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A/N: Hey there my wonderful readers! Happy Friday! Are you guys excited for this next installment? Well, this is it. Now, when you get to the end of this chapter, remember two things. 1. Wo Fat wanted to test Steven. 2. I already said they're getting back together next chapter. So don't freak out at the ending. I know it ends at a bad place but if I kept it together the chapter was gonna be 30 pages long. This shouldn't be spoilers because I told you guys that they got back together in the 298th chapter. Which is coming out on Monday! So don't panic! However! Feel free to tell me what you think'll happen next chapter. How do you think the two of them are going to find each other? Leave me a review with your guesses and I'll see you guys on Monday!
Chapter 297
Conejo, who was bleeding from his arm through a loosely tied bandage, was cuffed to a small metal chair in a dingy little room in the basement of a large building. He had woken up there, and wasn't really surprised. It wasn't the first time he had been in a situation like this, but usually the cops that kept in conditions like this were corrupt. And from what he knew about his captors they were as straight and narrow as they could get.
He didn't know much about what was going on, all he knew was that he was in pain and the man Wo Fat had been running from for a year had caught him. Or at least… the people who worked with him did.
When he had separated from Wo and Ro that night, the plan was to distract and escape. Except on his way out he was taken down by a hot little Asian thing with an amazing high kick. Damn. She was sweet and spicy. He'd love a piece of that. He just wouldn't say it to her face because she'd probably kill him.
The door opened and he came in. Lieutenant Commander Steven J McGarrett. Rowan said the J stood for James. He was the exact amount of dreamy Rowan said he was, his blue eyes were like a pair of crystalline blue pools except for the fact that he looked tired, there was a big black bruise in the perfect shape of the heel of a boot glancing off of the side of his jaw and he seemed to be very, very angry. He knew a lot about this man. He knew that his favourite flavour of ice cream was rocky road, that if he didn't swim in the morning he went for a run. He knew that Steven McGarrett wore his emotions on his face but ask him to talk about them and he'd rather commit hari-kari.
And he knew that his Ro was so in love with this man that she had mourned the loss of her relationship with him the whole year he had been babysitting her and she did the most ridiculous things to attempt to get over him.
Wo Fat had told him that Steven wanted Rowan for selfish reasons. That when they were together it was bad. It was why he went to such lengths to keep Rowan and Steven apart. He said Steve didn't love her, not really, he loved controlling her, he treated her badly, took her for granted and put her in danger.
Wo Fat swore that Steven and his commitment issues, his hatred for Wo Fat and his stupidity were the reason that Rowan had been kidnapped and tortured a year ago. But Wo Fat lied. He lied to Rowan, he lied to Conejo and Con was strongly suspecting that Wo had been lying to himself.
Wo Fat was painted into a corner now and Rowan wasn't stupid. After this… she'd question him. She'd want Conejo back which meant he'd have to either drop her off with Armando and then come get him, or she'd come with him. Voiding where Steven was involved never went right, which meant, if Wo was going to play rescuing him smart, he'd have to do it the old school way. Either way that meant Ro and Wo being together without anyone to distract her from what the hell had just happened.
Without Conejo there with him, he wouldn't have anyone to deflect her questions onto. Wo Fat would have to either come up with new lies or tell her the truth. Either way, Conejo was going to take this time to get the truth off of Steven McGarrett, he was going to find out how bad the two of them really were together.
If he got definitive proof of Steven McGarrett's so called love for Rowan he'd personally take the man to Armando's compound and get Rowan to him. And he'd shoot Wo to do it. He wouldn't kill him, but he'd definitely take him down if he had to.
Steven McGarrett glared down at him and Conejo assessed him. No wedding ring, so he was still not married. The man was in a green tee-shirt and beige cargo pants. Rowan had mentioned his lack of style, he had met Steve once and figured it was an off day, he didn't think it was this bad.
"Welcome back to Hawaii, Con," Steve growled. Well he remembered him, that was good right? "I take it you gave Rowan her locket back?"
"Yes, I did, she was very happy to see it," he said. "It's her most prized possession, and she owns a lot of expensive stuff now. Granted the picture inside isn't you and her anymore… it's the three of us."
Steve just glared at him. Well, that was good, he clearly had no patience for him but that was pretty standard. His captors never liked that he was always in such good spirits when he was in a situation that did not call for it.
"You gotta be uncomfortable," Steven said. Ah, he was going to pull on his pain to get him to talk. Good tactic to go with if he were a newbie. McGarrett was already underestimating him. "If you answer my questions, we'll take you straight to a doctor."
