Chapter 71- Borrowed Fire Power
Once the door was closed behind them Vince turned to Nyssa in confusion. "What do you need to tell me?" He wasn't going to tell Nyssa or his team but he was terrified of what she had to say. The look on her face clearly told him it wasn't good news.
"I almost don't know where to start." Nyssa paced around the room, finger agitatedly tracing the scar on her abdomen. It was a constant reminder of what had happened and the results of those happenings.
"How 'bout at the beginning." Vince grabbed her by the shoulders gently to stop her pacing and looked down into her eyes earnestly. "Whatever it is it can't be as bad as all this baby. We've gotten through so much together there can't be very much we can't take care of together."
"Ok, well, Letty says I should tell you the reason why I was so able to believe that you and her would do what it was I thought you did."
"If you want to Nys. It's all in the past now and I don't need to know the details. I'm ok with leaving it in the past where it belongs."
"But there's a lot more to it then you know and Letty's right. Much as it'll hurt you do need to know." Nyssa broke free and sat on the end of the bed. Looking down at her hands not at Vince, she began to tell him a modified version of what she'd told Letty.
"So the reason why I jumped to conclusions so fast was because I was already so upset about not only losing the baby but the fact that I'd never even gotten around to telling you there was a baby and I was going to have to tell you she died before you even knew she was alive."
Vince looked like he was in shock and not sure what to say, believe or do about all that he had just learned.
"I was so mad at myself. It was all my fault. If I'd known, like I should have, that she was there, growing in me then I wouldn't have insisted on going in that car with Letty. I mean, you and Dom both told me not to, told me to stay with Mia but I just wouldn't listen. I had to have my way. And because of it I killed our daughter." Nyssa started to cry again, face in her hands.
Vince hit his knees in front of her and took her wrists in his hands to move her hands out of her face.
"You didn't even know you were gonna have her Nys. You couldn't have known. You didn't know what would happen."
"But I should have." She sobbed brokenly, still convinced she should have been aware of her daughter's presence in her womb.
"No, you couldn't have known. And you had to be there for us. You were right to force us to take you. If you hadn't been there then you wouldn't have been able to tell Dom to go right home so Mia would be in the house for Jesse. You wouldn't have been in the desert to make up the story about the trucker. You wouldn't have been able to get your uncle to clean up the cars. Who knows how many of us would be doing time in prison if it wasn't for you Nys?"
Nyssa looked up to meet Vince's blue eyes with her own bruised gaze. "But she still died because of it."
"Sometimes bad things happen for a good reason Nyssa. I'd think you'd be the first one to see that." When she nodded the fact she saw his words had merit he took her in his arms softly. "It's gonna be ok. Now that the truth is out it doesn't have to hurt so much." Vince didn't know where he was getting the nice things he was saying, only that he was glad they seemed to be the right things.
"You're not mad?"
"No I'm not mad. Upset but not mad. Never at you for this. I wish you'd told me right away what had happened but it can't be changed now baby. Let's get some rest."
Vince put the weary Nyssa to bed and followed her in. While she fell asleep rather quickly, her head pillowed on his shoulder, his thoughts kept him up quite a bit longer. He'd come so close to being a father! He wasn't sure how he felt about that. He had his own guilty feelings over being almost glad Nyssa hadn't had the child. He wasn't sure he was ready for that step at the point of his life he was at.
Hell, he wasn't sure Nyssa was either, though he knew she would have adapted to it easily enough. He comforted his conscience with the knowledge that he'd been right in what he'd told Nyssa. Sometimes bad things happened for a good reason. Perhaps this was just another one of those bad things that some higher power had affected in their lives for a good reason. None of them were mature enough to care properly for an infant. Hell, he and Dom had had a hard enough time taking proper care of Mia after her father's death and Mia had already been 14 or 15 years old at the time.
It was likely for the best and it wasn't like they couldn't have children when they were ready for them later. Vince finally fell asleep himself after straightening all that out in his mind.
xox
"You wanna go to bed since you're pretty much asleep as it is?" Leon asked Kat gruffly as he realized her eyes had drifted shut for the millionth time.
"I should." Kat yawned with a hand over her mouth. "I'm pretty tired."
"Yeah, let's go get some shut eye." Leon stood up taking Kat into his arms with him.
"Where you think you're gonna carry me?" Kat asked, still sleepy but slightly more awake after being swung up into the air.
"Bed of course." Leon started the way of the basement stairs. With a sigh Kat wrapped her arms around his neck and let him carry her. But at the top of the stairs she started to worry.
