Chapter 64 – The Pissing Contest
Vince stooped down and picked Nyssa up off the floor into his arms. "Who the hell are you?" He growled at the new man, clearly picking up on the fact it was the new comer's presence which had caused Nyssa to faint.
"Oh my god!" The agent exclaimed and walked over to the group of people who'd surrounded Vince and Nyssa. "It can't be. It just can't." He muttered, clearly agitated.
"What can't be what?" Dom asked in his infamous 'I'm-so-mad-I'm-calm' voice. He wasn't happy to see one of his team so upset she passed out. His voice came out low and gravely. Letty laid a calming hand on his forearm, silently asking him to keep his cool until they had the information they needed from the newcomer. It wouldn't be the first time that Dom had silenced someone with his fists before they'd heard all they needed to hear from the victim.
"I'm Danny Williams. This is my little sister Nyssandre." Danny breathed out in shock. He reached out to touch one of the shiny red-black curls on his sister's head. Vince moved Nyssa, who was still in his arms out of Danny's reach and gave the man a deadly look from his flashing blue eyes.
"Yeah, well this is my girl Nyssa and she fucken thought you were dead." Vince snarled and carefully set Nyssa down on a couch while he still had it in his power to be gentle with anything, before he blew up and flipped out at the man who'd left the one girl who'd managed to get through to Vince other then Mia to live with a wicked step father who'd ultimately tried to rape her in the front porch.
"I know she thinks that." Danny blew out a frustrated breath and looked at his shoes. "She had to. When I went undercover into this world I had to leave my whole previous life behind. If she'd known I was still alive and tried to contact me she would have been putting her own life in jeopardy, as well as mine and my whole assignment. I couldn't have that."
"You didn't have to take a job where it meant leaving her to that asshole your mother married either." Leon added. He loved Nyssa like a sister and he couldn't stand the thoughts of her being man handled by her jerk of a step-dad because her stupid older brother had had to take a big glorious job with the FBI rather then take care of her. He decided he didn't want to keep that to himself. "You didn't have to take a guts and glory job and leave your little sister to some asshole to raise either. That was your choice."
"Listen, that job was only supposed to be for a year tops and then I was going to have all the money I needed to set us up in our house on the beach and take care of us ok? But when you get in as deep as I had to you can't just walk away because the job didn't end on schedule. Plus the bureau was supposed to make sure she was taken care of. She was supposed to get enough money to live on under the guise of it being my life insurance money. I was going to explain everything to her when it was done and over. It was supposed to be ok. They told me they'd take care of it all."
"Yeah, well, the state of California didn't get let in on the FBI's little plan because they made her stepfather her legal guardian when her mother couldn't be found and put all the money in a trust fund she couldn't touch till she turned 21. And that doesn't happen for another few months so you know she had no choice but stay with," Vince spit out the name, "Ed. As far as the state was concerned you were dead."
"They left her with Ed?" Danny asked, in shock.
"Yeah, till she happened to meet me one night by accident when she went street racing with her cousin Manda for the first time and Manda and her idiot boyfriend abandoned Nyssa at the warehouse for the cops to catch. I picked her up to drive her home just on impulse because she looked so alone and scared and she ended up crashing at our place for the night because she couldn't go home to Ed. I taught her to race, she moved in with me, the rest, as they say, is history." Vince looked smug at the very irate look in Danny William's face. He clearly did not think much of his sister being involved with Vince.
"Hold up, she lives with you?" Danny growled.
"Yeah, she lives with me, with us." Vince made a gesture that encompassed team Torreto. "She works with us, races with us, lives with us."
"I can't believe this. I don't know how Mark would allow this." Danny spit out his father's name like the man was no more then a criminal he'd known, not his own dad.
"Oh, you mean Nyssa's dad? He approves. He's out of jail and he knows full well where Nyss lives." Vince took great pleasure in sharing with Danny. "He comes to visit all the time."
Vince knew that wasn't totally true, but the man had come to visit before he and Nyssa had broken up, and he had approved of the relationship then. Vince figured he would start again when he knew that all the issues had been worked out.
"And what do you mean she street races?" Danny was getting more and more upset every second.
"Just what I said. She races with us on our team. In what use to be your skyline. Of course your little wannabe ass didn't have it built just right but me'n Leon and the Mad Scientist have it all worked out now." Vince actually chuckled.