It was a lie. Maybe. It wasn't often that he dealt with real good guys. Usually it was corrupt cops or government agents masquerading as the good guys. People who used pain and fear to extract truths. Rowan always said that Steven was ruthless in the interrogation room but was also kind when he had to be.
"Is that so?" Conejo shot back. He was in pain. But it was nothing compared to what he had been through before, what he was willing to go through for Rowan. So if pulling on his pain was the only plan McGarrett had it was going to fail. "I propose a different plan."
"Oh yeah… and what's that?"
"Answer my questions truthfully… and if I believe you, I help you," he growled shooting Steven a smug grin.
Steven laughed at him. The door opened a blonde man with an interesting hair style came in to stand beside Steven. This man was in dressy attire. A blue blouse and grey slacks. He looked like an accountant and not a cop. When he first got here it took a while to remember which one he was. If he was Williams or Chin, Rowan really only talked about Steven. It was only when he saw him in the Camaro that he realized that he was Williams. But the outfit was ridiculous. It was Hawaii, wasn't he hot?
"We got nothing from the captain, he has no idea how they got out of the plane," he whispered to Steven.
Ah the old hide in the plane technique. Armando had sent them two planes as per Wo Fat's request. One was meant to be a distraction, it was supposed to be caught. Though they hadn't expected the Pilot to know of the boat or give it up so quickly, but the other… the smuggler's plane, with a hidden compartment, that had been the plane that was originally sent for them. They were still in there. Guaranteed. They just hadn't found the hidden compartment.
Steven sighed and then stared at him thoughtfully. "Say we go with your plan what kind of questions did you want to ask?"
Ah. He had him. They had no idea what was happening. They needed a lead. He was all they had. "About you of course. Rowan told me a lot about you, you know. Never shut up about you. I wanna know what's true and what's Wo Fat's lies."
Steven folded his arms over his chest. Ohh, tattoos were peeking out from under the sleeves, he hadn't noticed those before, though Steve had been in a hoodie when he met him last. Great biceps too. Nice. No wonder Rowan was obsessed with him, he was practically a model. If she got him into some decent clothes that is.
"I already know about his lies," Steven growled. "I came to Japan looking for her after I figured out that she wasn't really dead. I came looking for her before too. And I'm not married."
"Yes. I know," Conejo said. "I helped him create some of those lies. I'm the one who bugged your phone I didn't know it was to make a fake phone call, though, I thought it was just to keep tabs on you and your progress. I thought all the relationship lies were real too until a few months ago when I found myself in your house and realized that we had been lied to. Had to practically threaten to tell Rowan myself to make Fat admit that it was all lies though."
"Then what else could you possibly want to know?" Steven asked.
"When did you realize she had been taken?" Conejo asked, his voice a low growl. "Did you really leave her there because you were mad at her for choosing him?"
Steven straightened, his eyes blinked like the question confused him. "He told you I knew she was kidnapped and I left her?"
"Yes."
"No, I didn't know she was kidnapped. I mean… I knew she was in Japan but I just thought… I thought she was with… you know… him…" he said. He was uncomfortable. Talking about this, it hurt him, he could see it in the way his shoulders stiffened. This was something that made him feel guilty. He clearly felt that he should have known to intervene. "Did he… did he tell her that?"
Not in so many words but he wasn't going to indulge that question. He was going to let Steve sit with the possibility that he had, even though Wo Fat had not been that cruel.
"And why did you think she was with him?" Conejo pushed. Steven's eyes fell to the floor, his lips were set in a thin line. Beside him Danny, whose arms were also crossed, swung between staring at him and at the Steven.
When neither answered, Conejo added: "Is it because you made her choose between you and Wo Fat and when she chose Wo Fat you broke up with hand and told her that you were going to marry Catherine?"
The sound that came out of Steven's throat was a sound of grief and regret. "Ah… so that did happen, then," Conejo whispered.
"You don't understand," Steven growled. "I didn't mean it… I just… I just wanted her to pick me. That's all. I wanted her…"
"To yourself," Conejo finished for him and Steve came to a stop and just stared at him. "You didn't want to share her. You wanted to isolate her from the only person that you had no control over."
"What are you talking about?" he asked, his voice shaking.
