I was out at night. I was going after a crooked account. I was pretty sure that it would be an easy mission and for the most part it was. The corporate executives were never really equipped to deal with me. I was getting a little bored, even though I knew that I was doing a service. I hoped that I would be able to get the information on when and where the Undertaking was going to take place. I did still have a small amount of doubt about Malcolm but I was fairly certain that he was not involved with it, or at least he wasn't the ringleader if he was.
After taking out the underlings, I came across the accountant and grabbed him.
"Harold Backman, you have failed this city." I told him.
"I'm only an accountant. I'm just the money." He stated. He seemed to think that I was going to kill him. It probably wouldn't be the best idea to let him know that I had no plans of doing so.
"Your money leads to extortion, kidnapping and drugs. It's the destruction of innocent lives." I told him. I did hate it when people tried to act like they didn't know what their money was paying for.
"Do you think you scare me more than the people I work for?" He challenged.
"No, which is why I'm going to let them deal with you." I declared before I took his laptop and knocked him out.
I took it back to the club and started to work on getting into it. I was going to return the money, but I also needed to find out if there was any other useful information on it. I didn't need to find Walter, but there was probably some other useful information.
"Whose laptop is that?" Iris asked me.
"Harold Backman." I explained as I typed away. "He's who Star City's worst call when they want to launder money in the Cayman Islands."
"Wouldn't it be a better idea to hand that over to the IRS?" She asked me.
"I plan on doing that as soon as I am done with it." I pointed out. "I have to return the money to its right owners and also I'm looking for information for another project."
"Are you going to tell me what that is?" She asked. I wanted to keep the number of people who knew about the Undertaking low at the moment.
"I will tell you eventually, but I can't tell you right now." I explained. "This will probably take me a while to get through."
"So how are things going with Courtney?" She questioned. I wasn't sure why she cared so much about what was going with us.
"Well, we're together." I answered. I wasn't sure what else she wanted me to say.
"I'm surprised that you're not making out with her in your office right now." She quipped. I had bigger things to focus on than my hormones right now, even though I had had some dreams about her.
"Courtney and I both have to work right now." I answered. I was also a little afraid of the concept of sex. I didn't know how it would feel and I also would have to remind myself whenever we did decide to have it that I was 16 and it was okay for me to have do things with her.
"So can I ask you something unrelated? Do you think you can help me find Zoe Lawton?" She asked.
"Iris, I know you want revenge for what happened to your father, but killing her won't bring your father back." I declared. "I also don't really have the time right now especially since I have finals coming up. Do you think that we can wait until after school is out for that?"
"You want to wait for her to face justice?" She asked in disbelief.
"We have no idea where she is." I pointed out. I did wonder if I was going to be able to take a trip to Russia to find her. "In case you haven't noticed, it's not easy for me to take vacations right now. I know you're anxious but I promise that I will eventually to her. It's just going to take a little bit of time."
I then went upstairs where Courtney was working on the floor.
"You know maybe I should start going out with you if this is the alternative." She told me.
"Do you not like being a waitress?" I inquired.
"I mean it's alright but some of the girls make comments about me that I don't like." She admitted. I wished that she had told me that sooner.
"Well it anyone is making you uncomfortable, you can let me know and I will deal with them." I told her. I didn't want anyone mistreating my girlfriend
"Don't you think that's a little small for the vigilante to deal with?" She challenged.
"Courtney, I meant as owner of the club. I can kick people out. I could prevent them from coming back." I pointed out.
"Oh. Yeah I guess you are." She agreed.
"Though if anyone touches you, then I might need to get my bow out." I joked out. She hung her mouth open in shock. "It was a joke."
"Yeah, Olivia, you're really not that funny." She told me. I couldn't help but pout at that. I wished more people would laugh. I probably wouldn't stop trying to get people to laugh either.
The next day, I was at home. Thea and I found that Mom was on the phone.
"Was that about?" I asked.
"It was the insurance company. They want to do an investigation into your father's death." She told me.
"Why are they doing this now instead of when he died?" Thea asked.
"The fact that Olivia has been found alive makes them doubt some circumstances and there's also the fact that they have found out about your sister's existence which leads to questions about the accident." She explained.
"What do you they think he was murdered?" I inquired.
