"Fuck" Rebecca swears under her breath as the door closes behind Adrianna. This was the absolute worst time for her to be stuck without child care.
Today was the day she was supposed to start terminating contracts and downsizing the support staff.
Roy was still rehabbing his knee, Ted and Beard were meeting with each player to get an idea of what they wanted to do the following season, Sassy couldn't help at this late notice and Beth was doing night shifts.
That left her with Keeley and while she trusted the younger woman, she was neck deep in sorting out their sponsorships and PR opportunities for the players that were staying on and Rebecca really didn't want to disturb her.
"What are we going to do with you today darling?" she pressed a kiss to the toddlers temple.
"Fa" Addy answered back, causing Rebecca's eyebrows to raise.
"Suppose I deserve that"
With a deep breath she picked up the phone and made a call.
An hour later, she was slipping through the empty halls of Nelson Road, avoiding the places where she knew people might be until she reached Higgins' office. Tapping gently on the door, she pushed it open to see Leslie and Julie waiting for her.
"Rebe…" Leslie's eyes went wide as he choked on her name and Julie's jaw dropped open.
"Leslie, Julie, this is my daughter Addy. The nanny had a family emergency and others who would normally help me out are unavailable. If it was next week, it wouldn't be an issue, I'd just have her in the office with me but until we get through these redundancies I don't want people seeing her."
An odd choking noise erupted from Higgins as Julie stepped forward to meet Addy, her gentle practised hands running down the toddlers arms.
"How old?" Julie asks, rolling her eyes at her frozen husband.
"She'll be one on the 15th."
"That's a fantastic age, it's like they're changing and growing and learning every day and yet they're still our babies and I'm guessing there's quite the story around this beautiful little girl"
She has 15 minutes to get Addy comfortable with Julie and wake Leslie up from the stupor he seems to have fallen into. "I have kept her hidden for a very good reason and I have a handful of things to take care of over the next few days and then it won't be a problem. Are you ok to sit with her here in Leslie's office while we take care of the meetings we have this morning?"
"Of course I am" Julie reached out to Addy as pale eyes studied her with the intensity that only a baby could manage. Passing the baby off, Rebecca dropped the baby bag to the floor.
"Everything she'll need to get through the day is here. Nappies, bottle, snacks, change of clothes… well you know how babies work, probably better than me." She leans forward and kisses the baby's cheek. "If she gets cranky play some music, anything except showtunes usually gets her to drop off… umm, no allergies and no medical issues to worry about. I'll come down and check in when I can."
2 hours later she and Leslie hadn't had the chance to talk about this morning's revelation. They had terminated 3 staff including the CFO and rolled out the restructure of the finance department.
Next up was client and member services.
With an hour before the next meeting they made their way down to Leslie's office. Peeking in, Rebecca smiled at the sight of Julie reading to Addy on Leslie's sofa.
"Mama!" Julie sets Addy on the floor to toddle over to Rebecca. Cuddling her close, Rebecca takes one of the visitor's chairs at Leslie's desk and smiles softly at the man.
"Ask your questions" she prods him.
"You know, I think I've worked most of it out for myself. It's all about loyalties, isn't it?" he didn't give her a chance to respond "Anything in particular you ladies would like for lunch?"
Both women trust him to get them something they'll eat and enjoy. Once the door is closed again Julie regards the younger woman. Like her husband she'd spent the morning reevaluating everything she thought she knew about Rebecca Welton.
"You know, people have been underestimating Leslie for as long as I've known him." she starts, her gaze never leaving Rebecca "But not you… you saw what he was capable of and the way he spoke of you before you took over the club, the guilt and sadness he felt for what he was helping him do and then he got angry, when you told him you wanted to destroy the club. He didn't take the operations job because of the money, he took it because he thought he could reason with you and convince you to give up your mad plan." Rebecca nodded, she could see that happening. She didn't interrupt and let Julie continue with her story "and then the day he realised you couldn't be stopped, the day he quit he came home and cried. He cried not because he lost his job but because he finally knew where your anger was coming from and it hurt him to know he'd played even the smallest part in it. Leslie has always been a gentle man, an old soul so hearing that he wasn't just helping the sod cheat on you but was helping him commit a much worse crime… well it just about broke him." Julie paused to consider her next words carefully.
