Chapter 02
She hadn’t been able to sleep that night. Her arm was hurting and the stitches were pulling. Whatever she tried, Bella couldn’t get her mind to settle, so instead, she spent the night running her shooter’s face through the FBI database. Disconnecting every 10 minutes.
By the end of the night, she saw the sun come up from her window and she hadn’t gotten anywhere. Even switching to her more powerful computer didn’t work as the connections were so slow. Bella got dressed into something comfortable, knowing that two men were still in her home with her, and headed to the kitchen to make some coffee.
“Mornin’!” Neal greeted her happily. “Coffee?”
“Yes, please,” she sat down at the table and looked at him. “You’re looking fresh.”
“Oh, yeah, the beds here are just fantastic,” he said cheerfully. “What about you? Did you get some sleep?”
“No, and I didn’t get anywhere with the facial recognition either. The servers were sluggish and it was just tiresome. I’ll try again in a bit while most of the world is still asleep, I dunno.” Bella gratefully took the mug of coffee and was surprised when her milk and sugar were already added. “What’s this?”
“Come on,” Neal smirked. “We’ve worked together for a nearly two months, we may change who we are for our jobs, but our coffee order will always be the same.”
“You remembered my coffee order?”
“Of course! Why wouldn’t I? Was all part of the job and after I saw you that night wanting that Picasso, I decided to remember stuff about you for the next time.”
“Creep,” Bella muttered as she took a sip of her coffee. “Where’s Liam?”
“Oh, I gave him a list of groceries to get seeing as you don’t have a lot in your home and he won’t let either of us leave until we’re certain what happened,” Neal replied as he started to cook breakfast. “And he’s going by my place to pick up some clothes for me. You have some cute clothes, but I don’t fit them.”
Bella cocked her head as she looked at his behind. “I don’t know… you’d look great in a dress, some high heels…”
“Funny,” Neal flipped the eggs. “Good to know you have your sense of humor back.”
“Ah, but I have coffee, it’s the nectar of the Gods!” She took a sip of her coffee again and relaxed in her chair. “I can get used to this, someone else who cooks.”
“Ah! I don’t mind doing it, it’s more fun to cook for more people,” Neal replied as he slid the eggs onto some toast and set the plate down in front of Bella. “So, did you google me?”
“Why would I?”
“Aren’t you at least curious about me?”
Bella looked at him for a moment and shook her head. “I trust Liam. Liam says you’re alright, why would I bother looking you up online when I was doing other stuff? Besides, it’s a lot more fun to get to know someone in person than to read things on the internet about them and half of it might not even be true.”
Neal let out a snort. “You’re so unlike other con artists I’ve met,” he replied as he sat down in front of her. “Not self-absorbed, not working an angle at all times… you’re actually quite normal.”
“Thanks? I guess?” Oh, she knew what he was talking about. Bella had disliked him from the very start because he was always ‘on’ and couldn’t switch off. It was a safety mechanism, but she was glad to see that he was also capable of being somewhat ‘normal’.
Her siblings had always hated her for her ‘normal’ behaviour. They were all competitive with each other, who got the best scores, the best gigs… the bigger amount of bodies, and Bella wasn’t like that at all. Sometimes it felt as if she didn’t even belong in the family, but then again, there were plenty of families out there who didn’t like each other.
Her brothers and sisters also didn’t like it that she wasn’t allowed to go on normal jobs, and that she was the one who needed to fix things when things would go sideways. Bella was the wildcard, the fixer and the cleaner, but after years and years of fights, distrust and being bullied had made her escape to Uncle Garrett permanently. Not even her father knew where his brother lived, and Garrett liked to keep it that way.
Uncle Garrett allowed her to be who she wanted to be, helped her to refine her skills and Bella had been truly happy, and was now wondering if maybe it had been a bad idea to leave the vineyard for Paris.
But she was an adult, mid twenties, she had no one but Uncle Garrett and his people to talk to. Paris had been such a big lure, and now… Now she got shot. Paris sucked.
“And still, you’re good at what you do, and that means you found a healthy balance that I’m still looking for,” Neal said as he took a bite off of his toast. “It’s why I’m here and not still in the States being Neal Caffrey.”
“How’s it working out for you?”
“Too soon to tell. It’s hard to switch off,” he laughed. A genuine laugh. Not faked, not played. “I was a CI for the FBI for six years and even then I couldn’t stop scheming, thinking about my next score or how I could do something behind Peter’s back.”
“Peter?”
“FBI Agent Peter Burke. Great man, great wife, and a great dog. Out of all the people I came in contact with… only he and my best friend knew who I truly was and what made me tick.”
“You miss him, don’t you? The both of them.”
Neal nodded. “Yeah. But Neal Caffrey had to die and I had to start over. Too much baggage, too many waves.”
“Have you been checking in on your friends since you left?”
“Nah, they’re okay without me.”
“Are you okay without them?”
Neal barked out a laugh. “What are you? A psychiatrist?”
“No,” Bella smiled at him as she took a sip of her coffee. “Like you, I had to leave people behind when I moved on from my old life, but unlike you, I didn’t have people I care about.”
“Old life?”
Bella nodded as she finished her breakfast. “How about we check in on your friends? I’m pretty good with the computer, you see. I could take a break from running someone’s mug through facial recognition, and do something fun.”
