A/N

Hey guys! Sorry its been so long, but you guys know how life is! Just know that if for some reason we did abandon this fic, we would tell you guys. The show WILL go on, just slowly! If you are a reader of the other fics, know that they are probably on hold for a little while in the time we need to finally finish this one. Yes, the end is in sight. We know how it will end, and we hope it will be fulfilling and enjoyable for everyone, not just us. But we're not there yet! We've got a ways to go, probably, and who knows how long it will take. But damn, we are determined! Thank you so much if you're still sticking with us, and if you're a new reader, yo! I (Lorna's writer) can be contacted by email on my profile if anyone ever has a question or just wants to chat!

Atmospheric sort of song this time for the playlist!

LOW ROAR - Tonight, Tonight, Tonight

Anton came and took the tray without so much as a glance at her.

When lunch came around, it was a different guard, but dinner brought Anton and another note.

Under barn, back yard. Armetti call 2night. CU under your window 3am.

So close. The kids are just out there? She glanced towards the window, then back to the note. Not all of them, couldn't be. But she would work that out with Anton later. Now, Armetti... She needed to get her fingers in there, make sure things went the way they should. She could only hope they needed to bring her in front of a camera for proof.

Bring me a weapon.

They came for her about an hour after dinner. Two guards entered and shackled her, wrists to ankles, before leading her out of the room and down the hall toward the main staircase. Luciano was waiting at the base of it, leaning against the banister and looking up at her. "You look lovely, darling."

"I would pose, but, well," she spread her palms out and shrugged, looking at her shackles. "A little out of my range of motion. And you! Looking very healthy," she grinned, and carefully began picking down the stairs.

"It's amazing what a good cyanide cleansing will do for a man," he said dryly, watching her descend the stairs, still somehow graceful in shackles.

"Didn't knock you out of the business, surprisingly. Most men would have seen the shadow of their own mortality and fled." She came to a halt a few steps above him to maintain her height advantage, her head tilted at a sly angle. "Not you. Antony Luciano fears not his own mortality. Or anything, reportedly. That true?"

"I knew the burn of cyanide and lived," he says calmly, straightening and offering her his arm. "What of that says 'mortality' to you?"

A genuine smirk, one of real amusement, was startled onto her face, and she took his arm smoothly. "You're right, Mr. Luciano, that doesn't sound much like mortality to me. Myself, I saw the shadow of death and it put the fear of god in me for a while. But I'm made of slightly less stern stuff than you, it seems."

"It seems," he agreed, leading her down the left-hand hallway, away from the way she had entered. "We have a conference room set up. Would you like makeup to appear abused, or do you not think that necessary?"

She snorted. "I don't need to look beat up to be in danger. You could still kill me whenever you wanted." She looked at him sideways, a grim smile on her face. "Both he and I know this."

He inclined his head in acknowledgment. "Shame about his sister. Had he cooperated that whole situation could have gone far better."

Her jaw grit for a split second, the only reaction she would allow herself right now, and then her face took on the expression of resigned regret, and she shrugged delicately. "I know. I advised him to at the time. He was never the level-headed one, despite what he'd like his opponents to think."

He nodded just a little, pausing as a waiting guard opened the door and they stepped into a wood-paneled room with a decent-sized table that looked like it was used for meetings. It was pushed out of the way, however, in favor of a heavy-looking metal chair with cuffs on the arms and forward legs. "Care to sit?"

She sighed, standing there for a second and looking down at the chair with a tired sort of demeanor before she relented and sat, grey eyes finding Luciano again. "You drag this out for little ol' me, or do you habitually keep a shitty dentist's chair in your boardroom?"

"I find it comfortable during long meetings," he said mildly, as a guard stepped forward and began strapping her down. Another woman was setting up a webcam on the table, trained on Harrison.

"Mm," she hummed absently, watching the guard lock her wrists into place before kneeling to do the same to her legs. She didn't care for this much. Anton's warning was ringing clearly in her head again, but there wasn't much she could do about it at the moment without giving herself away. She had to hope that things would go her way, and she had to keep spinning thread to do it.

Luciano walked over to examine her as the last ankle was being strapped into place. "Should we call him live, or send a video?" he asked absently.

