A/N: Hey guys, so here's a new chapter for you. Sorry about the delay in updating, real life stuff got in the way. Anyway, I hope you all had a lovely Christmas and are going to have a great New Year. As always thanks for the reviews, both here and on Twitter. Apparently there was an issue with the reviews on the last chapter but I thank everyone for their feedback. Anyway, enough from me, hope you enjoy the chapter.
Santana had just put the phone down, and was sat watching the building across the street. She'd asked Brittany for help, so all she could do now was sit and wait for a reply.
But as the seconds turned into minutes, and the minutes turned into an hour, Santana began to panic. Had she made the right decision? Should she have just stormed that building, taking out anyone and everyone who got in her way? Should she have demanded to know where her daughter was, and bargain with lives to find her?
No, she'd done the right thing. She knew she had. If she'd have gone in all guns blazing, all hell could have broken loose, and she could lose Anna forever. Not to mention she'd have gotten into serious trouble with her boss.
No, as Santana sat and watched the building for any movement, she knew they were just making her sweat. She'd annoyed them, she'd downright pissed off the main people. They were just taking a little revenge, making her wait and worry.
Santana looked at her watch. Another ten minutes had passed. She began to wonder if maybe she should get out the car, go take a closer look at the building. She wasn't going to kill anyone or cause any damage, she just wanted to assess the place better.
Her ringing cellphone put a stop to those thoughts though. It wouldn't be long before the sun was coming up. It'd been one hell of a night, hell it'd been a crazy few days. But this was the call she'd been waiting for. This was her chance to finish this thing, once and for all.
She took a deep breath, counted to three. She had to act calm and composed even though all she wanted to do was kick some ass.
"Lopez." She answered.
There was a pause on the other end of the line. Total silence, it lasted five seconds. Santana counted. Somehow it felt longer though.
"My family or yours seems like a really strange choice of words, considering Anna is actually MY family. Don't you think?" came a female voice on the other end of the line.
Santana stiffened. This was Anna's birth mom, the woman who had left her in a closet as a helpless baby, just seven weeks old.
"Amanda, right?" Santana asked, making sure it was in fact who she thought it was.
"Ahh, she knows my name. Well done Santana." Anna's birth mom replied. "Oops, was I not supposed to know your name?" she asked, but then laughed out loud. She was toying with Santana and enjoying herself in the process.
"Where's Anna? Does Jeremy have her?" Santana asked, letting Amanda know she knew her husband's name too.
"Of course Jeremy doesn't have her, he has much more important things to do that to look after a little brat." Amanda spat.
Santana wondered if knowing both Anna's parents names had upset Amanda. She'd lashed out a little with her last comment and Santana thought that she might have a way in.
"Well, you can't be looking after her. You've never done it before. Do you even know how?" Santana asked, she was testing how much she could push this woman and trying to figure out what made her tick.
Santana heard a puff of breath on the other end of the line. Amanda wasn't liking what Santana had to say so far.
"You asked for this phone call, Miss Lopez! Don't make me end it prematurely." Amanda spat.
"You're right, Mrs Cole. I did ask for this phone call. And I know you're not such a bad mom really, I mean you DID sew Anna's name into the onesie she was wearing when I found her." Santana answered, trying to placate the woman a little.
There was a pause on the other end of the line again. Maybe Santana had touched a nerve, but maybe not a bad one this time. Maybe Amanda Cole had wanted to be a good mom after all but her circumstances and the life she led had prevented it. Santana began to wonder if she'd gotten this wrong. She had told herself that this wasn't about getting Anna back, but thinking along the lines of Amanda caring about the child, maybe she'd been wrong. Maybe the woman really did just want her daughter back and maybe she wanted to screw with Santana in the process from screwing up the last five years.
"Do you want the child to be returned to you or not?" Amanda asked then, pulling Santana out of her own mind.
"I do." Santana replied without any hesitation.
"You really love her, don't you?"
Santana wanted to say yes, that she loved the child with every fibre of her being and that there was nothing she wouldn't do for her. But she didn't want Amanda to realise the power she could have over her by using Anna against her, so she stayed quiet instead.