"Maybe I should go home."
"Why."
"Well…" Kat bit her bottom lip. She wasn't sure if she really wanted to share the why with him.
"What's wrong?" Leon knew it was serious from the scared look in Kat's eyes. "Come on. You can tell me." He cajoled gently.
"It's just that the last time I fell asleep in your room I woke up to you hating me. I don't really wanna go through that again. I don't think I can." She sniffled.
"That will never happen again. I swear to you. I think we need to talk about this more in private." Leon started down the stairs without giving Kat time to think up another protest. He set her on her feet in his room then helped her sit on the end of the bed. She looked around in trepidation, not looking forward to their chat.
"I'll be ok. We can just go to bed." Kat tried to hold off the talk. She figured it was going to be uncomfortable and she didn't want to deal with it. She wanted it to just go away. She was going to have a hard enough time sleeping with what was going to go down the next day on her mind.
"It's not ok." Leon sighed and ran a hand through his hair. He said beside Kat on the end of his bed so that he wouldn't have to see her face. "I've fucked up my fair share with you Kat, I know it. I haven't given you a lot of reasons to trust me I know. But I'm gonna start."
"It's ok." Kat started, intent on letting Leon off the hook so they could just go to bed and forget all about it.
"No it's not. It's just that I got so scared when that guy called I didn't know what I was doing. It's not an excuse I know but I never wanted to hurt you, I didn't know what I was saying."
"It's ok. Really." Kat looked up at Leon then, knowing he needed to know she honestly did forgive him. "I'm ok. I understand."
"You're what I need girl. I want you with me."
"I want you with me too. It's why I'm still here." Kat answered with a smile.
"I'm just so worried about Jesse." Leon pulled Kat into his arms and held her close as he thought about if Jesse was scared or hurt.
"We're gonna get him back. I promise you this. This time tomorrow he's gonna be home. First we'll get Sean and then Jesse. But Leon, I want you to promise me something."
"What?"
"Once we have Jesse safe I want you to take him home and stay home with him. I don't want you in danger when it's not your fight. Once we have your brother back you're out."
"No way! I'm not leaving you to go against this guy alone." Leon held Kat away from him so he could look into her face. "You'll need all the help you can get and I can handle myself."
"Leon, once we go to the 'Dragon's Gate' there won't be a place for much help. I'm thinking that Danny will be in the room already with Sergei and we'll try to find a way to get a few more people stationed around. It's not like the whole group of us can storm the building."
"Wait a second! When we get Jesse back he can help. He can work a computer like no one else. He might be able to rig security cameras and stuff like that. Then we would be able to get up to the penthouse in a group." Leon hit on a way he and Jesse could help when he really thought about it. The hid had been one of the premier hackers before he'd discovered cars and pretty much started only hacking as a side hobby. It still gave him a cheep thrill to hack into big corporation's networks just because he could.
"We'll see. It sounds like a good idea to have someone who knows computer systems around really but we don't know how shaken Jesse will be."
"He'll be ok when he knows he can help. Let's try to get some sleep."
"Ok."
Kat and Leon went to bed and found sleep fairly quickly considering all the things they had on their mind. Curled around each other in the center of Kat's bed exhaustion claimed them.
xox
"What's up with V and Nyssa?" Dom asked Letty wearily as he watched her brush out her shiny black hair.
"Nyssa told me why she ran away. Why she was willing to believe what she did." As soon as she said it she realized Dom didn't even know why Nyssa had ran away. Not totally. Letty hadn't wanted to tell him. She knew it would just bring their fight back up so she'd kept it to her self.
"Why?" Dom asked on a sigh as he sat on the edge of their bed in his shorts, watching Letty put her hair back in a pony tail for the night.
"Because the night she came home and then ran off was the night that…" Letty paused, not wanting to bring up the bad memories.
"The night that what Lett?"
"That you and I had fought and the night you threw me against the wall." Letty's tone and body language told clearly the fact that she hadn't wanted to dredge it up but was only doing it to tell the facts. She was very careful not to sound accusatory.
"Ok, but what's that have to do with V and Nyssa?"
"When you did that to me I ran to Vince, like I always ran to Vince when we fought. He was calming me down in his room to keep himself from going to find you and get into a fight with you over it when Nyssa got home."
"Ok." Dom was clearly still confused over what that had to do with Nyssa taking off on Vince.
"Vince and I were laying on his bed. I mean that. We were on top of the covers and still clothed. You know nothing would ever happen between me and V right?"