She wasn't sure for a split second which would be better; a live call had a strong opportunity to go wrong, depending on what Vincent let slip about how she'd been spending her time, and if he turned on her there and then (not that she thought he would, but it was worth considering) Luciano would not hesitate to kill her on the spot. "Video," she said, after a moment of this consideration. At least this way she could control what Vincent saw. "He'll trace you if we do a live call. He's under Moriarty's umbrella, remember? He has the tech." Not strictly true, as far as she knew, but Luciano didn't know that.

He nodded a little. "Very well, then. What would you have me doing?"

She shrugged. "Tell him you have me and that you will kill me like you killed Valerie if he doesn't show. Tell him you want to negotiate reparations and you want a piece of New York again, conditional upon my release. That way you don't look like you're trying to kill him, and he still shows."

He nodded in agreement, adjusting his jacket, and looked her over for a moment, before nodding slightly at the camerawoman. "Start filming. We'll do a few takes if we need to."

"You may hit me, if you need to, just try not to break anything," Lorna added as the woman leaned over to turn the camera on, and then she let her posture morph, fulfilling the old familiar process of shapeshifting into a tired and scared woman; her shoulders drooped, her face slackened, she let just the beginnings of tears gather in her eyes - and voila, the poise from earlier was gone, and left behind was a prisoner. A familiar mask to put back on.

Luciano glanced down at her, and smiled. "I doubt I will need to hit you, when you look like that. Let him leave it to his imagination." He glanced up, and nodded to the woman with the camera. The red light blinked on.

"Hello, Vincent. It's been a long time. An honor to be speaking with you again, and under such auspicious circumstances..."

It took four takes, all told, before Luciano was fully satisfied, and the video was transferred to his tech team for delivery. He watched as the camera and mic were packed up, contemplative. "It's odd, to go after him again after so long. And with you, of all people..." He glanced at Lorna, who - with her red, puffy eyes and flushed cheeks - looked as though she'd been crying for hours. It was impressive.

She shrugged, a tear dripping from her cheek to her collar. Her eyes were already drying, but the tears on her cheeks would take their time dripping slowly away until she was unshackled enough to wipe them. "I've made some unlikely allies in the odd adventure - slept in some strange beds. You and me, back in the same room, cooperating to take down the man who once ordered me to kill you? You might be surprised, but there are stranger things," she said, and thought of the way her past had dogged her for years. DeWitt, her own father, finding out Keira had worked for Luciano - the past had a funny way of jamming its foot in the door of her life.

This made sense.

Stranger things were having to be here on purpose, in order to save a man who had once tried to cut her throat.

That didn't make sense. But maybe that's what love for a violent killer just looks like. In any case, she had to do anything in her power to get back to Sebastian. There was no room for fucking up, not right now.

"Have you thought any more about the best place in your network for my talents?"

"The best place..." he sighed, nodding to one of his men, who walked forward and began unstrapping her. "I've been turning that over. I'm not sure yet. There's no doubt that you would be useful. What is in doubt is how far I can trust you."

A tension eased in her chest as her hands were freed, though it stalled uncertainly on its way out the door as Luciano finished speaking. Still, she stayed relaxed, wiping at her tear-tracked face. "That's a worthwhile concern. I did once attempt to kill you. But that was from the orders of my old, shitty boss. His personal vendetta, not mine. I have no stake in killing you anymore. Now, getting Armetti killed? That would free up America for me to work in again, finally ," she rolled her eyes, "free me from a frustratingly annoying ex, and fulfill an old need for revenge. The fact is, you don't have to trust me. Introduce me into the network as little or as much as you like, as slowly or as quickly as you like. You can trust that a paycheck and a moratorium on fucking with me or my life will buy my loyalty." She stood, crossing her arms smoothly over her chest, her posture effortlessly uncaring and casual. "I'm simple. I serve your interests until you give me a reason not to." Lorna looked Antony square in the eye, letting that gleam she'd half-learned from Sebastian shine through - that spark, that sheen that said she knew she could kill him, be actively visible for a moment. "Armetti gave me several reasons. He's paying for it."

The look faded away, and she shrugged again. "Simple terms."