"That or they think since you're alive that he's also alive and we would have to pay them back." She explained. The thing was since I didn't know what happened after the Gambit crashed, I didn't know if he had died in the same way…or at all. "But I don't want you two to hold out hope that he's still alive."
"Did you have to pay them back when I was found?" I asked. I had never really thought about that before.
"No, they were a little more lenient so you were a minor and they didn't feel that there was a possibility that you had faked your death." She explained. There was no way that my father could have faked his death, could he? There was no way that he was still alive, was he? No, he couldn't be. I couldn't tell make myself believe. Even though, I wanted to see him again, I couldn't hold out hope for that.
Later, I went into work to do some things. It was pretty early but I did have to meet with vendors since it was easier than having them come by than when we were open. When I got there, I found that Dinah was there. I let her in and offered her some coffee.
"This coffee is terrible." She remarked.
"That's what you get for ordering coffee from a club." I quipped. Most of the customers either wanted soda, mocktails or energy drinks. "You look tired. Are you sleeping okay?"
"Not really. I can't really get over this Sara stuff." She admitted. "I know that I should move on but even the slightest chance that she's still alive still haunts me."
"Have you talked to Tommy about it?" I asked her.
"It's not something that it's easy for me to talk to him about." She stated. "He didn't know Sara like you and I did."
"Well I do know how you feel a little." I admitted. "My mom was talking to the insurance company this morning and they have this crazy theory that my father might have faked his death and it's hard for me to stop thinking about it. What I realized though, Dinah, is that we can't keep holding onto a prayer. If either of them is alive, that's great, but we can't expect them to be."
"How did you get so wise?" She questioned.
"You know that I'm actually smart." I told her in mock annoyance. "So I have to go work on something. Just lock the door when you leave."
I went back downstairs to go back to the laptop. I needed to see if I could find anything related to the Undertaking. I did have an inkling that he was involved because he was someone that the people behind the original Undertaking had used before. I kept looking before I located a transaction from September 20th 2007, one week before the Gambit sank. I knew it had been sabotaged, but I didn't know if I could find any information on who had sabotaged it.
At that point, I called Courtney and Iris over because I needed to talk to them about what I found.
"So what are we looking at?" Courtney asked me. "What happened on September 20?"
"It's not about what happened on that date," I answered. "It's about what happened a week later. That was when the Queen's Gambit went down. I always thought it was an accident, but now I'm beginning to think that the boy was sabotaged. I think someone was trying to kill my father."
"What's your plan when you find out who did it?" Iris questioned. That was a bit of a tough question. I was upset that I hadn't stopped Malcolm before he could finish the Undertaking but I had no way of knowing what he was doing beforehand.
"I don't know." I admitted. It would probably depend on my emotional state at the time. It was possible that I would want to kill them or it was possible that I would want to turn them over to the authorities.
"Well do you know who made the payment?" Courtney asked.
"I'm looking." I declared before I went through it. I then let out a sigh "Dominic Alonzo."
"Who's he?" The blonde inquired.
"He runs the biggest casino in Star City." Iris explained. "You know that place is one of the most well-guarded in the city. You're not just going to be able to walk in and confront him."
"Well then it's a good thing that I have some help." I stated as I looked over at Courtney with a smile. I had a feeling that she would want to help me with it. I also knew that doing this could be very useful to finding out who was in charge of it. "But we're also going to need someone to distract them."
"Are you sure that it's a good idea for me to do that?" Iris asked.
"It's not like we have a choice." I pointed out. "Courtney and I aren't old enough to get inside."
As we were suiting up, I couldn't help but notice that my phone was ringing. Most people knew not to bother me at work, so I assumed that it was pretty urgent. It was Tommy.
"Hello?" I answered.
"Are you sitting down right now?" He asked me.
"No, why?" I questioned.
"You might want to be because I have bad news for you." He stated. I was nervous now since I had no idea what he was going to say.
"Okay, I'm sitting down." I lied. "What's going on?"
"I just talked to the police. Some people broke into my dad's office last night and kidnapped him." He explained. Okay, so Malcolm was being kidnapped, just a lot later than I expected him to be. That could most likely remove him from the list of suspects for the other archer.
"Do they have any idea who did it?" I questioned in surprise.
