Disclaimer: I don't own Arrow. As usual, thanks to everyone following this story, I'm so glad.
Chapter Eighteen
The Road to Hell...
Breaking into Harold Backman's office was so easy Felicity was actually embarrassed for him. Seriously, she could have done this when she was a teenager (well, that was a bit of an exaggeration, given she'd tripped over her own two feet as a teen, but the point still stood. He should've gotten better security if he wanted to take part in a life of crime.).
She exited the private lift and was immediately fired at by his security goons. There was only three of them, and she took them all out easily, leaving them unconscious and disarmed in the hallway as she stalked into the office where Backman was cowering against the wall with a panicked expression, gripping a laptop to his chest desperately. With his small frame and slightly too large suit, he reminded her of a child playing dress-up in his father's suit.
That image didn't stop her grabbing his collar and holding a knife to his neck, making him whimper in terror of her now-infamous wrath.
"Harold Backman, you have failed this city," she growled.
He panted heavily, eyes darting around the room before focusing on her. "I'm only an accountant!" He insisted. "I'm just the money."
"The money that leads to extortion, kidnapping, and drugs," she hissed back. "It's the destruction of innocent lives! Make no mistake, Backman. You're as guilty as your employers."
"You think you scare me more than them?" He attempted to scoff, though the sweat beading on his forehead said that she was at least as terrifying as them.
She smirked darkly. "Oh, don't worry," she cooed sinisterly. "They can deal with you themselves. Killing you would be a waste of a perfectly good arrow."
Then she punched his lights out, dropped him unceremoniously on the floor, snatched up his computer and sauntered off, pleased with another successful mission.
She went back to her loft apartment after changing out of her vigilante gear in an alleyway, where Oliver was working on some QC stuff and William was sleeping in his bedroom.
Her husband glanced up at her entrance, raising an eyebrow at the sight of the computer she was carrying. "What poor son of a bitch did you steal that from?" He asked mildly. "And is he still alive?"
"Harold Backman," Felicity replied as she attached it to her home system and began turning it on. "And yes, I left him alive. But his employers might not be so nice."
Oliver abandoned his work to peer over her shoulder at the screen. "Backman? Name's familiar."
"He's an accountant for the rich criminals of Starling," Felicity explained, eyes darting over the information on her screens.
"Then, and I realize this a radical idea but hear me out," Oliver said. "Shouldn't we, you know, hand this over to the IRS?"
"I will," Felicity promised. "Once I've finished returning the money to the people it belongs to."
"How long'll that take?"
She shrugged. "Few days at least," she answered.
"Lovely," Oliver said dryly, before switching the subject. "Any news from Dig?"
She grimaced, drawing her gaze away from the screens to meet his. "Nada," she admitted. "He hasn't texted since he sent the message that he, Carly and AJ had arrived at his mother's place."
The soldier had taken a fortnight off after the failed mission to eliminate his brother's murderer, taking his nephew and nephew's mom with him to visit his mother in Ivy Town for a bit. He was due back in a few days. Felicity hoped the break would do him good, because she was at a loss as to how to help him. She was still searching for any trace of Deadshot, but other than a murder of a French government official suspected to have been Lawton's handy work a few days ago, there was nothing.
Oliver sighed. "I hope he's okay," he muttered.
"Dig's tough," Felicity assured him. "He'll be alright."
Oliver nodded slowly. "I gotta go," he admitted, glancing at his watch. "Early morning meeting."
"Okay," Felicity nodded. "I'll drop Will off, and see you in the afternoon."
"See ya tomorrow," he agreed. There was a tension between them, like he was debating whether or not to lean in and kiss her goodbye. She compromised by kissing his cheek chastely and then going back to work after he had left, the door shutting softly behind him.
'Get to base ASAP!'
The message had Oliver rushing to leave and get over to the SCT building, using the hidden side entrance to get in. Felicity was bent over her screens, a fiercely determined expression on her face as she typed with lightning-fast fingers.
"What happened?" He asked urgently. "Did you get in?"