Luciano marked the look, but didn't react to it. He nodded as she relaxed. "That seems reasonable. But also easy to say." He walked to the door, and paused, not looking at her, just considering. "I believe you, for now. But I'll tell you the same thing. If you give me a reason, it won't go well for you. I don't need several. One will do." And he walked out the door and disappeared down the hall. The guards took Lorna's arms again, and after a moment, led her out and toward the elevator.

It was better than outright killing her, so she would take it. Stay on her guard in case he was lying, of course, but if she was lucky, Anton would know if Luciano was telling the truth. Really, it only mattered until Anton could get her a weapon. The Don couldn't kill her if he was dead - and she knew now that at least some of the kids were close. She would need to double-check, but she doubted Luciano had biometric files. She could check after he was dead. Hopefully.

The guards led her back to her rooms, shoving her through the door roughly and slamming it shut behind her. There was a tray of food waiting on the bed, the napkin folded cautiously. She beelined for the tray, picking up a roll of bread (she had to admit it was probably the best imprisonment food she'd ever been given) and flicking open the napkin. There were no words, but a drawing of her window. It was large, with a nice view, but a grid of bars was anchored into the concrete around it. The drawing pointed- not to the window- but to the chest beneath it. The left-hand side, to be precise.

Lorna's head swiveled to zero in on the old, likely-oak chest beneath the window. Absently taking another bite of bread, she walked over, scanning the piece of furniture as she approached. In front of it, she crouched. Took another bite of bread. Then another. Finished the roll. She brushed her hands off on her slacks and then leaned forward, running her hands over the left side of the chest. Her fingers caught on the back vertical edge. A divot. She paused, wiggled her finger into the divot. Not a divot. A button. She pressed it, and with a mechanical-sounding click... Nothing happened. Well, obviously something had happened. Her eyes flicked up from the body of the chest to the lid. What...? No. She leaned back and opened the lid.

She did not find what she had been expecting and dreading to find, which was some kind of weapon having been left in the chest for her to find and then use to fight her way out of the compound. That would have been insane. What was somehow more insane was the way the bottom of the chest had an open hatch in it. Why this was here, she couldn't be sure. Her best guess was a sneaky way into a room that was designed to keep a prisoner mostly at ease. She'd tried the chest earlier - it had been locked. Whatever it was, it was creepy. Still, it was a way out. Maybe even a way back in.

She stood and stepped over the edge of the chest. Time to get shit done.

The hatch dropped down into a small chamber, just big enough to crouch in. One wall was open, and beyond that was nothing but night air. A note was taped to the wall, and fluttered in the breeze.

We have a gap in the guard detail at 3am. I'll be here with a ladder.

Lorna was grateful for her ability to fit in small spaces, because this would have been a tight squeeze if she'd been goon-sized. She left the note where it was - no need to bring it up to be easily findable in the trash - and climbed back up, where she shut the chest and pushed the button again, to another heavy mechanical click. Then she walked to her bed and sat, and set the alarm for 2:45 am on her watch, and then laid down to try and get some rest. She would probably need it.

Anton eased the ladder against the wall of the house. It was dark, the stretch settled comfortably in the gap between two motion-sensor lights. The house was covered with ivy here, and he was grateful for it, because it muffled the sound of wood against stone. He didn't dare an aluminum ladder, though that was far sturdier. There was no hiding that noise, and guards could only be paid to ignore so much.

As far as they knew, he was doing what many guards often did, when it came to that tiny entrance- Going to steal a good time with whoever was imprisoned there. Luciano knew of the practice, of course, but he looked the other way. If anyone escaped from the room, the rest of the guards would immediately know who was at fault, and report him. But a few hours of the cameras off to allow for a conjugal visit... That was acceptable. He had to trust his man in the security booth, or this would go very badly, but there was nothing for that. He climbed up the ladder slowly, pushing aside the ivy over the access tunnel, and waited.

Lorna started awake at 2:45 to the insistent, annoying chirping of her wristwatch, and she shut it off with her eyes wide open in the dark, though she wished she were in a situation where she could get a decent night's sleep. She got up and moved over to the chest, not turning on any lights - no need to draw attention - and clicked the button on the chest. She heard it unlock, then opened it and climbed in and down.