"This all comes to an end now. She's my sister and no way is she street racing in my car and dating criminals besides."
"Yeah, well, she missed that memo and the car is officially in her name now so I don't think there's much you can do about it. And if you try to mess with her or her car it'll be the fucken last thing you ever mess up." Vince cracked his knuckles and moved closer to Danny Williams, intent obvious.
"My sister is coming home with me, she's not living with our ex-con father or criminals like you." Danny moved even closer to Vince.
Vince obviously had a come back. Kat shoved her way in between the two men.
"Enough!" She called. "This has gotta stop."
"This guy's sleeping with my baby sister!" Danny bellowed at the same time as Vince shouted,
"This guy left my girl to live with that asshole who almost raped her!"
"Enough!" Kat shouted again. "There are bigger issues on the line right now. You remember Sean and Jesse right? We need to get them home safe then the two of you can have your pissing contest over who has more right to Nyssa, who I might add is an adult and will make up her own mind what she wants to think about this whole thing anyway."
Vince sighed and ran a hand through his already naturally messed up hair. "You're right Kitten, as always."
Kat broke character for a moment, long enough to give Vince a quick but much needed hug. "She's not gonna pick her brother who abandoned her over you V, you got no call to worry." She whispered. Vince hugged her back, hard but quickly and then turned back to his girlfriend. Kat turned to Danny.
"If you gonna be here you gotta be some help to us. That over there is Brian." Kat pointed at the blonde man in question. "He's ex LAPD. Go tell him what we need to know so we can get this show on the road."
"Who the hell are you to be giving orders around here?" Danny asked, taken aback at being told what to do by a tiny blonde female.
"She's runnin this show with my full approval." Connor said deceptively calm from behind Kat, slipping an arm around her waist. "This is Kat."
"Should that mean anything to me?" Danny asked, still acting stuck up.
"It will if I tell you my full name is Katerina Ninochka and these two," Kat made a sweeping gesture that took in Ivan and Josef, "are my brothers." Danny saw the two Russian men for the first time.
"What are they doing here? They're Sergei's right hand men!" Danny's hand went to the Glock hidden in a concealed holster in the waist of his pants.
"They've turned and are helping us, helping their sister." Connor stated. "With them and your intelligence we should have enough information to get our friends home safe."
"I'm not working with them, no way." Danny said, shaking his head. "They're up to no good. I've seen too much of what they're capable of and what they're like to think they're in this for anything other then evil."
"Sergei has our mother. They'll help us, you don't need to worry about them. You will have to worry about me if you don't get this show on the road." Kat snarled and went for one of her guns.
"Calm down Kitten." Connor rubbed the tops of Kat's arms. Kat gave Danny a hard look. Without a word he walked off to talk to Brian, clearly not sure what to make of the odd assortment of friends and enemies he'd found himself thrown in the middle of, and reeling over being reintroduced to his sister in such a shocking manner.
Kat wandered over to where Nyssa was still out cold on the couch. She was very confused over what was going on and she really didn't know if she had the strength to finish what she'd started. She knew she was full of big talking but she really didn't know if she could pull it off. She put on her most exaggerated look and she was trying to find the attitude to go with it but it was hard. She wasn't this girl anymore she was just pretending.
She just thought she had to pretend for her own sake and the sake of the two teams depending on her. She had convinced herself she had to be the trash talking tough girl so her team and Leon's would have someone to look to. Someone who was holding it together and wasn't effected by the drama. Someone who'd been able to put the personal shit to the side and was just concentrating on the task at hand.
She figured she was doing a good job on the outside of giving off that image but on the inside she was just barely holding it together. Her old cloths and her old look were only on the outside, only a costume. It was like when you were a kid and got all dressed up for Halloween. You might feel like Wonder Woman for that one night but at the end when you were home and the candy was all checked out and you donned your pj's the feeling that you really did have super powers went away and you were just plain old Jane again.
Kat already felt like the evening was over and it was time for her pj's. She didn't want to wear the costume any more because it felt fake, just like when she'd dressed up as a punk rocker as a kid all the while knowing she was a ballerina underneath.
Kat crouched down beside Nyssa and brushed some hair off her forehead then looked up at Vince. "Shouldn't she have woken up by now?"