"Even better!" She replied brightly, a broad grin on her face. " I hacked Cayman Fidelity and put together a list all the deposits Backman made last year. I found out that the largest was a two-million-dollar deposit made the day Walter disappeared!"
Oliver's eyes went wide. "So you think one of Backman's clients was hired to kidnap Walter?" He asked eagerly. They'd been searching for months now with no leads. He feared the worst, but at least now they'd know.
"Dominic Alonzo," Felicity gestured to a picture of a sleazy-looking man on her right-hand computer screen. She grimaced. "He runs an underground casino with a bit of extortion and other crimes on the side. You know, like kidnapping people for money. Real stellar guy."
Oliver glared at the photo. "So, how many arrows do you think you'd need to stick him with to tell you where Walter is?" He asked her. She pursed her lips, frowning.
"It's not that simple, Oliver," she sighed. "That casino has its own private army. We need to access Alonzo's computer, but without setting off any alarms."
"So, what do we do then?" Oliver pressed. She grimaced, twisting a curl around her index finger thoughtfully.
"If Dig were here, I'd go in disguise with him as my back-up and plant a bug," she muttered. "But-"
"Well, what if I go?" Oliver suggested.
She shot him a sharp look. "We agreed, you'd stay out of the field, Oliver," she reminded him curtly. "I could-"
"Felicity, I can do this," he argued. "Remember, you taught me to count cards back in Boston. This is our family, Lissy. You can't stop me from doing this. Besides, you'll be right outside the whole time, won't you?"
She scowled, but glanced at the article on her left screen, showing a picture of Walter and talking about the FBI's investigation. Her shoulders slumped in defeat.
"Fine," she agreed grudgingly. "But we're doing this my way, understood?"
Lian Yu: 2008
Felicity, Shado and Slade made their way towards where the proximity detector had shown the group of people. All of them were tense and suspicious of the new arrivals to the island. One thing they all agreed on was that nobody would ever willingly come to Lian Yu for any good reason, and these guys were probably hostiles. Maybe even connected to Fyers' mysterious employer.
Whoever it was, their sudden arrival had all of the trio on tenterhooks. They had all armed themselves before leaving the fuselage, Slade with his sword and a gun that was one of the many taken from the remnants of Fyers' camp, Shado with her bow and Felicity with two knives.
"Someone's definitely out there," Slade commented in a low voice, scanning their surroundings and carrying the detector. "They're moving closer to our position."
"Or we're getting closer to them," Felicity pointed out lowly.
Shado turned and darted for the hill they were next to.
"Where do you think you're going?" Slade called after her. She paused and turned to smirk back at him.
"Flanking position," she explained. "If they get the drop on you, you'll want some back-up."
"Be careful," Felicity urged in Cantonese.
"The same to you, Sister," Shado replied in the same tongue.
"You're getting good at that," Slade acknowledged. "I'll give you this, Princess. You learn fast."
"Thanks, I think," Felicity answered, raising an eyebrow.
Just then, there was a loud gunshot.
"Shado!" Felicity exclaimed, as they both started running towards the noise.
But when they arrived in the clearing, all that was left was Shado's bow and the ragged hood that had once been her father's.
Slade picked it up in shaking hands, panic and rage warring for dominance in his dark eyes. "We gotta find her," he said lowly.
Felicity picked up the bow, stringing it and testing it to ensure it was in working condition. "Let's move," she responded curtly, her own anxiety and fear for her friend turning her voice sharp.
She could only pray they wouldn't be too late.
Felicity was as composed as ever as they made their way down an alleyway parallel to Alonzo's casino, but Oliver felt more than a little queasy. This was his first time in the field since the Dodger case, and he couldn't keep from worrying. They'd left William with Raisa for the night, the Russian woman clearly believing they were going on a date (something they neither confirmed nor denied). She had given Oliver a delighted expression when Felicity wasn't looking. It was a shame she was wrong about their activities for the night, though he'd probably feel just as nervous about a date with his wife as he would about this, given the circumstances.
"You know the plan?" Felicity double-checked, adjusting the strap of the bag hanging off her shoulder. Oliver nodded, fists clenched.
