"My, my," Murray snarled. "How stupid of you all. You think you can come into Lucio's house and do whatever you want without us knowing?"

Erica swore under her breath. She kept her gaze fixed on Murray but gestured for me to stay close to her.

"Come," he barked. "Now."

With no better choice, we followed. Murray kept his guns trained on us as we walked into one of the many guest bedrooms with him. As soon as all four of us were in, Murray slammed the door shut and smiled wickedly. He pointed at four chairs, and we sat down reluctantly. He turned away from us and started to text someone.

"He's Murray," Zoe whispered under her breath. "Can't we just attack him?"

"I wish," Mike whispered back. "He has a gun, though I wouldn't mind a fight. What do you think, Erica?"

Erica shook her head. "He has even worse fighting skills than Ben. I say we silently knock him out."

"You do it," I whispered, knowing what Erica said was true. I had horrible fighting skills myself. "I'm horrible at stealth."

At the moment, Murray's back was turned toward us, giving Erica the perfect chance to spring up and knock him out cold. She waited a couple of moments, then sprang out of her seat, only to be stopped by a booming voice.

"Oh, sweetheart, I wouldn't do that if I were you," a man said, walking into the room just as Erica's hand was inches away from Murray's skull. "Now back down or else bullets will fly."

Erica backed down, though there was a fire in her eyes. "Sweetheart," she muttered under her breath.

"Good," he said, inspecting all of us. Then he turned to Murray. "Murray, excellent work. Now we take care of these four."

"What did we do?" I demanded. "How do you know about us?"

He laughed. "You, Ripley. Benjamin Ripley. Age thirteen, but a level fifteen threat. Crazy smart and amazing at thwarting our plans every time."

"You're James Thomas?" Erica asked. He simply nodded and continued to accuse me.

"You have caused the downfall of SPYDER, for which you will pay. You think you're here just to go and dig dirt on Lucio? Seriously?" he snarled.

I looked to Erica, unsure of what to do. She met my gaze and held it. Then she shook her head. Her eyes were confused. Even she had no idea what was going on.

The door suddenly opened and Lucio himself walked in, looking furious. "You four," he said in a low tone, "I will make you pay." Then he turned to Murray and James. "What do we do with them?"

Murray grinned. "I say we lock 'em up."

Lucio held up handcuffs and tossed them to James and Murray, who cuffed our hands behind our backs. "Go," he barked. "Follow Murray down to the basement."

We obediently followed Murray down to the basement where he opened a door for us, pushed us in and closed the door shut.

"Oh my god," Mike gasped. "Did we just get locked in?"

"I'm going to sit down," Zoe said. "These heels are very painful."

"There's no time for that," Erica said. "We gotta get out of here and race back to the hotel. Quick. Ben, I'm going to kneel down. There's a hairpin holding up my hair. Tug it out."

Erica kneeled down and I turned around so my back faced hers. I tried to pull the hairpin out and when I did, her hair hung loose. Then she grabbed the pin from me and undid my cuffs.

"Now listen carefully," she said as I took my cuffs off. "Insert it, then turn right and pull it out as quickly as you can."

I did so, unlocking her cuffs. Then she quickly unlocked Mike's and Zoe's and we all freed ourselves.

"One problem," Zoe said. "We need to unlock this door."

Erica had a playful smile on her face. "Stand back."

I knew what was coming next. Erica placed a wad of C-4 on the door knob and motioned for us to stand back. We backed away from the door and Erica pulled out a handgun and shot it.

A couple of moments later there was a pop followed by a hissing sound. Erica walked up to the door and tugged on the handle. It came loose and the door opened.

"How can we get out without going upstairs?" Zoe asked.

Erica looked to me. "You got a tour, you should know this."

"How did you know?" I asked.

"I'm a spy. It's my job to know things."

I smiled and ran over to the other room in the basement. "Window."

Erica broke the window with a karate kick and hopped right out. I followed her, then Mike and Zoe came out. There was a garden outside the basement too. There were steps that led to the pool outside. We headed up the steps and ran out of the iron gates. Riley was waiting for us.

"Oh, you guys know Mike and Zoe are here," she said, mostly to Erica. "Hop in. I'll get you guys home. The way you were running looks like you got no time to spare."

Erica grinned. "I understand now why Dad chose you," she said as she slid into the backseat. Mike opted for the front and Riley sped off.

"Thank you so much," Mike said to Riley as we got out in front of the hotel. "See you later."