"I don't know." Vince sighed. "She's always been the calm one. She's the one who's good under pressure and able to take stuff in stride. I've never seen her react like this to anything."
Kat shook her friend by the shoulders. "Nyssa! Wake up!" Kat called, trying to sound angry.
"Where am I?" Nyssa asked softly, starting to come around.
"You're on a couch at Connor's. Do you remember coming here?" Kat asked, gently now that Nyssa was awake.
"Yeah. I remember coming here and the door opening..." Nyssa trailed off, lost in thought. Her face clouded over. "It was my brother. I saw my brother!" She looked at Vince in confusion. "But he's dead so I must be imagining things."
Vince crouched down at Nyssa's side and Kat moved away to give them some privacy. Kat knew that Nyssa would take the news of her brother's 'death' and the real job that had kept him away from her better from Vince than anyone.
Vince and Nyssa talked for some time. Nyssa kept shooting her brother unreadable glances and Danny kept looking back at Nyssa like he had a lot he wanted to say. He didn't attempt to approach her however, he kept talking to Brian. It was a conversation that Ivan and Josef had joined in on.
After a few more minutes Brian and Danny approached the rest of the crew.
"Ok guys. Here's what we know. Sergei has the three people we're looking for in three different places."
"We figured he would." Kat broke in.
"Yes we did." Brian answered.
"However, for some reason the only one he doesn't have under heavy guard in a hard to reach place is Sean." Danny broke in.
"Sean is at his Long Beach house under moderate guard. The house is reasonably secure but will be the easiest of all to access."
"Why would Sean be under the least guard?" Kat asked suspiciously. Sean was the most dangerous of the three people being held. Kat did not understand why he would be the least watched.
"The beach house is very secluded. The odds that Sean could ever escape and make back here from there are very slim. Especially since they will have disarmed him and he'd have no vehicle to use." Danny speculated.
"But Sean is still dangerous with only his fists as weapons." Kat argued back.
"He's restrained, just not under heavy guard." Danny said, sighing like he was frustrated with Kat and her questions. Danny was acting like the answers to Kat's questions should have been obvious.
"Father doesn't think you'll try anything Kat. He thinks you will do just as you've said, turn yourself over to him. He has no idea you ran with gangs or used firearms. He thinks you are still just a little girl." Ivan said.
"Yes, Sergei is very confident that you will surrender to him in exchange for your friend's safe return. He is not anticipating any trouble. He only has the boy under closer guard because he had to leave him at the L.A. house and it has more security as a rule then the beach house anyhow." Danny explained.
"So Sean is at the beach house and Jesse," Kat stressed the name Jesse in her sentence because she didn't like to hear him called 'the boy' like he was just another kid who didn't matter, "is at the L.A. house."
Danny nodded his head.
"Are we talking Beverly Hills here, where is the L.A. house?"
"Bel Air." Danny answered.
"And where is our mother?" Josef asked. He'd only found out that his mother was still alive and being kept, not where she was.
"She'll be the hardest to get to. She's in his downtown L.A. office building, 'The Dragon's Gate' in his penthouse suite. Since Sergei lives there more then in any of his other residences she's going to be the hardest one to get. He has the whole building very well guarded."
"In my opinion we could just walk in there and gun down everything that moves. The world would be a better place." Kat stated vehemently. Connor and Stacy seemed to agree.
"It would alert him to our presence and he'd kill your mom rather then let you have her back. It must be done with tact. We do have the jump on him in that he has no idea we're onto him or planning any of this." Danny tried to be confident. The scope of the rescue mission astounded him but he really felt it was for the best to try and get the three innocent people back now rather then ask the petite Kat to subject herself to what could be years of abuse while they finally got all the evidence they needed to bring down Sergei and his whole organization. Danny knew Bilkens said a few months but they'd told him a year when he'd taken the job and look how accurate that had been.
Kat looked up for the first time in hours and realized it was dark outside. She checked the clock on the VCR and realized it was 4 minutes till 9. "Shit, he's gonna call any second."
"You're not home! You have to be home for his call!" Danny looked almost panicked.
"I set the house to forward all calls to this phone. He'll never know any different and I'll still get the call."
As if by cosmic irony as soon as she made her statement the phone rang. Everyone looked at the ringing instrument in horror as Kat walked over to it. Picking it up she put it to her ear.