"No, but they said they're working hard to try to find him." He stated. "Why I'm calling you is that I think you can find him faster."
"I'll see what I can do. I have an idea. I promise I'll get him back." I declared. "I love you."
"Who was that?" Courtney asked after I hung up.
"Malcolm has been kidnapped. The thing is Dominic Alonso has also been financing kidnappings for a while and I wouldn't be surprised if he was also behind this." I declared.
I did have to admit that I was concerned about Malcolm and I needed to get him out. I also wanted to find out what the other archer wanted with him. Who was the one wanted to destroy the Glades? Who was the one that thought that kidnapping Malcolm would persuade him to do it. Why not just try to kill him again? The only reason that I could think of for that was that the archer thought that he was worth more alive than dead for some reason. I would need to find out what that reason was.
I wished that there was someone that I could talk to about what happened when they first planned the Undertaking, but I couldn't talk to Malcolm about it at the moment and I didn't want to talk to my mother about it. Aside from that, it was not the time to do that. I would need to free Malcolm and maybe then I would able to continue working on it. I would probably end up finding out some more information about the Undertaking that I would actually be able to share with Courtney and Iris.
As we were preparing to go, I couldn't help but notice there was a bit of an uneasy look on Courtney's face.
"Is something bothering you?" I questioned.
"It's just that when you told Tommy that you loved him, I realized that you haven't ever said anything like that to me." She replied. I really did not want to have this conversation.
"Courtney, the concept of familial love and romantic love are a lot different. I have never experienced the latter. I don't know if I can just say that I love you like that. I like you a lot and I'm glad that you're my girlfriend." I told her. It also wasn't easy because the only person that I had ever truly loved was Felicity and even though I liked Courtney and wanted to be with her, it wouldn't be that easy for me to just say that I was in love again. If I ever got to see her again, I didn't know what I would do, so I didn't know if I could let myself fall for someone else. "As soon as I am sure, I will let you know. The important thing right now is freeing Malcolm."
That night, Courtney and I went with Iris to the casino. We were going to be waiting outside, but since it wasn't exactly in the best neighborhood, we had to dress the part. I was wearing a leather jacket and a dress with a white bodice and black skirt.
"Are you sure it's a good idea for her to do this?" Courtney asked me.
"It'll be fine. Iris is one of the toughest people that I know." I declared. "Not to mention we'll be nearby if anything goes bad. This is our best lead to finding Malcolm."
The two of us went into a nearby stairwell and I took out some binoculars.
"The password is snapdragon." I told Iris. You know I couldn't help but wonder if she had done any undercover work during her time in the police academy."
I watched as she walked inside.
"So what do you see?" I asked her.
"There are six armed guards, two pit bosses and no slot machines." She explained. Rich gamblers didn't do slot machines because they were considered to be low-class. I could see where there were coming from considering that there was a potential high payout for little investment.
Iris was going to be playing with the money that I had given her. I was fairly certain that the people inside would not discriminate against her as long as she was pretty and rich and as far as they knew, she was.
"So what are we going to do while we wait for this?" Courtney asked me.
"We just have to find the right time to go in." I stated. "I know that the waiting sucks, but sometimes you have to do reconnaissance. It's not all fighting bad guys. You have to be smart as well. Speaking of which, are you ready for finals?"
"Yeah, I think so." She admitted. The good news was the summer would be pretty quiet, but I still didn't want her to have to go to summer school.
Soon, I couldn't help but overhear that they suspected that Iris was counting cards. Fortunately, that was exactly what I hoped that they would do because I got her to plant a bug in the office. However, they then caught on that she wasn't working alone. It looked like I would have to get my hands dirty. I changed quickly and the two of us burst in. It wasn't how I wanted to do things, but I knew that it might come to that. I knew that there could be gunfire and I told Courtney to wait outside. I managed to clear the way out before I made my way to the office. I found Alonso holding a gun to Iris's throat. I then made a shot and fired at the dartboard behind him.
"I thought you never missed." He declared.
"I don't." I replied before the arrow exploded. He fell to the ground and then I grabbed him and held him against the wall. "Where's Malcolm Merlyn?"
"I don't know. It was just a job. I didn't ask any questions." He replied.