“How?”
Bella shrugged. “Anyway you think is fun to do.”
“But the US is asleep.”
“Hold that thought,” she replied as she retrieved her laptop from her bedroom, cleared the table and set up her laptop. “Does one of them have an alarm system?”
“Peter has,” Neal said, a little bit suspicious of her question. “Why?”
“Alarm systems are connected to the alarm company through the internet, I’ve hacked alarm systems before, it’s fun,” she pointed to her now empty cup of coffee. “If you pour me another, I’ll have you in contact with your Peter in 30 minutes,” Bella said as she started to open a few programs. “He’ll likely be grumpy though, nobody likes to be woken up in the middle of the night, but it’s fun.” Bella asked for Peter’s address, the name of his security company and after some digging around the security firm’s database, she found Peter’s alarm system. “Oh, it’s going to be loud, and I’ve routed the company’s emergency phone number he’ll likely call to this program, it’s safe and secure, nobody can trace us, and you can get to talk to Peter, even invite him for a video chat, but he’d have to install a piece of software on his pc that he might not be happy with. So audio only, okay?”
“Okay?”
She pointed at her screen. “I’m inside the alarm system now, what melody do you want to wake Peter with? Anything is possible, all I need to look for is the melody online, load it up…”
“Baby Shark.”
Bella eyed him, brows raised. “I ask you for anything and you come up with Baby Shark?”
“Oh, come on!” Neal whined. “Isn’t that song stuck in everyone’s heads these days? It’ll be fun. He and his wife will wake up annoyed anyway, so why not make it super annoying?”
Laughing, Bella shrugged and went looking for the melody and installed it on the server. It was always fun to fuck with an FBI agent. “Here we go, you ready to talk to your friend?”
“Oh yeah, definitely. Thank you,” his gratitude was truly sincere, Bella could tell.
With one push of the button, the alarm in Peter’s house went off. She swapped between the two programs and she was surprised by the response time, Peter was almost immediately on the phone to them. She picked up the call and disengaged the alarm.
“This is Peter Burke, 4232 DeKalb Avenue, my alarm just went off for no reason.”
“Are you sure there’s no intruder in your home, sir?” Bella replied. “Nothing out of the ordinary?”
It was quiet for a moment before Peter realized that his alarm wasn’t the right tone. “Who is this?”
“Hey Peter,” Neal said, a relieved smile on his face as he heard his friend’s voice, and Bella decided to leave him and Peter alone for a bit while she took her coffee elsewhere. “Hey, where are you going?” Neal grabbed her wrist. “Don’t go away, it’s fine.”
“Neal?” Peter sounded surprised.
“Oh, come on, Peter, we all know that you have already figured it out that I’m still here. Don’t worry, the line is safe and secure,” Neal watched as Bella sat down again. “How are you? How’s Elizabeth? Moz?”
“Neal? Is that Neal on the phone?”
“Yes, hon, he’s the one who set off the alarm too.”
“Well, technically, it wasn’t me. Just a friend giving me the opportunity to talk to you.”
“Neal,” Peter’s voice sounded stern. “Do you have any idea how many laws you’re breaking right now?”
“Yes.”
“And isn’t the purpose of you faking your death to start anew?”
“Yes,” he nodded. “How’s the baby?”
“Neal is fine.”
“No, I’m asking about the baby, I know I’m fine.”
“We named the baby after you, Neal. That was before I found out you were still alive.”
Neal’s face lit up. “You didn’t! Oh, wow, Peter! What an honor! See, I knew you couldn’t live without me!”
“Yeah, well, your stunt has woken him up too,” Peter said grumpily. “Are you in trouble?”
“No, why would I be? I missed hearing your voice!”
“Because you’re smart enough to make clean breaks, that’s why, Neal. I don’t care if your friend gave you a chance to seek contact safely, but this is the first we hear from you in a long time, so something must be up.”
“Well, actually…”
“Don’t,” Bella said as she looked at Neal. “Don’t you dare! We can figure this out together and if not… No. Don’t.”
“Bella, you were shot at.”
“I don’t want to have the FBI involved in this! I’m off their radar and I’m happy to stay that way!” She had her hand on the disconnect button. “Change subject with your friend or I will sever the connection right now.”
Neal narrowed his eyes on her. “So you’re really going to keep hacking the FBI to use their facial recog—-”
“Neal!”
“I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear that,” Peter’s voice sounded. “But if you do need help…”
“No cops, Peter.”
“And no FBI involvement,” Bella scowled as she took another sip of her coffee. “You have one more chance. Change subject.”
“Mozzie and June are alright. Mozzie is a bit lonely so he hangs out with El a lot and baby Neal. Get this, we even allow Mozzie to babysit these days, and he loves hanging out with Teddy too.”
“Wow, Peter.”
“I know, but I felt bad for the guy, and El adores him, so does Diana. So, how have you been, Neal?”
“Oh, you know, keeping busy.”
“That Picasso, was that you?”
“Which one?” Neal grinned as he looked at Bella, who rolled her eyes at the question. “Maybe.”
“Neal.”
“What? I got bored!”
“And now your new friend got shot.”
“Yes.”