"Hello?"
Vince stooped down and picked Nyssa up off the floor into his arms. "Who the hell are you?" He growled at the new man, clearly picking up on the fact it was the new comer's presence which had caused Nyssa to faint.
"Oh my god!" The agent exclaimed and walked over to the group of people who'd surrounded Vince and Nyssa. "It can't be. It just can't." He muttered, clearly agitated.
"What can't be what?" Dom asked in his infamous 'I'm-so-mad-I'm-calm' voice. He wasn't happy to see one of his team so upset she passed out. His voice came out low and gravely. Letty laid a calming hand on his forearm, silently asking him to keep his cool until they had the information they needed from the newcomer. It wouldn't be the first time that Dom had silenced someone with his fists before they'd heard all they needed to hear from the victim.
"I'm Danny Williams. This is my little sister Nyssandre." Danny breathed out in shock. He reached out to touch one of the shiny red-black curls on his sister's head. Vince moved Nyssa, who was still in his arms out of Danny's reach and gave the man a deadly look from his flashing blue eyes.
"Yeah, well this is my girl Nyssa and she fucken thought you were dead." Vince snarled and carefully set Nyssa down on a couch while he still had it in his power to be gentle with anything, before he blew up and flipped out at the man who'd left the one girl who'd managed to get through to Vince other then Mia to live with a wicked step father who'd ultimately tried to rape her in the front porch.
"I know she thinks that." Danny blew out a frustrated breath and looked at his shoes. "She had to. When I went undercover into this world I had to leave my whole previous life behind. If she'd known I was still alive and tried to contact me she would have been putting her own life in jeopardy, as well as mine and my whole assignment. I couldn't have that."
"You didn't have to take a job where it meant leaving her to that asshole your mother married either." Leon added. He loved Nyssa like a sister and he couldn't stand the thoughts of her being man handled by her jerk of a step-dad because her stupid older brother had had to take a big glorious job with the FBI rather then take care of her. He decided he didn't want to keep that to himself. "You didn't have to take a guts and glory job and leave your little sister to some asshole to raise either. That was your choice."
"Listen, that job was only supposed to be for a year tops and then I was going to have all the money I needed to set us up in our house on the beach and take care of us ok? But when you get in as deep as I had to you can't just walk away because the job didn't end on schedule. Plus the bureau was supposed to make sure she was taken care of. She was supposed to get enough money to live on under the guise of it being my life insurance money. I was going to explain everything to her when it was done and over. It was supposed to be ok. They told me they'd take care of it all."
"Yeah, well, the state of California didn't get let in on the FBI's little plan because they made her stepfather her legal guardian when her mother couldn't be found and put all the money in a trust fund she couldn't touch till she turned 21. And that doesn't happen for another few months so you know she had no choice but stay with," Vince spit out the name, "Ed. As far as the state was concerned you were dead."
"They left her with Ed?" Danny asked, in shock.
"Yeah, till she happened to meet me one night by accident when she went street racing with her cousin Manda for the first time and Manda and her idiot boyfriend abandoned Nyssa at the warehouse for the cops to catch. I picked her up to drive her home just on impulse because she looked so alone and scared and she ended up crashing at our place for the night because she couldn't go home to Ed. I taught her to race, she moved in with me, the rest, as they say, is history." Vince looked smug at the very irate look in Danny William's face. He clearly did not think much of his sister being involved with Vince.
"Hold up, she lives with you?" Danny growled.
"Yeah, she lives with me, with us." Vince made a gesture that encompassed team Torreto. "She works with us, races with us, lives with us."
"I can't believe this. I don't know how Mark would allow this." Danny spit out his father's name like the man was no more then a criminal he'd known, not his own dad.
"Oh, you mean Nyssa's dad? He approves. He's out of jail and he knows full well where Nyss lives." Vince took great pleasure in sharing with Danny. "He comes to visit all the time."
Vince knew that wasn't totally true, but the man had come to visit before he and Nyssa had broken up, and he had approved of the relationship then. Vince figured he would start again when he knew that all the issues had been worked out.
"And what do you mean she street races?" Danny was getting more and more upset every second.
"Just what I said. She races with us on our team. In what use to be your skyline. Of course your little wannabe ass didn't have it built just right but me'n Leon and the Mad Scientist have it all worked out now." Vince actually chuckled.