"Last chance." I ordered as I tightened my grip on his neck.
"Below ground." He stated.
"You're lying." I responded.
"I'm not. I delivered him and they killed him." Alonso replied. I was pretty sure that Malcolm was still alive, but I at least had to act like I didn't. "I heard the gunshot. He's dead."
At that point, I punched, Alonso, breaking his neck. The guy didn't need to live anyway and I figured that was what I should do.
"Olivia, I'm sorry." Iris told me.
As soon as I got out of there, I went to Tommy's apartment. I didn't want to go home because I didn't want to lie. I was confident that Malcolm was still alive.
"So did you find him?" He asked me.
"Not yet. I'm still working out. The guy that I know was responsible said that he's dead but I don't believe him." I explained. "If they were going to kill him, they could have just killed him in his office. Whoever had him kidnapped doesn't want me to find him, but until I see him myself, I am not going to stop."
"How can you be so sure?" He inquired.
"Because the Malcolm Merlyn that I know is not that easy to kill." I remarked.
"So you're really from somewhere else, aren't you?" He declared.
"I promise that I will tell you more, but I don't want to tell you how you died, because it might cause something else to happen. I'm going to save you just like I'm going to save your father." I promised. "I should get home. I know that my family must be freaking out right now."
I went home and made sure to let them know that I was okay. I did shed a few tears because I knew that they were hurting.
"So I take it Tommy told you." Mom declared. "He's going to be okay. I know that he's going to be okay."
I couldn't help but wonder how she could be so sure that he would be okay. Was she still working with this other archer? That was why she was so sure that Walter was still alive even after I told her that he was dead. She could have still been involved in the Undertaking, but I couldn't bring myself to question her. Maybe I could do what I did before.
"They're probably going to kill him." Thea declared.
"Thea, unless they find a body, we can't give up hope. Malcolm is going to come back to us." Mom assured her. "I'm going out."
"Mom, it's 10:00 and you're in shock." I told her.
"Don't me how I feel, Olivia." She warned me before she stormed out of the room.
"Why is she acting like that?" Thea asked.
"She's processing." I answered before I gave my sister a hug. I knew that I would need to find Malcolm soon.
I couldn't help but wonder if Malcolm could actually give me some information about the Undertaking. He might even tell me willing since he apparently didn't want to be a part of it. You know the correct move would probably be to talk to the FBI, but I was pretty sure that he didn't want anything to happen to Mom. Maybe after I got him out of there, I could ask him a few questions. If I did it as Olivia, he might even answer them. The other question that I had was why did Malcolm not want to be part of the Undertaking.
Another thing that I couldn't help but wonder was what the end goal of the Undertaking. Did they want to rebuild it after the earthquake? Maybe that was the initial plan and it was mine and my mother's interference that prevented that from happening. I also couldn't help but wonder if they were thought they were just going to get away with it. Star City wasn't close enough to fault lines that we would get a major earthquake. Someone would eventually figure out that it was man-made and there would be repercussions.
I wondered if I should follow my mother to find out who she was meeting with, but I felt that it was better to be with Thea at the moment. Hopefully Tommy would be able to come over as soon as he got off work. I admired his commitment even through a very challenging time. It wasn't fair to the patients for him to just leave because he was going through a crisis and he believed that he could keep his focus, then I figured that he should do it. He was a good man and a good doctor.
The following evening, I went back to the work. I was waiting for Courtney to arrive so I could tell her.
"We're going to find Malcolm. I know the guy said that he's dead but I don't believe him. We're going to get him out tonight." I told her.
"Do you have any idea where we're supposed to go?" She asked.
"He's in Bludhaven." I declared. "I know that taking a road trip isn't the most ideal but I'm pretty sure that we can find him and I am going to need my partner to help me get him out of there."
"You've never called me your partner before." She admitted.
"So there are a lot of security guards there but there is only one on the roof." I explained. "How fast do you think we can get there by flying?"
"It shouldn't take us very long, but I thought you hated taking the staff." She answered.
"Well we're a little bit desperate." I declared. "We need to do this as covertly as possible because we don't want to alert anyone that could go inside and kill him. I guess I don't need to tell you to suit up."
