trigger warning: mentions of abuse, mentions of child loss, descriptions of violence and injuries.

THE PRISTINE, BLACK LEATHER steering wheel pressed against the vice-like grip of a woman's tanned hand. It dug into her soft palm, a dull ache throbbing throughout her hand and wrist ─ the discomfort was nearly unbearable, yet somehow a welcome sensation. The pain distracted the woman from the absence of her silver engagement ring and wedding band, which no longer weighed on her left ring finger and constantly reminded her of the soul tied infinitely to her own. The bare skin glared at her, and only made the chain around her neck grow heavier.

Looped onto said chain was a silver wedding band, similar to her own, except it bore a thicker width and was larger in size. It rested against her chest like a burden filled with heavy promises that she had every intention to keep ─ though, those sweet whispers of safety and return grew sour with the dark uncertainty that loomed overhead.

Readjusting her tight grip, Natalie Shaw forced her sharp gaze to remain on the bustling roads ahead and refrained from reaching to clutch the jewelry with her free hand. She swallowed the lump that had festered in her throat as she did her best to ignore how her vest top hugged her upper body and stole what little breath she had, or how her husband's jacket was draped over her shoulders and doused in his rich, earthy cologne, completely overwhelming her senses and mind.

An unfamiliar feeling brewed in her gut, malicious and nauseating, setting Natalie on edge ─ yes, she typically had a certain amount of anxiety before any of her jobs, especially when they involved family, but something was different about their current predicament. Something felt very wrong.

"Toretto's on Hill and Seventh in a 1970 Dodge Charger R/T." Andromeda's familiar voice crackled through the radio, which was sitting in the cupholder of Natalie's car. The Shaw woman discarded the daunting thoughts plaguing her mind and retrieved the walkie talkie, positioning it a short distance away from her lips and holding down the button with her thumb.

"On it." She affirmed, doing her best to ignore her heart pounding against her ribcage. "Remember, give me five minutes to deal with him myself, okay? After that, he's all yours, boys."

The final part was directed towards Deckard and Jakob ─ they both were eager to enact their own form of revenge on the Toretto, but they knew that Natalie needed a chance to express the hurt that had been brewing within her for over fourteen years, and that she needed to do it alone.

Throwing the radio onto the passenger seat beside her, the Shaw woman shifted gears and slammed down on the accelerator, flooring it. She grasped the steering wheel with both hands as she effortlessly weaved through traffic, determined to intercept Dominic at the intersection she knew was coming up ─ after all, Natalie knew LA like the back of her hand. It didn't matter that she hadn't lived there for over a decade, the woman grew up there; it was her home.

Natalie's stare hardened upon catching sight of her brother's car ─ it was across the intersection at a complete standstill, with the front of the Dodge Charger facing her own vehicle.

Dominic locked eyes with his estranged sister and physically recoiled at the burning hatred embedded in her gaze. If anything, it reflected his own self-loathing which festered within every cell of his body. All of Dominic Toretto's anger towards Natalie and her family was just a deflection of the guilt that he felt ─ the man had failed his baby sister in the worst possible way, and pushed her straight into the arms of an adoring mother, protective siblings, and a perfect husband. He couldn't wish for a better life for Natalie, but it killed him that he removed himself from it and hurt the woman in the process.

Putting his car into gear, the Dodge Charger roared to life before Dominic took a sharp right turn. Natalie didn't hesitate to speed after him, her tires screeching on the tarmac as she drifted around the corner.

The Shaw woman followed her estranged brother as he drove into the entrance of a parking garage, circling the various levels until she made it to the rooftop.

Natalie revved her engine, trying to rile Dominic up and engage a response from him. Though, her cold glare faltered when his engine turned off, and the man stepped out of the car, seemingly unarmed. The uneasy feeling returned full-force like a blow to the gut, but the Shaw woman refused to let it hold her back.

Snatching the large wrench and pipe from the seat beside her, Natalie didn't bother to turn the car engine off before swinging open her car door and allowing her combat boots to meet the concrete ground.

The woman's rage was palpable, polluting the thick, nighttime air and sending shivers cascading over every inch of Dominic's body. He couldn't fight the tears that pricked at his eyes as he thought of the reason they were there, the reason Natalie was as angry as she was.

