Author's Note: Okay guys. I've been working at a good pace. I'm really hoping to finish this fast because I have some other ideas percolating. Probably 2-3 more chapters to resolve this I think. Unless some scenes run away from me. As always, reviews and such are appreciated! Thanks!
Somewhere in the US
"Letty?"
Ramsey's voice pulled her out of her reverie, where she sat in Mr. Nobody's base. The man had sent one of his underlings to retrieve them from the garage, something about a job and helping them out. She could only imagine that he knew about Dom. The man seemed to know a lot. Maybe he could tell them what was going on.
They were waiting now for him to arrive, Tej checking out the new computer system with one of the techies while Roman pestered everyone he could about snacks.
Letty had been going over the last few days in her head, trying to pinpoint anything off about Dom's behavior, trying to figure out when he'd made all those phone calls. It was doing little more than making her crazy and she was longing for something, anything to do. Some sort of action to take.
Still, she was half afraid that Ramsey was going to ask if she was okay, or try to talk about it and Letty didn't want to. Usually when things got to her, she talked to Dom. He was always her rock, and the only one she let in close. Failing that she could usually talk to Mia, but right now neither was an option, which meant Letty was keeping her own counsel.
Luckily, Ramsey didn't say anything, just crossed towards her slowly.
"You know, I've been thinking," the other woman said after a moment.
"What about?"
"I think I should learn… how to fight," Ramsey tucked her hands into her pockets, shifting on her feet. "Would you teach me?"
Letty goggled at her for a moment, speechless. "You want me to what?"
"Teach me how to fight. How to defend myself. I can't keep depending on everyone else. You guys won't always be around." She shifted on her feet. "I need to be able to protect myself."
"Okay…" Letty agreed. "But why me? Can't Tej teach you?"
"No I need it to be you. It's different when women fight we… can't rely on being stronger or bigger. I'm not going to be able to pull out some martial arts or something. I need to know how to fight… dirty."
Letty chuckled briefly, amusement in her dark eyes as she flicked them over the other woman. "Well… I guess I can do that." She turned to look across the space. There was a long conference style table and countless computers and monitoring equipment. Nowhere for them to practice.
"Come on," she said, tilting her head. Ramsey followed and the two women moved through one of the doors into the large garage where they'd left their cars earlier. There was still a large open space in the center of the area that would suffice, even though it wasn't really ideal. They could have done with a training or workout room where the floor would have mats to break their fall.
"Okay," Letty said, studying the other woman for a moment. "First rule about fighting dirty is that you need to go for the most vulnerable parts, the soft bits. Eyes, nose. Use your fingernails, car or house keys will work. Anything handy."
Ramsey nodded. "Okay. Gross but… eyes makes sense. What about a kick between the legs. That works right?"
Letty laughed. "Sometimes. Depends how much adrenaline they've got going through them. Or on your shoes."
"Left my steel toes at home."
Smirking, Letty folded her arms over her chest. "If you have a knife or something like that, aim for the inside of the thigh. Femoral artery. Deep enough cut and they'll be down. For good."
"You mean it will kill someone," Ramsey replied, shifting warily.
"If your aim is good, yeah." Letty nodded. "Let's start with some basics though. A lot of times your opponent is going to be bigger than you. You can use that against them. Momentum is your friend."
She cast her eyes around the area. It would be a lot better to have someone to demonstrate on.
"Hey you," she spotted an armed guard standing across the garage near one of the doors. He stood up a little straighter, then motioned to himself questioningly. "Yeah. Come over here."
The man strode towards them, face schooled and professional. "Can I help you ladies?"
"I'm trying to show her how to take down a bigger opponent. Would you mind helping me demonstrate?"
He gave her a once-over, and Letty knew that look. It was the look that meant she was being underestimated as usual. She fought not to roll her eyes, just stared stonily at him until he agreed, shrugging off his weapon.
"Should I lose the body armor?" he asked.
"No, it will probably make it hurt less when you hit the floor," Letty told him.
"Hey, I'll have you know I have extensive hand-to-hand combat tra-" but anything else he would have said was cut off as Letty grabbed him by the front of his armor, turning her shoulder into his chest and flipping him over to land on his back on the floor.
Winded, he blinked up at her in shock as Ramsey clapped, looking amused.
"It would have been even more effective if he was coming at you," Letty told the other woman. "He would have been moving fast and flipped harder."