“And you have no idea who did it, seeing as you’re breaking laws to use facial recognition software.”
“Exactly.”
“Alright, that’s enough Neal. Say goodbye to your friend, this conversation is over.”
“Bye Peter, give my love to everyone else. Stay in touch!” He laughed as Bella disconnected the call and pushed him with her injured arm, causing her to yelp in pain. “Happy?”
“Absolutely not!” she shot at him. “This is the last time I’ll do something out of the kindness of my heart for you,” she said as she took her laptop and got off the chair.
“What are you going to do?”
“Use a different database as you told a Fed I was using his database,” she narrowed her eyes on him as she suddenly realized something. “Unless telling him was your plan all along, seeing as some systems are caching the searches, so he knows what to look for.”
“It’s a cyber intrusion, and they do keep logs of every intrusion. I figured he could have someone look for it, connect it to something to his current case and give us the information we need.”
“How?”
“Peter is really good at finding me.”
“No,” she shook her head as she took a few steps back, creating some distance between herself and Neal. “I can’t believe you did that.”
“I can’t believe you didn’t think of this scenario.”
“Get out,” she pointed at the door. “Get the fuck out of my house.”
“Why? Because I’m trying to help you? Peter can be trusted with this, he won’t do anything to jeopardize our location or—-”
“We’re involving the FBI now. I wanted to stay clear of having the FBI involved because they aren’t aware of me. If I’m in the system, people can find me and while I was sure that we did things safely just now, this place is now burned, because you choose to involve your friend. Get the fuck out,” she spat as she walked to her bedroom to start packing. Knowing that Neal followed her, she chose to ignore him for a bit, trying to calm herself down, but it didn’t work.
“You’re afraid,” he eventually said as he leaned against the doorpost, watching her pack her bag with care but fast enough to be out the door in minutes. “And it’s not because of me involving the FBI, is it? That was just the last drop. Who are you hiding from?”
“I’m not hiding,” she replied as she closed her suitcase and decided to take the laptop and tablet with her too. Booting up the pc, she put in the command to erase everything and overheat. “It was a stupid idea to go to Paris. I should have stayed where I was before.” She took out her phone, removed the battery and destroyed the sim card with a pair of scissors that were in her desk drawers.
“Bella, you’re running on zero sleep and you look like you’re about to burst into tears, how about you calm down, take a nap and then you can tell me more.”
“Yeah, no,” she said as she pushed by him with her bags. “Best if you stay out of this,” she replied as she dropped her bags, got down on the floor and lifted one of the floorboards that held her go-bag. “You can tell Liam thank you when he returns, I won’t be here.”
She nearly had a heart attack when the front door opened, revealing her Uncle Garrett. She dropped everything she had and ran into his arms like a small child would do, her fear finally taking over after everything that had happened in the past 12 hours, because now she was safe.
“It’s alright, I’m here now,” Garrett said calmly as he lifted her up to move them out of the doorway so that Liam could come through as well. “Let it all out. We’re not running today.”
Garrett wasn’t too happy with Neal Caffrey being inside his home, but as Liam had explained it to him, he was there when Bella got shot. If it were under any other circumstances, he would have hoped that the bullet had been for Neal, and not for Bella, but there had been something he’d been neglecting to tell his niece.
Garrett knew what was going on, and he was going to tell Bella all about it, as soon as she had calmed down and had some sleep, he was going to tell her. But while she was asleep, he was going to have a chat with Neal Caffrey. Who was supposed to be dead.
“How did you meet my girl?” Garrett asked as he took a sip of his bourbon, looking at the man sitting on the couch, a confident smile on his face.
“Picasso. As it turns out, we both were pulling a con on the museum, for different reasons.”
Garrett nodded. “Can’t say I’m too happy about you and Bella running into each other.”
“Can’t say I’m too happy about getting almost shot yesterday.”
“You didn’t. It was meant for Bella.”
“You know who did it,” Neal said knowingly, a hint of fascination in his voice. “And you want to go after them.”
Garrett scrunched his nose. “Not particularly. There’s nothing we can do apart from going into hiding, these guys can’t be stopped without force.”
“What aren’t you telling me?”
He took another sip of his bourbon and sighed as he looked over his shoulder to the closed bedroom doors before looking back at Neal fucking Caffrey. “I just told you that Bella was the intended target, you don’t have to stay.”
“Well, I might not know her as well as I’d like, but I want to help. It keeps me off the streets and aren’t us thieves supposed to help each other?”
“And usually be in each other’s way.”
“Yeah, like that Picasso thing. But Bella and I managed to agree quickly after she found me.”
“Mr. Caffrey, you’re not known for having honor amongst thieves. Because there usually is none. However, I’ve been teaching my girl that whatever you decide to use your talents is to be kind and with a purpose. I don’t want her to get hurt.”
“She got shot and that wasn’t my fault. I made sure she got patched up and didn’t end up in the hospital. If I wanted her to get caught or get into the system, I would have done just that,” Neal countered, slightly angry. “But I didn’t. That would be a waste because she’s talented and there aren’t many con artists like her who steal with a purpose.”
“Well, she would keep some of the money if she stole money, but that’s an honest fee.”