"I'll make you a deal." Amanda said then, filling the silence. "You can have Anna back, if we get back the twenty six members of The Family that your orginization has just taken from a building we had occupied in central New York."
"Wait, what? You took Anna so that you could trade her in?" Santana asked, completely surprised.
"Of course. We knew what the CIA were planning, we just couldn't warn our brothers and sisters in time for them to all get out. But we did have time to pick up a little person who was binge watching movies in the hotel room she'd been hid away in." Amanda replied, laughing slightly. "There's one more thing though Santana. Not only do we want our people back, I want my diary back that I believe is currently in your possession." Amanda added.
"Look, Amanda, I can give you the diary. But I can't make my bosses release twenty six people from a crime orginization who they've been targeting for years. You're asking me to do something that's impossible." Santana pleaded. There was no way her boss would release the members of The Family, no way at all.
"Then I guess you'd better say goodbye to Anna." Amanda said.
Santana heard shuffling around on the other end of the line, then something rip. She held her breath and waited.
"Mama?" came Anna's voice on the other end of the line. "Mama where are you? I wanna go home now!" Anna cried.
"Baby, it's okay. I'm gonna come and get you, okay? You trust mama right?" Santana asked, her heart pounding in her chest. So many emotions rushed through her body, she felt like she was going to explode.
"I trust you, Mama. Please come get me soon." Anna said, before she was pulled away from the phone. There was a pause again on the other end of the line before Amanda spoke again.
"Maybe I should keep her, teach her who she should and shouldn't trust." Amanda joked.
Santana felt her insides clench. She wanted to hurt this woman so badly. If only she'd have reached that building a little sooner five years ago. She could have killed this woman then and none of this would be happening!
"I'll do whatever you want me to do, but don't ask me to do the impossible and hold my daughter to ransom over it." Santana pleaded.
"You know, Santana, Anna is almost the perfect age for her to start training. The next time you saw her, she could be the one who wants to blow up your country"
"NO! Just tell me what to do. Anything I can do within my power, and I'll do it! She's just a child. She's innocent in all this!" Santana shouted.
"She was innocent five years ago too. I wanted to take her with me! I wanted to raise her and protect her! But I couldn't! They would have taken her from me and sold her! I didn't get to raise her and love her and protect her. Now, neither will you!" Amanda screamed before the phone went dead.
Santana felt her stomach churn. She was going to throw up, she knew it. Her body was wracked with sobs and her heart felt like it had been broken. She couldn't bear anything bad happening to Anna. She never wanted her to be inducted into The Family. She didn't want those terrorists film her baby girls mind with propoganda and hate for the country she lived in.
Santana opened the car door just in time as the threw up on the sidewalk. She couldn't let her baby go through that. She couldn't risk any harm coming to her. She had no more cards left to play, nowhere else to turn. She wiped her mouth and turned to the passenger seat and picked up the black tote bag. This was her only option. Amanda wanted Santana to return some members of The Family, along with the diary that had been in her possession since she picked it up in the locker at the Statue of Liberty. Santana couldn't return the twenty six members now at the blacksite, but she could return the ones from the building across the street.
Santana threw the tote over her shoulder and holstered the Glock at her hip. She sheathed the combat knife on her other hip and held a pair of Smith & Wesson .22 pistols, one in each hand. She didn't want to kill the people in the building, but she knew if she had to, she would and she had the fire power to do it. Santana strode, with a purpose, right across the street, the building she'd been surveilling for over twelve hours, directly in the cross hairs.
As she got to the door, she stopped. There was a man, sitting behind a desk, looking at several TV screens. Santana figured he was watching camera's all around the building, but that didn't matter. She'd made her decision now, she was going in and nothing was going to stop her.
Brittany was pacing inside the hotel room. She hadn't really wanted to stay here but she didn't know what else to do. She'd done as Santana had asked, even though she really hadn't wanted to, and contacted the woman who had hired her. Right from the beginning she had believed this woman to be Anna's birth mother, but she found out that wasn't true. The woman she'd been in contact with, who had hired her to find Anna, was just another member of The Family. A woman Anna's birth mom had trusted to get the job done.