"Ouch," the guy on the floor said. "I'm glad I wasn't."
"Oh come on, where's that training?" Letty teased. "Get up so she can try."
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"So," Mr. Nobody broke the tense silence that had fallen over the group. "This is nice, isn't it? A little group gathering?"
"Nice isn't the term I'd use, exactly," Tej muttered. He was watching Deckard Shaw with something akin to distrust from across the room. The man had taken up residence in one corner shortly after Nobody had arrived with both him and Hobbs.
"I still don't understand why he's here," Letty added, narrowing her eyes. "He killed Han. He tried to kill us. Why isn't he in prison?"
Shaw scoffed, turning his gaze on her. "That's rich coming from you, isn't it? Shouldn't everyone in this room be locked up?"
Letty clenched her jaw, biting back a retort. As far as she'd known the only people she'd put under were criminals themselves, but when she'd been running with Owen there'd been a lot of collateral damage with that tank. Could she really say she had no part of that?
"Mr. Shaw is here to help us out with a mutual problem," Nobody explained, coming to stand in the center of the room. He hit a button on a remote, and the image of a woman appeared on the screen, blonde, tall, pretty. Everyone was silent, waiting for him to explain what this had to do with them. "Her name is Cipher, and she is a legendarily skilled cyber criminal."
"That's impossible," Ramsey put in. "Cipher is a group… not a single person."
"That's where you're wrong, I'm afraid," Mr. Nobody told her. "She's the one who runs the show. This woman is Cipher."
"And she's the one who hired my baby brother to do her dirty work," Shaw said with a low growl.
Letty sat up a little, surprised. "Really?" Her head tilted slightly. "So… we must be on her radar."
"Not just that," Nobody said. "But the new man on her team? None other than Dominic Toretto."
Everyone fell silent, digesting the information. Somehow, this woman was behind all of this. But why? And why would Dom help her?
"So we're here to stop him, I'm guessing," Hobbs supplied, speaking up from where he sat at the head of the long conference table, expression hard, shoulders tense.
"How exactly are we going to do that?" Roman asked. "This is bullshit man. We operate as a team and part of that team is gone. We don't turn against each other."
"Dom is the one who turned against us," Hobbs said. "He knew exactly what he was doing."
"But there must be a reason for it," Letty said. "I need to… talk to him. Something has to be going on."
Mr. Nobody held up his hands. "You're all right. But before any of that can happen we need to find him, and we need to catch him. We bring Dom in and we figure out what's going on. You're the people who can do it."
"That's going to be a lot easier said than done, man," Tej muttered.
"We could use the God's Eye," Roman suggested. "You know, to find him. We busted our asses to get that shit. Why not use it?"
"One… small problem," Mr. Nobody admitted. "Cipher and her people hit us hard last week at our old base. They took the God's Eye."
"What?" Roman's sound of disbelief was almost shrill. "You mean to say we risked our lives for that shit and you just fucking lost it? Just like that? What the fuck kind of secret service are y'all anyways?"
"Anyway…" Mr. Nobody said, after a long moment of silence. "We need another way."
"Not to mention the fact that we need to stay off the grid," Ramsey put in. "They'll be able to watch us with that?"
"She's probably already been watching us," Letty agreed. "So what leads can we use?"
"I think I might be able to be of help there," Shaw put in. "If you wouldn't mind letting me get hands on some of this tech you've got lying about."
Mr. Nobody nodded, motioning to the computer in front of them. When Deckard went to it Ramsey stood, hovering over his shoulder with curiosity and suspicion, and perhaps the others were a bit thankful that she was keeping a watchful eye.
"Before I got ahold of the God's Eye I had to make use of more creative methods. In this case I don't think we'll be about to draw Toretto out. He probably has to operate on Cipher's say-so."
"Further evidence that something is going on," Tej said. "Taking orders isn't Dom. Even when he worked for Hobbs, for Nobody, it was always on his own terms."
"Yeah well Cipher must have something on him. Not that she can't be plenty persuasive on her own. She managed to sweet talk my little brother into doing her dirty work. That business in Mexico, London, Spain? It all ties back up to her."
"So why not go after her from the beginning?" Letty asked him. "Why come after us?"
"I planned to do both," he replied, flicking his gaze towards her, fingers still moving over the screen in front of him. "And to be fair, I wasn't exactly sure Owen would recover when I first went after your friend."