The journal, which was tucked into the waistband of his jeans, weighed heavy with the truth and the heartbreak that Natalie Toretto had to endure.

Nausea bubbled in Dominic's stomach at the reminder, whilst a stray tear trickled over his downtrodden face.

Natalie watched the scene with bewilderment ─ her face went lax as she tried to piece together what the fuck had changed over the course of the past twelve hours. Instead of the eternal fury she had expected, the woman had been met with devastation from the one person she thought was incapable of feeling so.

Despite everything, Natalie Shaw laughed ─ a cold chuckle of disbelief that reflected only a small fraction of the inner turmoil that consumed her anxious and furious mind.

"Seriously?" She asked incredulously, amusement flitting across her smirking face. "You're pulling out the water works now? What, you think it'll spare your life?"

Natalie felt her confidence grow with every moment Dominic remained silent. Her limbs no longer felt like they would tremor with every movement, and her lungs could finally expand to accommodate all of the oxygen her body truly needed.

The man in front of her reached behind his back, as though he was pulling a gun from the waistband of his jeans, making the hairs stand on end in alert. Though, what he revealed was far more excruciating than any bullet wound could ever be.

In his hand was a familiar black leather journal, one that Natalie hadn't seen in over fourteen years, and made her heart drown in the dread that flooded her entire body. Her face paled as bile rose in her throat, suffocating and panic-inducing. Nothing felt real ─ blurriness crept into the edges of her vision and her abdomen ached with pain that she hadn't felt for over a decade.

Dominic watched through the sheath of tears that covered his eyes as his sister began frantically shaking her head, her chest moving sharply with short, panicked breaths.

"H-how do you have that?" she muttered under her breath, her mind racing with too many painful memories. No, no one was meant to know. It was my secret, Natalie's thoughts echoed, why does he know?

"HOW DO YOU HAVE THAT?!" The Shaw woman then screamed, gesturing to the journal with the large, silver wrench in her hand, which was shaking from her own trembling grasp. Her grief and desperation was rapidly dissolving into boiling, red-hot anger ─ she'd had her time to mourn, and now? Now she craved revenge.

"Y-you blew up our house, Natalie." Dominic explained, his typically confident tone reduced to a quiet, grovelling plea ─ a plea for forgiveness. "I found it in the rubble."

Natalie gritted her teeth, her grip tightening on her weapons of choice as she tried to subdue her pounding heart. The woman never imagined that people would find out, let alone in the way that Dominic had. She had written that journal when she was a teenager, when she was just a child ─ she didn't know what she was doing, and how her words would illustrate the lowest point in her life in such an unreliable way: a naive way.

The woman had hoped that no one would have the opportunity to read it, but hope was something she had grown to doubt. I should've burned that fucking book when I had the chance, Natalie thought bitterly, her eyes glued to the worn leather cover. They then flicked to Dominic's guilt-ridden face, and she knew instantly ─ he had read it.

"Why didn't you tell me?" He said in a soft voice that she hadn't heard since she was a child. Her heart fluttered for a moment as the memory of a fourteen-year-old Dominic flashed through her mind, but she forced the image away.

"When did you give me the chance to?" Natalie scoffed, shaking her head in disbelief. "Between you being in prison, disowning Jakob from our family, dealing with Dad's death, and stealing my idea for Race Wars, there wasn't a single moment that I felt like I could confide in my older brother."

"Nat─"

"No, don't you even try to turn this on me, Dominic!" She hissed, gesturing towards him with the pipe in her left hand. "Do you even know why I couldn't tell anyone?"

Natalie let out a cold yet humorous chuckle, before gasping. "Right! Who am I kidding, of course you know! You read the goddamn journal. Go on, why don't you share what exactly your eighteen-year-old sister wrote?"

Dominic swallowed the large lump that had built in his throat, before averting his eyes from his sister's.

"He said he'd kill Mia." He whispered remorsefully, and despite the lack of volume in his voice, Natalie heard every word perfectly.

"Sorry, what was that?" The Shaw woman asked mockingly, before her eyes narrowed and venom began to consume each and every one of her words. "Because it sounded like you just said that my ex-boyfriend threatened to murder my kid-sister if I even so much as uttered the word 'abuse' to anyone."

Dominic shook his head, finding the strength to meet his sister's eyes again before pleading desperately. "I could've protected you, I could've─"

"Could've what?" Natalie snapped, not liking what he was implying, who he was implying.

