It was Thursday evening. Kids laughed and screamed as they chased each other over uneven lawns. A group of teens on bikes were chatting with each other on the sidewalk. Two Hispanic women were sitting on a porch, fanning themselves lazily as they chattered in blistering, rapid-fire Spanish. The weather was hot.

The door in front of me opened. I swallowed. I hadn't expected William to contact me again after our last encounter, where Damian's mysterious hacker had illustrated in not-so-subtle terms the amount of knowledge he had on William's family. But he had. And now here we were.

"You should probably know something," Damian said quietly after we'd knocked. "Ian Blackcroft and his three sons, Do, Re, Mi, knocked on Jasper's apartment door yesterday afternoon. They're the first Blackcrofts to have finally found out where we are, and I don't think they'll be the last. More will be coming to hunt for the will."

As I took a minute to digest this information, a pair of black frame glasses, the lenses slightly scratched - "Wesley," William had explained to me before, "once made a Lego sniper rifle that could spout mini Lego bullets." - peered out of the door. Then I heard the latch being pulled back, and the door opened. Damian and I entered.

"Who's that, William dear?" a voice called from the kitchen.

"Just friends, mom!" William ushered us up the stairs. The house was strangely quiet today, with no contraption-wielding boy running through the halls nor a girl setting up a fistfight between Barbie and GI Joe. I remarked on it, and William told me that the two chaos-dealers had been shipped off to their grandma's because Waverly had her French finals tomorrow and would not tolerate any disturbance. Even as we walked up the stairs I could hear Waverly reciting her French verbs loudly.

We sat in front of William's computer. There was a moment of awkward silence while it booted up. William hadn't exactly informed us why he wanted us here.

"I found a lead," he said at last. "On that hacker. Cognac."

Damian and I were alert at once.

"Remember how I was tracking the IP address before we got interrupted with an IM request? Well, after the conversation ended, and after - well, a lot of deliberating and hesitation on my part, I decided to resume what I'd been doing. Considering I didn't get another IM request, I assume I've gotten away with it. The IP address is located at this building, in the heart of the city - "

"Octagon," I finished for him. Everything is leading there.

William nodded. "Yes. A typical business building, one of many identical others littered across the city. So I looked up Octagon. It's about 8 to 9 years old, relatively new. They don't seem to do much; at least, they don't explicitly state it. All Internet entries regarding Octagon have the same vague keywords - investment, business, market transactions. From what I've seen, they do have some legal operations, so I guess - not all of it is illegal?"

I thought back to what Jasper had said, about it being a mix of real and fake employees. "What else did you find out?"

"They're doing some sort of clearance activity next weekend. Something about cleaning up the warehouse and reorganizing the filing system."

I frowned. "That doesn't sound good."

"Next weekend?" Damian suddenly asked. "What time and date?"

"Uh, Sunday. 3 pm."

Damian looked at me sharply. "Jasper told me to free my calendar for next Sunday, morning till evening."

"So that's it, then," I said slowly. "I'd been wondering when Jasper would make a move regarding the will now that he knows where it is. So that's his plan."

"And what's his plan?" William sort of stammered out the question.

The cogs in my brain spun. I was getting it now; I could see the chronological timeline play out in my head. I could see the players, their motives - well, most - and how they factored in. And most of all, who would have the most impact, and what was at stake.

I sat cross-legged on William's bed. "Let's start from the beginning," I said. 

"Blackcroft's don dies. Before the will gets announced, Black and Tan sends someone to steal it from us, and they do it successfully. My father finds out, and gets Eric to steal it back. That didn't work out, and Eric gets caught - imprisoned, or dead, we don't know."

It occurred to me that I was talking about my own brother, and I couldn't care less. Eric had always been so distant to me. Everyone in Blackcroft was, except for my mother, and Thomas.

"My father then puts me on the case. He doesn't want anyone else getting the will before us, because if they do, they can change the will or destroy it to forge a new one in their favor. I get sent out here. Then Jasper shows up, demonstrating once again, his excellent ability to stay ahead of the pack. The rest of the Blackcrofts remain in the dark - until the standard mourning period has passed, and it becomes polite to ask questions. Lots of questions."

"Questions that are now driving Blackcrofts in droves here," Damian observed dryly.

William's already pale face paled further. "W-what? There's going to be more people like - Jasper?"

"We'll be fine," I said, and tried to believe it.

"Let's go back to why Black and Tan wanted the will," I said, picking back up the tale. "Obviously they meant to use it to blackmail us, and it would have been incredible leverage. However, we have shown that we have no interest whatsoever in getting blackmailed, nor are we willing to strike a deal. We sent Eric after them covertly. Jasper shows up and waves a knife in the Hoods' faces. We're not inclined to peaceful discussion. So what do Black and Tan do?"

