A/N:

Guys!! I got my coursework back today and I actually did well! 😭😭 Oml, I'm so happy which is why I'm updating!!! (Sorry for boring you with my real life lmaoo)

Translation at the end is 'see you soon.'

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Everyone froze.

The temperature dropped, and what should have been a continuation of their luck, felt like their mission had been ramped up by a simple confirmation that Steven really was in trouble, and that this was all very, very real.

"I suggest you all get in before I make you," Will said, trudging back to his car.

He stripped off his jacket and chucked it on the back seats, revealing a black long sleeve with an empty, leather gun holster strapped over his shoulders.

"Joe, in the front," Will instructed, snapping his fingers. He glanced at the remaining four, hovering on the step up to the driver's seat. "The rest of you can choose where you want to sit."

When his door slammed shut, Joe, surprisingly, did exactly as he was told with no further questions.

"Yes sir..." Tom muttered, with a weak salute, and he was next to break the line.

Joey and Brad followed just as obediently, and it left Leah standing alone and not quite sure how to process any of the information.

"That includes you, Leah," Will said, poking his head out the window. The engine was running and she knew they were waiting, but she couldn't move.

She stared down at one of the muddy front tyres with her trembling fingertips touching the hairs of her right eyebrow. She was breathing regularly and there were no dots blinding her vision to suggest she was in a state of panic, but she felt so weightless on her own two feet that she didn't feel real.

"Hey, come on." Tom had got out again, gently urging her to move with a hand on her back. "You can think in the car."

With his encouragement, Leah was climbing into the back with Tom following close behind. She sat behind Will, moving his jacket to the middle, and was aware that Joey and Brad were on the bench seat conversion behind her.

With the missing man running circles on her mind, the car was moving before she had clipped her seatbelt properly.

"Why is there such a rush?" Joe asked, over the sudden lurch of the engine.

"Because it went dark sixteen hours ago, which means they know we're onto them," Will responded, a sharp turn of the wheel and a clunk from reverse into first gear to send them down the tracks.

"So you don't even know if Steven's alive?!" Joe ridiculed, etching his voice up a notch in the space of a single question. "Or in the same place? Sixteen hours is a long fuckin' time!"

"You think I don't know that?" Will snapped back. "And shouting at me isn't going to help us in the slightest, so do me a favour, and keep it down."

From the slump of his figure, Joe muttered something incoherently, and proceeded to look out of his window in defeat.

"How do you know where he is?" Tom asked, more civilly.

"He has a tracker in his shoe," Will responded, and then he pushed something on the dash into the centre. "Here, you see?"

Following the tilt of heads around her, Leah flicked her eyes through the gap to the small screen with a red blip some miles away. Judging by the speed they were going though, they would get there a lot quicker than if they were paying attention to national speed limits.

"For real?" Brad inquired from the back.

Will nodded, adjusting the device for his personal view again.

"Ray put them in, and he's basically saved your skins."

"We have one too?"

"How do you think I found you lot?" he chuckled, slowing down at the junction with a loop of the gears. "That said, I am grateful I didn't have to round you up individually. I really don't need any more setbacks to deal with."

The last comment certainly went over the guys' heads because they were all looking down at their feet and turning out their heels, but Leah heard it loud and clear because she had a feeling that she was one of those setbacks.

She wondered just how much Will knew about her, if anything at all.

"Have you been tracking us the whole time?" Joey asked.

"Ray was until he was compromised about a month ago," Will explained. "To cut a long story short, he forced you to settle down, hired me, and passed on the information. I went undercover at the drug house, but the extent of the plans was well out of my hands. You're lucky they didn't do something sooner because a lot of shit happened that was not supposed to happen."

As he finished, he stole a glance at Leah through the rear view mirror as if to confirm the latter part of his statement.

"And they've got Steven now?" Joe spoke up again, more subdued than last time.

Will nodded gravely, relaxing with the clear stretch of road ahead.

"Yes, and I'm really hoping that he hasn't left the country yet because otherwise my job becomes a lot harder, and a lot more complicated."

Leah had a sinking feeling. She was fairly sure the others felt it too, but hearing the strings they were hanging onto out loud from Will, just made their hope disappear into dust.

Maybe they were only meant to save one of them. Maybe it had ended before Leah had even been associated with these five guys, and her coincidence with Steven had just been delaying the inevitable.

"Do you...know everything about what we're doing?" Tom asked hesitantly, filtering her solemn thoughts.

"More or less, but if it's any consolation it's a lot deeper than just you."

"What do you mean?"

Will paused in thought, keeping one hand on the steering.

"These people. It's a huge case that I've been working on for the best part of six years, and there is still so much I don't know. The money laundering, the drugs, and the gambling societies stretch all over the world and commit crimes like its normal...You shut down one branch somewhere and another opens up the next day. We're talking everyday people can be associated with it- someone you pass on the street, or someone in your family, or a work colleague...The source is nowhere and everywhere, which makes it practically impossible to stop, and it's the reason why it has become responsible for so many blackmailing related and shady deaths."

