"You have until seven pm," the man said, his choice of words indicating to Eliot that he wasn't military; generally a good thing. But the rest of the situation wasn't. "I don't need to tell you what'll happen if you're late."

As the dial tone rung out Eliot gripped the phone with both fists and placed it tensely to his forehead, trying to restrain himself from lashing out.

"Eliot?" Sophie finally asked cautiously. The hitter looked up, fury in his eyes.

"Yeah."

"What do we do?" Parker asked. She stared at the hitter with as much sympathy as she knew how.

"Sophie and I go to Illinois and deal with Dubenich," Nate explained, his cracked and tired voice not hesitating to take command of the situation. "The rest of you go back to Boston, see if you can't find Abby."

"If you can find Abby before then, we shouldn't have to go through with Dubenich," Sophie added from the driver's seat. Eliot looked at Nate who shifted his gaze towards the floor; it wasn't clear what his intentions were, but there was deceit on his face. "We're ten minutes out," Sophie offered as they turned onto their last highway.

"I'll get you flights," Hardison offered quickly.

XXXXXXXXXXXX

"Bonnano," Eliot stated quickly, jogging up to greet the man who was rushing nervously around his office, instructing various agents to follow various leads.

When he saw Eliot, and the two other thieves trailing nervously behind him (being in a police station was never something they'd voluntarily chose to do), he wasn't sure whether to feel relieved or worried.

"What do you know?" he asked. Eliot was thankful for him once again foregoing the pleasantries.

"They're letting Kyle go."

The detective stopped in his tracks and the relief in his face was easily noted.

"And Abby?" Bonnano asked after a moment of silent thanks. Eliot shifted his weight uncomfortably.

"We're going to steal her back," Parker offered, her arms shrugged around her waist, uncomfortable with her surrounds.

"Do we know who's responsible?" the detective asked, still directing his attention towards Eliot.

"Yes," Eliot replied promptly.

"Do we know what they want?"

"Yes."

"Are you going to tell me?"

"No."

"Plausible deniability and all that," Hardison stated, hiking up his book bag.

"Dad!" A voice rung out from the front of the room. Bonnano turned quickly and saw his son run through the crowd of agents. Heads turned as they embraced in an emotional hug; Bonnano looked like he never wanted to let go.

"You have to find Abby," he huffed; he was out of breath and looked emotionally drained. He then turned to Eliot. "You have to find her."

Eliot nodded at the boy, though he was unsure how to react. He didn't exactly have fond feelings towards the kid to start with, mostly because of how he'd treated Abby and now because he had been the one released and not her.

It was a petty and selfish way to think and he knew that, but he also didn't care. He was her responsibility and he would do (and has done) anything he could to save her.

"We will," he said simply instead as Bonnano ushered everyone into his office without moving from the side of his son.

"482 seconds," Kyle spat out, sitting down on the couch next to the glass window of the office which overlooked the rest of the bull pen. His father sat down next to him, Hardison rested on the arm nearest the door, Parker flicked down the venetian blinds and Eliot chose to stand, on an angle but still facing the boy to try and appear less intimidating.

"What?" Hardison asked.

"482 seconds, that's how long it took us to get from where we were being kept to where they dropped me off."

"Where'd they drop you off?" Bonnano asked.

"Uh," he stammered as he struggled to think. "Right on the other side of the bridge, before the science museum," he declared, his thoughts clearing enough to finally state it out loud.

"8 minutes, 2 second window," Parker declared.

"Yeah, and we know they were travelling east," Hardison declared, pulling out his laptop and walking over to Bonnano's desk to set up. Still standing, he lent over his computer and began to type. "That narrows it down."

"Anythin' else you can tell us?" Eliot asked.

Kyle swallowed, his father passed him a glass of water and he began, without any form of logic or flow, to spit out the information Abby had told him to relay; where, as best as he could describe, they'd been held, who had held them and any other pertinent information he could remember.

"That's good," Eliot stated by way of thanks. He then stood up and walked over to Hardison and hovered over his shoulder.

"Seriously man?" Hardison asked, twisting around to glare at the hitter. He held out an open hand, indicating the man to back off.

"What?" Eliot asked groughly.

"Man can't have a little space?"

Eliot rolled his shoulders and took a step back, without breaking his menacing glare.