"Well… from my understanding, each and every friend of hers, was yours first. Daniel. Grover. Kono. Chin. Jerry. They are your Five-0 family. Rowan didn't have her own friends. She had an ex who used her. She had you. She had your friends. The only friend she had, the only person who wasn't tied to you, who wouldn't spy on her or turn on her if she were to lose you, was Wo Fat and you were doing everything you could to keep them apart. That is text book abusive behaviour. Isolating someone from the people who care enough to see that she's safe and cared for. You were abusing her."
"No… no… I… that's not…" he stuttered.
"It's what it looks like. And you just admitted that you didn't want her anywhere near Wo Fat…"
"He's a criminal!" Steven thundered. "He killed my father. He almost killed her. He tortured me… TWICE! Look at the lies he spun to keep her from me!"
"To keep her from an abusive ex-boyfriend. To keep her happy…"
"She wanted to come home to me."
"She wanted the kid," Conejo told him. It was a lie. She did also want Steven. But Rowan's Nahele was a big part of that as well. She wanted Nahele. She had convinced both he and Wo Fat to kidnap him from Catherine and Steven, except there was no Catherine and Steven. "That and her car. She does miss that car."
"Nahele?" he breathed out. "She just… wanted… not… oh."
Well that seemed to shake Steven, he clearly hadn't thought about it that way. Conejo forged forward.
"What about all the arguments?"
This time Steven blinked his eyes in surprise. "What are you…?"
"The arguments? How is it you two were going to go steady but you ended up with Catherine? That was about Wo Fat too? Or how Rowan feels like you never liked her for her? Where would she get that? You must have done or said something to make her feel like that. Or how you kept trying to end things because you didn't think you and her had enough in common to last? Or how about all the times you arrested her for no reason… because of Wo Fat? She said you drugged her once and dragged her to Japan, did that really happen? I don't see her making something like that up. Your Five-0 friends had been fine with that treatment too, kept letting you get away with it. So that explains why she felt like your friends weren't really her friends. Or how you don't like Wo Fat or her app but if your cases needed hell yeah you'll call her to use it…"
"STOP IT!" Steven hollered. "You don't understand what it was like back then! What he did to her. She was normal before him, she was normal…"
"The girl's a psychic from an alternate reality what do you mean she's fucking normal? You know about the sociopathic tendencies right? Cause like… she's hella got them…"
"How do you know that?" Steve asked, his face had gone pale, fear hit his face and Conejo realized that he assumed Rowan wouldn't have told them where she was really from.
"The alternate universe thing or the sociopath part?" Conejo asked and Steve just glared at him his nostrils flaring. Yeah, he figured it was the first one too. "The girl has shocky powers, you don't think we would have gotten the truth out of her? And uh… we went to Canada… didn't you wonder what that was about?"
"You brought her to her family?!" Steve thundered. "ARE YOU INSANE?!"
Conejo just stared at him, alright that wasn't good. Why didn't he want them meeting her family? Well they were crazy but he had a feeling it wasn't why Steven was panicking about.
"Oooookay," Conejo said softly. "We've gotten off topic. You wanna find her or not?" when Steve nodded he continued. "You take her for granted and you don't like her the way she is… how is that going to change if you get her back?"
Steven sighed and looked down again. "I do like her the way she is, I love that she's strong and gritty and if I'm being stupid she'll help me even though I don't deserve it. What I was upset about was all the illegal stuff. I just don't want her to get in trouble, okay? I just wanted to keep her safe and… it's really hard to do that when she's running around with an unlimited network that connects her with criminals and she tends to get… violent when protecting the people she cares about…"
Conejo understood that whole heartedly. He knew how hard it was to corral her, to keep her from jumping into danger. He knew what it was like to watch her do something and know that if he didn't put his finger prints on it, she'd go down for life.
"Why do you want her back?" Conejo asked. "Why now? You were content to sit back and date that blonde girl while keeping a shrine to Rowan in a private room. Why did you change your mind?"
"Oh, I know the answer to that," Danny said.
"Shut up, Danny," Steven hissed.
"He never changed his mind," Danny said. Oh? He hadn't. "He thought Rowan didn't want him so he let her go to let her be happy. But he wanted her. He's always wanted her and when he realized that they had both, somehow, been lied to, he decided to go looking again."
Oh, hot damn. He knew Wo Fat was lying to Rowan but it never occurred to him that Wo Fat had lied to Steven as well. Though really, it made sense.
"Except… I'm guessing, since you brought me to Hawaii, that you lost them," he said.
Steven said nothing but Danny said: "Yes. And we need to know where they would go."