"Of course I know that Letty. It would never enter my head to think that of you. Not with anyone but least of all with Vince."
"Good. Well, it did enter Nyssa's head and she accused us of sleeping together."
"Why would she think that?" Dom started to get mildly mad at Nyssa for allowing herself to jump to such a ridiculous conclusion.
"Because she was coming home-"
"From her father's we know that." Dom cut Letty off, exasperated and wanting the real answers now. "She stayed an extra night."
"No she didn't. She was coming home from her father's on the right night when she got a bad pain and went to the hospital and got emitted for the night." Letty sighed, hating to hurt Dom like she knew she was about to. "Dom she was pregnant when she and I rolled the civic. She didn't know. Then she found out a week or so after and didn't know how to tell us so she didn't. Not even Vince. But on that night that she found me with Vince the reason why she was a night late coming home was because she'd started to lose the baby in the car on the way home and had to go to the hospital. She lost her baby there all alone because she didn't know how to call and tell us she was losing a baby she'd never told any of us she was even pregnant with."
"God Letty. How could she not tell us? We woulda been there for her." Letty got up and walked over to Dom, sitting down on his lap and wrapping her arms around him. She knew he was taking it personally because he felt that as the leader of their little family Nyssa should have known she could come to him even if she couldn't go to Vince.
"I know that Dom, she was just confused and scared. It wasn't anything personal against you or any of us. She was having a lot of guilt about the fact she hadn't known at the time she got in the car and she was blaming the fact that she was in that accident for why she miscarried."
"How could she have known so early? It wasn't her fault."
"She thinks she shoulda known because she knows things. You know how she is. I mean Leon told me the other day she knew all these things about Kat even though her and Kat only talked the once and not about any of that stuff. It's scary how she knows things but she didn't know that and she saw it as some failure on her part."
"I guess the important thing is she's home safe now and you and her made up I take it?"
"Of course we did. I couldn't stay mad at her after that."
"I never should have let her come along. I knew it was a bad idea. I didn't even want you involved."
Letty had been waiting for the self-recrimination to start and she wasn't disappointed.
"Hey, she wanted to come. You tried to stop her and so did V. She's an adult and she made a choice. She didn't know she was pregnant when she made it, no one did. She had her reasons to want to come and now that it's all said and done thank god you did let her come."
"How can you say that when she went through what she did?" Dom looked at Letty like she was saying it was a good thing Nyssa had lost her child.
"Because how you figure it woulda been better for her to have a baby who's daddy was in jail with his uncle Dom and uncle Brian and maybe uncle Leon too. Not to mention auntie Letty. And a dead uncle Jesse who died because no one thought to send Mia home to wait for him?"
"When you put it like that I guess I see where you're coming from. I guess it did happen for a reason." Dom kissed the top of Letty's head. "I don't know what I'd do without you girl. You keep it real." He leaned down to kiss her cheek. "I love you." He growled out, the words never coming easy for him, but coming more often now, after the disaster with the trucks when he realized how close he'd come to never telling her again.
"Love you too Pappi. Let's get some sleep."
Dom was awake listening to Letty snore for some time after she'd found her sleep. He knew she was right, and what had happened with Nyssa happened for a reason and ultimately for the greater good, but he still felt like he'd failed her. Just like he felt like he failed Letty because she'd gotten hurt, and Vince because he hadn't been able to get him off the truck in time and Jesse because he hadn't found him before the Trans had. It was a burden, it hurt, but he'd be ok. He'd carry it around within like he did all the other feelings of inadequacy, but he knew one thing.
He wouldn't fail Kat or Leon. They were getting Sean and Jesse back safe, and protecting Kat from her stepfather. No matter if she was officially part of his team or not, Leon cared about her and he wouldn't have the injuries of another woman on his hands. There was enough blood there already.
xox
Everyone slept late the next day. They all started to straggle into the kitchen of the Toretto house around 11 am. Nothing was said about what was to come. They knew they all had to start planning soon but they enjoyed breakfast together first. Kat and her picky eating habits added humour to the table.
After they were all done and Kat's offer to help Mia clean up had been refused, she figured she should go home and start to round up her friends. They would have to go to Connor's soon and start to figure out more specific plans then simply chasing after her friends in their respective homes and busting them out.
There was a definite catch there. How were they going to know where to go once in the houses to find their friends? They had no idea where Sergei would have ordered Sean and Jesse kept. Kat hoped between Josef and Ivan they could figure it out. Not to mention Danny Williams, if the federal agent was even still talking to them. Something about him rubbed Kat the wrong way and she knew it was based on more then just his abandonment of Nyssa. But it wasn't her place to like or hate him, she just had to use his help until the job was done.