“I would keep it all to myself, I’m selfish like that,” Neal agreed. “However, I am trying to turn over a new leaf. That’s why Neal Caffrey is dead, and maybe, if she’s willing, Bella can teach me her ways. It’s not like all the time working with an FBI agent hasn’t changed me.” Neal shrugged then as he relaxed onto the couch, one leg over the other, arm on the back of the couch. “I mean, even if it weren’t for her being shot, I would still have sought her out, which I did prior to the shooting.”
“She’s not like you.”
“I know. She seems to be able to do things that I can’t. Like with that Picasso museum. I was waiting for a job opening, I wasn’t in a hurry to pull a con, but all of a sudden people went on holidays or got fired. Then, at the night of the heist, I was careful not to trip any alarms, avoid the cameras and she just waltzed in, alarm and cameras shut off. Hackers usually don’t do the physical cons.”
Garrett nodded, taking another sip of his bourbon, wondering how much he was going to tell him. “So you’re planning on seeing this through, and once it’s all done, you won’t tell anyone about her?”
“Of course not,” Neal huffed. “That’s the one thing about being free, I don’t have to share stuff anymore with the FBI.”
“Good, because you may want to reconsider staying once I’ve told you something about Bella.”
“You make it sound like her family is part of the mafia or something,” Neal joked but when he saw the grim look on Garrett’s face, he was surprised. “Bella’s part of the mafia?”
Garrett remained quiet before he moved to a chair opposite of Neal. “Have you ever heard of the Cullens?”
Neal let out a breath. “Who hasn’t? They’re ruthless. Five siblings working together and doing a lot of damage, even killing, but no one has ever been able to pin stuff on them due to the fact that they don’t leave a trace. The FBI has been after them for years, and they still can’t figure out how they do what they do.”
“Theories?”
“Other than they having some very good friends who are willing to help them even when they screw up?”
“Yes.”
“None.”
“And what if I tell you that they have indeed someone who’s good at cleaning up, good at running a con on their own and making sure that nobody gets caught because they can get into most of the systems?”
Neal was surprised as he added up everything that Garrett had said and what he had seen so far. “How did Bella get involved with them?”
“There aren’t five siblings, there are six. She’s the last one.”
“Can’t be,” Neal replied after giving it some thought. The idea of Bella being one of the Cullens was foreign to him. She wasn’t anything like them, at all. “I remember one of my friend’s stories about them, he has encountered them several times and warned me about them. After the birth of her youngest, a boy, the mother had to get a hysterectomy. If Bella is a Cullen, she’s either half or adopted. From what I understand is that the Cullens are blonde.”
Garret leaned forward in a menacing way, his voice lower. “Are you saying that my niece isn’t my niece by blood, Caffrey?”
“You’re a Cullen?”
Garrett shrugged as he relaxed in his chair again. “If I would be, I would know that the hysterectomy story is true, but I don’t. No, I ran across the Cullens at some point and I was stupid enough to feel sorry for their youngest kid. She seemed to be a mis-match with her siblings so I started to invite her over for the summer after she turned 18. Under the guise of ‘euro tripping’ she came to visit me without her family knowing. She never had the balls to fully break away from them until almost two years ago. I think something may have happened, but she’s not talking about that.”
“But nobody knows she’s a Cullen?”
“No, they wouldn’t allow her to do anything like them, get on the radar of agencies, she moved in the shadows.”
“That explains why she was saying she was a nobody yesterday,” Neal said surprised. “Because she is.”
“She’s not, she’s Bella. And if I’m right, she’s in a whole lot of trouble,” he finished his drink and rose to his feet. “But I’ll tell her first when she wakes up again. If you tell anyone about her, I will find a way to make you permanently deceased, got that?”
“Yes, sir.” What the hell had he gotten himself into?
~o.O.o~
By the time Bella was back in the land of the living it was late in the evening. After a quick shower and getting dressed, she walked to the reception area where, surprisingly, people were still hanging around.
Liam was near the alcohol table, seemingly lost in his own thoughts but she knew better, he was in sentry mode even though the apartment was safe.
Garrett looked pretty smug with himself as he was scrolling on his phone and the look on Neal’s face told her that Garrett had told him.
Traitor.
She headed to the kitchen and turned on the oven before getting stuff out to get to bake. Bella was still pissed off at Neal, although she basically set herself up for him to inform the FBI agent, but she was still pissed. However, if he was still here after Garrett telling him about her, then that was a good thing, too. Liam seemed to trust him, and Garrett had eased up as well.
But still, she needed to get her mind in order. “Cookies, Cake or Pie?” she called out. “Can’t make muffins as I don’t have a muffin tin!”
“What kind of pie?” Garrett asked as he walked into the kitchen with an empty glass. “Liam did groceries but he didn’t get anything for pies.”
Bella ducked into one of the cupboards and retrieved her basket. “I don’t have fresh fruit, though, but that’s okay. Cherry or peach,” she said after grabbing the cans.
“Cherry,” Garrett replied as he went into the fridge to get himself something to drink. “How did you sleep?”
“Fine,” Bella replied as she started to work on her pie. “No too happy you told someone about me, though.”
“We could use him.”
“I don’t want to use people, Garrett. You taught me better than that. Did you even ask him if he wants to stick around and help us or did you give him the run or stay speech?”