Conejo stared at them. This didn't add up. Why had they come back to Hawaii? "He didn't go to Colombia… did he?" he asked. And then he laughed at their surprised faces. "That's it. Isn't it? He didn't take her back to Colombia and you have no idea where he's going next."
"Look. I answered your questions," Steven growled. "You need to help me now."
Conejo laughed. Steve had his answers but he still wasn't 100% sold that his man loved her. He wanted her back, sure, but love… he wasn't sure if he loved her.
"Help you?" he cried. "Look, it's not my fault you jumped the gun. If you had just waited in Hawaii, we would have come to get you. That was my plan. You're the one who had to try and find her early."
"What are you talking about?" Steven thundered.
"It took me months but after a little bit of a hiccup we had… with a box of chocolates… I finally convinced Wo Fat to reunite you two. The deal was he'd take her through the rest of her wish list and then he'd get you to meet us in her last destination. Paradise Island. The plan was to kidnap both Nahele and Danny to get you to follow us. I was going to do the kidnapping and he would explain to her what he did and the lies he told. Then he was going to test you to see if you really wanted Rowan back and if you passed, we were going to make you marry her. I had my best shotgun ready and everything. And then you went and found us ahead of schedule. You couldn't have just waited a week?"
Steven just stared at him. His eyes wide. Like he didn't know if he was going to believe him. "Months?"
"Oh yes, I've been advocating returning Rowan to you long before I washed up on your beach. It didn't sit right with me to have to go to such lengths to keep you two separated. Especially with how unhappy she was," he explained.
"Unhappy?" he echoed.
"Of course, Wo Fat only saw what he wanted to see," Conejo continued. "I'm the one that was with her all of the time. I'm the one who saw the tears, who comforted her, who held her when she had her nightmares. I'm the one who spent countless hours keeping her distracted so her depression wouldn't get worse. Do you know how many times I had to watch The Little Mermaid?"
"Oh god, you poor unfortunate soul," Danny said dryly clearly empathizing with him but the use of a key lyric, most likely to torment him, was not appreciated.
"You don't know where they're going, do you?" Steven asked his voice hollow.
"Are they here?" he asked. "Did they come to Hawaii?"
"Yes," Danny answered for Steven.
Conejo thought this over before he nodded. "There are only two reason why he'd come here. After this she'd have questions. She always had questions. Without me there to help him deflect he'd have two choices. One: He's lied to her again. They're here to pick up Nahele and that car of hers and disappear. He promised her that once he got them settled down, we'd bring Nahele to her. She thinks you and Catherine adopted him…"
"No, he's admitted that he lied to her," Danny said.
Conejo's eyebrows shot up his forehead. Holy shit. It had happened. It had finally happened. And he wasn't there to witness it. Damn. "He did?" his eyes narrowed again. "How do you know?"
"He left video evidence. Proof that she didn't know about his lies. Proof that he's finally told her the truth…"
"And then he tazed her and told me I have less than 12 hours to find her or they'd disappear again," Steven finished for Danny, staring down Conejo with his darkened glare. Conejo scowled right back. She got tazed? Really? Well, when he got out of here and talked to Wo Fat the man was gonna get slapped for tazing her. But this meant that Wo Fat had gone with option two.
But it was when he said that she had gotten tazed that Con finally saw it. The pain in his eyes. He was upset, not upset that they were missing, he was upset that Wo Fat had hurt her. That was it. The proof he needed.
That smirk dawned on Conejo's face again. "Then he's testing you," he said. "He wants you to prove that you really love her, and you're not doing this to get to him. And you're wasting your time with me."
Steven's chest heaved. "I'm going to find her," he growled. "It doesn't matter if I have to kill you and all his friends to do it. I am going to find her and there is nothing you, or him, or anyone else he hires, can do to stop me."
"You better get to looking Commander," he growled. "But I'd start with the plane."
"The place was searched they weren't there," Steven snapped as he went to the door. He pressed a buzzer so someone would let him out.
"Well sure. But did you find the cargo hold. You know the secret one?" he asked.
Steven turned back to him. "What secret cargo hold?"
"A smuggler sent us a plane. Obviously, there will be a secret cargo hold for contraband," Conejo told him. "I'm guessing you didn't find it… under the seats."
Conejo didn't even get to finish the sentence, Steven had already opened the door and disappeared. Well so much for his doctor. Still he sat back, the door closed behind Danny. He had learned what he needed to learn. Watching Steven's reactions, he knew. He could tell. He was so in love with that girl it was sickening. Yes, he would find Rowan, he hadn't a doubt in the world that Steven McGarrett would set the world on fire to find her if he had to.
