A/N: This is a very short chapter. Intention being the pace moves really quickly and the situations mirror each other.

NEXT CHAPTER LARRY MEETS!!!! Also I am writing their first kissing scene right now and it's too fucking amazing. I swear. I can't wait to post that chapter!!!!

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CHAPTER 10: When the night is coming down on you

PRESENT - 22, 23, 24

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22

And their logo... it looked familiar now for some reason. Niall swept his hand across the name. Syco... Where did he see this before? And why did it feel important?

Niall thought back to the past few days... he searched online, there was nothing worth connecting.

He scratched his dry scalp in frustration, groaning. He was being silly, making it more important than it actually was. Or was he? It was hard to tell, Niall being as obsessive as he was.

Coming back to the email, they wanted Niall to hack into a government facility. The irish started to sweat.

He unlocked his guest bedroom and turned on his Linux and the rest of the hardware. He had not come into this room in a little while... it was a little dusty.

By the point he got up to have some water, and maybe a tiny wee it was already dark outside. One thirty.... Time flew by and Niall's attempts to get into the facility were all a failure. Two or three more, had he gotten any closer from  where he did, someone might have noticed he was trying to crack him. It was a dangerous little game Niall was playing... for a buttload of money, but certainly not enough to risk life in prison, maybe?

He looked back to the original in his MacBook before getting back into the big one. Syco... syco...

He searched two old hard drives for any document with that name. Could it be? He looked at that specific second drawer on the only bedroom furniture in this room. A good condition, old cherry tree wood chest of drawers. Belonged to his grandmother. His father had sent it to him after her passing.

It could not be... Niall thought.

He got up and in slow steps, like he was scared to find out the truth, walked toward the chest. "I'm being fucking silly." Niall shook his head and just opened the drawer.

Niall's dad had died two years ago in a private jet crash along with Liam's dad. The two were business partners of an expanding law firm. When the dads died they were making millions a year already.

Liam and Niall never saw that money after they died, neither did their families... And the firm was bought by a private company and dismantled.

The two orphaned boys knew what happened was fishy. Given that Niall had become a famous hacker online and Liam gave up medical school, they already felt like they were a disappointment to their parents. They started investigating everything after their dad's demise but it was a short ride.

Liam said he couldn't do it any longer. That it was a dead end taking a toll on both their lives. Not one week later did Niall stuck himself in this apartment to barely come out for almost a year.

Before he could look at any of the old documents he heard a door banging open. His heart jolted.

Had someone broken into Niall's flat? Steps were heard all around him.

Glass shattering, wood breaking. Niall froze. What was that?

He stared at the door of the room bust open.

A man, covered head to toe in black, sporting an AK 47's on his hand flew inside. "He's here." He yelled. In the dim lit space showed another man who could be twins with the first bloke.

"What's happening?" Niall mumbled. Fear stanched his movement. He literally couldn't move. Air felt scarce.

The two mysterious men took hold of Niall, threw a black cloth bag over his head and held it tight. Niall's difficulty breathing got worse. His hands were clammy, his skin boiling. He wanted to run, but he didn't know where or how. He barely could talk, and his difficulty breathing was worsening.

His phone started ringing in his pocket. Niall cursed under his breath. He felt the phone being slipped out of his back pocket. It kept ringing.

Something smashed onto the ground and all of a sudden the ringing stopped.

"Was that my phone?" Niall felt an object press on his back, he couldn't quite tell what it was but he'd be willing to bet it was one of the rifles. "Where's the girl?" One yelled to his ear.

"Girl?" Niall cried.

"You feel that?" The object forcely pressed onto Niall's kidney. "We have orders to kill you with it if you don't behave. Now where is she?!"

"I don't know what you mean." Niall tried to breath through things. His body was tense as a rock.

"She is in here! Answer the fucking question!" The man yelled.

For a second, the riffle backed away from his skin but quickly was pushed against Niall's nape. Niall couldn't see a damn thing, his legs were shaking. A warm liquid spread down Niall's thigh.

He had peed himself. "There's no girl."

"Check the rest of the house." One of the men said.

Niall stood there, shaking and smelling like a toilet.

"She isn't here. Boss says we gotta move. Come on."

The next twenty minutes were a blur to sobbing Niall. He was dragged through stairs and pavement. He suspected they were taking him outside. He was thrown inside a room, and when he heard a motor start running, he knew he was in a van.

He truly didn't know who the girl they wanted was, why they took him instead and probably most importantly if he should fear for his life now.

23

Louis tugged on his ski mask, trying to make the itch around his eyes stop. When they were cheap, that is what one gets. Zayn was around the corner, checking on the street they were about to turn.

It was no ordinary street. Louis had once worked in a bank. It was a short lived moment, but he had gathered all he needed to know about the tiny place, to know that he could probably rob it and get away with it.

Zayn and Louis had planned it together once upon a time, but life went on, Lottie came to live with them and they gave it a second thought.

Life was like that sometimes. You revisit old ideas, to find that they suited you best in the first place than the choices you made instead.

So here they were. Ready to get into action.

They turned the corner and walked down the lowly lit street up to the back door of the bank. Zayn stuck the crowbar in place, alarms were to be expected at this point. It was a quick get in, get out job. So when the door cracked open and the alarm sounded Zayn and Louis got inside.

There was no time to reflect upon the state of their lives at this point. And Louis knew this, but he couldn't help wondering where he went wrong with his life, and found that the worst thing he did was to not be born into the rich and wealthy... he felt humiliated.

"Pass me the crow bar." Louis yelled through the alarm, looking at the safe. No answer. "Zayn!" He turned around.

And that was all he could remember before blacking out.

24

"Liam!" Harry yelled being dragged against his will through the street. He struggled to loosen the grip of his gorilla sized captor.

It was no use. Liam had been captured all the same. His wrists being tied together as he tried to look at where they were taking Harry.

Blood stained his hands, his shirt, his face. Tonight felt like something out of a movie, Liam couldn't begin to put together how it got to this.

His worst fear, after being followed by them for months on end had finally arrived. Without an explanation and in the middle of one of the worst scenarios in his life. Plus it managed to bring into the picture someone who could probably have been spared.

He wanted nothing more than to take Harry out of this situation. The curly boy was defenceless and it reminded him of himself a few years back, at the mercy of others.

Liam got dragged outside. There it was. That same goddamn van.

He watched as Harry got thrown inside it mercilessly. What was Liam going to do?

What awaited them? Death? Torture?

Liam got thrown inside the van as well, and then almost hit his head on the side of the vehicle as it took off.

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A/N: I hope the scene of Niall hacking was not cringe worthy. I do not have time for research for this project any longer... So I did not do it. I kinda just winged it.

Anyway, the ex of my dad's good friend joined this class I am taking. And I have kissed this friend of my dad's and it feels all sorts of weird. Btw he is a young friend of my dad's and I'm already an adult!! So no crime committed here, but either way how am I supposed do deal with this woman?

QUESTION 1: Who is taking the boys and why?

QUESTION 2: Who called Niall?

QUESTION 3: Who was the girl they wanted?

QUESTION 4: To who belongs the blood in Liam's clothes and hands?

QUESTION 4: Why did all the boys get captured?

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