"That's not exactly an apology," Letty replied, narrowing her eyes. "You killed him."
"Would it matter if I apologized?" he asked. "We've all done things we ain't proud of, sweetheart."
He fell silent, tapping a few more commands into the tablet. "Well. Looks like our biggest clue is that chip Dom liberated from you in Berlin. Turns out it's one of a set. Useless without the other two."
"That's right," Mr. Nobody said. "Pieces of a military grade weapon NATO recovered from a terrorist operation in Russia some years back. They decided to send the chips to different countries for safe-keeping."
"Why not just destroy them?" Roman asked. "I mean, why do they have to keep the dangerous weapon around for some crazy hacker bitch to steal? Seems pretty stupid."
Mr. Nobody let out a small laugh. "Sadly, son, that's not how the world works. You keep a hand on the big gun just in case you need to use it."
"So where are the other chips, then?" Ramsey asked.
"Well it's pretty common knowledge among people with the right clearance that another of the chips is in New York," Mr. Nobody said. "That information wouldn't be so hard for Cipher to discover."
"And the last one?" Tej asked.
Mr. Nobody shrugged. "I'll see what I can find out. But security is going to be tight after this. My suggestion is you head to New York. That's your likely target."
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They were going to head to NY, so the team had taken the time to get ready, heading back to their separate places to get some supplies and pack up some things. They had to travel off the grid, but if Cipher really was watching them she wouldn't find it that strange to find them at home, so they weren't too careful about their movements.
Letty had even swung by the post office to pick up the held mail before driving round to check on the house.
It looked pretty different now. After the explosion the whole place had needed to be demolished and rebuilt from the ground up. The bonus being that it now boasted central air conditioning, and the previously overgrown yard had been replaced by more California-friendly plants. Even the mailbox was new, 1327 etched on one side of the black paint.
Letty went up the concrete steps, fishing the keys from her pocket to unlock the door. It still smelled faintly of wood varnish and paint, even though she knew construction had been completed a couple months back. They'd been in Cuba, so Mia had come by to supervise the moving of furniture. It was stuff they'd picked out ages ago it seemed, another lifetime ago. A few pieces salvaged from the house they'd all practically grown up in.
She stepped inside, trying not to think about the fact that Dom should be here with her. They'd only had a day here together before the job in Berlin. Their luggage from Cuba was still sitting just inside the door. A bag of stuff for Mia, Brian and the kids. She dragged a hand through her hair, moving further in to let the door swing shut. It would have to wait.
A quick trip up to the bedroom for some clothes and toiletries and Letty was out the door again, locking up before she slid into the driver's side of her car and made her way to the garage.
It wasn't far. A place Dom had bought not long after they'd come back from London. Before she could even remember anything they'd worked there together. Fixed it up.
They kept most of their cars there, not enough room in the drive at home. Spent time tuning or modifying when they could. Always working on something. Another project always on deck. Like they couldn't handle not having some engine to tinker with. The Challenger she'd driven in Berlin wasn't back yet. Even with Mr. Nobody's help there was the wait for it to travel across the ocean and almost always some hold up in US Customs. But that didn't matter. They wouldn't be bringing any cars to New York. Traveling under the radar was going to make that too difficult.
She pulled into the garage, turning off the car. Left her bag in the passenger seat as she climbed out, flicked on the lights to cast the room in a warm glow. The sun was setting outside and the others would be here soon to meet up.
Her dark eyes swept over the long red body of the Chevelle sitting off to one side. She could remember putting in some time on the bodywork last summer. She slid her hand along the side slowly, then pulled open the door and dropped into the passenger side. She opened the glove compartment and the photos were in her hands before she thought better of it. She stared down at them, brows drawn together. There were still no real answers. This woman Cipher. Why was Dom working for her? Why wouldn't he have told her?
She flipped over the top photo and her eyes snagged on something. Writing, and she noticed the slanted letters of Dom's hand right away. At first glance it looked like a date. But when she stared at it she found herself frowning in confusion. That wasn't the date they'd taken the picture. May 21st. It was only a couple days from now. There was also a time noted next to it. 12:30.
She puzzled over it a moment before turning over the other photo. This one had what looked like a list written on it and Letty turned the photo sideways to look at it. She recognized the jumble of letters as the shorthand they'd used at the garage. Easier to keep records when they could note down parts and repairs without having to write the whole word.