"Get caught counting cards in an underground casino filled with hardened criminals so that I can get a friendly warning from Alonzo and plant a bug on his office computer," Oliver recited woodenly.
"Right," Felicity confirmed. "Which will hopefully lead us to Walter."
"That is assuming I get the friendly warning instead of a bullet," Oliver pointed out tensely.
"Oliver," she paused and grabbed his arm, tugging him around to look at her properly. "We can figure out another way. You don't have to do this."
Oliver felt his resolve steady. "Yes, I do," he insisted.
She studied him for a moment before nodding crisply. "Ok," she agreed. Oliver tried not to get entranced by how blue her eyes were. She hadn't put in the brown contacts yet. The only part of her outfit she wore was the purple leather catsuit beneath the long cloak-like coat. Her wig was peeking out of the bag on her shoulder. "Remember, if anything happens, I'm right outside."
"Yeah, I know," Oliver agreed, more than a little comforted by that fact. Maybe societal expectations should have made him feel humiliated by the fact that he trusted a woman to protect him, but Oliver knew that, although he did a fair amount of athletics, he had never been a fighter, and Felicity's skills had been forged in fire, as proven by the scars marring her torso.
"Okay," she nodded. They separated, Felicity heading to a fire escape that gave her a good vantage point over the casino while Oliver hovered out of sight until Felicity whispered in his comm.
"Password is snapdragon."
Pasting on his old 'Playboy Ollie' mask, Oliver sauntered up to the entrance with a cocky grin hanging on his lips.
"Password?" The guard grunted at him.
"Snapdragon," he answered with a wide smirk, before striding past into the casino.
"What do you see?" Felicity asked a few moments after he entered the room.
"6 armed guards, 2 pit bosses, and a floor man," Oliver reeled off.
"Good work," she remarked quietly. "I'm going to be quiet now, okay? I'll be right outside if something happens."
"Yeah," he breathed softly. He straightened his shoulders and pinned the fake smirk to his face before making his way over to the nearest table to put on a show.
Twenty minutes and four big wins later, he was 'asked' to come to see Alonzo.
"Oh look," he said brightly as the guard escorted him to the office. "There's the bathroom, right next to the manager's office. Isn't that handy?"
"Subtle," Felicity muttered dryly, though of course he couldn't respond.
Alonzo was finishing up a phone call when Oliver was escorted inside. He gave a forced smile, 'offering' Oliver a seat. Given the pair of armed guards in the room, the Queen scion figured it was best to accept.
"What's your name?" Alonzo asked him, startling Oliver and (from the quiet noise in his ear) Felicity at his lack of recognition.
"Uh, I'm Jonas," he answered, using his middle name as his alias because it was the first that came to mind.
"Please to meet you, Jonas," Alonzo replied. He steepled his fingers, leaning forward to give Oliver a piercing look. "Jonas, do you know where the term 'eighty-sixed' comes from?"
"Yes, as a matter of fact I do," Oliver confirmed as he discreetly placed the bug on the bottom of the desk. "It's from Prohibition." The benefit of being married to a genius was that you learned all sorts of random trivia.
"And now it means to ban a cheater," Alonzo stated, voice full of steel and irritation. "You're eighty-sixed. Leave your chips and get out of here."
"Yes sir, thank you," Oliver replied, rising from his chair. But before he could get out, Alonzo stopped him.
"One more thing, Jonas," he called after him, also standing and coming over to stand uncomfortably close to Oliver. "See, the thing about card counters is that, sometimes, they work with a partner." With that, he reached out and pulled the comm from Oliver's ear, dropping it to the floor and crushing it beneath his foot.
Oliver gave it a stony look before turning his gaze to Alonzo. "That," he informed him. "Was a really bad idea. Ruining her tech and threatening me. I almost feel sorry for you."
Almost.
Not even a full second later, sounds of gunfire and screaming started, and Oliver knew that Felicity had launched a rescue.
