have got to show everyone that their agents are off limits. They're gonna send their best guys. We gotta get out of here."
"I've got feelers out, and Simon's checking on their end. I'll let you know as soon as they confirm who they're sending," Chase said.
Dom went over and started circling the Mustang. "One thing we know for sure is that they want this car."
Brian glanced at him before looking at the car himself. "'cause something's in it," he said.
Dom nodded. "We find out what it is, we know what we're up against."
Brian looked at Mia before shrugging and joining Dom at the car. He wasn't wrong. They hadn't gotten near enough information from the guy at the warehouse so the car was the only option they had. It just made Brian uncomfortable to stay here much longer. There weren't many options if they were surrounded and it set him on edge.
All three of them worked on the car in silence. Mia may not work on cars as much as the guys did, but she was still a Toretto and she knew enough to be helpful in stripping a car. As they worked, he could feel both of them sending concerned glances his way, but he studiously ignored them. He wasn't in the mood to deal with answering any questions right now.
No matter what Dom said, Brian knew this was his fault. If only he had seen those agents earlier, he could have called the whole thing off and they wouldn't be in this mess.
No, that wasn't entirely true.
He was pretty sure they would still be in this mess right now because he hadn't put the pieces together fast enough back in LA last year when Letty came to him about Braga. He was going to be kicking himself for that for forever. There was no way some drug lord like Braga could have slid under the radar for so long without having the backing of someone a lot more powerful than him.
And yeah, maybe there hadn't been anything he could have done to keep the other drivers alive on his and Dom's run to Mexico, but he could have done more to protect Letty. He still wasn't sure if Braga had known that they and Letty were undercover for the FBI or if they were just supposed to be disposed of like all the other drivers. After the way things went down with Letty's run, he and Ali had decided it was a coincidence.
After Owen picked Letty up out in the desert, Brian wasn't so sure.
He was about seventy-five percent certain that Owen or his brother had known who he was. Neither one of them had come outright and actually said anything, of course, and they had let him continue with his cover in tact, but there had been something about the way that Ian looked at him the first time they met that had set off every single one of Brian's alarm bells.
If Owen had known that Brian was a narc, then chances were high that he had known Letty was a CI, which means she would have been specifically targeted anyway, even if Fenix hadn't had standing orders to kill all the drivers.
Either way, with Letty over with Owen, even if Brian had bought freedom and immunity for the four of them like he had been planning, they still would have had to play it out as if they weren't free. They would have had to play things out the way they would have if Letty had actually died.
That meant a conviction and life sentence for Dom, rogue agent and fugitive status for Brian, a grave and death certificate for Letty and a life on the run for Mia, even after Dom had worked so hard to keep her out of things.
The only silver lining to this whole mess was that he hadn't had to go crawling back to the Center to earn their freedom. He never would have gotten free if he had had to do that. Instead, he had been able to work out a deal with Penning and Bilkins so that this whole thing was one massive deep cover op for him and Letty.
God, they were going to kill him for this mess.
And this whole thing was killing him a little more inside each day, just as much as the initial Shaw op had. He hated keeping secrets from Dom like this. He hated lying, even if it was just by omission. As Dom had pointed out on the way to Mexico, lying by omission was still lying.
He just wanted to shout the truth from the rooftops. He wanted Dom and Mia to know that Letty wasn't dead and that they weren't actually as wanted as everyone believed. That the FBI did actually honor the deals that they made and didn't screw people over when they delivered on their end of the bargain. That they could go home to Echo Park.
He wanted to tell this new guy and his goons to fuck off and the coming Feds to suck it.
But he couldn't. He was stuck in this shithole, waiting for the other shoe to drop because of Vince and his 'friends'. And, yeah, he was going to do the whole air quotes thing, even if it was just in his head.
"So I got information on who the boss is. Hernan Reyes and it appears he runs Rio. From what I can tell without doing more digging, he's got a hand in anything illegal that happens in the city- possibly farther out. I can't tell how Coyote managed to get himself tangled up in all of this, but it isn't good. You're going to be stuck between a rock and a hard place: the big guns from the States and the guy who runs the city."
Great. As if they weren't already dealing with enough shit as it was. Seriously, he was going to kill Vince when he finally saw the other guy again. Dumbass really needed to learn to pick his friends better. Whatever had happened to him since LA hadn't necessarily been for the better.
Sure, Rosa was good for him, but the rest of it was bad news.
Brian couldn't find it in himself to feel guilty about that, though. Like he had told Vince the night before, he had been doing his job. Unfortunately, that job had put him in conflict with Vince's family, but that was their own damn fault. They were the ones committing felony hijackings. But Brian had made his choice and he didn't regret it for a second. He would do it again in a heartbeat.