Apart from the road noise, the next couple of miles were deathly silent. No one moved except Will because he was driving. It was so tense, that all of the remaining unasked questions floated to the side and made way for the single, most important worry that was shared as a whole group.

Brad thought about Steven. Joey thought about Steven. Tom thought about Steven. Joe thought about Steven. And their reason was the same- Steven was their brother, and brother's didn't let each other down, no matter what.

But Leah thought about Steven because she realised that the broken man that she had crossed paths with almost seven months ago, really did inadvertently save her life from her own, fractured family. The thought of not being able to see him again, to conclude their differences and mistakes of hatred and forgotten memories, was a sickening one that she tried very hard not to dwell on.

"Are we in trouble?" Brad asked, but he didn't need to worry about not being heard.

Will gripped the steering wheel with both hands. He stared out ahead like he couldn't deliver the assuring glance.

"You've been in trouble a long time," he said. "I'm just trying to make sure no one gets killed."

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"-the last of the crates are being loaded...stay with Steven-"

"-three hours?"

"-take her too- flight to Moscow-"

Steven made an attempted tug at his tightly bound hands.

He had been lifted into consciousness, although his delusional senses were taking a long time to kick in properly.

"-six thirty this evening. Don't be late-"

The ringing in his ears that captured snippets of dialogue gradually faded, and Steven raised his head that had lulled onto his right shoulder where he had to acknowledge the dull throb in his neck.

Feeling bold, he rolled his eyes open, but found the left one considerably puffier than the right. A few more conscious breaths also told him that his nose was too stuffed and swollen to breathe, and he had to resort to his mouth to gulp in the stale air.

He whined when the numerous aches and pains caught up with him.

"You're awake," Matty said, crouching down. Even with his lopsided vision, there was a sickly smile. "How are you feeling, matey?"

When Steven didn't respond and ducked his chin down to his chest, which felt bruised and heavy, a large hand pressed hard on his thigh and ruefully removed his grogginess.

"ARGHHH, you FFFUCKK!" Steven howled, tensing and hunching his helpless body with the gruelling pressure that was splitting clots and spilling fresh blood.

The actions made his breathing deeper and more painful in his chest that must've housed a few cracked ribs, and gave him an embarrassing awareness of the dampness in his lap that he knew wasn't from water because that had dried long ago.

He was forced to squirm in his chair, ankles bound and not providing the freedom he so desperately craved, and it made the prospect of pissing himself even more humiliating than it already was.

Matty's other hand snaked under his bloodied chin, pulling him roughly.

"I asked you a question and it's rude not to answer."

Steven focused his blurring eyes, swallowed his dry mouth, controlled the streams of agony through his likely fractured nose, and held back the urge to break down and cry.

"Everything...hurtds," he whimpered, not daring to look down at his trembling leg.

"Ooh yeah, your face does look a little sore, doesn't it?" Matty removed the pressure on the re-opened stab wound, and picked out a matted clump of hair from the cut on Steven's cheek. "But I'm sure Anton will look after you, wontcha bud?"

"Of course," was the swift reply. A few echoing steps and Steven reluctantly flicked eyes to meet the steely greys, tasting the stench of thick smoke that poured off the Russian's jacket. "We are good friends now. No?"

Steven hated him. He hated both of them. He hated himself. It was his fault. It was always his fault. And now he was suffering alone. He was broken, and with no one to blame but himself.

He deserved the torture.

"Well, I'd love to stay and chat but I have a flight to catch and so will you in a couple of hours," Matty announced cheerfully, hopping to his feet. He brushed the invisible dust from his knees and straightened out the cuffs of his shirt. It was pale blue this time. "I'll see you soon Steven!"

Matty's disgusting persona left, but his Russian friend did not budge.

The flashback from the last time they were alone settled the fear in Steven's brittle bones, wound tight knots in his caving stomach, but Anton did not have a prized ring on his finger, and he was not clicking his bruised knuckles.

Steven took a shaky breath.

"Cand I..ha-ve some watder...please?" he asked hoarsely. His bunged up nose made him add unnecessary consonants to the ends of words.

Anton crouched down, retaking the same position as Matty had a few seconds earlier.

"You're thirsty?"

Steven nodded weakly.

"Good thing I have some," Anton said, revealing a small bottle out of his jacket. "So, I'll undo the lid for you, like this..."

Steven watched the red lid unscrew slowly. The controlled twist and the new seal crack between fingers.

"And I'll leave it right...here."

It was placed down about a foot away on the floor, full of fresh, clear liquid that would soothe his rough throat, but its purpose was to taunt, and to taunt only.

"I'll see you in a few hours, okay?" Anton stood with a wicked grin, pumped so full of himself as he slicked his hair back. "Da skorava!"

Steven went limp.

He should have known.

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