H5O-H5O-H5O-H5O
Rowan had woken up and she was in a car. Immediately she was in a panic. She couldn't handle it anymore, the whole ending up in a car after being knocked out. Any moving vehicle actually. It brought back all her other kidnapping attempts. Waking up on a plane to Japan after Steve drugged her tea. Waking up in a plane to Russia. Okay maybe she only had two kidnapping attempts where she woke up on the move, but it was enough to leave a lasting impression. The only thing that calmed her down was that her head was in someone's lap.
Wo Fat's lap.
She sat up and he let her, though she could feel his hands hovering at her sides as if to stop her from pitching forward at any moment. She turned bleary eyes onto him and he hit her with a weak smile.
"How are you feeling?"
"You tazed me."
And that was about how the rest of their conversation went from there on in. Wo Fat explained his rationale, how it had been for a movie he was making for Steven. He explained how he was testing him, and how he had set up a series of elaborate clues for him to follow, that all culminated with one major test. A test that, if he passed, would mean he still loved her and Wo Fat would feel comfortable returning her to him. She had filled every pause in his explanation of his plan with the same sentence.
"You tazed me."
She'd expect that shit from Conejo, but not Wo Fat.
They got out of the car and he took her into a warehouse. She looked around with a dim feeling that this place was familiar.
"Where are we?" she had asked him and found out that they were on the dock where Wo Fat had shot her, which was also, coincidentally, the same dock in which he first found her. She wondered why he would take her there but she learned that was part of the plan. He left a card with a note for Steve to find, and then turned her and handed her the energizing ray. Turned out they had a lot of jumping that he wanted them to do.
The first jump was straight to Conejo who had been locked up at the Palace. Rowan found that to be quite unfair because according to Wo Fat, the poor man hadn't just been arrested, he had been shot too. She hadn't voided straight into the office because she wasn't certain where Steve was. All of the red strings that led to him were vibrating and she didn't know why, but she couldn't get a clear read on where he was supposed to be. Instead she opened the portal in the service stairs which they were currently using to get down to the cells.
"I can't believe you tazed me," she said again as Wo Fat went about picking the lock that separated them and floor with the cells.
"For the last time, Rowan, it was a necessity, and I had it on low, you're fine," he said as finished picking the lock. She opened the door practically into his face and went past without even holding the door open for him.
She led him down the hallways until they found the holding cells where they easily found Conejo's. It was the only one locked up. She let Wo Fat pick that lock too because they didn't want Five-0 to realize she had been there, though the fact that Conejo had gone missing would be a very good indicator that her and Wo Fat had been through the building.
As soon as they got the door open his head popped up, looking at the two of them as if surprised they were there. He had been patched up, but not well. He was bleeding from his shoulder, and bleeding through that dressing they had wrapped around him. Well damn, Steve wasn't usually that cruel, he must have been really mad.
She rushed into the room calling his name and noted that she got a wistful kind of smile from him.
"You guys came," he said sounding shocked. It was almost as if he didn't think that they would rescue him.
"Of course, we came," Wo Fat said sounding a little insulted that he thought they'd leave him behind.
"Ew you're all bloody!" she said scampering around him to get the cuffs off of him.
"Don't vomit."
"I'll be fine," she said absently. She focused all her power on the strings around his wrist and pulled the right one to unknot them. The cuffs fell free and Wo Fat moved forward to help the man up on his feet for he was quite unsteady.
Once he was up and he felt steady enough he slapped Wo Fat, right across his scared face. Everyone in that room stopped, Rowan exchanged glances with Wo Fat not sure what the hell had just happened.
Wo Fat cupped his cheek and glared at Conejo. Oh my god were they going to break into a fight, because they did not have time for this right now. "What the hell was that for?"
"You tazed her!" Conejo snapped. "What the hell is the matter with you?!"
"Thank you!" Rowan cried coming to stand beside him and Wo Fat just sighed. He was used to the two of them ganging up on him and usually he was more vocal about it. He must have felt guilty about tazing her because he just let it go.
"Can we go please? Before he comes back? I gotta get this one to a doctor, I mean, I'm all for hoping he bleeds out but it looks like it's gonna take a while."