"Leslie hasn't said it but I can tell he thinks there's more going on. Something you haven't told anyone. More than the cheating and the abuse, more than you trying to hurt Rupert by hurting the club and it's worrying him. I'm not going to ask, it's not my place but if you can, confide in him. He'll help you if he can and be a support if he can't." Julie trailed off, her piece said. She didn't expect anything back from Rebecca, she just hoped that her words were taken in the spirit they were intended.
"I can't tell you that he's wrong," Rebecca admits, "but I can say that I can't talk about it with anyone here, not Keeley, Ted, Beard, Roy or Leslie. Legally…" Julie's eyes widened minutely "Do you understand?"
At the end of lunch, Rebecca realises she's somehow made another friend.
To save Rebecca sneaking through Nelson Road with Addy for the rest of the week, they organise for Rebecca to drop her at the Higgins' and take Leslie with her to and from the office.
It takes 2 weeks for all the staffing changes to be finished. All of Rupert's influence has finally been purged from Nelson road.
She waits until the second week of June before she dares bring Addy back to the club. Most of the remaining staff are on holidays and all of the players and managers are away as well meaning there is no press wandering around.
It's terrifying on one level but so freeing on another one.
Rupert can't come near her, he's still fighting the prosecution, Sean and Clyde are keeping her well informed. They have a court date for the second week of August and the non-molestation order is in place until then. She's already got her legal team working on requesting an extension to it once the case is wrapped up.
The day Emily appears in her office is completely unexpected.
"Ms Welton?" Elsie knocks on the door and then sticks her head in "There's a woman here to see you but she doesn't have an appointment a Ms Reynolds?"
"Lauren?" Elsie nods and when she sees the absolute joy on her boss's face as the older woman stands, steps to the side and ushers the visitor in.
She closes the door with a snick and pretends she doesn't see a tear trailing down Rebecca's cheek as they hug.
"What on earth are you doing here?" Rebecca asks as she finally convinces herself that her friend is actually there and points her at the couch to go and make them fresh tea and coffee.
"I have some news, figured it would be better to tell you in person." Emily smiles impishly, which is the only reason Rebecca doesn't panic at hearing there's news.
"Oh?"
"Yup" there's something in Emily's tone that she can't quite read "You know that job offer that's been on the table since last September?"
"Lyle mentioned he'd lined up quite the lucrative opportunity for you." Rebecca plays along "He also mentioned you were being a stubborn little fucker about it and playing hard to get."
That sounded like something Clyde would say.
"No, I wasn't being a stubborn fucker." Emily pushes back "I was carefully weighing my options."
"Really?" Rebecca raises a well defined eyebrow as she hands over the coffee and lowers herself to the couch next to Emily. "Lauren, you forget I do actually know you."
"Ok, fair play… I finally took the offer, I'll be based in London for the foreseeable future."
Rebecca's face freezes in surprise for a moment before breaking out into a delighted grin and letting out a shriek that Keeley would be proud of.
It had taken them a couple of weeks to pin down the dates to head to Majorca, but they finally managed to all get the last weekend of July free. Emily couldn't make it but Sassy, Nora, Keeley, Beth and Phoebe would all be joining her for 5 days of nothing but chilling on the yacht.
At the last minute, she invites Julie Higgins' whose eyes light up as she thanked Rebecca profusely but unfortunately has to decline.
"Next time" Rebecca promises. Already wondering if they can make this an annual event or even organise a mid-winter escape.
In the meantime, Rebecca was still wading through all of the documents the auditors she had hired were demanding. On the days where no one scheduled a meeting but she needed to be in the club, she had started bringing Addy with her. Now that she was not worried about anyone reporting back to Rupert or Rupert himself popping up she could actually take her daughter out with her and not fear the wrong people seeing them.
It was a beautiful day in early July and Rebecca was not happy to be stuck inside her office. Addy was playing quietly on the floor but even her happy sounds weren't enough to help Rebecca focus on her work.
Giving up, she shuts the laptop and picks up Addy and heads out on to the training pitch. She has the whole thing to herself so she pops Addy down and lets her run around in the sun. Eventually, she toes off her heels and starts to chase the little girl around the pitch, both of them giggling madly.
Sweeping the toddler up, she spins them around. When she finally stops, she lets out a shriek as she comes face to face with a stunned Isaac McAdoo and Colin Hughes.