The man felt another tear slide over his tanned cheek and drip from his chin, though he couldn't bring himself to wipe it away. His heart ricocheted off his ribcage with ferocity and his large, calloused hands began to shake.

"I could've protected your child."

"RAMSEY'S SET UP TO hack God's Eye." Andy's steady voice echoed through the radio of Alice and Bianca's car. "She's in a 2012 Nissan GT-R R35 with O'Connor, and is currently the primary target."

Bianca's eyes darted from the road ahead of her when the car's GPS system pinged, and Ramsey's location was marked with a red dot ─ her mother-in-law's computer skills never ceased to amaze her, considering how little the street racer herself knew about technology.

Alice, who was in the front passenger seat, rested a gentle hand against her wife's thigh as a form of silent reassurance, prompting Bianca to cover the hand with her own. The two shared a look that conveyed everything words couldn't say ─ their love for their sons Lukas and Leo, their love for each other, but most of all, the clash of brown and blue conveyed the promise that no matter what happened, they would protect each other, always and forever.

Bianca gave a soft, reassuring smile, before returning her gaze to the streets in front of her. Grasping the gearstick and pressing on the clutch, the woman effortlessly shifted gears and sped down the road, towards where the GPS said Ramsey would be.

The tires squealed as the car drifted around a corner. The new stretch of road revealed a crossroad, with three cars speeding towards it ─ Brian and Ramsey were in the first, Letty was in the second, and Roman and Tej were in the third.

Clearly they had spotted the car tailing them, as they each split off from their group, taking a different turn in an attempt to hide Ramsey from God's Eye. Roman turned right, whilst Letty turned left, leaving Brian and Ramsey headed straight on.

Alice held back a laugh as she scoffed, and watched as the car's GPS continued to track the blue GTR. It was honestly amusing her that this was their entire plan ─ drive around LA in hopes of stealing God's Eye and outrunning the ghosts that threatened to wipe them out. She doubted that they had many weapons on them, considering their racing abilities, which only made them easier marks.

The King woman leant forward and grabbed the monster of a gun she had been given by Finnick from the footwell in front of her ─ she wouldn't be surprised if it could mow down a military convoy. It was similar to the guns that Deckard and Hattie had used at the party in Abu Dhabi, but the one in Alice's hands looked like it was on steroids.

Not only was it larger, but it was so large that she needed to rest it on her shoulder to balance the weight. The monster of a weapon was partly a machine gun, with a modification for rocket-like explosives, making it unlike any gun that the King woman had ever possessed before.

Safe to say, Toretto's team wasn't going to have their cars, or their lives, for very much longer.

"Shit!" Andy's voice hissed from their radio. "They're in range and trying to take God's Eye back."

The women shared a look, and they knew that they had to chase O'Connor's car out of the two-mile range that Ramsey needed, in order to delay the hack.

Flooring it, Bianca lurched the car forward with frightening speed, weaving in and out of the surrounding vehicles with a level of precision that only came from years of experience. Many of the civilian cars honked their horns at her seemingly reckless driving, most likely cursing her out under their breaths, but the woman couldn't care less.

The streets blurred as their car fought to close the distance between themselves and the blue GTR, which was fighting tooth and nail to keep its small advantage. It took a sharp turn onto a bridge, forcing the Kings' car to skid around the corner and almost tip onto the two leftside wheels from sheer speed.

Alice let out a small gasp of surprise as the car bounced from the movement, making Bianca chuckle under her breath.

"You'd think you've never been in a high-speed chase before, huh?" She teased, making her wife jokingly backhand her upper arm. Bianca faked a wince, before flashing the blonde a lovestruck, cheeky look.

"You know I have, B." Alice retorted, rolling her eyes as she tried to fight the glowing grin on her face. "Remember Monaco?"

The street racer smirked at the mention of the 2010 job, and couldn't help but blow out an exaggerated breath as she thought back on the absolute joy and chaos that was 'Monaco'.

"Oh, how could I forget?" Bianca raised her eyebrows, the playful smirk still tugging at her lips. That job was...unforgettable, to say the least.

Alice turned her sparkling gaze back to the road, and saw that Brian's car was only a few metres away, making the woman grin as she undid her seatbelt.