She smiled and went to park the car as we rushed into the hotel and entered the elevator.

"For all we know, Murray, James Thomas and Lucio Mirgher know we're here and we're trailing them. That's not good. I'm going to consult Dad and Grandpa. Mike and Zoe, you transfer all info to Ben, who will send it to me. Then we will meet again at ten pm," Erica said.

The elevator doors opened and I got out followed by Erica. Mike and Zoe waved to me as the door closed. I opened the door and Erica ran to her father's room. I sat on a couch. I opened my phone, pulled up the images and forwarded them to Erica. Then I pulled out the USB drive and placed it on the small coffee table in front of me.

Two minutes later I was bombarded with texts from Mike and Zoe. They had sent me tons of pictures. I sent all of those to Erica as well. Her phone was on the dining table and it continuously vibrated.

"Cool. Okay, fine, dad," Erica said, exiting her father's room and rolling her eyes as she plopped on the opposite couch with her phone. She scrolled through the texts and nodded. "Good work, Ben."

I smiled. "What was that with your dad?"

"Grandpa was furious and Dad went ballistic. It was hilarious. I couldn't keep myself from laughing at the ways Grandpa yelled at Dad and yelled at James and Lucio," Erica said, collapsing into a fit of giggles, something I rarely experienced.

"Okay, so what's the plan now?" I asked as her laughter died down. I wanted to wait and let it out. She looked so beautiful as she laughed. She rubbed at something near her wrist and changed her facial expression.

"Right. The plan. Zoe and Mike will be here at ten. It's best we avoid all methods of communication with Cynthia and Jamie. Lucio knows us, he knows we know his kids and so, we will have to be careful," Erica said. Her smile faltered a bit.

"What if he targets us again?" I asked. Erica rubbed the same spot at her wrist before answering.

"That's why we need to keep our guard up and..." she trailed off, rubbing at her wrist. "What in the world is itching so badly?"

That's when something small caught my eye. It was small and shiny, attached to Erica's bracelet. She stood up to get a better look at what was itching.

"Wait, what's that thing on your bracelet?" I asked. She immediately focused her attention to her bracelet and frowned. Then she pulled something that looked like a chip.

"Oh no..." she said, holding the tiny object. Anything that tensed Erica tensed me.

"What?" I asked impatiently.

"It's...a tracker," she said before sinking into her seat. "Oh no. They know we're here. We need to get rid of this thing, and fast."

We raced to the balcony. Erica threw the tracker as far as she could. As soon as it was out of sight I let out a sigh of relief.

That's when there was a knock on the door.

Erica stiffened and whipped out a handgun. I slowly crept towards the door and swung it open.

"It's us," Mike said, more to Erica, who had a gun in her hands, aimed toward them. She visibly relaxed and lowered the gun. Zoe and Mike stepped inside and we all sat at the dining table.

"There was a tracker on my bracelet," Erica said. "I hope Lucio doesn't know anything yet."

"I forwarded all the pictures too," I said. "There's also a USB drive that I had, so I plugged it into his computer and tried to download some of his information. It stopped after a while and said that the remaining info could not be copied."

"That could be his private info," Mike said.

Zoe nodded. "Better yet, what we need is probably classified."

Erica already plugged the flash drive into her phone. She scrolled through the info and frowned. "Great work, Ben."

"Was that sarcasm?" I asked. Erica nodded, then shook her head.

"Yes and no," she said with the tiniest hint of a smile. "As in great work, you got information for me, but the most important files that we need are the ones that are blocked. So the pendrive stuff was... useless."

That last sentence hit me. I tried.

Erica sensed my guilt and turned my way. "I'm not implying that you're useless, Ben. It's just that you should try in a different area." She simply stated it as a fact. I tried to hide the fact that I felt hopeless and listened to Mike talking.

"So what are we going to do now? We don't have any information," Mike observed.

"What about school?" Zoe asked. "Will we go?"

Erica shrugged. "Honestly, I don't really know. I guess we shouldn't go. The point was to get information, so we're not going to do that."

"Okay, then. See you guys tomorrow," Zoe said, stifling a yawn as she got up. "I'm heading straight for bed."

Mike followed her and as soon as they were gone, Erica went to her father's room to talk to Alexander about what to do. I figured she would be going to talk to Cyrus as well.

I changed out of my clothes, lay down on the bed and wondered what I would answer to Cynthia. Before I knew it, I was fast asleep.

Have a great day!