Brittany had basically been the connection between Santana and Anna's birth mom and now all she could do was wait to hear from Santana. Maybe she would tell her what to do next. Maybe she'd ask for more help and Brittany wouldn't be left sitting around feeling helpless. But it had been almost two hours since she had made the phone call that connected Santana and Amanda and now all she could do was pace nervously and wait for any news.
Brittany glanced at the clock, it was almost 7am. She wanted something to do, she craved a purpose. Something, anything that would prevent her from feeling so isolated and out of the loop when the two people she cared most about were in danger. Her life was changing around her, she could feel it. But there was absolutely nothing she could do about it, nothing she could do to help Santana or Anna.
Brittany picked up the remote control and launched it at the wall. She was so frustrated. She couldn't have someone else she cared about disappear from her life, just like her sister had done eight years ago. She couldn't deal with anymore what if's, but's and maybe's. She needed to be proactive, she needed to do SOMETHING.
Brittany picked up her cellphone, and looked down at the screen. No missed calls, no messages waiting to be read. Just her home screen, with the time and date looking back up at her. She couldn't just sit here and wait anymore. She wasn't trained like Santana was, she didn't deal with national security or threats to her country. But she was a Private Investigator and she did know how to use a gun.
Brittany went to the closet, and reached up to the shelf at the top. She rummaged around until she felt the box at the back of the shelf, and pulled it down. She'd hidden this so that Anna wouldn't go near it, but she'd taken it just in case she'd needed it. Santana wouldn't be there to protect them if something went wrong, so she'd brought her own protection. Now, she hoped it would help her protect Anna and Santana.
Brittany was just about to unlock the box, when her cellphone vibrated against the table she'd just placed it on. When it didn't stop vibrating, Brittany knew it was a phone call and not a message. She ran the short distance across the room, and picked up the cell phone, answering without even checking the caller I.D
"Santana?" Brittany asked, hoping beyond hope that Santana had some good news for her.
"I need you to call your contact again." Santana's voice came over the other end of the line.
"Wait, what? Are you okay? What's happening? Have you found Anna?" Brittany felt herself fire off the questions before she even thought about them.
"I. Need. You. To. Call. Your. Contact. Again." Santana said, trying her best to keep the annoyed sarkiness from her voice and failing.
"Okay, I can do that. But San, please? Talk to me. I'm going out of my mind here. What's happening?" Brittany pleaded.
She heard Santana sigh on the other end of the line, she sounded tired and strung out. God only knew what she'd been going through the past two hours and Brittany wanted desperately to wrap her in her arms and tell her everything would be okay. But she didn't know that.
"I have to make a trade." Santana answered, her tiredness evident in her voice. "Amanda wants members of the family and her diary, which is in my possession, returned to her. I need to know where she wants to make the trade for my daughter."
"Santana, how do you have members of The Family to trade?" Brittany asked, not quite sure she wanted to know the answer.
Santana sighed. It had been a hell of a day and it was only 7am.
"I just took the building they were in, and I have Eight members of The Family in front of me. Granted one of them is dead, but that's more his fault than mine. So I have her diary and I have seven members of her precious Family. She wants to make a trade, I'm open to it." Santana answered.
"What do you mean you 'took the building'?" Brittany asked, but when no answer came, she decided that didn't matter right now. "Never mind, Santana I'll make the call and I'll get you a location, but I have one condition. And you have to agree to it." Brittany added.
"What is it Brittany?" Santana asked, clearly getting pissed off by this situation.
"I'm coming with you." Brittany replied, without even the slightest hesitation. She'd expected Santana to argue with her, to tell her there was no way that she'd allow the blonde to go with her into such a dangerous situation. But that didn't happen. There was no argument, no back and forth about who was right and what the right thing to do was.
"Okay." Santana simply answered. "Text me the address." she added, then hung up.
Brittany was surprised, Santana must be feeling all sorts of emotions and have so many different thoughts playing on her mind. She must be going through hell to not even fight her on this. But Brittany was glad. She didn't want to fight Santana, she wanted to fight alongside her to get Anna back, and to maybe, just maybe get Santana back too.