She almost yelped in surprise when she saw Anton's hulking form in the dark, but managed to just exhale a little louder through her nose than usual instead. "Hi," she said quietly, carefully wedging herself in beside him. "Glad to see you haven't sold me out yet. I like that."

He smiled just a little. "It's just 'cause you're pretty. Don't get too cocky." He worked his way out onto the ladder and started down.

She followed behind him with a light chuckle, though her body was tense, her stomach uneasy. She didn't know what unfortunate surprises awaited them in the darkness.

They reached the bottom of the ladder, and he pulled it away from the house, walking it down slowly to tuck it between the shrubs and the foundation. There was a sliver of a moon, just enough to see dim shapes by, and he motioned for her to follow him away from the house and toward an orchard.

She followed with her heart in her throat, calling on as many things Sebastian had taught her about how to keep silent as she could remember. She hoped that they didn't have to go far, just on the basis of the probability of being found.

They slipped through the orchard, masked by the swaying shadows of the trees. The smell of damp earth sprang up from the soft ground that shrouded their footsteps. It was another five minutes before they turned out of the orchard, crossing a field and heading toward a dilapidated barn.

Lorna tromped through the field, squinting through the darkness at the barn. "They leave the kids unguarded?" She asked, mostly to herself, though loud enough Anton could hear.

Anton glanced back at her, and shook his head just slightly. "No kids," he said, barely louder than a breath. "Information."

"Oh," she breathed, and rolled her eyes at herself. That made more sense. So computers, or files. Whatever it was, the security was low-tech, if Anton was risking bringing her. There would have to be something worth finding.

They slipped into the barn. It was dilapidated, clearly old, but still in use. Bales of hay were stacked in the loft, and the lower portion was full of equipment for tending the orchards. Anton walked over to a corner and opened a door, revealing a rustic bathroom with a hole-in-a-board style toilet. Anton stepped in, and motioned for her to follow. When she did, he closed the door, and then motioned to the toilet. "Down you go."

She grimaced. "Before I stick my hand in this toilet, please clarify that that is what you want me to do here. I really don't want to see this day out having put my hand in a toilet I didn't need to put my hand in, you know?"

"Hand? No," he said with a quiet chuckle, nodding to the black space the hole led to. "Climb down." He lifted the wooden toilet seat.

"Oh, Christ," she muttered under her breath, not without some sting. But still, she didn't hesitate, maneuvering carefully down into the hole on the trust that Anton wouldn't play such a cruel trick on her when there was so much at stake.

When she dropped through, she landed- not on a pile of sewage, but on a dry floor. It was pitch black.

Anton's voice came down from above. "Move over," he warned, and dropped through a moment later. There was a scuffling sound as he felt along the wall, then a soft click. A crack of dim light appeared, and he pushed on the right-hand wall. It was dirt, same as the rest, but swung back to reveal a cement tunnel lit with overhead LED runner lights. He motioned to Lorna. "Go on."

"Does Luciano have another entrance from the house, or is the silver fox really nimble enough to do all that?" She snorted, heading down into the cement tunnel, brushing a little rust off her hands.

"Nimble enough," Anton nodded. "He refuses to have an entrance from the house. Too likely that someone could stumble on it." He nodded to the hallway. "And no security down here, either. Anything goes wrong, he can claim he never knew it was here. Nothing programmed to recognize him, nothing recording anyone. The computer password's a bugger, but that's all it is."

"God, this feels like a job somebody else could have done just as well," she sighed, silently cursing Mycroft for his schemes. "Alright - any idea what the password is, by any chance, or am I going to have to just take the computer with me when I go?"

"Good luck with that," Anton sighed, pushing open the door.

The room beyond was jarringly immaculate after their walk down the dirt hall. The LED running lights continued, and lit a white tile floor and clean white walls. It was cold, air-conditioning clearly blasting to ward off the humid Italian warmth. It resembled some sort of control room, at first. Inelegant, boxy work stations with switches, buttons, and ports sat in front of glass displays housing spinning disks.