“So you know who took a shot at you.”
“Of course I do!” Bella blurted out. “The FBI servers weren’t sluggish, I just kept running the face over and over again to see if the outcome was any different because the truth is a bitch and not something we can forever run from. They will keep coming. And I really don’t understand why,” she said as she hit the countertop with her rolling pin. “But I will find out.”
“How? Call daddy dearest who likely signed off on this?”
“I would never, ever, rat out my family, no matter how much I think they’re idiots or how much I have been hurt by them. This is stupid! I’m not hurting anyone!”
“And what if Carlisle says something you don’t like to hear, huh?” Garrett leaned against the countertop as he watched Bella throw things in a bowl. “You left, didn’t keep in touch with them…”
“I’m my own person and I am happier without being around my siblings all the time. That should be enough.”
“Maybe,” he let out a sigh. “I just think you’ll make matters worse by calling him. He’ll tell you that was a warning shot and if you don’t want to be dead you return to the family.”
“He wouldn’t.”
“He might,” Garrett pointed out. “Look what happened to Peter and Charlotte, Jasper’s best friends. One step out of line and Jasper killed them both.”
“But they weren’t family.”
“Close enough, from the stories you’ve told me.”
Bella was quiet as she kept assembling her pie, thinking things over. After putting it into the oven she looked at Garrett again. “I’ll come back to the vineyard.”
Garrett let put a breath he didn’t know he was holding. “I’m sorry, we can’t. They found the vineyard last week and burned it all to the ground. Some of our friends got killed along the way, I could barely escape myself,” he replied, pain washed over his face. “We can’t stay here, either. They know you’re in Paris.”
“Who did they kill?”
“Almost everyone. Others were badly wounded and some weren’t around. They came with an army, really. Wasn’t anything we could do. I did kill three of them before I escaped.”
She looked at her uncle and nodded. He hated to kill people, he hated guns, but he had to do what he had to do. Too bad he couldn’t save the vineyard. “The Volturi are bloodhounds. They won’t stop. That’s what makes them so good, and so thorough. I’m not sure we can outrun them. They will keep coming.”
“Yeah,” Garrett sighed. “And you’re not going back, either. You’ll only make it easier for them to kill you. If they want you dead this bad by having the Volturi come after you, they will not hesitate to kill you as soon as you walk in the door of your family home.”
“Then what the fuck do we do?”
“Go to the authorities?”
She looked at him with a blank look on her face. “I’m desperate, but not that desperate. Are you willing to give up all the freedom that you have?”
“For your safety? Yes.”
“Well, I’m not. And we both did some shit that could land us in prison because the statute of limitations hasn’t passed yet on certain things that we did,” Bella replied after setting the timer for her pie. “I have an idea though,” she added. “I could just hack whatever law enforcement agency we want after them – or all – and leave them a tip with a file attached to who they will be going after. With them being busy with the agencies, we can disappear again.”
“I don’t know.”
“Come on, I can do a lot of damage with just a laptop. I’m going to rally the troops, it’s time for 5h1tF4c3 to collect the debts she owes from everyone,” Bella grinned as she quickly went to retrieve her laptop and settled in the kitchen while her pie was cooking. “Time to take this global.”
Bella went to her online backup that had her dig deeper into the real backup, where she had started to build files against the Volturi for years, all filled with evidence and backing up her claims. Anything that she couldn’t prove wasn’t in there. She had files on her rival hackers too, but it was kept safe for a rainy day.
“I’m going to upload this to the dark web and telling everyone to spread it around. With others looking for the Volturi and hopefully the authorities, they’ll leave us alone and they’ll be too busy covering their ass,” Bella said as she pointed at her laptop before getting the pie out of the oven to cool. “This requires no hacking of any kind on my part, this is everything I’ve collected over the years without ties to us.”
“Or the Cullens?”
She nodded. “Only if you look deep enough, which I doubt they will,” she replied. “Feel free to look through it and see if it’s enough.”
“Oh, I trust it’s enough, you’re always thorough, no matter what you do,” Garrett poured himself another drink before he rejoined Neal and Liam back in the reception area. “She’s fine. We’ll be having cherry pie for dessert later, and I’m not sure what she’s going to cook for us but it will be delicious.”
“She’s fine?” Liam questioned, his brow raised as he took a sip of his beer. “She got shot at.”
“And she’s doing something about it in her own way. You know as much as we do how the Volturi operate. We can’t go to the authorities, so she’s taken matters into her own hands. She’ll be chatting with some of her friends today while she cooks.”
“Shitface?”
“Yep,” Garrett nodded.
“Oh, don’t want to run into her!”
“That’s her handle?” Neal piped up. “Sounds… unlike her.”
“Shitface does a lot of things,” Garrett replied. “Shitface is for the hit and run kind of attacks, she has another nick for shit that’s a bit more delicate and long lasting. In the early days of pencoin, Shitface stole them, hoarded them until they were worth something and cashed them out, slowly. Donating most of it to charities. That was before they put extra security on the coins, of course. She was one of the hackers who also gave an idea on how to fix the security flaws.”
“She designed and programmed her own tools, her own toolkit on the tablet to access security systems and what not,” Liam added. “She’s unwilling to share that, but it works like a charm, every single time.”