"I guess I should go home. We got a few hours 'til dark and I should use them to try and find my brothers and try to draw out some plans of the houses. I don't want to go in blind if we can help it." Kat told Leon and Vince as they sat in the living room watching Letty play with the PS2.
"Ok, you call me when you head to Connor's and we'll all go ok?" Leon asked as he watched Kat stand up.
"A'ight. Sounds like a plan. I'll call you." Kat headed out the front door and over to her house. She walked in and found Stacey and Kale in the living room. "Hey guys."
"Mornin' Kitten. When we goin to Connor's?"
"Whenever. I just gotta call the guys across cause they wanna come too. You heard from by brothers?"
"They slept upstairs in Sean's room last night. Far as we know they're still in there."
"Ok, I'll check on them now." Kat answered and trudged up the stairs. She found her brothers sitting in Sean's room, talking in low tones, in Russian. Before they noticed her she heard that they were scared of what was coming, that they were worried that Sergei was too devious and smart for even all of them together to best. "Guys, you ready to head back down to Connor's?" Kat asked from the door.
"Whenever you are ready Kat." Ivan answered.
"It'll be soon. I want you and Josef to help Danny make floor plans of the houses and the office building if you can. I know the plans of 'Dragon's Gate' would be on public record but I don't trust them to be accurate and I don't trust Sergei not to find out someone was making inquires about his building."
"I'm familiar with both the Bel Air house and the office building but the Long beach house is beyond me." Josef admitted. "He rarely uses the Long Beach house so I've never had occasion to go there."
"Neither have I."
"All we can do is hope that Danny Williams has been there then. We need Sean back. Without Sean I don't know if I can finish the mission."
"Of course you can Kat." Ivan assured his sister as he stood up. "You've shown more courage these few days then half the men in Sergei's employ ever do. You'll do find."
"Thanks." Kat told her brother with a tight smile as she turned to leave Sean's room before the overwhelming amount of his stuff got her down. "Be ready to roll out in a half hour, ok?"
"Of course." Her brothers told her in unison and Kat went to get ready in her room. She put her leathers back on, knowing she was going to be doing her thing on her bike out of necessity tonight.
She used twenty of the thirty minutes she'd allowed her brothers to be ready to get herself ready. When she reached the front hall of the house she found her brothers and friends ready to go.
"I'll just call the Toretto's to let them know we're ready to head down and see if they want to come now or head down later."
"Ok." Kale motioned them to the living room since it was clear they weren't rolling out right away and everyone but Kat sat down to wait. Kat dialled the phone number for the house across the street. Letty answered.
"Hello?"
"Hey, Leon handy?" Kat asked, not really wanted to play nice with Letty, still not the Latin girl's biggest fan.
"Yeah." Letty answered in a similarly short fashion, not wanting to talk to Kat any longer then she had to. "Leon!" She called into the house.
"Yo."
"Phone."
"A'ight." Leon picked up an extention and said hello.
"Hey." Kat answered and couldn't keep the smile out of her voice. She knew she should still be holding how he'd treated her in the past against him but she couldn't. He was the best thing that had ever happened to her. Even the mean things he'd done had forced her to grow and change as a person.
"Everything ok?"
"Yeah, we're headed to Connor's. You guys comin, or following us down later."
"We're comin. Give us ten minutes to get ready."
"Ok. Holla when you're ready to roll, ok?"
"Yeah. That's cool." Leon answered. "Talk to you soon."
"Yeah, later." Kat hung up as Leon did the same. She turned to the rest of the group. "They'll be ready soon."
The sat around waiting on the call to come in and when it did the tension had them wound so tight that Kat jumped when the phone rang. She answered it, ascertained Leon and his crew were ready and then imparted that to her team. They headed out to the driveway.
They took two cars and Leon's team made the same choice. They sped to Connor's and parked. They walked in to find Danny was already there. Kat raised an eyebrow in question. She figured that she'd be tracking him down since he'd seemed so less then thrilled about helping them.
"I'm surprised to see you here." Kat said to Danny in a pleasant tone of voice, trying to avoid a fight.
"I have floor plans for the houses. We need to go over them then I need to get back. I'm to meet his plane at 4pm."
"You have actual plans to the houses?" Kat asked incredulously.
"Yeah, being part of the FBI has some advantages." Danny replied. He looked at his sister and Kat almost felt for him. Almost. Maybe she would when everything was over.
