Chapter Nine: Hitting The Jackpot
A/N: So, we've reached the end of Season 1 - and there's a bit more about Millie and Alex coming to light ;) Sit tight because there's going to be a lot of interesting stuff coming in Season 2!
Pregnancy was progressing way too quickly for Millie's liking. She'd moved in with Craig, which was a milestone in itself. She'd never lived with a partner before, and it had been a bit emotional to part ways with Alex when they'd lived together for so long. She was beginning to get a very obvious bump, and she'd been forced to tell both her friends at college and her co-workers about her pregnancy.
Millie woke to Craig running his fingers through her hair and the sun glinting through the gap in the blinds. It was weird to even be sharing a bed with someone, although over the past month and a bit she'd gotten used to it. She kept expecting that Craig would freak out and change his mind once the physical evidence of her pregnancy came up, but so far, he'd stuck with her.
"Morning," he said.
Millie checked the time and stretched contentedly when she realised that she still had a few more hours to go before her shift – at the games store, that was. She was also doing work for Rico's gang, as well as small projects for the Cody family. It was obvious that Baz still didn't trust her.
Craig rolled onto his side and fidgeted around beside the bed for something. Millie watched with mild interest, before her curiosity was piqued when he drew out a small black box. She frowned. Surely it couldn't be what she thought it was?
"What's this?" she asked suspiciously.
Craig just grinned. "Open it."
Millie did as instructed, speechless as she examined the glittering ring inside. She knew that things were progressing quickly in her relationship with Craig – she certainly hadn't expected to become pregnant with his baby so quickly. But this was another big step, and one she wasn't sure she was ready for.
"Marry me?" he asked, and she could see the self-doubt written on his face. He was totally expecting that she would freak out and say no.
"Are you serious?" She chose her words carefully. She didn't want to laugh at him, but she didn't want Craig rushing into something that he wasn't certain about. She was his first proper girlfriend and although marriage was a logical step, it didn't have to happen. Smurf had never been married to any of her kids' fathers, as far as Millie was aware.
He nodded emphatically. "Yes."
"Umm…okay." She stared down at the ring, watching how it caught the sunlight. She was thrilled of course, but she didn't really know how to voice all of the emotions she was feeling about this.
"That's a yes?" Craig asked.
It took Millie a moment to process everything. She didn't want to say something that she would regret, but she supposed she was having a kid with this guy, after all. She nodded slowly.
"Yeah. It is."
Craig's expression broke into a relieved grin. He leaned in and kissed her, and she kissed back, snuggling close and basking in this moment of bliss. As she shifted back down beneath the covers, Craig slipped the ring onto Millie's finger.
"I should probably meet your dad."
Millie tensed. "He's…you don't need to meet him."
She and her dad didn't have a great relationship. It could have been a lot worse, and she knew it. But that didn't mean she wanted him back in her life just because she was engaged and having a baby. Craig was quiet for a moment, toying with a strand of her blonde hair.
"Mills? Why don't you want me to meet him?"
She shrugged, trying to sound casual. "I just don't talk to him much."
Craig traced his fingers over her bump, wisely choosing not to pursue the topic. For a few minutes there was a peaceful silence between them. Millie hadn't ever thought she'd be engaged and pregnant at twenty-two, especially not to someone like Craig Cody. But Craig had surprised her so far.
"I should be able to find out what the gender is, if we want to know," Millie said. She personally knew she was curious as to what they were having, but wouldn't ruin it for Craig if he wanted it to be a surprise.
Craig shrugged. "We need to plan the baby's room."
"So we want to know gender?"
"Yeah." It was a simple statement. Millie could almost be convinced that was what this was – easy. But she knew the sort of family the Codys really were, and when it came to them, nothing was ever really simple.
"No way are we using her for this job." Baz shook his head vehemently.
It was yet another discussion regarding Millie and her involvement in the criminal activities of the family. Even Pope had started to warm to the idea, so what was Baz's issue? Craig couldn't get why Baz had it out for Millie. Hitting the military base was a big job, but they needed someone to deal with the cameras – and Millie was the perfect person for it.
"Yo, what is your problem with her?" Craig threw up his arms. He got not trusting outsiders, but this was getting ridiculous. Not to mention Baz couldn't talk – it was so obvious that he'd started sleeping with Cameron, Rico's daughter. That was bound to cause trouble when Cath found out. At least Craig was done fucking around with other girls now that he was committed to Millie and their baby.
"We don't need her for this," Baz argued, "We're already trusting Paul Belmont, adding someone else into this is just too much."