Damian's eyes widened with a sudden realization. I nodded. 

Taking a deep breath, I said, "They're going to provoke outright war."

I jerked my head at William's computer. "That's why Cognac is taunting us. Getting us all riled up. Getting us to lose our temper. They want us to start the war. They're hoping for it.

"That's what the clearance activity is all about. Black and Tan have gotten wind that Blackcrofts are closing in on them, more and more as the days go by. So they're going to cleanse their system. Hide away incriminating documents. Maybe even destroy the will. Then, they'll sit back and wait for us to come to them. Their power lies in information. Our power lies in violence. If they vanish all the important information that we can use against them - then we'll be weaponless. They can just sit at their desks, businessmen in business suits, waving their hands innocently in the air while we come at them with guns and knives. 

"All this while, none of us have been able to get the cops involved, because we each have so much to hide. But now, with their dark secrets out of the way, Black and Tan can. All they need to do is get the cops waiting, and when we strike - wail and cry and point fingers at us. When the cops do a thorough investigation, they'll find nothing but clean files, legit activities in Octagon - and we'll get arrested and charged with murder and violence."

"But they could get killed before the cops show up," Damian objected. "You know Blackcroft won't show any mercy."

I smiled, a bleak smile. "Oh, people will get killed alright." I thought back to the files on Jesús Dimaggio and all the other Black and Tan high executives. "But I'll bet you the last lace on my shoes that it'll be innocent Octagon employees who'll die, and none of Black and Tan."

There was a long pause of silence. William looked like he was regretting all the life decisions that had led him here. Damian looked grim.

My first love's twin brother was the one who broke the silence. "So? What about Jasper's plan?"

"Jasper's plan is to stop the clearance from happening. Even before this, he'd already had his team planning an infiltration - he told me as much when I handed over the Octagon blueprints. That means he was already planning a clandestine operation to get into Octagon and recover the will. But with the clearance announced, he'll be speeding things up. He has to stop Black and Tan from shredding their papers. Jasper is smart; he understands that Black and Tan has a whole different modus operandi from us, and so to hurt them, we can't use guns and knives, we need to use things that are important to them."

An idea went off in my head then, abruptly as ideas are wont to do. "In fact, he might even be counting on the Blackcrofts all showing up now. For all we know, he might have tipped off Ian to where he was himself."

"What do you mean?"

The more I spoke, the more I was convinced I was right. It all seemed so Jasper. 

"Don't you see? With the Blackcrofts all showing up here and demanding answers, Jasper gets to play leader. He gets to say, hey! I know where the will is, and here's how we're going to get it. He'll get an entire willing Blackcroft team to do what he wants, and if the mission goes well, he'll get crowned as the savior. And I don't doubt that when all this is over, we'll find out that the will was unfortunately destroyed or lost in the middle of the Octagon chaos, and with no clear don - who will we elect then? Of course, our savior. Jasper himself."

I stood up, pacing. "We have to stop him. I don't much care for what the will says - unless it specifies that women be placed on equal terms with men in Blackcroft - but Jasper as don? Hell no. He cannot rise to that position."

"Although," Damian mused, "he is quite good for the position."

I shot him a glare. Damian hastily added, "But still, considering what he did to Thomas and your father, maybe not."

William raised a hand. Absent-mindedly, I called upon him.

"Yes?"

"So - what's our plan?" he asked.

I sat back down on William's bed. The fan above us spun lazily, like it too, couldn't be bothered to work in the hot weather. Even with the door shut, I could still hear Waverly doing French incantations in her room; she'd moved on to nouns. Outside, the evening sun was low on the horizon, ready at any moment so sink out of sight.

"I have a plan," I said at last. "But it'll take everybody."

"Who's everybody?" William asked.

"All of us in this room, for starters. You don't have to answer me now," I said hastily, seeing the troubled expression in William's eyes. "We also need someone who can help us get into Octagon  - which means I'll need Mr Hood's access card. So - Kaylan. I'll also need to make another hospital visit. We'll need, uh, some significantly illegal resources, so Thomas would help. And I really need to talk to Brandy Simmons."

That last sentence caught everyone else in the room off-guard.

"Why - " Damian began to ask, but I cut him off.

"We'll have about a week to plan everything and lesser time to get the people we need. I plan to explain it to everyone in one shot, so I'm hoping to get confirmation on who's willing to be onboard by Monday, latest." I didn't look at William, but I said, "This plan will be risky, and dangerous, and I understand if not everyone wants in."

"I'm in," Damian said immediately. William was silent.

Waverly's French caterwauling had gone silent and outside, the sun had set. 

"Well then." I forced a smile. "One week to stop Jasper, get the will and return our lives to their previous normalcy. Doesn't sound too hard now, does it?"