“You don’t have to impress me, I’m already impressed by her,” Neal replied as he took a sip of his drink. “I’m going to see if I can help her with something,” he got to his feet and headed to the kitchen, finding a maniacal laughing Bella keeping an eye on her laptop while she was cooking. “Everything alright?”
“Everything is alright now,” she smiled at him. “We’re all working together to make sure the Volturi are being dealt with. Safer for all of us. Breathing space. I just unleashed virtual hell.”
Neal sat at the table and just watched her for a moment. She looked so happy and unburdened at the moment, completely ignoring the fact that she had been shot only the day before. She had gone through a lot to be able to bounce back like this. Or, maybe she was simply putting up a brave face, like he used to do, and it would bite her in the ass later.
Feeling his phone vibrate, he took it out of his pocket and smiled upon seeing the name. “Hey, Moz.”
“Hey Neal.”
“Uh, hi, Peter.”
It made sense that Neal’s friend had his phone number and that Peter had found Neal’s friend, however, this was still the FBI calling. “Hang up,” Bella said as she minimized her browser and software on her laptop and booted up the dialling programme. “Hang up, Neal, we’ll call them back the safe way.”
“Really?”
“My house, my rules. Hang up,” she said as she took the phone from his hands and disconnected the call before dialing the number on her laptop. “I don’t want them to trace you.”
“You’re more paranoid than my friend Mozzie.”
She shrugged as she released the microphone and went back to her cooking. Neal sighed. “Sorry about that, my friend is really careful.”
“Any reason why Mozzie has your phone number when you should be dead?”
Neal let out a snort. “Moz came to visit me last month. He knows where I am and, I’m sorry, Peter, but you’re still FBI and I am not sure how big the target on my back is.”
“Non-existent, you’re dead.”
“But what if I’d turn up alive?”
“You might be in big trouble.”
“Not really,” Bella muttered as she stirred the sauce.
Knowing that Bella really didn’t like phone calls, especially one from the FBI, Neal decided to cut to the chase before she’d disconnect them again. “Why are you calling, Peter?”
“Your friend has been lying to you, she knows who the man who shot at her is. We did a full check up on the system and she simply kept running his face. It’s… “
“Felix Volturi,” Bella piped up. “Yeah, I know. We’re dealing with it right now.”
“How?”
“None of your concern, Agent Burke, but it will be handled without any violence on our part.”
“Ever heard of going to the authorities?”
“No thanks,” Bella replied as she switched on the oven to preheat and retrieved chicken from the fridge. She remained alert while Neal and Peter talked, occasionally nudging Neal away from her laptop to see what was going on in the IRC chat on the dark web after her information bomb dropped and was pleased to see that it was going to spread well.
It didn’t mean, of course, that the immediate threat was going away, but at least it would put pressure on the Volturi to hide or fight back and hopefully withdraw their men in Paris.
In the background of Neal’s conversation with Peter she could hear Neal’s friend ask if ‘the suit’ was done and ‘if he could have his phone back’. The man sounded quite impatient before eventually giving up.
The conversation Neal was having with the agent was something along the lines of a father/son conversation, it made her feel uncomfortable, especially as Neal was divulging way too much personal information about himself. What he’d been up to, how Paris was, and whatnot. Peter, in return, did the same and spoke about his family and co-workers.
To Bella, it sounded as if Neal had had everything before he chose to fake his own death. Why would anyone sacrifice a good life? Sure, he may have been the FBI’s bitch, but that was his own fault. It seemed like he had a lot of people who loved him. And to go over a year without talking to them, the sheer joy on his face was beautiful.
She’d never felt jealousy much, she’d always been mostly on her own and after leaving her family, her uncle Garrett had been all that she had, and Liam. Her friends were in her computer, but even then, only when they needed her. Jealousy was a bitch.
Bella pushed the food in the oven and leaned against the kitchen counter to watch Neal. He looked like a small child happy to be talking to his best friend again, but she wanted her laptop back. It was a good thing that Neal wasn’t touching her laptop though, otherwise she’d have to break his fingers. No one touched her kit but her.
“Can I have my laptop back?” Bella asked eventually after becoming curious as to why she was getting so many IRC private messages. “You could just go back to New York, you know,” she smiled at Neal. “I’m pretty sure no one will give a shit and your FBI friend will protect you.”
“But Neal Caffrey died, and as talented as my friends are, I can’t just go back and assume someone else’s identity,” Neal replied, a knowing smile on his face. “Besides, Peter knows this was the only option after the biggest con we’ve pulled.”
“El and I were actually thinking of moving to Paris. I have been offered a job at the Embassy.”
“That’s great! Congrats! Elizabeth would love Paris.”
Suspecting Neal wasn’t going to stop talking to Peter anytime soon, she decided to keep the connection going while she checked her messages. Pings were coming in from people all over the world saying that they sent the package to authorities in their country, others had already found bank accounts connected to the Volturi, but there was one message that stood out to her.
VitaPedrillo: I’m looking for a 5’11 brunette with blue eyes and a dazzling smile. Is he with you?
5h1tF4c3: Who is this?
VitaPedrillo: Currently on the phone to a Suit?
5h1tF4c3: Your puppy is about to be neutered.
