Chapter 10

Author's Note: I am sorry for not updating for a while. My life has gotten busy with stuff and I haven't got much time to write. I still read every single comment! All suggestions and comments are appreciated! Hopefully I will be able to return to weekly chapters but I unfortunately can't guarantee that.

After searching through all of Phoebe's research they had found a few leads. One of the people that worked with Marco was named Carlos and he had a job at a hotel as the concierge. Carlos had a daughter in college named Maria. Shaw and Root went to the hotel to see if they could get any information from Carlos. When Carlos went to the bathroom Root quickly hacked his computer and saw that he had been marking rooms as occupied often with a generic name. After further investigation from bluejacking his phone they found out that he assisted Marco by getting people rooms at the hotel under false names. While Marco prepared a new identity for the person they stayed hidden at the hotel.

Carlos had noticed that Marco was gone and started calling other people and warning them. It seemed that there were numerous people working together to create fake identities and hide people. At the end of his shift Carlos left immediately but an SUV approached him. As the men grabbed Carlos and were throwing him in the SUV Shaw and Root came out of the alley and battled with the men. Shaw kicked one man in the knee while Root choked another. After Shaw threw two assailants to the ground she approached the front of the SUV. The passenger emerged and she shot him in the kneecaps while the driver started driving away. She shot inside of the car causing the airbags to go off and the SUV to crash across the street.

"What do you people want?" Carlos shrieked as he awakened in the safe house.

"We're here to help you," Root said while she checked security feeds to try and find where the SUV came from.

"I don't know anything! Don't kill me!" Carlos screamed.

"Can I just knock him out again?" Shaw asked in a monotone voice.

"Shaw stop it. Carlos we need to know as much about Marco as possible, he has been kidnapped."

"Why would I tell you people about Marco when you'll just kill me anyway?" Carlos asked angrily.

"We are trying to save him along with protecting you," explained John.

"We didn't kidnap you, remember we stopped those armed men from kidnapping you," Shaw pointed out.

"Well fine. Marco and I have been working together for over twenty years and we've assisted many people disappear including criminals and members of the mob."

"Why did my mom want to disappear?" Phoebe asked as she emerged from another room.

"She was in danger, some bad people were after her," Carlos replied as he evaded the question.

"Why were they after her?" Phoebe quickly asked.

"Your mom laundered money from the company that she worked at. However, she didn't know that the company was partially owned by a crime boss named Dante."

"What did she do with the money? It never ended up with my dad or me."

"She took it with her in order to keep you safe and she helped fund Marco's operations."

~POI~

Carlos revealed the location where Marco underwent his operations. John and Shaw arrived at Marco's car repair shop in order to gather more information. They broke in and went into Marco's office only to find that it had been ransacked. There wasn't much left to go through and it appeared that Marco had his files about the disappearances elsewhere. As Shaw headed into the garage of the shop she saw something unexpected. There were two men lying in pools of blood. Both men had been shot twice in the chest.

Right before they were about to leave John heard something from inside the garage. As they reentered the garage they discovered two men emerging from under the car lift. The men had pulled out boxes from beneath the lift and had them sitting on the floor. John and Shaw pulled their guns on the men and ordered them to drop their weapons. One man grabbed his gun but was quickly shot and killed by Shaw. The second man slid his gun across the floor towards John. The man was pulled out from under the lift by John. They tied him up to a chair and started to question him.

"Why are you after Marco?" Shaw yelled at the man.

"What do you want with these files?" Shaw shouted before she punched him in the stomach.

"Who do you work for?" Shaw asked, followed by another punch.

The man didn't answer any of Shaw's questions for over half an hour and he was looking pretty bad. The man started to answer Shaw as there was a loud bang outside of the shop. John went to investigate the noise. As Reese exited the shop he was hit in the back of the head and knocked out. The man in the chair started to answer Shaw by explaining "I'm just a thug trying to get information about Marco for-" the man stopped talking as he was shot in the head. Shaw ran out of the shop trying to catch the mysterious man but couldn't catch up to him.

~POI~