There was a boot cover dispenser at the door, and Anton stepped into it, and then out, the booties covering up the dirt on his shoes as he walked into the room. "Put covers on. Your tracks will be noticed, otherwise."

"Well, fuck," she muttered, and followed Anton's footsteps into the bootie dispenser. She hadn't been expecting Luciano to have fucking computer banks hidden in the damn barn. One computer, sure. But this? Where did he even get his hands on one of these? Suddenly, she wondered if she was on a much worse timer than she had even feared. She didn't want to be here when Armetti arrived - that was a recipe for disaster. He wouldn't know the cover she had built here, and a wrong word could mean a bullet in the back of her head from one of Luciano's men.

She followed Anton into the room, becoming aware of the ambient noises of the giant computer around them. "Where's he getting all this power from?" she asked, looking around with a frown, "I would have thought somebody would have guessed what was in here, with the amount of electricity this must use. Does he have a generator in here, somewhere below us?"

"Geothermal," he said, nodding to the floor. "Completely self-sufficient, and helps keep the ground cool." He walked over to one of the walls. There was a long set of shelves running the whole length, stacked with small, identical cardboard boxes. He walked along the rows, counting quietly to himself until he paused about two-thirds of the way down, and began counting down from the top, searching for a specific box.

She stood a few feet away, hands on her hips as she looked around the room. This sucked. It was nothing she hadn't gotten into before - she had a long history of these sort of shit missions by now - but it sucked anyway. She missed Sebastian. She worried about him. And she desperately, desperately hoped he wouldn't die while she was trying to get him the liver he needed. Fucking cancer. Fucking chemo. If anyone's liver should have failed, it should have been hers. She was the alcoholic - she was the one who had done the most damage to it. Hell, she should have ended up with the lung cancer, too - Sebastian rarely smoked, while she had been near to a chain-smoker when she'd slept with him the first time. She lifted a hand from her hip to rub her eyes, and sighed through her nose. Some messes were unforeseeable. She needed to deal with it anyway.

Anton picked out and then walked over with a box, setting it on a nearby table, and pulling the lid off. Inside was a stack of cards, laying on its side. "Here we are... I'm pretty sure this is the right one. I've watched him get it a few times."

Lorna looked into the card box with a blank expression, then at Anton. "Anton, I'm a child of the nineties. I have almost no idea what to do with this."

He sighed. "Brat," he mumbled. "They're punch cards." He walked over to a machine to the right of the main console, with an input rack for the cards. He picked up the deck, and settled it into place, but then frowned. "Shit," he muttered.

Her eyebrows lifted, and she walked over to stand at his shoulder. "Shit? What shit?" She asked, tone concerned.

"See these?" he asked, indicating the card. It had dozens of columns on it, each with square holes punched out at varying levels. His broad finger was indicating the far right of the card. "After the gap. Sequence numbers. It starts at four."

"Sure?" she said, frowning at the card. "My main concern is whether or not it works, Anton. Does it or doesn't it?"

"This-" he sighed. "Lorna, this is the fourth card. This whole thing- this stack?- is a passcode. Thousands of digits. And- unless the sequence is labeled incorrectly to be distracting- it's missing the first three cards. If we try it and it's wrong, I'd bet anything Luciano will know."

"Mother-" she growled, turning half away and then back again, agitated. "He's got to have the cards somewhere else. With him, maybe. Fuck."

Anton took a slow breath, considering. "Alright. We put the cards back. Put the box back. Go back to your room. I see if I can learn anything on my end, you try your best to get something out of Luciano. Alright?"

She rubbed the back of her neck and sighed, nodding. "Alright. Any idea if Luciano is still planning on having me offed? That would move the timeline up considerably."

He shook his head. "No. I don't know. But I can do my best to find out. It won't be until he's certain he doesn't need you alive to control Armetti."

"Dammit," she sighed. "I would like to be out of here before Armetti shows. He doesn't know what I'm here for, nor does he know my cover- that I've been with him this whole time. He could tip Luciano off to my ulterior motives, and that... would be bad."

A/N

Thanks for reading! We'll do our best to get the next chapter out as soon as possible, but please forgive us when life inevitably kicks our asses anyway! Hope things are still interesting!