Word Count: 1,507/27,373
Chapter 15
An hour later, Brian was making his way into the FBI building. He kept his gaze straight ahead as he headed towards Penning's office, ignoring the stares and whispers from the other agents in the building. Word about him and Dom must have spread. He'd bet Stasiak was behind that.
Still, he didn't care. He and Dom were cool. That was all he had ever needed.
He sat in Penning's office with Penning standing over him while Stasiak and Sophie were behind him. Perhaps if he hadn't just done practically the same thing with Dom an hour ago, he'd find it a little more intimidating.
As it was, he just found it amusing. Penning knew the sorts of ops he had worked undercover. Compared to some of the scumbags he had faced down, Penning was nothing.
"You better have one hell of an explanation. You disobeyed a direct order," Penning said.
Brian remained silent and looked up his boss.
"Where's the shipment?"
"It's safe."
"It's safe," Penning repeated with a scoff.
"Look," Brian said. "We could use the shipment to parade in front of the media, get a few hundred pounds of heroin off the street, but Braga's just going to send another shipment next week and the week after that. Let's use the shipment to lure Braga out and lop the head off a multi-billion dollar cartel."
"And how do you suggest we do that?" Penning asked, moving back to sit on the corner of his desk.
Brian stared at him for a few moments. He really hoped that he had been reading Penning correctly over the last couple of months. "A hand to hand exchange with Braga."
"He'll never show."
"He can't afford not to," Brian corrected. "Toretto and I made him look like a fool. Word of this leaks and he starts losing respect. He loses respect, eventually he loses control. The fact that we escaped alive means that we can tell the other racers; warn them that he kills the drivers after the run. They might not believe us, but they will start paying attention to who runs and who doesn't come back. They will wise up eventually and he'll lose his mules. He'll show, just for the chance to kill us himself."
Penning looked at him with narrowed eyes, considering that. "You have a plan?"
Brian gazed back, levelly, making sure Penning realized how serious he was. "There's a price," he said.
Penning raised an eyebrow.
"We bag Braga, you let Toretto walk." He heard Stasiak scoff in the background, but ignored him, keeping his eyes on Penning's.
"Why?"
Brian glanced away and stared at the wall, allowing a little bit of his pain to show through on his face. "That's what Letty wanted," he said. "We wouldn't be this close if it weren't for the information she gave us. We wouldn't know about the connection between Braga and Verone. Letty and I have gotten closer in the last month than this task force did in the two years before we got read in. She risked her life to clear Toretto's record. We owe it to her."
Stasiak scoffed again, but a look back at Penning showed that he was seriously considering it. Brian decided to push a little further.
"There's no evidence from the hijacking case five years ago. Even if there was, it would be considered compromised since I flipped. No one ever came forward to testify. All you have is hearsay and circumstantial evidence. Nothing that will hold up in the hands of a halfway decent lawyer. The only people who got hurt were his own crew. The drugs Braga is sending in are killing hundreds every week. Who's the more dangerous criminal?"
Penning stared at him for a moment longer. Finally, he nodded. "Fine. We get Braga and we drop the charges on Toretto. But he better stay out of trouble, because the next time he sets one foot out of line, I will come down on him for everything I possibly can."
Brian gave a mental sigh of relief, but was careful not to let it show. If Penning knew how badly he wanted this, he wouldn't give in that easily. "I'll tell him."
"When do you plan on setting this up?"
"I'm hoping tonight. I want this over with. Soon as we're done, I'll head out. Let him know. He can call Yashar. Hopefully she's with Campos and they can set up the meet right then. If not, it'll be tomorrow. Either way, I'll call you with a location. Set up SWAT, remove the product. When Braga shows, we'll make sure it's him and give the signal. SWAT comes in, takes Braga down and Toretto walks."
"And what about you? Do you come back without this split loyalty? Or do you keep hanging on to the past?"
Brian remained silent, unable to answer that to Penning's satisfaction.
Penning studied him again and apparently saw what he was expecting to see. The hell if Brian knew what that was. "I see," he said. "All right, O'Conner. This is your show. But if this gets screwed up, it's your ass on the line."
"It always has been," he said.
"I suppose it has. Go. Head back to wherever you stashed Toretto and get the meet set up. As soon as you have a time and place, you call me."
"I will."
"You better. I took a huge risk reading you into this op in the first place. Don't make me regret it."
Brian knew he couldn't promise that, so he said nothing as he stood and left the office, heading back out to his car. "I think he knows," he muttered as he drove away.
"That you're in love with Dom?"
"That I'll choose Dom if I have to."
"And he's still letting you do this?"
"Penning's a good guy. And he's willing to bend the rules a little if he has to. He'll do what he can to keep Dom out of prison, even if this goes shitty."
"You sure about that?"
"Pretty sure, yeah."
"Huh," Letty said.
Brian arrived at the garage Dom was hiding out at and found the other man tuning up the STI they had boosted from the impound lot last night.
"They go for it?" Dom asked, not looking at him.
"They did. You're up."
Dom took a deep breath and straightened up, moving off to the side, pulling out his phone. Brian sat down next to the STI and began idly tinkering. He wasn't entirely paying attention to the car- most of his focus on Dom- but that didn't matter. He had spent too much time working on cars to need to give all of his attention to a simple tune-up like this.
"It's Dom." He was silent for a moment before scoffing slightly. "What circumstances? Me being alive?" he said in response to whatever Yashar said.
Brian raised an eyebrow and sent a questioning glance in Dom's direction.
Dom just shook his head. "I got some business of my own. Get Campos."
Brian held his breath, hoping that Campos was there. He really wanted this over and done with. He wanted to be done with the lies and the secrets. He wanted Letty to come home. He wanted this family to be complete again. As complete as it could be without Jesse.
"Was that how Braga inspires loyalty? Killing his drivers?" Dom paused while Campos answered. "I want to trade."
Brian wished Dom would put the damn thing on speaker. He wanted to know what was being said. It wasn't that he didn't trust Dom. He just didn't trust Campos.
"Fine," Dom said with a scoff. "You explain to him how all of a sudden sixty million worth of product disappears. I know that can't be good for business."
There was another tense silence before Dom's shoulders relaxed slightly. "Six million cash, delivered by Braga himself." Dom's grip tightened on the phone. "I don't like being shot at."
Brian growled under his breath. He didn't like Dom being shot at, either.
"I ain't gonna put my neck on the line again unless he's got something to lose, too." There was another silence and Brian could tell that Dom didn't like whatever the answer was. "Either I deal with Braga, or you do."
There was one last tense silence before Dom relaxed completely and began telling Campos the time and place they had agreed on. It was a parking garage on the outskirts of LA in a slightly rundown neighborhood. There were plenty of places for SWAT to hide unnoticed, but there were also plenty of options for Dom, in case he needed to run.
While he was doing that, Brian pulled out his own phone and moved to the other side of the garage to call Penning. Dom finished his conversation first and was working on the car when Brian returned.
"You really think this will work?" Dom asked as Brian joined him.
"Guess we'll find out," he said, looking at Dom.
