Author's Note: I finally managed to get another chapter together and hope you will like it.
I would also like to take the time to wish you a merry Christmas (or happy holidays if you don't celebrate Christmas) :D

CHAPTER 10

After Mozzie left Neal got out of the playhouse as well and the first thing Peter noticed was that the kid had a big bruise on his cheek.
It wasn't that unusual, he knew that children got hurt all the time but despite knowing this his mind immediately imagined that some other kids had hurt Neal.

"What happened to your cheek, bud?"
"I got the ball in my face when we were playing soccer."

Neal said in a confident voice, but Peter could've sworn that he saw something in the boy's eyes, fear maybe, before it disappeared and Neal flashed an innocent smile.

"So no one hurt you?"

He asked and Neal averted his gaze before shaking his head.

"It was just an accident."

Perhaps the kid was telling the truth and Peter had just been damaged from work and saw bad guys where they weren't any, but there was something about Neal's behaviour that made him suspect that maybe something was going on.
He promised himself to keep an eye on the boy, just to be certain that the boy wasn't having problems in school.
They walked back to the car and drove home in silence.
The first thing Neal did was to look for any notes on the doorstep, but of course he couldn't find any.

"Are you sure there haven't been another note?"

Neal asked, sounding worried and Peter shook his head, answering that there hadn't been any note this morning or anything delivered to the office.
He didn't want to get him even more worried with the note and he especially did not want to tell him that there had been a demand that they couldn't meet.
Peter was intent on keeping Neal out of this and letting the adults handle it.

However, the kidnappers had no problem involving the child, something Peter found out just two days later.
He had just picked Neal up from school and had gone upstairs to put his gun away in the safe when Neal yelled his name, sounding scared.
The agent instantly grabbed his gun again and hurried down the stairs, almost falling several times.
He ran into the living room with his gun drawn but instead of seeing any kind of threat, he just saw Neal sitting on the floor staring at something in his hands.
Peter got a bad feeling in his stomach and he didn't even have to guess what Neal was looking at.

"Give me the picture, buddy."

He said in a calm voice, but Neal showed no sign of even hearing him.
Peter crouched down and gently pried the picture out of his hands before he looked at the picture.
Just like the previous ones it showed Elizabeth tied up in a chair, but this time she wasn't alone in the picture.
A masked man, all dressed in black, was standing behind her and he was pressing a large knife against her throat.
It was hard for Peter to look at it and he couldn't even imagine how hard it had been for Neal to see it.
He looked up and saw that Neal had buried his head in his hands, and his whole body was shaking as he quietly cried.
Peter pushed the agent in him away as he let his parental instinct take over.
He sat down on the floor and then pulled the crying child onto his lap, Neal responded by throwing his arms around Peter's neck, clinging to him like a life line.

"They're gonna kill my mommy!"

Neal said before letting out a heart wrenching sob and burying his face in Peter's shoulder.
Peter hugged the boy tighter before stroking the kid's back in an attempt to comfort him.

"They're not going to kill your mom, I won't let that happen, kiddo."

Of course Peter couldn't guarantee that Elizabeth wouldn't get killed and he was pretty sure that Neal knew that as well but for now he decided to not question it.

"I miss her."

He said instead and Peter answered that he missed her too, even Satchmo let out a whine as if he could understand them and wanted to say that he missed Elizabeth as well.
When Neal finally calmed down, Peter wiped the tears from his face before he lifted the boy off his lap and placing him next to Satchmo, who started to lick the boy's face.
Peter smiled at Neal's soft giggles as he grabbed the photo again and stood up. He spotted the note on the floor and grabbed that one as well.
The note was different as well, because this time it had a small plastic bag stapled to the top right corner of the page and inside of it was a lock of brown hair, Elizabeth's hair.
He read the note, and just as he feared Scarface had somehow found out that they hadn't complied and now he was unhappy, threatening to make Elizabeth pay for their unwillingness to do what he asked.
Peter let out a frustrated sigh and placed the items on the table, unable to look at them any longer
Then a sudden thought appeared in his head, how did Neal get the note and photo?
Had someone been in the house and left in inside?
The thought made his stomach turn and he looked at the boy who was rubbing the dog's stomach.

"Hey Neal, where did you find the note?"
"It was in my backpack."

Peter froze because the kid's answer was so much worse.
This meant that they had wanted Neal to find the note, they knew that he was connected to Peter and the FBI and the scariest part of all; they showed how easily they could get to Neal.
There had not only been an FBI agent watching the school but all of the staff had been on the lookout for anything suspicious and still they had managed to leave a note in Neal's backpack.

"Peter, are you okay?"

Neal had stopped rubbing Satchmo's stomach and now both the boy and dog was staring at Peter who had probably been letting some of his worry show.

"You're not going back to school."
If they had managed to get to Neal's backpack without anyone noticing, it wouldn't be that much harder for them to get to Neal and Peter was not going to risk anything.

Peter felt incredibly paranoid and every little sound from outside or every little movement from Satchmo made him reach for his gun.
Since he had brought Neal home he had always kept his gun locked away so that Neal and his sticky fingers wouldn't get to it, but now he felt that he couldn't keep Neal safe without it on him.
Perhaps he was overreacting but if there was even the slightest chance that Scarface or one of his associated decided to pay them a visit, he wanted to be ready for it.
The agent thanked himself for this choice when his dog suddenly flew up from the floor and started to bark at the backdoor.
He made sure that Neal stayed back before he got his gun and slowly started to walk towards the door.
Peter momentarily stopped as whoever was out there knocked on the door, he didn't think that the kidnappers would knock but he still didn't lower his gun until he carefully pushed the curtain aside and saw who was standing outside.
He let out a sigh of relief before he opened the door for the other man.

"We need to stop meeting like this, suit."

Mozzie said and pointed at the gun in Peter's hand and he put it back in his holster.
Neal realized that there weren't any danger and came running, throwing himself at Mozzie and giving the man a big hug.

"Why can't you just use the front door like normal people?"

Peter asked, frustrated that the man's odd behaviour had created a false alarm.

"Precautions."

Mozzie simply answered and Peter was about to point out how weird that was but managed to stop himself in the last second.
First of all, he couldn't be sure that his house wasn't being watched by someone and second of all he remembered Elizabeth telling him that it was impossible to argue with Mozzie about his paranoia.

"I'm guessing you have some information?"
"As a matter of fact I do, but you're not going to like it."

Peter didn't like the sound of that but he still asked Mozzie to go on.

"I couldn't get any information about the guy himself, but I did manage to find an interesting contact."
"And?"
"He has a contact in the FBI, more specifically in the White Collar department."