Thank you for all your kind words on the last chapter! I have another one for you and i hope you enjoy!
Joe thought being taken to Mauve would actually involve actually getting to see the criminal who had been making his life so difficult. However the receptionist drove him to a parking lot near the docks and dragged him out. Two men had been waiting there. They'd roughly bundled Joe into the back of their car, told Miss Rose to expect payment soon and driven Joe across the city to a large penthouse.
He'd been walked, at gunpoint, through the empty penthouse, the place littered with works of art and statues. The two men had led him to a bedroom that looked like something from a five star hotel. The bed was enormous, the TV huge. However, Joe couldn't help but note that all of the art in the room was protectively sealed behind thick glass. Clearly his host didn't want him taking out his frustration on the decoration he had provided.
As he had been led into the room, Joe had noted two large bolts on the outside of the door. As he was left alone in the room, he heard them being slotted into place.
He looked down at his recently freed wrists, trying to work out what exactly he was meant to do. His every instinct screamed at him to try to get away. He knew he was in danger, knew that Mauve wasn't the sort of man he wanted anything to do with. But he also knew if he ran or acted out it would be the people he cared about who suffered.
Lying back on the bed, Joe forced himself to confront the new reality of his situation. He was likely never going to see the Hardys again.
Heavy tears began to roll down his cheeks at the thought.
He had really, really thought he might be able to be a part of their family. He had allowed himself to become open to the idea that he might get a chance at being loved and protected, at having people watch his back because they cared about him and not because he was some asset to them.
Before he could stop himself, his mind turned to the life he had felt like he was being drawn to. He'd graduate high school and be dragged to college on the heels of Frank. And then they'd join Fenton's detective agency, go around as partners. They'd specialise in solving the mysteries everyone else had discounted, the ones where they blamed the obvious suspect without bothering to look at evidence, the ones where the situation had been dismissed as utterly hopeless. He could imagine his parents being so unbelievably proud of him, knew they would have been beaming proudly at every baseball match, as they watched him collect his high school diploma or looked in the newspaper to see him and Frank had solved another case.
He'd never get to see that.
Joe only hoped that he had made them proud with his decision. He hoped they would understand.
He hoped they would move on, find a way to have him declared dead once more so no one questioned where they had disappeared off to. They'd get to live the good lives they deserved.
Joe imagined sitting in some warehouse somewhere, surrounded by stolen goods, reading about Frank solving some murder that had been dismissed as unsolvable by everyone else. He'd be so proud, over the moon for his brother.
Maybe Frank would have the pleasure of arresting him one day.
Joe let out a bitter laugh at the thought. It seemed like something out of a film, the sort of film he knew him and Frank would have loved to watch at the cinema. They'd have invited their friends too, gotten masses of popcorn and had to wrestle the buckets from Chet before he ate it all while Iola laughed and…
Iola.
Joe didn't want to think about her, think about all the dates he had wanted to take her on. They would have had fun. He would have been able to feel normal. He hated to think of how upset she was going to be. He only hoped she understood his decision.
He knew, to some extent, that the Hardys would get it. They would know the sort of man he was up against, know that sometimes there was no winning, there was just controlling the amount of damage a criminal was able to do.
Iola wasn't like that. She didn't have much experience with criminals. For all Joe knew, she would be furious with him for not fighting back. She might even think he was a coward for giving up as quickly as he did.
No, Joe told himself. Frank would make sure she knew the truth. He would ensure no one tried to claim that he hadn't done all he could to win the opportunity to spend the rest of his life as a Hardy.
The sound of the door opening startled Joe.
He sat up sharply, glowering at the newcome. It was one of the men who had brought him to the room in the first place. He had a set of clothes folded over his arm. Joe saw they were a suit jacket, a shirt and some smart trousers.
"Mauve wants to see you."
Joe looked down at what he was wearing. They were clothes Laura had brought him. He could remember the trip like it was just yesterday, of walking through displays with Laura telling him that he needed to find things to wear that felt natural to him. She'd questioned the jacket he had picked up, wondering if he had only selected it because it meant he would match with Frank. Joe had admitted that was the reason but that he wasn't wanting to match with his brother because he felt like he could find acceptance in looking like Frank, rather he wanted to match with his brother because then the world would know they were brothers.
"If I take these off, he's going to get rid of them, isn't he?" Joe managed, voice thin and small.
"I'm under orders to burn them," the man answered, simply.
Joe grimaced. He looked down at them.
"Can I keep the jacket?" Joe asked. "You can burn the rest. And I'll never ask to wear it. I just… Please, Mauve never needs to know."
He watched as the man considered his request. For a moment Joe thought he was going to get an answer. But then the man kept his lips pursed tightly shut as he crossed the room. He piled the clothes up on Joe's bed.
"I will be collecting you in ten minutes."
"And if I don't put them on?"
"I'll take you to Mauve dressed like that," the man replied.
The prospect made Joe's blood turn to ice. For that man to know Joe was being so openly defiant so early on… Joe was sure the Hardys would pay for it. After all, before Joe had met the Hardys, he probably would have dressed however Marsden had told him to, wouldn't have thought twice about obeying the order. Joe quickly changed. He mournfully folded up his t-shirt and jeans on the bed and then looked down at the jacket.
Frank had one. They matched. It was a sign to the world that they were brothers. Joe couldn't let Mauve take it from him. He scanned the room, looking for the best place to conceal it. Eventually his eyes fell onto the bed. He pressed down on the mattress, finding it was made with springs. Peeling back the covers, Joe checked again that there was a void between the springs. Then Joe grabbed the material and tore into it, seeing a cavity inside. He balled up the jacket and slotted it in, peeling back the bedcovers fully and tossing them on the floor. Flipping the mattress, he lined it up with the bedframe once more and pulled the covers into place. Soon the bed was perfectly made, looking just like it had before. Joe stepped back to drink in his handiwork.
The jacket was safe. He was still going to get to cling on to a small part of Joe Hardy.
As he had promised, the man came to collect Joe hat the end of his ten minutes. He approved of the young man, dressed in a suit with his hair smartly combed and gestured for him to follow him. If he noticed the absence of Joe's jacket on the bed, he made no remark on it.
Joe was led out of the penthouse, taken to a lift. He eyes the buttons as they descended, toying with the idea of waiting until the doors opened and then pressing every button there, throwing himself out of the doors at just the last second. He could run out onto the street, be lost in the city before the man had a chance to even get out of the lift. Joe knew New York. He could probably hide from Mauve for weeks.
But he knew he couldn't do it.
It would be his family who suffered. His parents. His brother. He guessed that was the only reason there wasn't a hand tightly holding onto him. They knew he wasn't going to run.
He wouldn't do that to his family.
The man led Joe out of the lobby of the high-rise building. There were people milling about, the receptionists talking on phones. No one paid them much attention. Only the doorman looked at them and that was simply to give them a smile.
Joe guessed the Hardys hadn't risked calling the police. There wasn't an alert out. His face wasn't on the news and in the papers and getting printed onto posters. It was for the best, he told himself.
There was a car waiting outside the building. Joe was steered toward it, the man opening one of the back doors. Joe expected to be roughly shoved in but the man held back, letting him climb in on his own accord. The teenager was a little surprised when the man didn't join him in the back but he tried not to show it.
Instead he turned to the man he had joined in the back of the car.
He couldn't keep the surprise off his face as he took in Regenbogen.
I hope you enjoyed that chapter! Please consider leaving a review!