"Be careful." Bianca warned, giving Alice's knee a gentle squeeze.

The blonde woman gave a reassuring smile as her window rolled down, before winking at her wife and clutching her gun even tighter.

"Always am, love." Alice assured, and climbed so that her upper body was leaning out of the window.

The wind whipped violently through her loose blonde curls and slashed at her face, forcing the woman to take a moment to adjust before she positioned her gun on her shoulder.

The weapon weighed heavily against her, but it was the last thing on Alice's mind as she steadied her aim towards O'Connor's car.

Not wasting another moment, the King woman pulled the trigger and assaulted the rear windshield with bullets. She watched in satisfaction as the blue GTR swerved, completely out of control and taken by surprise by the onslaught of gunfire.

The tires squealed sharply, cutting through the night and forcing Alice to hold back a wince. Doing her best to disregard the harsh sound, the mercenary continued to shred Brian's car with bullets, completely busting up the back of his car to the point where she thought the vehicle would crash.

Knowing he needed to take cover, the O'Connor drove his car underneath a large truck, which was carrying an abundance of metal tubing. His move completely blocked Alice's view of his car, forcing the woman to curse under her breath and lower herself back into her vehicle.

"I can't get a clear shot." She huffed to her wife, and took the opportunity to reload her gun with the magazines stashed in the duffel bag, which also laid in her footwell.

Bianca's brown eyes were glued to the small corner of the blue GTR that wasn't concealed by the truck, analysing the possibilities ─ the hiding spot wasn't sustainable, so the pair would have to come out eventually. Her gaze lit up with a mischievous glint as an idea formed in the woman's mind.

Turning to face her wife, the brunette smirked as she changed gears and pulled out from behind the truck.

"Get ready to go again, honey." She warned, making Alice's brows furrow in confusion. Nevertheless, the King woman prepared herself as Bianca checked the rearview mirror for cars, only to smile to herself when there were none nearby. She then checked the lanes beside her, and found a similar result (save for the truck).

Swiftly switching gears, Bianca pressed down on the clutch, pulled the handbrake, and swerved the steering wheel sharply to the left. The back end of the car swung around, and the woman quickly turned the wheel to the right to straighten the wheels.

Grasping the gearstick and shifting the car into reverse, Bianca released the stick and rested her arm on the shoulder of her seat, before looking over her shoulder and slamming down on the accelerator.

Not only had the woman performed a perfectly-executed 180-degree turn, she was also now effortlessly driving backwards in order to give her wife the perfect shot.

Grinning from ear to ear, Alice reclaimed her position through the open window and didn't hesitate to rain bullets down on the right side of the O'Connor's car.

Her heart pounded in her chest with adrenaline as she gripped the gun tighter. Blood thrummed in her ears, blending with the clash of bullets against blue metal, and the shattering of glass windows. She could faintly hear Ramsey's screams of panic. Brian was desperately trying to escape from underneath the truck, but between the Kings' car on his right and a flurry of oncoming traffic to his left, he had no choice but to endure the onslaught of bullets.

What Alice didn't expect, though, was for one of the bullets to ricochet off the vehicle and pierce one of the truck's back tires. The driver began to lose control of the vehicle, with the backend of the truck swinging towards the King's car, and almost crashing into the front of it.

"Holy fucking shit—" Bianca exclaimed, slamming on the accelerator as hard as she could, whilst still looking over her shoulder and driving in reverse.

Alice had quickly tucked herself back into the car. She watched with wide eyes as the pipes, which were previously secured onto the back of the truck, began to tumble onto the road, threatening to bury them in a pile of hefty metal tubing.

The hollow pipes clanged as they collided with the ground, shaking the concrete and sending the women's hearts lurching into their throats.

Bianca pushed the car to its limits as she fought to put as much distance between them and the catastrophe in the rear view. The moment she was even remotely content with the amount of road their car had behind it, Bianca performed the same 180-degree manoeuvre as before.

She hastily shifted out of reverse and powered forward, narrowly dodging the falling pipes whilst their vehicle was forced to drive beside Brian and Ramsey. Both drivers couldn't put their foot closer to the floor if they tried — crushed by an avalanche of steel tubing was not a cool way to die, and certainly not the way either of them wanted to go out.