"Ok, so are you going to be with him while we get Sean and Jesse?"
"Yes. In case anything goes down he has to think that I'm still clean. You'll see me at the office. He seems to be letting me be there for the exchange."
"Ok, let's look at Long Beach first. I want to get Sean back as soon as we can." Kat looked at the plans. Danny brought the plans for that house to the front.
"As you can see we need to come up from the beach. There's often a guard or two outside the house, and the best plan security wise is to shoot to kill with silenced weapons. You need to have perfect aim though because one stray bullet or noise and the show is up."
"That's no problem." Connor broke in. "Our Kitten has perfect aim."
"Connor, I haven't shot these in over a year. Don't count on my aim."
"I guess you better head down to the old dump and do some practise while you wait for it to be time to head out to Long Beach then shouldn't you." Connor suggested and watched as Kat did as asked and Leon followed her.
He fell in step beside Kat as she walked down the street. The old dump was an affectionate term for an abandoned lot of junk down the street. They all went there to practise their marksmanship. "So…" Leon started.
"Yeah?" Kat looked up at him as they walked, knowing something was on his mind.
"Think you can teach me to handle one of those in an hour? Cause I figure that's about how long we got."
"What you wanna know how to use a gun for Leon? Stay ignorant of it. I wish I had."
"I might need to know to keep myself or Jesse or someone else from getting killed. I don't want that on my head." Leon looked dead serious and resigned about it. It was clear it was something he flet he had to do.
"I can show you how and if you have any natural skill at it you can pick it up in an hour but if it's something you're gonna have ot work at you'll never get it down enough to hit what you aim at in that kinda time." It wasn't the time to mislead him, she laid the facts bare and left it up to him to make his own mind up.
"So we can only try and see then?"
"Yeah, that's about the size of it. Plus my guns are high calibre, since your not use to the recoil it might knock you flat on your ass. Hell, it might knock me flat on my ass it's been so long. If I'd known you were coming with me to learn I'da grabbed something smaller to teach you with."
"Hey, if I can do it with these then I can do it with anything right?" Leon tried to smile.
"Yeah, pretty much." They reached the lot and Kat set up a few things to shoot at and took her gun out. It wasn't silenced because everyone knew what gunshots from the dump meant in their neighbourhood. No one would find it strange enough to call the cops.
She took aim at one of her targets. "Ok, the idea is to aim, obviously, then hold the gun steady, I'd recommend with both hands until you're comfortable with it, and then squeeze the trigger gently. Don't pull it!" Kat did as she was instructing Leon to do and popped off a round. The recoil did knock her back a few steps but she hit the can she'd been aiming at on the top of a rusted out car. She handed Leon her second weapon. "Now you try for the other can."
Leon took a hold of the weapon the way he'd watched Kat do it. He pointed it at the can and took a deep breath.
"What you wanna do is take that deep breath just like your instinct tells you, then let it half out, hold the rest and then at the steadiest point of holding your breath squeeze off the shot."
Leon took another breath, aimed again and did as she instructed. He hit the can. Then he narrowly missed hitting himself in the face from the recoil. "You weren't kidden about the kick."
"No, I wasn't. Pop off a few more. I don't wanna find out it was beginners luck." Kat said, wishing Leon wasn't a natural because she didn't want him using a gun at all. She'd hoped he'd be horrible at it and she could tell him to never mind and just stay behind Vince. They set up a few more targets and even though he missed his share Leon hit enough to be considered safe with the weapon. Kat sighed.
"I guess I pass huh?" Leon asked after seeing the upset look in her eyes.
"Yeah. I guess you do." Kat admitted and they headed back to the house. "But you can't use my gun. I'll get C to lend you one."
"I know you'd rather I didn't have one Kat, but I hope you can see this is something I have to do for myself, a decision I have to make for myself."
"I don't think you understand what you're getting into but I guess I can respect your right to make up your own mind."
"I'll be ok. Trust me."
"I'll try." Kat opened the front door of the house and walked to the living room. She looked at Connor and got his attention. "C."
"Yo, what up baby girl? You still got it?"
"Yeah, I still got it. Turns out so does Leon. Lend him one of Sean's Rugers."
"You sure on that?"
"Yeah, seems he's sure so, so am I." Kat sighed. With a shrug Connor retrieved the weapon and Kat showed Leon how to load it, cock it and use the safety. Then she looked at the floor plan and the aerial photos of the house that Danny had provided. "Ok, this is how this is gonna go down…"