It didn't make sense though and she ran her thumb over the letters. Some sort of code? Maybe Dom knew he had been watched. The letters N-Y snagged her attention and she sifted through the rest for something. S-O-H-O. An address lost in the jumble of shorthand. A date, time and address.
It had to mean something.
Turning the photos back over, Letty closed the glovebox and crossed to her car, fishing the bag out as the rumble of an engine announced the arrival of Tej and Ramsey. She offered them a tight smile, clutched the photos against her chest and slid into the back seat.
"Where's Roman?" she asked.
Tej shrugged. "He said he was on his way."
It wasn't too long until they heard the bass beats of music filtering out of a car stereo and Roman pulled up into the shop. He shut off the car, cutting the music, and grabbed a duffel, coming to join Letty in the back of Tej's vehicle.
"Where are we going anyway?" He asked as Tej pulled out into the road. "How can we go anywhere if that Cipher bitch has the God's Eye? Hmm?"
Ramsey turned to glare at him. "Roman."
"What?" He blinked at her.
"Stop talking. It can hear you too."
Admonished, Roman fell silent and they drove for a while, down roads that flickered between puddles of streetlights as the sun disappeared even further over the Los Angeles skyline. They hadn't been on the road for more than ten minutes when Letty felt eyes on her.
She glanced over at Roman who was looking at the photos she had in her lap. Her shoulders tensed up, waiting for him to make some dumb comment like he always did, but he just cleared his throat.
"Yo, Let," he said softly. "For what it's worth. I'm sorry."
She turned her head away. "Nothing to apologize for, Rome."
He fell silent again as they drove further outside LA, out into the open road where the desert stretched on either side.
"Where the hell we going?" he demanded.
"Out here there's no cameras," Tej said. "We're meeting up with Mr. Nobody. Off the grid, remember?"
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It turned out that traveling off the grid was not as glamorous as one would imagine. In the desert they'd met up with a cargo truck that they drove the car onto. Secured in the back they'd rode that way for what felt like hours, until they'd all fallen asleep.
The following morning they'd woken in a hangar in Texas and from there flown on plane delivering people's furniture and boxes for a cross country move. Roman had stretched out on an old couch wrapped in plastic while Letty settled on the floor with Tej and Ramsey, showing them the message she had found on the photos.
"It's a time and date," she showed them. "Tomorrow. In Soho. There's an address too."
"What if it's a trap?" Ramsey asked.
"No," Letty said. "It's Dom's handwriting. He wouldn't lead me into a trap."
"And you're planning to go?" Tej asked her.
"It might be the only way we get any answers. I'm going to need your help. I need to get there off the grid."
"I'm sure we can work something out when we get to New York," Tej agreed. "Mr. Nobody is hooking us up with special cell phones and everything. We'll get you there, girl."
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The location had turned out to be an old dive bar. The kind of place where you go down a narrowed set of steps and find yourself in another world. Down here a long, scarred bartop dominated the room, a dark cherry wood. It was flanked by stools, mismatched, in an eclectic sort of way. The floor, sticky under your feet from too many spilt drinks and too much lazy cleaning. There was a mirror behind the bar, smokey around the edges from age. She could picture it ten, twenty years ago, with a haze of cigarette smoke in the air, old men gathered around with cigars and scotch on the rocks.
She'd come in the back way, with the deliveries, and a careful scout of the place had revealed absolutely no cameras about. It was too early in the day to really be busy, and a hand-printed sign by the front door said cell-phones were to be turned off on the premises. The few customers there seemed to be on the older side, so she doubted it was much of a problem anyway. She ordered a beer and settled down at a table with a good view of the door to wait.
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Dom was scouting out the area for tomorrow's job, and Cipher was watching. Always watching.
She had intel that the chip was due to be moved tomorrow morning, and it would be easiest to grab it on the road, rather than breaking into some secure facility. Especially when he didn't have his team to rely on.
His hand tightened on the gear shift. His team. He hoped Letty had gotten his message.
Cipher's voice filtered through his car. "Haven't seen any sign of your people since a couple days ago in LA," she said. "But we should expect them to pop up."
"You think they're going to come after me?" he asked, crossing the Williamsburg Bridge from Brooklyn. He'd spent the night holed up at a little garage with an apartment above so he could put some wrench time in on the Charger. Cipher kept a close eye, and he was glad he'd been able to do the majority of the work on her before she'd been so close.