Just as the two cars made it off the bridge, Brian took the risk of speeding up further, and skidded in front of Bianca's car, narrowly grazing past the front bumper.

The woman's heart pounded violently against her chest as she watched the battered car's daring movements with wide eyes.

"Oh, you've got to be kidding me!" She hissed, restraining the urge to hit her steering wheel. Bianca slammed on the brakes and swerved, Brian's manoeuvre having forced her to do so, making the car skid and squeal to a stop.

Both women lurched forward in their seats, with Alice bracing herself on the dashboard in front of her seat and the street racer being held back by her seatbelt. A sharp pain shot through the blonde woman's forearm (which was the arm she used to save herself from ending up on the other side of the windshield), forcing the woman to muffle a wince.

Knowing that her wife didn't have a seatbelt on, Bianca's head whipped towards the passenger seat in panic. A breath of relief escaped her as soon as Alice's blue eyes met her own brown ones.

"You okay?" Bianca asked breathlessly, her eyes moving to frantically scan her wife's body for any signs of injury. Her panic was eased by the gentle hand that reached up to cup her tan cheek, and moved her face so that it was focused on Alice's reassuring one.

"I'm fine, my love." She smiled, before returning her hand to her wife's thigh. "Now, we need to catch up with O'Connor, so let's get a move on, hm?"

Bianca shook her head fondly as she chuckled under her breath, before putting the car into gear and sending their car sailing down the road.

They quickly caught sight of the battered blue GTR, along with the police car tailing it with its sirens sounding. Alice muttered under her breath, irritated by the presence of law enforcement.

Was it inevitable? Sure, but that didn't mean it wasn't a frustrating inconvenience.

Making sure the explosive chamber of her gun was loaded properly, the blonde King retook her position in the window.

Once again, the wind whipped viciously through her hair, sending chills across her body. Determination flooded every inch of her body as the King woman took aim. The vehicles' sporadic movements did nothing to dissuade Alice ─ after all, she didn't have the title of 'mercenary' just for decoration.

Her blue eyes squinted in concentration, before her pointer finger grazed the trigger and pulled it. A smaller scale rocket soared from the explosives barrel and straight towards the police car.

The kickback from the gun sent a sharp pain flaring through the woman's shoulder, where the gun was resting, making Alice swallow a groan of pain.

Heat flooded towards her, engulfing the woman in the fallout of the deafening explosion ─ the police cruiser had been launched into the air, before tumbling down the road, all whilst consumed by violent orange flames.

The wreckage served two purposes: one, it removed an obstacle that would've interfered with their objective, and two, it acted as a warning for Brian O'Connor ─ he wasn't privy to the fact that they had projectile explosives, until flames were licking at the back of his bullet-ridden car.

Tucking herself back into their vehicle, Alice winced as her shoulder collided with her leather seat, but forced herself to ignore the pain. The woman leaned forward and retrieved another rocket from the duffel bag in her footwell, before loading it into the explosives barrel.

Bianca's eyes narrowed towards the GPS when another dot pinged with the label 'PEARCE & PARKER', and was moving towards both their location and Brian's. Flitting her gaze to the road ahead, the woman clenched her jaw at the sight of a 1985 Chevrolet Caprice Classic Sedan speeding towards O'Connor's GTR.

Alice caught on to what was happening, and had already resumed her place in the window, despite the weight of the gun torturing her injured shoulder. The distance between her and the GTR wasn't desirable ─ Alice would rather have the car a lot closer than it was, but the woman knew how to work with what she had.

Bracing herself for the violent kickback, Alice's pointer finger grazed the trigger, preparing to pull it, only to hesitate. Both Roman and Brian's cars initiated the same manoeuvre that Bianca had done moments before, except they spun around each other.

The squealing of their tires cut through the night, whilst smoke clouded around the two vehicles, concealing the fact that Ramsey had leapt from one car to the other. The two vehicles then realigned, and continued heading their separate ways, with Roman continuing towards the Kings and Brian speeding away from them.

Still under the impression that Ramsey was in the blue GTR, Alice readjusted her aim and this time, she didn't hesitate to pull the trigger. The explosive shot through the air, whizzing past the Chevrolet Caprice and colliding with Brian's car.