"Isaac, Colin? What are you doing here?" she's slightly breathless as she shuffles Addy to her hip. She assumes seeing the club owner running round the pitch barefoot with a toddler is a slightly shocking sight.
"I needed to pick up one of my sets of clippers," Isaac admitted. "Colin was bored so we thought we'd have a kick around." his face breaks out into a smile "but if you want us to run around with the little one and wear her out we can do that too."
Rebecca smiled as a warm feeling rose up within, the boy's immediate acceptance, something Ted and Beard had tried to warn her about but she hadn't allowed herself to truly consider it. Admittedly, this was probably the best way to introduce Addy to the team.
"What do you think Addy, do you want to play with Isaac and Colin while Mummy works?
15 minutes later, she's sitting in the stands working away while Addy runs around with two of her boys. At one point, she takes a handful of photos, in one of them Addy is trying to pick up a football with Colin and Isaac grinning in the background and after a moment's hesitation she sends it to all the staff and players.
Do I have a budding Lioness on my hands?
30 seconds later her phone is ringing, pursing her lips she answers it knowing this wasn't in the plan she and Keeley had put together.
"What the fuck Rebecca? I thought you were going to wait a little bit longer?"
"I was… but I'm tired of hiding. Fuck Rupert and fuck the press."
"Fuck the haters" Keeley agrees "We going public on the socials or do you just want to let it trickle out?"
"Let's see what happens over the next few weeks, I'll make a decision when we get back from Majorca. If nothing forces our hands we might do an official post for the first home match of the season."
Hanging up the call, she slid her laptop and phone, without looking at any responses, into her bag and walked down onto the pitch. The sun was setting and she needed to get Addy home.
"Thank you boys" she lifted Addy into her arms and smiled as the girl snuggled into her, exhausted, but so happy.
"Any time Boss."
On the players group chat Isaac sends a photo he'd taken earlier, it's of Rebecca walking away from them. Heels dangling from the fingers of one hand, the other arm holding Addy. The two Welton's are looking at each other with broad smiles on their faces.
~McAdoo: keep your traps shut and eyes open. Let me know if you hear anything.
The next day she left Addy at home with Adrianna and felt like the biggest heel when Moe and Tommy stuck their heads in just to 'say hello'. She could tell they were disappointed she was alone.
"Come back tomorrow boys" she promised and bit back a grin as their eyes lit up.
It sets the tone for the next few weeks. All the players in town suddenly have a reason to pop by the club and stick their heads into her office, all of them failing to be subtle about wanting to meet Addy. It's made all the more amusing when Jeff accidentally lets slip how jealous the players who are still out of the country are. Apparently Thierry and Sam were quite vocal about wanting to meet Addy and not at all shy in their jealousy of those who had.
Rumour had it that Dani was very badly photoshopping himself into the photos of Addy they were sending each other.
The amount of shit she gets from Ted and Beard over it is laughable and they're threatening to use 'Addy time' as a reward system for the players once the season starts up again.
They keep her up to date on the boys and what is floating around the chat. Including Isaac's threat from that first day and she's impressed that despite their general lack of subtlety they are all keeping quiet. Even the new transfers seem to be following their captain's directive.
Despite wanting nothing more than to spend a long weekend sunning herself on a yacht in the Mediterranean, Emily Prentiss is a workaholic at heart. Instead of going on a girls weekend with Rebecca and her friends, she's raiding a warehouse in Dieppe, France.
When Clyde had shut down Mannion's Algeria hub, he had managed to get intelligence of several other waypoints he used. They had other teams checking out Kochi, Mombasa and Mogilev, from everything they had managed to gather the Hull operation had been shut down for years.
The hope was they would get a lead from Dieppe back into the UK.
She had done 2 more cognitives with Rebecca since her move back to London, but either they hadn't managed to find the right trigger or there was nothing left to find.
Emily was betting on the former, but that was something for her to worry about another day.
Right now though, she was preparing herself to slip into Lauren Reynolds skin, there were currently too many threads and no way to wrap up the operation in one fell swoop so when they positively identified somewhere as one of Mannion's they were alternating between having local law enforcement raid the place on an 'anonymous' tip, tipping off one of his competitors, using the Lauren cover to take control of it or leaving it alone so they could track the shipments.
It wasn't a perfect plan by any means, but it seemed to be working so far.