"Millie is family," Craig insisted. It hadn't been his decision to bring Paul Belmont – the father of J's now ex-girlfriend Nicky – into the picture. That had been on Baz. Millie was a lot more trustworthy than that asshole.
"Quit thinking with your dick, Craig."
"I'm not!"
"Will both of you shut the hell up?" Deran snapped, glaring between the pair of them. "Baz, I know you want this to be tight, but Craig is right. We could use Millie's help to avoid surveillance. If they run facial recognition and pick us up later on…"
Baz heaved a sigh, not that he should really be surprised that Deran was siding with Craig. The two agreed on most things. Craig couldn't help but grin. He knew that Millie was pregnant, but it wasn't like she was going to be doing anything actively dangerous for the baby.
"Fine. She's in." Baz's tone indicated that he was less than impressed. "But I swear to god, if there's a single fuck-up on this job…"
"Yeah, yeah, never again." Craig rolled his eyes. The loose cannon was Paul Belmont, not Millie.
"Besides, we've got other problems." Baz stared pointedly at Deran, who looked around the room with a bewildered expression.
"The fuck are you looking at me for?"
"Because you're the one dating Alex Wilson."
"Yeah, so?" Once upon a time, Deran would have outright denied it in an attempt to disguise his sexuality. But his relationship with Alex, while not openly admitted, was common knowledge among the Cody family.
"So his mum is Dayna Wilson," Baz continued.
Deran was growing more irritated by the moment. "Congrats, you know his mum's name. I haven't even met the lady. So what?"
"So she's a fucking cop, Deran."
The room was tense and silent. Craig didn't know how much Deran had relayed to Alex about his criminal activities, but he knew that Alex wasn't stupid. Had he told his mum shit about them? How much did Dayna know? Craig was beginning to understand that Baz's problem wasn't just with Millie, but also with Alex. An outsider was one thing, an outsider connected to the police was another.
"If Alex had said shit to her, we'd know."
"Would we?" Baz folded his arms over his chest. "How do you know she's not just waiting for something like this to catch us out?"
Deran raked a hand through his hair. "You're being paranoid, man."
"Alex is legit," Craig agreed, knowing that the guy likely hadn't said anything about their jobs or about what Millie was doing. Exposing them would also be exposing Millie – and if Alex didn't care enough about Deran, he definitely did about Millie. "He's not gonna get Millie thrown in prison. Or Deran."
Baz's expression was stern. "I hope you're right about that. Because if there's even a sign he might go to his mum…"
"You'll what?" Deran stepped in front of him, all bravado and attitude. "You're gonna fuck him up? Kill him?"
"No, man." Baz shook his head, shoulders slumping a little as he sighed. "You know I don't wanna do any of that. We just need to watch our backs. For now, that means Alex knows as little as possible. Tell Millie the same."
Millie liked the Lawrence family. Sure, she knew that they were invested in crime as well – Rico Lawrence had built a bigger criminal empire than Smurf and her boys – but they were always friendly to her. Cameron had her own shit going on as well as the family business. Robbie was pretty cool, although Alex joked that the guy had another kid every time they saw him. It wasn't a lie – Robbie had three kids under five.
"What's it like?" Millie asked as she watched Robbie wrestling his sulking two-year-old daughter into her highchair.
She sat over on the computer working on Rico's latest project involving traffic surveillance. The way Rico put it, it would sometimes be easier for his guys to get jobs done if there were glitches to the traffic lights. The folders were all assigned with dates, and some of them involved traffic incidents from up to a few years before. The aim was to make sure the light outages caused as little hassle as possible.
"You mean being a parent?" Robbie glanced across at Millie, at the prominent bump of her stomach. It would only be a few months now before she had the baby. She and Craig had figured out the kid was going to be a boy, and just needed to finalise a name for him. They still had a bit of time for that, which Millie was grateful for. The ring on her finger hadn't escaped anyone's notice either, least of all Smurf's.
"Yeah." Millie shrugged her shoulders. "I mean, you've been a parent since you were younger than me. You make it look easy."
"You get used to it," Robbie admitted, walking over and flopping on the lounge across from her as his daughter fussed over her food. "When my first kid was born, I was terrified. Didn't think I could do it. But it sort of comes naturally after that."
Millie couldn't help but smile a little. She'd be twenty-three by the time her son was born in a few months, and Craig would be twenty-eight. They were by no means super young to be parents. Yet somehow, she wondered if they were making the right choice. None of the fathers of Smurf's boys were around. She really hoped that Craig didn't decide to ditch last minute. She knew Alex would kill him if he did.