Being used as a hostage, an explosion, and Alonzo's announcement of Walter's death later, Oliver staggered into his mansion, devastation coursing through him as he entered the living room. His mom and sister were both there, grinning as they did something on a tablet.
"Hey," Thea greeted him warmly. "I'm just teaching Mom the joys of internet shopping." Her smile faded and concern replaced it when she registered his distraught expression. "Ollie? What's wrong?"
He swallowed, sitting down and reaching out to take one of each of their hands in his own. "I need to talk to both of you," he told them, a bit of unsteadiness in his voice as much as he tried to be strong for them.
"What is it?" His mom asked, expression alarmed.
"It's about Walter," Oliver croaked out, tears stinging at his eyes.
"Did the police contact you?" His mom wondered, worry in her eyes. Thea was tense and pale, her bottom lip trembling.
"One of Mr. Diggle's army buddies works for the FBI now," Oliver began. "And they got news tonight." Thea started to sob as Moira shook her head in denial.
"No," she insisted.
"I'm so sorry," he said, voice cracking.
His mother shook her head desperately. "No, no, no, no, no," she repeated. "There must be some mistake. Who did Mr. Diggle talk to? Did they find a body?"
"Mom... Walter's gone," Oliver insisted painfully.
She wrenched her hands out of his grasp and jumped to her feet. "No," she muttered, shaking her head. "This isn't right." She began stalking out of the room, a wild air around her.
"Where are you going?" Oliver called after her.
"Out," she muttered.
"It's 10:00 at night," he protested.
"I need some air," she retorted.
"Mom, you're in shock," he told her.
"Don't tell me what or how I feel, Oliver!" She half-screamed at him, before rushing out the door.
Thea, tears falling freely from her green eyes, came to his side. "Why is she acting like that?" She sniffled. Oliver had no explanation for her. He opened his arms and gathered her into an embrace.
"Come here," he told her, rocking her from side to side. A second later she pulled away.
"You should go after her," she sniffled. "Make sure that-that she's okay. She shouldn't be alone right now, she's not thinking straight."
Oliver nodded solemnly, passing his distraught sister into Raisa's loving and sympathetic arms before rushing after his mom.
The conversation he overheard when he eavesdropped on her and Malcolm's conversation shattered his already broken heart.
When he arrived at the base, the lights were off and Felicity, still in her vigilante gear but sans wig, mask and contacts, was sitting on the floor, spinning an arrow in her hands and staring at the opposite wall in silence.
She turned her head to look at him when he entered, and the part of Oliver that wasn't numb noted the traces of tears on her cheeks and her red-rimmed eyes.
"Oliver?" She croaked out, levering herself off of the floor. "What are you doing here? Shouldn't you be with Thea and your mom?"
"Walter's alive," Oliver replied. "You need to pull up Malcolm Merlyn's phone records. He made a call from his office to wherever Walter is being kept at 10:30 p.m."
"Malcolm Merlyn?" Felicity repeated, voice bewildered as she slid into her seat and began tapping at the keyboard. "Tommy's father? Why would he kidnap Walter? And what do you mean, is being kept? Alonzo-"
"Felicity," Oliver cut her off. She fell silent and he returned his attention to the screens. "LUD showed he made a call to a tenement complex located in Bludhaven," she informed him. "I'm pulling up a satellite view now."
He could see her shifting gears, settling into 'mission mode' and tucking away her personal feelings as she surveyed the images she had pulled up. "Lot of security for low-income housing," she remarked, arms crossing over her chest. In any other situation, Oliver probably would've been distracted by how the action pushed up her breasts or made her biceps flex slightly. But not now, when it felt as if he was drowning and barely keeping his head above the water.
"There're two guards stationed at all access points," he pointed out.
"But there's just one on the roof," she replied.
"There's no other buildings in that area," he told her. "If you want to get onto the roof, you're going to have to jump off of something."
"I've got something," she promised.
"Then go," he urged her, jaw clenched. She hesitated, eyeing him with subtle concern. Her expression remained as calm and steady as ever, but her eyes were worried.
"Oliver, how did you find out about this?" She pressed him, resting a hand on his arm and frowning at him, actually letting her true emotions show for once. "You're not acting like yourself."