“I see that,” Neal said playfully, leaning into her to look at the screen.
“What did I tell you about personal space?”
“I just want to know what you’re doing, that’s all.”
“Suit, Neal is in safe hands,” another voice sounded in the background from the call. “I’m completely and utterly in awe of his new friend, who’s a legend.”
“I hope not,” Bella muttered as she looked at Neal. “Can you end the call now? Dinner is almost ready and I want my laptop back, there are more important things to do than to chat with an old friend. Or you know, continue this call in a different district on your own phone.”
~o.O.o~
With the information bomb about the Volturi still spreading around on the dark web and to law enforcement agencies in countries all over, she needed to go to step two; gathering a small fortune so that she and Garrett could continue their life somewhere else.
She was going to continue down her list of the bad and wealthy, but this time route the money so often that it was going to become untraceable and then into her own account with pencoin.
First, she needed to adapt her worm to spread as much as possible, targeting specific bank accounts that she had collected over the years with various banks. Her worm was good, but not for the size she had in mind for it to do. Ignoring everyone else, she poured herself a glass of wine. It would have been better if she hadn’t killed the computer, but her laptop was going to have to make do. Settling into one of the big comfy chairs, she started to work.
“I’ve been looking at the art work, for fun,” Neal said as he sat down in the other chair, crossing his legs and looked at her. “There are some great forgeries between the real deal. Yours?”
“Yup,” she said, not looking up from her laptop. “The easel and paints are in the room at the back if you’re bored.”
“I’m not bored, I merely wanted a change of scenery.”
“The balcony is nice at this time of night.”
“I wanted to thank you for the two conversations I had with Peter, I haven’t spoken to him in a really long time.”
“That’s okay,” Bella replied as she took a sip of her wine, not looking up from her laptop. “Seeing as we’ve revised our plan because of the Volturi, you don’t have to be here. You can just go and live your life. Rob the Louvre.”
He barked out a laugh. “Already done. To be honest, Paris had started to feel a little bit stale until you came along. More fun to be had when you have other people you can have fun with,” Neal took a sip of his own drink. “Don’t you ever relax?”
She looked up from her laptop then, her eyes meeting his. “I am relaxing. I’m upgrading one of my old codes at the moment to do what I want when I send it into the world. This is fun.”
“What will it do?”
She smiled and shrugged before looking back on her screen. “What would you do if you needed to run?”
“Get as much capital as I can.”
She nodded. “Yep.”
“You’re going to infiltrate banks?”
“Nah,” she kept scrolling through her code and occasionally added something. “I have a list of questionable rich people and I’m going to make it appear that the money went to a charity. I’m not taking all, just a small percentage so they won’t alert the authorities. It’s very easy, no fuss, and fun to do, and also very relaxing.”
“What about painting or reading a book or television?”
“Yeah, sure, but I don’t need any of those right now. Safety first.”
“I think you made sure of your safety,” Neal said with half a shrug. “You’re inside a very secure building, there’s more security in here. You have Liam in the room next to the door, there’s Garrett… You can take a breather and do something else after all you did today.”
“But what if I don’t want to?”
“Well,” he said as he got to his feet. “Then I’ll just have to watch Dirty Dancing by myself.”
Bella narrowed her eyes on him. “Garrett put you up to this.”
“No.”
“Yes, he did. He knows I can’t resist that movie,” she said as she closed her laptop. “And you’re stupid for saying yes to this,” Bella pointed out. “Unless you love a classic romantic movie with a lot of awesome dancing in it.”
Neal’s eyes lit up and a wide smile appeared on his face, giving Bella the feeling as if he could melt everything away. “Just because I’m a guy doesn’t mean I don’t love me some Swayze!” He reached out his hand for her to take and pulled her up. “Come on, let’s have some fun.”
By the time the final dance came on in the movie, Bella was sufficiently drunk and she had discovered that Neal had a great singing voice as they both sang along to all the songs in the movie, gradually getting worse as the alcohol kept flowing. Even while sober she always cried happy tears with this part of the movie and now was going to be even worse. She felt like shit. Not happy, but like shit, and she wasn’t going to break down in front of their guest.
Fucking Garrett.
“Are you okay?” Neal asked as he paused the movie. “This is the best part!”
“I fucking hate this movie,” she sniffled as she got to her feet, ready to bolt to her room.
“You said you loved this movie.”
“I do!” Bella blurted before pointing at the paused TV screen. “But I hate it! It gives you these warm and fuzzy feelings and shit! But I’m drunk and feeling like shit so it’ll make me feel even worse!”
Neal laughed as he reached out to grab her hand to stop her from running. “And? So? What’s your problem?”
“Because I’m this close to not to cry happy tears,” she said as her eyes welled up. “Because there’s no use of being happy, or to celebrate when your own fucking family wants you dead. A-and the realisation that if I die, I’d die alone. Garrett loves me, he’s my uncle. Liam likes me because he’s loyal to Garrett… but there’s nobody else. I wouldn’t even be fucking missed and that’s such a strange realisation.”
“But what about your hacker buddies? I mean, the way that Garrett and Liam spoke about your capabilities and my friend’s reaction to realizing who you were…”
“Neal. Nobody knows who I am. That means that I’ve done my job well. The hacker community is all about anonymity. Whenever I had to fix the mess of my siblings, I did that from the shadows. Nobody will miss me.”