Millie's own mum hadn't done much parenting since the divorce. She'd moved back to the UK and had nothing to do with the family. She didn't want to be that sort of mother. If she was going to have this baby, she would be dedicated to him. She wouldn't let Smurf turn him into another J. She wouldn't let her get into his head. Her son would be able to make his own choice, free from fear.
"What do you think you'd do if your dad wasn't a crime lord?" Millie asked softly.
Robbie shrugged. "Don't know. I do a lot of the paperwork for him, but he never forces me to do anything I'm not comfortable with."
Millie's initial impression of Smurf was of a doting mother, but now she realised just how much control she had over her sons. Maybe that was why she clashed with Baz's wife Catherine, who didn't approve of Smurf trying to run the show her way. What would Smurf do, Millie wondered, if she believed Craig was more dedicated to his fiancé and his baby than to her?
Suppressing a shudder, Millie turned her attention back to the project, but something about one of the folders made her hesitate. For whatever reason, this incident was among those that Rico clearly considered memorable or important. She had a look at the date of the file.
It was the exact date that her younger brother Dylan had died.
The job was easy enough. Millie sat cross-legged on her laptop by the lounge, systematically shutting down cameras at the military base as required. She could only make them glitch for a few seconds before she knew someone would catch on, but she'd done enough in the way of petty theft to know that a few seconds of surveillance loss could make all the difference. They'd probably just think that their software was malfunctioning.
Hopefully.
Once the boys told her things were good, she'd fallen asleep at some point, woken by the sound of Craig's keys jingling in the lock. Closing her laptop and placing it on the coffee table, Millie groggily wondered if falling asleep everywhere was a pregnancy thing. She hadn't taken spontaneous naps around the place before. When Craig entered, she offered him a tired smile.
"How it'd go?"
"It went great." Craig walked over and kissed her cheek. "You were awesome. Smurf is just counting everything up and dividing it out, and then we're gonna go from there."
"Right." Millie nodded slowly. She knew that thousands suddenly appearing in bank accounts was suspicious, and that Smurf found ways to launder the money – typically through property that she owned.
"Cath's gone missing." Craig shrugged his shoulders as he peeled off his shirt, dumping it into the overloaded laundry basket. "Baz is wound up about it, but Smurf reckons she's run off or some shit."
"What do you think?" Millie asked, an uneasy feeling settling in the pit of her stomach. She hadn't known Catherine very well, and she hadn't really got the impression that Catherine approved of her. But Catherine just bailing didn't seem to make sense. Catherine adored Lena. She'd never just dump the kid with Baz and run.
"I don't know what to think." Craig sighed heavily, flopping on the lounge. "Can we just…not talk about this now? We did the job, we got the money, we should be celebrating."
"Yeah," Millie murmured.
"You okay?" Craig asked.
Millie nodded slowly. "Just tired. I fell asleep waiting. I might actually head to bed."
"Okay." Craig watched as she got to her feet, her bump extremely prominent. Usually he'd go to touch it, feel the baby kicking, but he seemed to get she wanted her own space. "I'll order some food when you're up."
It had been a stupid idea to copy the file onto a USB and bring it home to watch on her laptop, but Millie needed to know what was on that recording dated on the day of her brother's death. Her heart was racing as she clicked on the video footage. She was terrified of what she was going to see. But surely, if it was something Rico didn't want her to know, it wouldn't be among the files she had access to.
Millie knew the details of Dylan's death. He and his friend had been hit by an oncoming truck after they'd run a red light. The truck driver had been drinking and although he'd swerved to avoid them, it wasn't enough. Both Dylan and his friend had been killed. There had been no eyewitnesses, it had been close to 3am. There was only the surveillance footage – the footage Millie now found herself watching.
It was different, knowing what had happened and seeing it for herself. Tears were streaming down her eyes as she watched the truck collide with the car, but there was something that just didn't add up. She'd never been suspicious until now, until she realised that Rico's gang had access to the footage. Why would they need that, if it had been ruled an accident?
It was brutal to watch her brother die on repeat. She never got a clear view of him, and perhaps it helped. She didn't know what she would have done if she could see Dylan properly in the front of that car. Yet after a few times of watching the footage, she understood what the issue was.
It hadn't been Dylan and his friend running a red light at all. The light had been green. The truck driver had been the one to run the red light – and he hadn't even swerved. He'd just ploughed straight on through them.
It hadn't been an accident. It had been murder.