"This all comes to an end now. She's my sister and no way is she street racing in my car and dating criminals besides."
"Yeah, well, she missed that memo and the car is officially in her name now so I don't think there's much you can do about it. And if you try to mess with her or her car it'll be the fucken last thing you ever mess up." Vince cracked his knuckles and moved closer to Danny Williams, intent obvious.
"My sister is coming home with me, she's not living with our ex-con father or criminals like you." Danny moved even closer to Vince.
Vince obviously had a come back. Kat shoved her way in between the two men.
"Enough!" She called. "This has gotta stop."
"This guy's sleeping with my baby sister!" Danny bellowed at the same time as Vince shouted,
"This guy left my girl to live with that asshole who almost raped her!"
"Enough!" Kat shouted again. "There are bigger issues on the line right now. You remember Sean and Jesse right? We need to get them home safe then the two of you can have your pissing contest over who has more right to Nyssa, who I might add is an adult and will make up her own mind what she wants to think about this whole thing anyway."
Vince sighed and ran a hand through his already naturally messed up hair. "You're right Kitten, as always."
Kat broke character for a moment, long enough to give Vince a quick but much needed hug. "She's not gonna pick her brother who abandoned her over you V, you got no call to worry." She whispered. Vince hugged her back, hard but quickly and then turned back to his girlfriend. Kat turned to Danny.
"If you gonna be here you gotta be some help to us. That over there is Brian." Kat pointed at the blonde man in question. "He's ex LAPD. Go tell him what we need to know so we can get this show on the road."
"Who the hell are you to be giving orders around here?" Danny asked, taken aback at being told what to do by a tiny blonde female.
"She's runnin this show with my full approval." Connor said deceptively calm from behind Kat, slipping an arm around her waist. "This is Kat."
"Should that mean anything to me?" Danny asked, still acting stuck up.
"It will if I tell you my full name is Katerina Ninochka and these two," Kat made a sweeping gesture that took in Ivan and Josef, "are my brothers." Danny saw the two Russian men for the first time.
"What are they doing here? They're Sergei's right hand men!" Danny's hand went to the Glock hidden in a concealed holster in the waist of his pants.
"They've turned and are helping us, helping their sister." Connor stated. "With them and your intelligence we should have enough information to get our friends home safe."
"I'm not working with them, no way." Danny said, shaking his head. "They're up to no good. I've seen too much of what they're capable of and what they're like to think they're in this for anything other then evil."
"Sergei has our mother. They'll help us, you don't need to worry about them. You will have to worry about me if you don't get this show on the road." Kat snarled and went for one of her guns.
"Calm down Kitten." Connor rubbed the tops of Kat's arms. Kat gave Danny a hard look. Without a word he walked off to talk to Brian, clearly not sure what to make of the odd assortment of friends and enemies he'd found himself thrown in the middle of, and reeling over being reintroduced to his sister in such a shocking manner.
Kat wandered over to where Nyssa was still out cold on the couch. She was very confused over what was going on and she really didn't know if she had the strength to finish what she'd started. She knew she was full of big talking but she really didn't know if she could pull it off. She put on her most exaggerated look and she was trying to find the attitude to go with it but it was hard. She wasn't this girl anymore she was just pretending.
She just thought she had to pretend for her own sake and the sake of the two teams depending on her. She had convinced herself she had to be the trash talking tough girl so her team and Leon's would have someone to look to. Someone who was holding it together and wasn't effected by the drama. Someone who'd been able to put the personal shit to the side and was just concentrating on the task at hand.
She figured she was doing a good job on the outside of giving off that image but on the inside she was just barely holding it together. Her old cloths and her old look were only on the outside, only a costume. It was like when you were a kid and got all dressed up for Halloween. You might feel like Wonder Woman for that one night but at the end when you were home and the candy was all checked out and you donned your pj's the feeling that you really did have super powers went away and you were just plain old Jane again.
Kat already felt like the evening was over and it was time for her pj's. She didn't want to wear the costume any more because it felt fake, just like when she'd dressed up as a punk rocker as a kid all the while knowing she was a ballerina underneath.
Kat crouched down beside Nyssa and brushed some hair off her forehead then looked up at Vince. "Shouldn't she have woken up by now?"