“That means you’ve done your job well.”
“You don’t get it!” she shot at him as the tears rolled down her cheek. “First of all, I don’t want to fucking die, I’m far too young and haven’t lived properly. Secondly, no one will miss me. You, for example, will be missed by your Suit friend and your Moz, and likely a lot more people when you die for real and you will be spoken about because of the stuff you did. You made a name for yourself, you have friends, people who care for you. I don’t.” She rubbed her eyes with her sleeve. “And yes, it does sound perfect not to have anyone with our line of work, with what I do, and you can’t really have it both ways, but I haven’t even begun living my life because of my family and now they want me dead!”
“Hey, I get it,” Neal said as he pulled her into his arms and rubbed her back. “You feel robbed, but what does this have to do with the movie?”
“Because it’s a perfect fucking ending that I’ll never get as long as my family still walks around!” She couldn’t help but feel safe in his arms, for some reason. “Disrupting the Volturi works, sure, but my siblings aren’t shy of killing people themselves, and they’re good at what they do. There is no doubt that they’ll find me.”
“It’s okay.”
“No, it’s not! I-I’m not supposed to break down like this, it’s not what I was taught. Do not let your emotions control you, if you want to be your best, you will not let your emotions control you. I’m letting them win right now, and that’s not good.”
“But you are your own person, Bella.”
Having his arms around her felt really really good. “I wasn’t when I was still with my family. Things were a lot easier and sure, they didn’t like me and things like that but I wasn’t alone.”
“So… you’d rather be a mindless drone?”
“No… but in this case… yes.”
“I’m sorry they’ve ruined you, Bella,” he said as he rubbed her back gently. “But it’s okay to be scared, it’s your life that’s on the line here. It’s okay to feel, to be angry, to cry, it’s what makes us feel alive and present. You could tell Peter about all the crimes you’re aware of that your family did and—”
“Neal, I’m not going to talk to a Suit and I’m not going to rat out my family even though they’re trying to kill me.”
Neal laughed. “You’re infuriatingly stubborn, you know that?” He then grabbed the remote from his pocket, put the volume up and pressed play to continue playing the most epic dance scene of the movie.
“You are so evil!” Bella whined as she tried to reach for the remote. “Neal! I don’t want to hear this song! Stop it!” She was clawing at his shirt trying to get the remote that he kept in the air. She was trying really hard not to fall over or trip over her own feet as the alcohol was definitely still present in her system.
Neal paused the movie again. “So even to save your own skin, you’re not ratting out on your family?”
“Would you?”
“Yes. I actually did, too, but my dad is a corrupt cop and he made me believe otherwise. He killed a senator and framed Peter. So yeah, I falsified my dad’s testimony and Peter went free. No one knows where my dad is now. Don’t want to know, don’t care.”
She looked at him as she was holding herself up against the couch. “Wait… so… you falsified your dad’s testimony for Peter to get out of jail?”
“Yes? Peter didn’t do it.”
“He’s a Suit!”
“Yeah well, I’d rather have Peter out of jail because it’s not a nice experience, and he can actually do a lot of good as an FBI Agent. My dad was corrupt to begin with and for a while I believed he wasn’t, that he was a hero,” Neal replied. “I hate Suits, I do. But Peter is the one Suit who was smart enough to catch me and he was nice enough to help me get a deal even if it meant I was his responsibility for a few years. He’s a great friend, sort of like a big brother to me, and most importantly; he’s fair.”
“I’ve never been in contact with law enforcement and I like to keep it that way.”
“Peter can help, Bella. He’ll likely give you immunity for—”
“Look, you had a shitty dad, I have a shitty family. Doesn’t mean we’re the same,” she said as she pushed herself away from the couch and headed to the door. “Thanks for the movie and drinks, I’m going to bed.”
“Bella, wait,” Neal gently grabbed her arm to stop her from walking away from him. “You’re not alone,” he said as he lifted her chin to look in those beautiful, but sad, eyes of hers. “If you don’t want to get your revenge on your family by going to the authorities, then we’ll find another way. You and I.”
She was surprised to hear that. “You have the Suit.”
“We’re not going to involve the Suit, but I would like to involve Mozzie. With your permission, of course. I think that with the three of us, we can come up with a plan with a lot of damage and you don’t even have to involve the authorities,” he smiled at her as he dried her tears with his sleeve. “And your family is going to know that it was you in the end.”
“You really want to do this with me?” She asked in a little voice.
“Yeah, although I think we have to work out of Canada because in the US Neal Caffrey is dead and all.”
“Legally it’s not a problem, to be honest. Loads of people fake their deaths all the time. However, I could try to erase every digital trail of Neal Caffrey, and get you a new identity, like… the good stuff, that goes really deep with layers and trails and stuff like that.”
“You can do that?” Neal asked surprised.
Bella nodded. “It’ll take a few days and I might have to compartmentalize stuff, but yeah, I can do that. We can turn Neal Flanigan into a real boy.”
“I hate the name Flanigan.”
“Then pick something else,” Bella smiled and kissed his cheek. “Thank you.”