He was pulling apart the engine with Mia sitting close by, watching him. He knew she was worried about what was going on, along with the tension between him and Dom. She had been in overprotective mother hen mode since the day she had found him sitting in the dark living room, staring blankly into space after Dom had broken up with him.
Even after Ecuador. Just as he had been overly protective of her, she had gotten even more protective of him, too. He supposed it made her feel more in control to fuss over him, so he didn't stop her from doing it, no matter how annoying he was starting to find it. He was a big boy. He was more than capable of taking care of himself. He didn't need her to take care of him when she needed to be focused on taking care of herself.
"Coyote incoming," Blake said.
About damned time the other man showed up. Now Brian could kick his ass. He tightened his grip on the pipe he was fiddling with.
"Brian," Mia said, distracting him slightly. "I have something I have to tell you."
He looked up at her, but before she could actually tell him, the door opened. All three of them turned their attention in that direction, though Brian kept fiddling with the car, trying to keep a grip on his anger.
"Goddamn. What a mess."
Brian glanced at Vince before looking back down at his hands. "Where you been, Man?" he asked, unable to keep the belligerent tone completely out of his voice.
"You better check that tone," Vince said in what he probably thought was a threatening voice, pointing at Brian.
And there was no way he was taking that sitting down. He stood up and took a couple of steps in Vince's direction. "And you just better answer the goddamn question," he said, glaring at Vince.
"Stop it. Both of you," Mia said, doing what she did best and getting between the two of them, playing peacekeeper. And that wasn't fair of any of them to keep putting her in that position, but she was a Toretto. It wasn't easy to keep her out of things.
"Where were you, Vince?" Dom asked, staring intently into the engine and pretending as if he hadn't been just as uneasy by Vince's absence as Brian was.
"Guys are all over the favela asking about you. I couldn't get out of there without leading them straight to you. Had to wait 'em out."
"Bullshit. He hasn't been near the favela since he and Simba left this morning to meet the train," Chase said.
And that was good enough for Brian. He pushed passed Mia, heading for Vince. "That is such horseshit. That was your job!"
"Hey!" Mia exclaimed, slipping back in front of him and grabbing his arm, trying to slow him down.
"Enough, O'Conner!" Dom yelled, standing up and moving closer so he was in a better position to intervene if Brian pushed it. "If he said he didn't do it, he didn't do it." He stared at Brian for a long moment and was apparently fed up with the attitude. "Go walk it off," he ordered, pointing towards the back of the building.
Brian glowered at both of them for a moment longer before shaking Mia off and stalking away, fuming. Oh, how the tables turn. He just knew that Vince was enjoying this, the fucker. Having the tables turned so that Brian was the one on the outs with Dom while Vince was once again the trusted lieutenant.
Yeah, okay, maybe things hadn't gotten off on the best foot between them, but hadn't Brian proved enough times that he only had Dom's best interests in mind? He had thrown his entire life away for the man. Twice. Couldn't Dom see that Brian was just trying to protect them and keep everyone safe since he had failed with Letty?
He punched the wall, not even noticing the sting in his knuckles.
The problem was that he knew all three of them would see this as the reverse of LA, with Brian jealous of Vince worming his way back into the family. Except it wasn't like that at all. Brian really didn't care if Vince was back. He knew Dom and Vince had been best friends since third grade and he understood that Dom was glad to have his best friend back.
It was just that Brian was thinking like the cop he was. Had been. Whatever. The point was that he was thinking about all of the potential security risks posed by bringing in an outsider.
And, yeah, maybe Vince had been there first, but he had left. He could have stuck around LA and kept an eye on Mia. It's not like the op had left any viable evidence against the team. The police had just wanted to talk to him about why he was bleeding out on the side of the road. He could have bull-shitted his way out of that.
Or if LA had too many bad memories, he could have joined Dom and Letty down in the Dominican Republic. He didn't have to freefall through South America and land here in Rio. Sure, Rosa and Nico had settled him some, but Vince had been on his own for too long. He wasn't smart enough to keep his ass out of trouble.
That was the difference between him and Brian. Brian didn't go looking for trouble. It found him. It always had. It didn't matter if he started out with the best of intentions. Something always happened and the whole thing went to shit.
Besides, Brian had never put Mia directly in danger like this. Sure, the bus break was dangerous and had led to them being on the run, but they could deal with that. Now she had Reyes and his goons gunning for her in order to get to Dom and Brian. And on the other side, she had whoever the US was going to send to hunt them down.
"Don't like having the shoe on the other foot?"