"Very funny," Con growled. Letting Rowan take his uninjured arm and lead him into the hallway. They left Wo Fat to lock up the cell as if nothing had ever happened and when he finally caught up Conejo added: "She's not leaving Hawaii, even if he doesn't pass your test, you gotta let her stay."
Wo Fat moved past them to get to the door to the stairs, which he had conveniently left unlocked. He held it open as they went past. "Excuse me? No, I most certainly do not."
"Yes, you do. That man's practically panting for her, you should see him, he's a fucking wreck," he said before turning to Rowan. "He really, really, really wants you back, kid." He then turned back to Wo Fat. "And I don't think he's going to let us get off the island with her."
Conejo then turned to the stairs, realized that they meant him to go up them, looked at Rowan and then said: "Switch with Wo I'm gonna need someone stronger to help me up the stairs."
Rowan did as was asked and then skipped her way up the steps, she wasn't sure where they were going, but she wanted the door she fist came through, opening a portal in the same place was always easier and besides, that camera was already down.
They were part way up the stairs when Wo Fat had come up with a plan for Conejo's concern. "If he's compromised all our exit points, we'll just jump."
"Not without Nahele this time," Rowan said and then paused. "Wait… wait a second… where is Nahele?"
"Here, on the island, obviously," Wo Fat said looking down and away. "Could you keep walking please, I can't get him up the stairs if you're in the way."
That was true, she was very much in the way, but she had a sinking feeling that there were a few more lies Wo Fat hadn't told her about yet. And she had a feeling that this was one of them.
"Wo. Steve and Catherine never got married, right? That means they didn't adopt Nahele together. Where's Nahele… Steve still has him, right?"
Wo Fat looked up to her and the look on his face was enough for Rowan to realize he had had lied about that too. "Oh my god. What have you done?"
"Okay, uh… so that would be the other thing… wanna help me here?" he said to Conejo who shook his head.
"Nope, you did that before I came along, not my problem." He then purposely put all his weight onto the bar to try and drag himself up the damn stairs without them. He got a few steps ahead before Rowan stopped him.
She reached out and grabbed the back of his shirt. "I don't think so, I'm mad at you too, you stay right there," she growled before turning to Wo Fat and repeating: "What did you do?!"
"Okay, so… right… don't get too mad… but uh… Nahele's not with Steve… I uh… I had him removed from Steve's care before we went to Paris."
"WHAT?!"
"Well… you wanted to talk to him, and if he was with Steve, I wouldn't have been able to put you two in contact. Not without Steven finding out. And I couldn't say no to you, I had just taken Steve away I didn't want to take the kid too…'
"So Nahele just lost me and Steve?! He's been in the system this whole time? Where? Not in a group home, no he would have run away again… he's not on the street again, is he?"
"No, no, I got him a new family… they're taking very good care of him, I made sure…"
"Why didn't he tell me? I call him every other week why did he never tell me?" she cried.
"Well… uh… because that was part of the deal."
"The deal? You had my kid lie to me about who he was living with? Why the hell would you do that? Wo that… that…"
"Well, I knew sooner or later you'd want him with us, once we were settled. I told him if he kept lying, he could continue to speak to you and eventually I would move him in with us."
Rowan glared at him, she was clearly not happy with this and he knew it because he was avoiding her eyes.
"How did you managed to get a teenager to… there had to be something else…"
"Well I mean, I didn't do much of the negotiating. I had Kong…"
"Kong… Kong Liang?"
"Yes, well, he and his wife had been looking into fostering for a while so when Nahele became available I gently suggested…"
"GENTLY SUGGESTED?!"
"Okay like, I didn't flat out tell him to grab the kid, they wanted a little one after all. I just told him the situation, and asked if he would consider taking on Nahele for me until I had other arrangements… and he and Brandi sort of got… you know… attached. They really like him…"
"Okay… okay… and you knew he was lying about all of this," Rowan said turning to Conejo who was wincing. "Don't you lie to me, I accidentally sent you to Hawaii… you knew didn't you?"
"I did."
"Why didn't you tell me then?" she cried.
"Because someone made me believe that Steven was bad for you. He told me about all those times you had cried and he had chosen Catherine over you and the drugging and kidnapping and the arresting… and… the controlling nature. He made it clear that if Steve got you back, he'd never let us see you again so I uh… I stayed quiet. But I have… I have been trying, I'm the one that convinced him to bring Nahele to Paradise Island and get Steve to follow…"
"Okay stop talking," Rowan said putting her hands to her head as if she were trying to process all of the information she had just got. She was silent a moment as she thought about it, but all she felt was angry and it was so hard to be reasonably when he was angry.