"Don't you think so?" she asked, amusement in her voice. "I can't see them giving up so easily."
"Probably not," he agreed, but there was an unhappiness in his voice. She wanted him to hurt his family. To make them think he'd really turned on them. Somehow he had to sell it. At least until his plan could be set into motion.
He turned down an alleyway as his engine started to sputter. "I gotta take a look under the hood," he muttered, pulling to a stop.
"I thought you just checked it this morning?" she demanded, frowning.
"It's an older car. I didn't get time to work all the kinks out, cause someone was in a rush," he said pointedly, opening the door. "I just need a few minutes."
She fairly growled. "You have five, and I've got eyes on you."
However, when Dom lifted the hood of Charger, her view from the dashcam of the car was blocked. Eyes narrowed, Cipher called up the God's Eye to get herself another angle. There was no camera at the other end of the alley, but a side-street offered one through a police camera set up on the side of a building.
That was, until a UPS truck pulled into the side street and double-parked, blinkers on. Cipher cursed. "I need another view," she said and a couple of techs brought up the programs as well, searching.
"There's nothing," one man told her. "That alley is a dead zone."
"He must have known," Cipher breathed. "Try and bounce it off of something, a reflective surface. I need to get eyes on him, now."
Dom knew he didn't have a lot of time. He was down the alley and ducking in the back entrance to the bar before he had time to worry that his plan wouldn't work. He'd done what he could. Taking a chance was the only way that he could save his family.
He spotted Letty before she saw him, but she turned when she felt him staring. He felt pinned to the spot, like all the air had rushed out of his chest. The relief of seeing her again. Of knowing she'd found his message. That she'd trusted in him enough to come.
They didn't have time to stare but that was okay because suddenly she was across the room and in his arms. He whispered her name, ducked his head and pressed a kiss atop the crown of her hair.
After a moment, he forced himself to pull back. "I don't have much time," he said, leading her back to the table she'd been sitting at.
She nodded, waiting for him to speak, curling one hand around her beer bottle for lack of anything else to do with her hands.
Dom didn't want to let go. As he eased himself on the stool across from her he stroked his fingers over the inside of her wrist, felt her pulse jump beneath his touch. Shifting closer he lowered his voice. "Cipher has my cousin's girlfriend," he said. "And she's nine-months pregnant with his kid."
"Jesus," Letty muttered, reaching out to take the small device Dom passed her under the table. It was hard and square, smooth like a cellphone, but smaller.
"She watches me. She's got eyes everywhere. I have to go back. To play along. But someone has to get Tamar out. Use that to find her. I know who you can send. That's planned out… but I need you to do something."
Letty felt the small rolled up piece of paper tucked in one side of the device Dom had passed her. Her brows furrowed. "What is it?"
"Cipher has access to military drones. She has eyes on Mia. Tell Mr. Nobody. He needs to find a way around it. I can't do anything from where I am. But I can't make a move if Mia and Brian are in danger."
He lifted his hand, cupping her cheek as he stood. He knew his time was up. "She can't know about this. That you know anything."
Swallowing hard, Letty nodded. She was going to let him go, but then she stood, threw her arms around him and held on tight. He cupped her arms, stroking the soft skin gently before easing her away just enough. Leaned down to catch her up in a slow kiss. It was intense, almost desperate. Like they were both afraid they'd never see each other again. But it was all too brief, and then Dom was drawing back with a soft murmur and out the door before Letty could say anything in response. Her shoulders sagged and she looked down at the small device in her hand.
"If that delivery truck doesn't move in the next five seconds then get me Rhodes," Cipher said. "He's on the ground."
"Roger," her man agreed, still typing furiously, trying to grab some other view of the alley. "Oh look, the truck's moving."
Cipher's eyes narrowed, suspicion painted into the tense line of her spine as the UPS truck slowly pulled back down the side street. Just at the same time as Dom closed the hood of the Charger. He held up a burnt-out spark plug and fixed the latches.
He slid back into the car.
Cipher's jaw worked a moment, and she took in a slow breath. "That better not happen again," she warned.
"Better for the car to break down in the middle of a job?" he asked, arching his brows in the direction of the camera he knew was watching him.
She glared. "Just get back on the streets scouting those locations. I want you back at home base before rush hour."
"This is New York City," he told her, easing into downtown traffic. "It's gonna be slow going."