A startling 'boom' resonated throughout the streets as the GTR flipped, with the back end going over the front. Scraps of metal clattered to the ground after shooting out like large shards of shrapnel. Brian, who had rolled from the vehicle at the last moment, watched in horror as flames consumed the destroyed GTR. Dark smoke clouded over the wreck, signalling the annihilation of the O'Connor man's car and the first brutal attempt at removing Ramsey from the playing field...though it definitely wouldn't be the last.

THE WARM LA BREEZE whistled through the night sky, filling the external silence that suffocated the Toretto siblings, whilst simultaneously joining the catastrophic symphony of turmoil crashing through the Shaw woman's body.

I could've protected your child.

It was as though the words themselves had formed a noose around Natalie's neck, sentencing her to death for concealing the one title that mattered most to her ─ mother. Her stomach churned so violently that a lump formed in the woman's throat and her tanned face drained of every ounce of its colour; Natalie's fear of vomiting was doing nothing to settle the nausea tearing her insides to shreds.

The ache in the Shaw woman's abdomen spread like wildfire, sparking across the skin of her back and engulfing her spine, before flaring in the base of her skull. Her entire body was consumed by overwhelming panic, forcing her limbs to tense so tightly that she might as well have been turned to stone.

Though, Natalie managed to release her hold on the pipe, which struck the concrete with a series of sharp, resonating clangs ─ the sound was a harsh, jarring noise, like the tolling of a church bell, and made Dominic flinch. It rolled towards the woman, bumping into her combat boot before resting against it, waiting to be retrieved.

The Shaw woman placed a shaking hand over her abdomen, flooding the area with the warmth of her palm and sending her mind hurtling back to the days of her pregnancy. All of the times she would rest her hand against her stomach, just as she was now, trying to feel closer to her unborn child, who had no idea of the monster that was their father. Every time Daniel Poulter had raised his voice or his fist, and she had instinctually gone to protect her baby instead of shielding herself.

The first time she endured one of her boyfriend's 'episodes', so to speak, whilst knowing she was pregnant, the only thought that ran circles in her mind was 'we have to get out'.

Natalie had accepted her fate of being Daniel Poulter's possession and punching bag a long time ago — she had never been looking for a way out in fear of what it would cost their family, and would rather be subjected to an eternity of her own personal hell than put her sister at risk.

But, after seeing those two pink lines on her test? She was determined to find a way out for all of them.

"Natalie, I know everything..." Dominic began shakily, swallowing the pleas of forgiveness that were rapidly rising in his throat.

"You know nothing!" The Shaw woman hissed, lifting her hand from her abdomen and jabbing her pointer finger towards him. He may have read the journal, but by no means did that mean that he knew what had happened to her, or understood what happened to her child. The journal only recounted her life up until the night that she left ─ Dom knew nothing.

"Dan's abuse?" He said softly, his face completely wrecked in devastation. "It got so bad that you couldn't even leave your room because makeup couldn't cover the marks."

"Stop." Natalie shook her head, choking back the sob that threatened to escape her lips. Her grip tightened on her wrench, the cold metal violently digging into her palm.

The pain in her voice forced Dominic to avert his eyes to the journal within his grasp, though that sight was no better ─ the worn book held the gruesome and bitter details of Natalie Toretto's youth, all of which were now ingrained into his mind like a hellish brand.

"Y-you tried to keep Jake and Mia out of the house as much as possible, so they wouldn't see anything..." He continued to stare at the leather, before daring to meet his sister's glare, "but it didn't always work."

"Dominic, stop." The Shaw woman hissed, any trace of weakness that was once there, now concealed by the fury that coursed through her veins.

"He tried to kill your child—"

"I SAID STOP!" Natalie screamed. The words viciously ripped through her throat as though it was the most guttural of sounds, and its pain resonated throughout every inch of her body.

In one swift motion, the woman snatched the fallen pipe from its place beside her boot and lunged towards her brother, immediately taking a swing at his with her large wrench.

Dominic's heart lurched in his throat as he stumbled away, narrowly missing what would have been a deadly blow. Diving for the open window of his car door, the man managed to grab the two wrenches that he had placed on the driver seat just in time to block his sister's next hit.

The clash of metal reverberated through the woman's arms, only fuelling her pure and utter rage. She felt zero remorse whilst staring at her brother's distraught face, her eyes crazed with a glint he had never seen before.