"Okay, we're going to … uh… we're going to get this going, we're going to test him, and then if he fails, I'm going to take Nahele and I'm going to void somewhere and you guys are not coming…"
"And if he passes?"
"Then I'm going to stay here, with Steve and Nahele and you guys are going to leave… and I'm not going to talk to you for a while."
Both men hung their heads. "And when I feel better about all the lies and the betrayals… I will reach out…"
Wo Fat and Conejo exchanged glances before Conejo whispered: "I don't know why you're so mad at me, he lied to me too… and I only recently just found out…"
"Oh, you fucking snake," Wo Fat cried.
Conejo turned on him. "I told you to tell her! But no someone had to convince me that he was bad for her!"
Rowan smacked them both and the fell quiet to stare at her. "I get that he lied to you, Con, but you knew, Con! You knew. You knew he wasn't married. You knew Nahele was gone. And you knew, you knew how much I was grieving for him!" Conejo hung his head and Rowan continued to glare down at her boys. "How many times did I tell you I was still in love with him? Huh?"
Wo stared at her disbelief on his face. "You're really still in love with him? After all this time?"
Rowan turned a dark glare to him. "Yes, why do you think I cry so much?" she hugged her arms around herself and then she asked. "Just a question… all those times he chased us… the concert… the jungle…"
Wo Fat hung his head and sighed. "He was trying to get you back."
"So, if I had just stayed and… talked to him…"
"You would have realized that I had been lying, yes."
Rowan scoffed then a thought dawned on her. "Wait a second... is that the real reason why you freaked out when I called him on his birthday?" Wo Fat nodded and she scoffed once more. "Wow. Wow. I… I honestly… I don't know what to say. This has got to be the worst thing you could have ever done to me. You derailed my entire life. I just… I'm not in a place where I can feel anything other than anger right now."
Both men nodded and after a long pause Wo Fat whispered. "I understand that Rowan, but we've got to get Conejo to a doctor, and we still need to prove to you that McGarrett wants you and not me, so…"
Rowan nodded and turned away, rushing to the spot where they had first appeared and opened up another portal. They'd have to drive to the doctor unless she knew where it was. But if they thought they were done with the lecture they were sorely mistaken.
H5O-H5O-H5O-H5O
The secret cargo hold was not under the seats like Conejo had said, but in the closet. Though it was empty by the time Steve got there. It was a Hail Mary Pass that he'd find Wo Fat and Rowan still holed up in that cargo hold, but he figured as soon as HPD left the plane, Wo Fat was out of there, with Rowan in tow.
So, he wasn't too disappointed when there wasn't anything in that cargo hold except a folded piece of paper with a name on it.
Kulolia and Ke Awa O Kou Honolulu Harbour. Underneath it was a number, not a shipping container number but a warehouse number.
Great he was sending Steve on scavenger hunt. This was ridiculous. At first, he was determined not to follow this man's stupid clues. But then they got footage of Wo Fat carrying an unconscious Rowan to a town car. They got a clear number on the plates and the driver told them that they did end up at the Honolulu Harbour after all.
So, they went there, went into the warehouse that the man said they dropped him off at and found a piece of paper with a doctor's name on it, and a bunch of bloody bandages. He went back to the driver and that was when he told them that he was paid to wait there until the man and the woman came back and when they did, they had a different guy with them who was bleeding. They had ripped up his white shirt to make a bandage and then they had him drop him off on at some small practice in downtown Honolulu.
You know what else they paid him for? To not tell Steve the whole story right away.
At this point Steve was livid. They sent the man on his way and then they went to the doctor at the practice the man had give them the address to and found him cleaning up. God he was just a couple minutes behind them every time. This was ridiculous.
The doctor said that they brought in the Spaniard, he pulled out the bullet that was stuck in his arm and then stitched them up. There was nothing abnormal, except Wo Fat, who was a frequent client of his, actually paid him to admit that he was there. Said he knew Steve would be coming.
He also said it was very strange to listen to that man argue with the woman and the Spaniard he had with them. Squabbling like children. Something about the woman getting tazed.
Well… it sounded a lot like Rowan as giving him hell for that, so he felt a little better about that. Though if he got his hands on Wo Fat, he'd probably knock him around for a number of things, starting with, of course the fact that he had tazed Rowan. The doctor did say that they were talking about a car and wondering which they should grab first.