"I don't know." Vince sighed. "She's always been the calm one. She's the one who's good under pressure and able to take stuff in stride. I've never seen her react like this to anything."
Kat shook her friend by the shoulders. "Nyssa! Wake up!" Kat called, trying to sound angry.
"Where am I?" Nyssa asked softly, starting to come around.
"You're on a couch at Connor's. Do you remember coming here?" Kat asked, gently now that Nyssa was awake.
"Yeah. I remember coming here and the door opening..." Nyssa trailed off, lost in thought. Her face clouded over. "It was my brother. I saw my brother!" She looked at Vince in confusion. "But he's dead so I must be imagining things."
Vince crouched down at Nyssa's side and Kat moved away to give them some privacy. Kat knew that Nyssa would take the news of her brother's 'death' and the real job that had kept him away from her better from Vince than anyone.
Vince and Nyssa talked for some time. Nyssa kept shooting her brother unreadable glances and Danny kept looking back at Nyssa like he had a lot he wanted to say. He didn't attempt to approach her however, he kept talking to Brian. It was a conversation that Ivan and Josef had joined in on.
After a few more minutes Brian and Danny approached the rest of the crew.
"Ok guys. Here's what we know. Sergei has the three people we're looking for in three different places."
"We figured he would." Kat broke in.
"Yes we did." Brian answered.
"However, for some reason the only one he doesn't have under heavy guard in a hard to reach place is Sean." Danny broke in.
"Sean is at his Long Beach house under moderate guard. The house is reasonably secure but will be the easiest of all to access."
"Why would Sean be under the least guard?" Kat asked suspiciously. Sean was the most dangerous of the three people being held. Kat did not understand why he would be the least watched.
"The beach house is very secluded. The odds that Sean could ever escape and make back here from there are very slim. Especially since they will have disarmed him and he'd have no vehicle to use." Danny speculated.
"But Sean is still dangerous with only his fists as weapons." Kat argued back.
"He's restrained, just not under heavy guard." Danny said, sighing like he was frustrated with Kat and her questions. Danny was acting like the answers to Kat's questions should have been obvious.
"Father doesn't think you'll try anything Kat. He thinks you will do just as you've said, turn yourself over to him. He has no idea you ran with gangs or used firearms. He thinks you are still just a little girl." Ivan said.
"Yes, Sergei is very confident that you will surrender to him in exchange for your friend's safe return. He is not anticipating any trouble. He only has the boy under closer guard because he had to leave him at the L.A. house and it has more security as a rule then the beach house anyhow." Danny explained.
"So Sean is at the beach house and Jesse," Kat stressed the name Jesse in her sentence because she didn't like to hear him called 'the boy' like he was just another kid who didn't matter, "is at the L.A. house."
Danny nodded his head.
"Are we talking Beverly Hills here, where is the L.A. house?"
"Bel Air." Danny answered.
"And where is our mother?" Josef asked. He'd only found out that his mother was still alive and being kept, not where she was.
"She'll be the hardest to get to. She's in his downtown L.A. office building, 'The Dragon's Gate' in his penthouse suite. Since Sergei lives there more then in any of his other residences she's going to be the hardest one to get. He has the whole building very well guarded."
"In my opinion we could just walk in there and gun down everything that moves. The world would be a better place." Kat stated vehemently. Connor and Stacy seemed to agree.
"It would alert him to our presence and he'd kill your mom rather then let you have her back. It must be done with tact. We do have the jump on him in that he has no idea we're onto him or planning any of this." Danny tried to be confident. The scope of the rescue mission astounded him but he really felt it was for the best to try and get the three innocent people back now rather then ask the petite Kat to subject herself to what could be years of abuse while they finally got all the evidence they needed to bring down Sergei and his whole organization. Danny knew Bilkens said a few months but they'd told him a year when he'd taken the job and look how accurate that had been.
Kat looked up for the first time in hours and realized it was dark outside. She checked the clock on the VCR and realized it was 4 minutes till 9. "Shit, he's gonna call any second."
"You're not home! You have to be home for his call!" Danny looked almost panicked.
"I set the house to forward all calls to this phone. He'll never know any different and I'll still get the call."
As if by cosmic irony as soon as she made her statement the phone rang. Everyone looked at the ringing instrument in horror as Kat walked over to it. Picking it up she put it to her ear.
"Hello?"