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This was bad. Very bad.
Natalie knew Mac never paced. He never fidgeted or faltered. Mac was the boy who watched from the corner, the one who made solid, informed decisions.
Yet there he was, crossing the hotel floor again and again, refusing to make eye contact with the crew as they watched him in silence. He was too preoccupied to even notice that Siena was staying as far away from him as possible.
Unable to take the silence anymore Dmitri asked, "So he just let you walk away?"
"There's a catch," Natalie answered for Mac.
"Isn't there always?" Cake asked.
"So what is it, Nat?" Dmitri asked, leaning forward in his chair.
"He hasn't told me anything yet. Just said that there was a serious catch," she responded. All eyes turned back to Mac.
James spoke next, his eyes following Mac's intense strides, "What is it, Mac?"
The jittery boy stopped his pacing long enough to answer. "He wants us to pull a job for him."
"As in a heist?" Siena asked.
Mac simply nodded without looking at her and resumed his pacing.
"A job? Singular?" Dmitri brightened, "It could have been a lot worse, buddy." But after studying Mac's cast expression again he changed his tune, "It is a lot worse, isn't it?"
"Is it a hard target?" Natalie asked.
He only shook his head, muttering, "Its impossible."
"What does he want us to hit?" Dmitri pressed him.
Mac snapped, "We can't do it!"
"We don't know that if you won't tell us what it is," Siena said.
"No. Its impossible," Mac impressed upon them.
"So was the Louvre," Dmitri offered.
"And the Henley," Natalie added, "What ever it is Mac, we'll find a way. We have to."
Mac resumed his pacing, agitated. "You're not listening to me. We. Cannot. Pull. This. Job."
Siena slid from her stool and moved toward him and for the first time since the red haired boy entered the room she dropped the scowl from her face, her expression melted out of its cold shell. "Mac this is to keep you safe. I don't care if we have to steal the sky, we'll do it. I'll do it."
His eyes momentarily rose to meet hers and he looked as though he might reach for her but then turned away with a jerk.
James' stare locked onto that his oldest friend, "Mac, what's the target?"
The red haired boy met his gaze, terrified and tormented. "Hale industries," he sighed in defeat, "He wants us to rob Hale Industries. He wants information. Anything that will help him take it down."
"But- but we can't-" Dmitri stumbled over the words.
"Does he know our relation with Uncle Hale?" Siena demanded in a state of disbelief.
Mac nodded, "He knows. He knows about almost everyone in the family."
"Let me guess, if we don't cooperate Teller is going to the police," Dmitri growled.
"Something like that," Mac nodded.
"You said 'almost' everyone." Natalie rose to stand next to Siena.
"There seem to be gaps in his information. He knows about Aunt Kat and Uncle Hale and their old crew but he doesn't have any information on Charlie and Ro," Mac informed them, "He doesn't seem to be aware that Aunt Catherine and Uncle Hamish even have children."
"So they'll be safe? If he goes through with it all the children will be spared, right?" Siena looked to each of them with hope.
"Siena, they would be orphans," Dmitri responded, his voice small.
"Orphans," Siena breathed as she turned the heartbreaking word over in her mind.
"Ro and Charlie aren't the only ones," Mac continued, "He never mentioned Dmitri and as far as I could tell he had no evidence of him."
"But that doesn't make sense. How could he know about Siena and not her brother?" Natalie looked to the twins.
"There were no birth records," James explained, "Mac and I don't have them either. Technically we don't exist, at least in the eyes of the government."
"I can vouch for that," Cake input, "There isn't a trace of you on the web either. None that I've left standing anyway."
Natalie considered this, "Which means the only thing tying you all together for White was the evidence from the heists."
Realization washed over Dmitri, "My leg! I wasn't on the last heist because of the bite. That's got to be why he doesn't connect me to the crew."
"Is there anyone else? Anyone he might not have thought connected," James asked.
"There was no information on Uncle Link, but he even knew about Uncle Simon," Mac offered up with a grim shrug. It made sense that Uncle Link, Uncle Hamish's brother-in-law, wouldn't have been connected. He rarely left his home in Dublin and had made a point of separating himself from his extended family's criminal activities.
"And if we don't do this?" Natalie dared to ask.
Mac let himself drop back into his chair, "Then he exposes us all. Even you, Natalie. And Cake as well."
"If they find out I am connected to you- if the German government gets wind of this they will never let me leave this place. I w-will never leave this place." For once Natalie was glad that they could not see Cake on the screen. She didn't think she could have stood that. Cake's voice alone threatened to suffocate her heart.
"Yes. You will, Kai," James promised, "Damn it I swear you will get out of there. I'm not going to let Teller do this to you."
Dmitri sprang from his chair in a violent motion and then sat back down again when he remembered his leg prohibited any fast movement, "How do we know that he won't keep coming back?" he demanded, "That he won't threaten us in the same way he is now and make us do something worse next time?"
"I can't imagine much worse then robbing our own family, Dmitri," Siena said.
"I can," Mac paled.
"I don't care what he threatens us with we are not murdering people for this bastard," Jay growled. "But Dmitri raises a valid point, we have no guarantees that he won't call us back for another job, or simply hand the entire family over to the authorities after we do his bidding."
"What choice do we have?" Natalie countered. "Its not just us we would be sacrificing if we turned him down."
"But Nat," Siena's voice was low, almost a whisper, "This is Uncle Hale we're talking about. He was the man who cared for us when my mother was off conning Dukes and Lords." "He bought me my first stick of C4," Dmitri smiled at the memory, "Mom was so angry, kept shouting about how five year olds weren't supposed to handle explosives."
"So touching, and yet so messed up," Cake commented but none of them had it within them to laugh.
"It doesn't matter who he is. Not to Teller at least," James let his face fall into his hands, "We have no choice. We need to rob Hale Industries."
"But Jay," Siena's voice crackled.
"But what, Siena?" James snapped, "What do you want from me? Do you want me to come up with some spectacular trick to fix all this? Because I can't! There is no other way out. I have no way for us! I can't fix this one. I- I just can't fix this!"
The room fell to stunned silence. Never had Natalie seen James look so small. In that moment she could not pretend he was the man she knew, because right then he was nothing more then a child. And he knew it.
Natalie West wished more then anything that she could touch him then. As if one touch could let him understand that she would fix this. That she didn't see him as any less of a man because he could no longer hold up the sky while the world was falling to pieces. And if he couldn't could the hold the sky a moment longer, then she would.
"Then were doing this," Natalie spoke into the silence. "We have no choice. We're going to rob Hale Industries."
Thoughts? Things are starting to pick up and we are finally getting into the main conflict :D You can look forward to some Mac-Siena stuff next chapter. Until next time - George&Eckels