Mannion was so busy trying to keep himself out of trouble in the UK, his more lucrative and less legal businesses were suffering.
Emily, Clyde and Sean were doing their best to make sure they suffered badly.
This was the part she would never tell Rebecca about. The raids, the stakeouts, nights where everything seemed to happen at once and nights where nothing happened at all.
Tracking down and renewing old connections, doing things that she could never tell Rebecca about because Emily hated this world, she had clawed her way out of it once they arrested Doyle and shut down his operation. This world that made her feel dirty and wrong.
That she had willingly walked back into it on Rebecca's sketchy intelligence... She couldn't put that type of guilt on her friend.
Checking her gun and ammo one last time Emily took a deep breath and closed her eyes.
Starting in her feet, she visualised the way Lauren would point her toes when sitting. Her knees crossing at a slightly different angle to Emily, the way she would cock her hip as she stood impatiently. The tattoo on her ribs that to Lauren meant nothing more than she got drunk one night and let a tattoo artist friend have fun. The scars that Lauren wore with pride and boasted about to whomever ran their fingers over them. Her hands that were not afraid of violence and found comfort when they contained a weapon. Lauren whose eyes didn't tear up at the sight of suffering.
Opening her eyes, Lauren Reynolds smiled a dangerous smile.
This was her world, and everyone else could get fucked.
No official arrests are made that night, any bodies from Lauren's brutal takeover are disposed of by her specialised crew.
When they managed to get the containers open, the stench nearly brings her to her knees. It's a smell that cannot be truly described, only experienced.
Human waste, body odour, urine, blood, fear… death.
All wrapped around the girls that Rupert Mannion was shipping around the world to sell.
"Hey Stinky" Sassy calls out over the edge of the boat to where Rebecca is swimming with Nora, Addy, Phoebe and Beth "Someone called Gruncle is calling you"
"It's fine, you can answer it" she calls back, feeling slightly evil. She hadn't actually told people that she had coded some of their names in her phone.
Not many, just a handful to keep her amused.
This however was going to be hilarious because the first thing Sassy would do after getting off the phone with Roy is tell Beth and Keeley about the name.
As predicted 30 seconds later Sassy is leaning back over the edge with a delighted grin on her face.
"Roy Kent is listed as Gruncle on your phone?"
A wide grin spreads across Beth's face "Oh that's fucking brilliant!" Phoebe takes a breath to speak but Beth knows what she's going to say "bill me" she orders the 6 year old.
"Do you know what the best bit is?" Rebecca shades her eyes and then turns to Addy who is comfortably floating in her mothers arms, "Addy, can you say Gruncle?"
She can't just yet, but the growl that the toddler lets out has everyone in stitches.
"I've been teaching her that for the last few weeks?" Rebecca kisses Addy on the cheek "That's my clever girl."
"Wait, does she just do it when you ask her to say Gruncle?" Nora asks as Addy growls again.
"Nope, she does it when I show her a photo of Roy as well."
"Oi" Keeley appears next to Sassy "What's this about Roy and Gruncle?"
Addy growls.
Emily wanted no, needed to sleep.
All of the intelligence they had gathered had pointed to Dieppe being empty when they raided it. Finding those girls had thrown a serious wrench in their plans, they had honestly been expecting to find drugs or weapons in the shipping containers… not humans. Not 3 containers packed full of pre-teen and teenage girls.
"Oh fuck" Emily whispered as she caught sight of the blinking eyes and terrified murmurs.
"Hey Ram" she called out to one of her crew who was swearing under his breath as he looked inside the second container. Another undercover agent she'd worked with on and off during the years she'd originally been at Interpol. He'd been running with different organisations for over 20 years and was probably the best deep cover agent she'd ever worked with.
"Yes boss" she could hear the rage vibrating through him.
"Do we deal in people?"
"No boss"
"What do we do when we find something like this?"
"Get them home or somewhere safe and then we find the pieces of shit who did this and put them the fuck down!"
"That is correct"
Over the years they had been investigating Mannion they had never managed to pin down exactly what he was involved in.
They'd been leaning towards drug smuggling.
They were wrong.
They pulled 53 living girls out of those containers.
They pull 20 bodies out as well.
Not that Emily can say it to anyone she's with right now, but this puts counting shoes at the Turner farm to shame. She doesn't think she's had a worse night than this.