"Thankyou," Hardison noted and turned back to his computer. He continued typing, straightening up as he discovered something. He directed Eliot's attention to the screen. "So I got it narrowed down to this general area." The image on the screen showed an aerial shot of Boston with the area nearest to the Charles river highlighted in green. "Narrowing it down from there's difficult. I mean, there's no Jo's, Josiah's, John's, Jonathan or anything on any of these buildings."

"Anything under Latimer's name?" Parker offered.

"Nah," Hardison shook his head. "And we don't even know if this Jo guy is an employee of Latimer or just some guy he hired of the street."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXX

"Hey," Dubenich declared, strolling comfortably into the Prison's meeting area. He sat nonchalantly on the chair in front of him.

"You missed," Nate stated from the other side of the glass. His voice was serious, sullen and unwavering, as was his stare.

Dubenich shrugged. "Yeah, but this close." He placed his thumb and index finger close together in demonstration. "Plus, I have your girl," he added proudly, letting out a chuckle. "I'd say that's not really a miss at all." He paused and waited for Nate to respond. When the mastermind did not, Dubenich continued. "Ah, what's it been? Three years and five months, four days?" The last two sets of times were added bitterly.

For the first time, Nate shifted from his position and stare, rolling his head back in annoyance.

"Is it special, seeing your very first victim?" Dubenich continued bitterly, pressing for a reaction.

Nate ignored the question. "You are going to regret this," he threatened.

"Well, Nate, all a man has in this world, all he has," he waved his hands about dramatically. "Three things; his business, his possessions and his name. When you take all that away, any man will kill."

Nate squinted his eyes, unsure if that was a threat against Abigail or not. Not that that changed anything, the man had killed his father and threatened his family; he wasn't going easy on him, at all.

"Hey, hey," Dubenich said, smiling as Nate lent forward, a serious, deadly look on his face. "Really man, I, I'm really, I'm not scared of you. But aren't you just a little bit scared of me? After all, I know all your secrets."

"You tell Latimer my secrets? You tell Latimer Eliot's secrets?"

"Well, sure I told him, I mean, after all I need help," he gestured to the prison around him. "And Latimer, well, Jack's always been someone who knows the value of information. And what to do with it."

"What's this about Victor?"

"Well Nate, it's about consequences. You cannot walk this earth playing judge and jury with people's lives. And not suffer consequences."

"You brought this out on yourself," Nate declared raising his voice slightly and drawing his face closer to the plexiglass. "You kidnapped an innocent teenager."

Dubenich shrugged. "Yes, because actions have consequences," he stated once more. "The consequence of that particular one is me being let out."

Nate was unimpressed. "You tried to kill my team."

"Your team? They're my team!" He spat angrily like a tantruming child. "Mine! I put them together and then I handed them to you. I did all the research, I know exactly who they are, I know their techniques, I know their contacts and I know your team better than anyone. I certainly know them better than you."

Dubenich let out a sigh and rubbed his face, as though he was partially ashamed with raising his voice. "I'm sorry," he apologised, though there was no doubt it was insincere. "So, what have you been doing for three years? Playing Robin Hood? Know what I've been doing for three years? I've been preparing for this day."

"Well," Nate breathed. "You'll have to do better."

"Better? Than killing your father?" Dubenich raised his eyebrows in surprise. "Better than kidnapping your little brat? Wow, tough room. But if you're thinking of ratting me out to Latimer, about crossing the line and killing your father, don't bother. He knows, he approved it. Same goes for taking the kid, you think I have the resources alone here to pull that off? That was him too. And why wouldn't he, after all, I made him millions." He paused and the reassessed his wording. "Well, technically, you made him millions," he declared, trying to make Nate feel as guilty as possible for all this.

"Do you remember when I said to you next time I wouldn't be so nice?" Nate asked, leaning even closer into the glass.

"Yeah," Dubenich nodded, now too leaning closely in.

"Okay, welcome to the next time," Nate stated threateningly and gave Dubenich an intense stare before standing up to leave.

"And we don't even know if this Jo guy is an employee of Latimer or just some guy he hired of the street," Nate heard Hardison declare as he exited the prison.

"Eliot?" Nate asked when he was out of earshot of Dubenich.

"Yeah," the hitter replied.

"He's an employee of Latimer's, you should be able to trace him that way. I don't know if it'll help but-"

"It'll help," Eliot replied. "You still carrying out your part of the plan?"

Nate could sense the concern in his voice; not concern for Abigail (at least not directly at this moment), but concern for Nate. He could sense what he was planning with all this, even if the others couldn't, and he didn't like it.

"Yes, yes I am," he huffed.