6

They drove in relative silence. The walk from the cottage to the neighboring property was in stealth mode and Jack's heart was still slamming against his ribcage even as Ianto seemed so damned calm. Ianto had assured Jack that the cats had got out, knew to retreat when things get dicey. Ianto had a back-up plan for that. Of course, he did. Man had a plan for everything… several times over.

The barn with the beat-up pickup inside was walked past and when Ianto open the doors of the other shed to reveal a flash black SUV so sleek and fine that Jack forgot to be afraid for a moment, his mouth gaping at her gorgeous grill. It put the squad's ones to shame.

To open a back door and find a car seat for Alice… now that… that was something else. Ianto had added them into his exit strategy so calmly, so cleanly like he was not going to leave them behind at any point. It sort of felt… well… to be honest looking at that car seat in the correct size and even a soft Barbie Pink made Jack realize that this is the most romantic thing anyone has ever done for him.

Silly right?

Now they were driving, the GPS on and Jack behind the wheel as Ianto sat quietly, reloading a gun. John was asleep in the back with Alice, clearly over the entire thing and no doubt wondering if he had made a strategic mistake annoying the Dragon like this. Damn, he had hoped the man had calmed down a bit by now. It was not his fault Lisa double crossed hm... she screwed them all in a way.

Ianto glanced behind them, checking the little girl was asleep and finally… he began to speak and it was NOT what Jack expected at all.

"So, as you have probably guessed, that was the Syndicate come to kill me".

Jack nodded silently.

"The truth is…. I was once head of one of those sweeper teams."

Jak felt the vehicle slowing as his foot came off the accelerate and he pressed it back down, staring ahead silently. Fuck.

"I was recruited young, as we all are. I was soon an elite sweeper…. Then I became a cleaner." Ianto cleared his throat "Do you know what a cleaner is?"

Jack shook his head in the negative, not sure he wanted to find out.

"So… I was called to fuckups. When a sweeper team went too far, accidently caused a mess… I came in and… well… cleaned it up. Made it look like something else if I could not just erase the entire thing" Ianto sighed "A body can be manipulated and a crime scene altered to fool the police, to reset the narrative of one's death."

OK. Sure. Jack did NOT expect that.

"I had carte blanche to do whatever it took to take any and all narrative off the true fuckup." Ianto sighed, his fingers rubbing at his calf and Jack suspected he was hurt, but resolutely continuing. Like a fucking terminator or something, Ianto was still moving forward in his head.

"So. I had a wife."

"OH?" Jack could not help but respond to that.

"Lisa. We went through the ranks together, had our own A teams. When I became a cleaner, the money flowed like honey and milk" Ianto laughed softly. Sadly. "But then one night I was called to a bad scene. The team had gone way off book, they had not only accidentally killed the mark, but the entire family in the house. Kids Jack. Kids. Lisa killed little kids."

Silence for a while. Then "I was enraged. For the first time in my life, I felt such… such… rage. I cleaned the scene, of course I did. It as my job. In so doing, I discovered the money she had been sent to look for and I did not tell her I had found it. I was so angry with her I decided to let things cool down a bit. When I was called to speak with the Boss I thought it would be a classic debrief and clusterfuck tongue lashing. I walked into a bumfuck. Lisa was there, tears on her face and a look of woe then she started staring daggers at me." Ianto sounded incredulous, even though it had clearly been some years ago "I worked out that she had blamed me for the entire thing. I was confused, angry and immediately shot back at her that I found that funny as the entire household was dead before I as even called to a cleanup aisle six! Six. That was what got the Boss more than anything. Six dead. Her team had killed the mark, his wife, their two kids and then went out to kill the wife's elderly parents living in the granny flat out back. Turns out the old fella was a made man, someone you don't fuck with and that is why she was only supposed to talk to the mark and convince him to hand over the cash he had skimmed off the shipments."

"So you handed over the money and made it right" Jack surmised.

"Nah. I had razed that place to the ground as per the Boss's instructions after all… I told him I never found any, I suspected HER team had and then I shrugged like… oh well." Ianto started to laugh softly "I threw that two-timing bitch under the bus. Her and her lover she thought I did not know about… oh yes. You are not the only on with an unfaithful spouse Jack. Yeah. I knew about them, he was the one who killed the made man. I told the Boss everything… except for the ten million dollars in the wall."

"Ten… go back… ten?"

"Add to that the fact I cleared out our joint bank account that we had both been socking away our earnings in for a few years… another three point something… yeah. I was pretty fine with telling the Boss I was pissed, I was upset, enraged and so damned insulted." Ianto's laughter died and he went silent again, then he sighed so deeply that it was like his soul as sighing.

"Anyway, the Boss said one of us had to go. He could not have us at one another's throats and he knew I had this bad habit of holding a grudge. Three years to take the finger of one of his men over an argument… so … he said we had 24 hours to decide our fates."

"As in… who stays? And who is fed to the pigs?"

"He promised the outgoing one could have retirement. A safe passage. Then I went home, packed my things while she was still twisting in the wind doing damage control, now blaming her lover as well in order to save her own hide… and I ran. I think she offered to kill him to prove fealty or something. Clearly she didn't, he's back there on the front lawn. I didn't care. I sent a text message I knew they could all see, telling her I was done being her punching bag. She had cheated on me, cheated the boss and I could not continue to breathe the same air." Ianto cleared his throat "I said I loved the Boss but his disappointment and the fact he had believed her, had actually believed me capable of being disloyal after all I had done for him. The shit I had cleaned up only to be considered lower than said shit… was too much."

"And they let you go?" Jack asked.

"I thought so, hoped so but also… made these plans in case. And I hate always being right." Ianto nodded "After all the work I did for him… seems his promise of me being allowed a retirement was a lie. Probably the only one he ever said to me."

And it hurt him more than he thought it would.