Maybe she'll call Dave once she's somewhere safe and private, and ask him to tell stories of the BAU glory days when he and Gideon were just starting out. Stuck in a basement in the Hoover building trying to prove that behavioural profiling works.
For now, she's talking to terrified young girls from all over the UK trying to reassure them that she will do her best to get them home.
And while she believes she can do that, she also knows they'll never feel safe again.
Rebecca can't remember the last time she was this relaxed or had this much fun.
It helped that her friends had started to lose the wary edge around her. For weeks after the incident with Rupert they had couched their words around her, tiptoed around subjects that they feared might set her off, Keeley and Beth were worse than Sassy.
But now they had relaxed, and she felt as though she didn't need to watch herself as closely or hide her reactions.
If she was having a bad day, all she needed to do was say so. Sassy's words that night back in May and the first time she had gathered the courage to whisper it to Keeley had seemingly broken the last barrier down. These women didn't judge her for her anger or sadness and in turn she didn't judge them for theirs.
Watching Keeley get constantly distracted by her tits was just a bonus.
Are you awake?
Of course Dave was awake, it was 8pm on a week night and he worked in the BAU. Seeing the message from Emily twisted something deep in his gut. In the 2 months since she left them, they'd emailed regularly with the occasional phone call.
For her to reach out like this…
Yes and yes I'm free for a call
The phone rang almost immediately.
"What's wrong?" Dave had never beat around the bush with her.
"You know when you think you've already seen the worst thing you can ever see but then you have a night that feels like it tops pig farms and cannibalism and a 10 year old killing his brother… A part of me would prefer tracking down Foyet or Breitkopf again…" she goes silent, she hadn't meant to say that, she knows Dave won't judge her but at the same time after everything the team went through it feels wrong to invoke those two particular names. It feels like going too far…
"Dave…" her voice wobbles slightly "I just pulled over 70 girls out of shipping containers… nearly a third of them were already dead…"
He inhales sharply, both Foyet and Breitkopf's body counts had been much higher than that, but he knows Emily too well, knows that she wouldn't be tipped over the edge like this unless there was something more. Of the team, Emily was the most level headed and emotionally stable, when it came to compartmentalisation she left the rest of them in the dust.
"What's the first thing you learn in the BAU?" he asks softly, knowing instinctively as only a profiler can, what she needs.
"Trust the profile, it won't lead me wrong." she whispers.
"Ok, what does the profile say?"
"My target is a sadist. He's driven by causing pain, not death. He's also driven by money but it's not pure greed. He grew up poor, below poverty level poor, and used a combination of legitimate business and illegal operations to make money because to him money equals power and the powerful can do what they want. As long as he has enough money he can feed his sadistic side and buy himself out of trouble. We've been targeting his cash lines trying to force him to take on higher risk endeavours while causing distractions in other ways, but we've had to stop using our best distraction."
Dave is impressed by the level of details she's managing to provide without actually giving away anything.
"He doesn't get his hands dirty though, as long as the money keeps flowing… he uses middle men and we can't actually link him directly to anything we've found."
"Yet" Dave interrupts, "You can't link him yet. How long did we chase Tommy Yates for?"
"Dave… he's been operating since at least the late 80's…" she had done the maths hours before and the sheer numbers had been what tipped her over the edge and reaching out to Dave "We actually thought it was drugs. The girls we could get to speak to us had been taken over the last 6-12 months… that's over a hundred just from the UK in the last year with a third not surviving to reach their destination and we both know the statistics, another third won't survive the next 6 months… if he's been operating since say 1988? That's at least 3000 girls from the UK, we know he has operations in India, Kenya, Belarus and France… that's 15,000 he's potentially trafficked and with 60% not surviving beyond a year?"
Dave closes his eyes as the scope of Emily's investigation hits him. Her distraction over the last year made so much more sense now. She needed to finish this, see this case through to the bitter end no matter what it may be.
"You listen to me Emily Prentiss" they've been through too much for him to mince his words "You get this son of a bitch, the profile won't lead you wrong and you do what you need to do to nail his ass to the wall… you hear me?" He doesn't need to tell her to come out the otherside in one piece. She knows he'll sick Garcia on her if she gets herself hurt.
"I hear you" her voice is stronger now, Dave telling her exactly what she needed to hear.
"You say the word and we're there, in whatever way you need us."
END CHAPTER 11