He gritted his teeth as the memory of his mom and Merlyn's conversation ran through his mind again. "After I told Mom and Thea that Walter was dead, Mom freaked and stormed out. I followed her to Merlyn's office, where I heard her accuse him of breaking their deal."
"Moira made a deal with Malcolm Merlyn to kidnap Walter?" Felicity's eyes widened in surprise, before they narrowed. He could practically see the gears shifting in her mind, adjusting everything she knew to fit with this new information.
"Yes," he said bluntly. "And we have a deal for you to save him. Are you going or not?"
She finally moved, grabbing her wig and quiver, as well as one of her encrypted phones. "Go home and act like everything's the same as earlier," she instructed him over her shoulder as she began darting up the stairs to the hidden door. "I'll alert you when I've secured Walter."
The next afternoon, Oliver let out a subtle sigh of relief after leaving the room containing his family. It had made his stomach twist, to stand there and wear a smile as he watched his mother fuss over Walter, as if she hadn't been at fault for him going missing in the first place.
"Oliver!" The voice of the only person he wanted to see less than his mom called just after he stepped into the hallway. He tensed and turned, clinging to his composure by his fingernails and suppressing the urge to lunge at Merlyn and beat his face in. "I just heard the news," Merlyn went on, an expression of false relief and pleasure on his face. It was good. Had he not known the truth, Oliver wouldn't have noticed the subtle signs of tension in the man's face and body language. "What a miracle," the older man continued. "How's Walter? The police are saying that he was rescued by the Vigilante."
"Yeah," Oliver answered, voice hoarse. "Yeah, he was." He felt his hands clench into fists as he feigned obliviousness to Malcolm's actions.
"Has he said anything about his ordeal?" Malcolm inquired. "Was he able to identify any of his captors?" Only a day ago, Oliver would've thought that genuine concern was driving the questioning, even if he would have been surprised that Malcolm could care enough for that. Now, he realized that Merlyn was worried that Walter might be able to connect him to the kidnapping.
"No," Oliver said flatly.
"Hmm," Malcolm hummed, what Oliver assumed was relief glinting in his eyes. "That's too bad."
"They'll get what's coming to them," Oliver said darkly, partially a statement of fact and partially a warning. "I'm just glad that my family is back together."
"We all are," Malcolm agreed.
"Excuse me," Oliver said stonily. "I need to get going. QC doesn't stop running just because its' CEO is rescued from being held hostage for six months."
"Oh, of course," Malcolm nodded. "See you soon, I hope."
"Mmm," Oliver forced out, feeling his nails dig into his palms. As soon as that was over with, he returned to his car and drove back to the base as quick as he could.
Felicity and Diggle, who had arrived back yesterday night and been contacted by Felicity post-Walter's rescue, were there already, the computer screens full of information on his mother, Merlyn, and their two corporations. They glanced at him with serious expressions as he stalked in.
"What have we got?" He demanded gruffly as he threw himself into a chair.
"Not a lot," Dig grimaced. "Felicity and I were just saying that I should drive your mom around for a bit, see if I can learn anything. We'll tap her phone lines, see if we hear anything about this Undertaking."
"Good idea," Oliver replied woodenly.
"Oliver," Felicity perched on his desk, meeting his gaze. Sympathy and concern shone in her sky-coloured eyes. "Are you sure that you want to be involved in this? I mean, we're gunning for your mother and your best friend's father. Neither of us would blame you for wanting to back out..."
He cut her off with a firm headshake. It felt as if his whole world had been turned on its axis, but he knew one thing.
"I'm in this, Felicity. I'm in, and I'm not backing out."
She studied him for a moment, weighing his conviction, then gave a short nod and slid off the desk. "Alright," she agreed. "I was thinking we look into this Tempest thing. See if there's anything about it that might help us figure out what the end goal of this whole thing is."
Oliver felt himself steady as he watched as she began pulling up the desired information. Everything else in his life might have been in pieces, but not this. Not the team.
Not Felicity.