"This isn't about that," Brian snapped, rounding on Dom. The other man was standing in the doorway, his arms folded across his chest as he watched Brian. "I know what you're thinking and I'm not jealous that he's back. I don't care that he's part of the family again. He's your oldest friend. I get that. I really do."
"Then what is this about, Buster?" Dom asked, taking a few measured steps so he was leaning against the wall and no longer caging Brian into the storage room he had taken refuge in.
"I let you down, Dom. Six years ago in LA. Last year with Letty. Two months ago in Ecuador. And now this? He's throwing a wrench into the works. If you want him back, fine. He can come back and I'll stay silent. But with the Feds and the locals both gunning for us, he has to come clean. I can't protect you guys if I don't know all the variables."
Dom frowned. "It's my job to protect my family, Brian. Not yours."
Brian shook his head and turned away. "It is," he protested. It was all he had left after the Center. He had to protect Dom and his family or what else was he? An adrenaline junkie with way too much blood on his hands? He wanted to be more than that; needed to be more than that.
Dom crowded up behind him, putting his hands on Brian's hips. "It's not, Boy," he said in a low voice. "It's mine. You've done enough. You kept me out of prison. You've looked after my sister. I never thanked you for taking care of the problem in Ecuador. And don't lie to me. I know that was you. You've been taking care of me and mine, even when you had no reason to. Now it's my turn to take care of you. Let me do my job, Buster. You focus on taking care of Mia and keep an ear out for any word on who's coming from the States. Let me worry about Vince."
"I can't, Dom," Brian said, shaking his head, but relaxing in Dom's arms and resting against his boyfriend's chest. "I'm a cop, okay? I may not have been very good at it, but I can't just turn it off completely. The instincts and training are still there. I can't just make it stop just because I went rogue."
"I'm not asking you to turn it off, Brian. I made you mine, knowing full well that you were a cop and that there would always be a piece of you that would be. But you told me what the problem was and now I'll deal with it. You're right. Vince is a loose cannon. He always has been, but it's even worse now that you've taken his place and he's the outsider. I'm keeping an eye on him. But I need you to trust me."
Brian turned in Dom's arms so he could look at his boyfriend. "I do," he said softly. "I just-" He trialed off with a hopeless sigh. He didn't know how to explain it without telling Dom about the Center and he wasn't ready to do that. Not yet.
"It's different having Mia here," Dom said, filling in the blank. That wasn't exactly what Brian had been trying to explain, but it was as good an explanation as any. It was even true, to a point. "That's why I always tried to keep her out of everything."
"I'm-"
Dom put one finger on Brian's mouth, cutting him off. "Don't," he said with a stern look. "Don't you dare apologize for her being here. I'm the one who dragged my family into this mess. If anyone's to blame for her presence, it's me. Not you. When I heard that Charger coming, I knew. I knew it was you, once again coming to my rescue. And as much as I still see her as the little girl studying in the corner while Dad and I worked on the Charger, she's a big girl. She knows her own mind and she's always been able to outstubborn all of us, even me. I didn't expect you to be any different. And what happened in Ecuador could have happened anywhere. You had no way of knowing and you took care of it afterwards."
Brian didn't have anything to say to that because he knew it was true. He had seen the statistics while still on the force and he knew it happened just as often in LA as it did elsewhere in the world. "I just wish there was more I could do to make this go away. I hate feeling helpless, like my hands are tied."
"You didn't seem to mind it too bad up in Panama."
Brian ducked his head, biting back a grin at the reminder. "That's different," he said. "I trust you. And I know that if anything got out of control, you'd let me go. This is- This is out of both of our control."
"Yeah," Dom agreed. The two of them stood in silence for a long moment. "Come on," Dom said, smacking him lightly on the ass. "Let's get back to the others before Mia worries we've killed each other." He pulled back just enough to give Brian a light kiss before turning and heading back out to the main room.
Brian stared after him until Dom was out of sight before running a hand over his face with a sigh. If only they were alone, he thought, longingly.
"Rajah wants you to know that that is way more than she wanted to know about your relationship with Simba," Misaki relayed, "and that she's glad she's halfway around the world."
Brian managed a grin. "Tell Rajah that I still owe her an ass kicking for going against my advice and joining Shaw, and that I'd be more than happy to add a second one for the teasing. It's not appreciated."
The com was silent for a long moment while Misaki passed the message over to Austin who would pass it on to Letty.
"She says that she's been training with Zoe and that she's looking forward to seeing you try."
"It'll take more than that for her to beat me," Brian muttered under his breath as he rejoined the others out in the main room.
"She thinks she's up for the challenge," Misaki said after another short pause.
Brian allowed himself a brief grin before clicking his tongue lightly to signal that he was no longer alone and wouldn't be replying.