That was when they split up. He sent Kono to the Palace to make sure that Sin Nombre was in his cell. Though the door was locked the man was not there. A camera was down in a service stairwell, so that they figured that to be the point of entrance.
Chin and Grover went to Kong's with an HPD car to sit on them. Nahele was still there, and he asked a lot of questions about what was going on. Both Grover and Chin had kept their promise not to tell Nahele what was going on so they told him that there was a particularly nasty bad guy running around trying to take out people who mattered to Steven, so they wanted to make sure that the guy didn't come after Nahele to get to Steve.
Steve and Danny went to Steve's house where they discovered that the three fugitives had decided to steal Rowan's car first. Made apparent by the fact that the car was no longer in his garage.
Since Kono was at the Palace they had her looking over the security footage from cameras around Steven's house and caught Rowan behind the wheel of her pastel purple GTO, purposely running a red light while they turned onto a side street. He said it was purposely because all three people in the car had posed for the camera. So now they were taunting him. Great.
He had no idea where they were going and there was nothing down there except private villas… which was where they were holding Matty. Wo Fat used private Villas as safe houses.
Kono went through the names and found that an Anthony Bastian had rented a villa just that morning, but, of course, when Steve got there no one was in the house. But there was a paper pinned to the fridge with two names written on them and circled. Aurelia and Ko Olina.
For fuck sake had he changed her name again? If it wasn't for Chin reminding him that Ko Olina was a marina and that Aurelia was most likely the Aurelia he might have wasted precious time trying to run that angle and miss them entirely. It was a boat. It was the exit strategy, he was going to get her off of Hawaii on the boat.
The whole team rushed to the Marina, guns drawn they came up to a small pleasure vessel, where they could see Wo Fat coming up from below, obviously getting ready to leave. He bet dollars to dimes that Rowan was below. Probably taking seasickness medicine cause she did not do well on boats.
"Hands up, Fat!" Steve shouted and Wo Fat glanced up at him. Steve didn't like the smile on his face, nor did he like how he checked his watch before he raised his hands.
"Took you long enough, we've been here for a few hours waiting on you."
Lies he wasn't a few hours behind. Maybe an hour or so, at the very least. Down the dock they heard the start of a different boat engine and what he thought was a cry of his name.
Steve glanced off towards it and Wo Fat followed his gaze. "Well it looks like you got a problem now," he said with a sarcastic wince on his face. Steve turned back to him. "Come on now McGarrett. What do you really want? Me or her?"
He turned back to where he could see a boat slowly pulling away and he heard that call of his name again. It was a no brainer really, leaving Wo Fat with his team he sprinted away and down that dock. HE heard Danny call his name, heard Danny giving chase. He didn't know that Danny was following him until he leapt the few feet of distance between the dock and the boat because Danny had jumped with him.
There they split ways. Danny went for the person commanding this boat while Steve went below looking for Rowan. He got down below but all he found was a phone on a small coffee table. And from it he heard Rowan's voice scream his name again.
It was a decoy. Steve turned to feet pacing down the steps he had just came down. He looked up to see Danny rushing towards him.
"Did you get her?" he asked after he looked around which should have told him all he needed to know about where Rowan was. Cause it wasn't on this boat with them.
"Are we back at the dock?"
"Yeah, but… I mean, you heard her voice… where…"
"She's obviously not here, Danny. Arrest Wo Fat he's going to tell her where…"
"Yeah, about that…" Danny whispered trailing off and looking mighty guilty. Steve was already coming up above to where he could see all his friends standing at the edge of the dock waiting for him. No, why were they all there? Where was Wo Fat?
"No! Come on! No!" They can't have lost him, Wo Fat was all they had
"He tossed a dummy grenade at us, which, you can imagine, we dove away from. And in the chaos he went below deck… and uh… he's gone."
That came from Grover, but the others were avoid his eyes. They obviously all felt back about this as he realized what had happened.
Oh my god. Rowan had been on Wo Fat's boat and they must have used her powers to get away.
He had taken the phone that had been projecting her voice with him as he had gone above. It had long since stopped calling Steve's name in Rowan's voice so it surprised him when he heard Wo Fat's voice coming out of it.
"Did you really think I'd let you have her back? You're Crazy."
Steve shook he was so fucking angry He took that phone and whipped it into the water so he wouldn't have to hear the words again. He couldn't believe that he had been tricked like this. He couldn't believe it but… he had failed.
That twelve-hour countdown was done. He wasn't going to get Rowan back.