We ended up taking the staff and while I still didn't like it that much, I was definitely more used to it than I was before. Not to mention, I could hold onto Courtney to deal with my fear of flying on it. I wasn't going to let my fear control me. A lot of people thought that I didn't even have fears, but my greatest fear was other people that I loved getting hurt or killed because of what I do. It was why I felt it was necessary to bring everyone back in my home world.
I let Courtney handle the guy on the roof before we went inside the building. I didn't know if Malcolm would be in the same place that Walter was being held. I also wasn't sure if there were other prisoners in the same building. I did know that there were security cameras, but that was something that I couldn't help. I couldn't help but notice that guards seemed to be dressed like they were gang members, or maybe they were gang members. It was possible that they just asked some gang members to help guard for some very easy money. There were also a lot of them. The two of us left behind quite the group of injured men.
We slowly found a room that was locked and unlocked it and there he was sleeping on a bed.
"Mr. Merlyn." Courtney called out to him. That got him to wake up.
"I have to admit that I did not expect this to be the first time that I met you." Malcolm declared. Even when he was being rescued, Malcolm was still as snarky as ever.
"We're getting you old of here." I stated. We had to fight a few more people, but we were able to get him out. We first took him to the local hospital before they transferred him to Star City.
In the morning, I went there with Thea, Tommy and my mom. She was relieved to hug him. I was pretty sure that she loved him a lot. The thing was now that he was safe, we would need to figure out who had captured him. Not following my mother did hinder my search a little bit, but I still felt that it was the right decision and I would be able to get the correct information needed to stop the Undertaking.
"It's good to see you all again." Malcolm replied. "I hope I'm not too out of it from the painkillers but I think I see my three beautiful children."
"I'm glad that you're alright, Dad." Tommy declared.
"Is it weird for me to be here right now?" Courtney asked as she appeared in the door with some flowers.
"It's probably best for it just to be family right now." I told her before I whispered into her ear. "Thank you for coming. Now you should probably go to school and maybe get my homework."
"The past few days were the worst I felt since your dad told you that he wanted to take you to China. He insisted that you learn about another culture, even though you seemed a little hesitant about it.
"Dad's the one who wanted me to go?" I questioned. I couldn't help but think that was a little bit strange. I had been the one who wanted to go with him. He was okay with me going, but he hadn't been adamant on my going.
"There's something that I learned while I was captivity." Malcolm announced. "This is going to be a little hard to hear, but I think that the Queen's Gambit might have been sabotaged."
"What do you mean sabotaged?" Thea asked.
"Someone planted a bomb on the boat." Malcolm explained. "But right now I think it would be best to count our blessings. We're all here and Olivia is about to celebrate her birthday in a few weeks. I think we need to make it a spectacle to make up for all of the parties that you missed."
"We don't have to do that." I replied. I didn't know if we would be able to do it if I didn't stop the Undertaking. You know I couldn't help but wonder why so much of this stuff happened to me so close to my birthday. Was I just cursed like that? "So were you able to identify any of the people that captured you at all?"
"I didn't see them but I did overhear them mentioning a name. There were talking about someone named Bob." Malcolm explained. I was a little bit shocked by that. There was no way it could be who I thought it was, could it? I mean even if he was alive, there was no way that he could be behind something like this, right?
As I was walking through the lobby, I couldn't help but notice that Tommy was talking to Dinah. I really hoped that things would work out between the two of them.
After I left, I went to see Iris. I knew that I should apologize for what went down.
"So, I'm sorry that I put you in harms way without a real way to defend yourself." I told her.
"It's nothing. I'm just glad that you and Courtney were able to get Malcolm out of there." She declared as she gave me a hug.
"I also have something that I need to tell you. My mother is involved in something called the Undertaking. I want to find out what she knows including one thing that may be harder for me to process than anything else." I declared.
"Okay, I don't know what is so big that you can't possibly handle it." She responded. If what I was thinking was true, it would hurt more than anything that I think of. I didn't know how I would be able to deal with it. On top of that I would still have to stop it.
"I think that my father might still be alive." I stated.
So I did end up skipping a few chapters. Malcolm did get but he wasn't gone for as long as Walter was. The important thing is that Olivia is pretty close to figuring out that Robert is alive and behind the Undertaking. There are only two more chapters left. Please don't forget to review.