"I did everything for our family. EVERYTHING! And where were you, huh? Where were you?!" Natalie yelled, retracting her weapons and going for another hit to the man's side. "You nearly killed a guy, dammit! You left us all alone, we had no one!"

Dominic leapt backwards, desperately doing his best to avoid the powerful, precise swings from his sister. The last thing he wanted to do was retaliate in any way that could hurt Natalie more than he already had throughout their lives.

The woman's arms burned from the weight of the weapons in her hands, and sweat began to bead on the back of her neck as her strong attack was met with Dominic's defence — he had crossed his wrenches over in the shape of an 'x', preventing Natalie's own from landing a blow to his head.

"Dad died, Dominic! He was killed r-right in front of us and then I watched you get dragged away in handcuffs." She continued, grunting when she managed to knock one of Dominic's wrenches out of his hand. The metal clattered to the ground, clanging sharply against the concrete beneath the two Torettos' feet.

Taking advantage of her brother's momentary shock, Natalie jabbed her wrench into Dominic's stomach. The man yelped, grasping the now-throbbing area with his free hand and hunching over, giving his sister the perfect opportunity to smash her pipe across the side of his face.

Natalie's heart pounded against her ribcage as her eyes followed Dominic's descent to the ground ─ blood gushed from his cheekbone, painting almost the entire left side of his face a deep, deadly maroon. For a moment, the woman thought she had killed him, and for that small, fleeting moment, Natalie was relieved. She couldn't say the same for the seconds that followed, though; regret pooled in her stomach faster than a river gushing through a freshly broken dam, mixing with all of grief and rage that she had repressed for over a decade.

Both the wrench and the now-bloodied pipe slipped from her weakening grasp, striking the ground in the same jarring manner as Dominic's fallen weapons.

The sharp clanging made the man wince, as the ringing in his ears worsened and began reverberating through his head, like an echo in an empty room.

Nevertheless, he forced his blurring vision to focus and pushed his hands against the cold concrete beneath his aching body. The hairs on his arms stood high, as though on alert, whilst he forced himself to stumble to a stand.

Agonizing pain tormented his head in a way that felt like hellfire had been forced upon his skull, making the man feel like the contents of his stomach would end up splattered on his boots.

Dominic dared to meet the gaze of his sister, which burned with an overwhelming flurry of emotions, all of which served as motive for his death.

Natalie Shaw felt her regret begin to evaporate, leaving only what had possessed her body moments prior. Disregarding her previous weapons, the woman dashed forward and shoved her brother's chest, sending the already disoriented man stumbling back.

"We needed you─I needed you!" She began again strongly, striking another furious hit to the body in front of her. "When I needed you the most, when my son needed you the most, you a-abandoned us." Natalie's voice began to shake, but never dropped in volume.

Dominic's body tensed as he processed his sister's words — it was a boy...he would've had a nephew.

"You believed the words of a liar and a psychopath over your own sister!" The Shaw woman yelled, striking Dominic in the jaw before shoving his chest again. The man did nothing to defend himself, he simply took the hits — he had accepted his mistakes, and his fate. "You turned your back on your unborn nephew, Dominic! And now h-he's—"

Tears sprung to Natalie's eyes, burning and pricking at her crazed gaze. She continued to hit her brother's chest, but desperation was seeping into her limbs and weakening her attacks. That, combined with Dominic's complete disregard towards blocking her hands, sent her tipping over the edge.

Her scream of frustration tore through the night, empowering the woman's body and enabling her to slap, hit, and punch Dominic with as much force as she could manage. Even after splitting the man's lip, possibly breaking his nose, and painting his chest black and blue with an array of bruises, Dominic still hadn't lifted so much as a finger towards her.

"Dammit, fight back!" Natalie screamed, pounding her bloodied fists against her brother's chest, before landing a nasty right hook to his jaw. "FIGHT BACK!!"

The man found himself flat on his back and on the ground once more, any will left to keep his heart beating completely shattered — he had lost two of his siblings because of his own stupidity, Brian had started to drift away from him, Letty now hated him, but most importantly, he hated himself.

So, when he found himself with a figure looming over him and a wrench raised above their head, Dominic couldn't help but think that it was some form of divine retribution. He would die in the exact way that he almost murdered Kenny Linder nearly two decades ago, and that seemed fitting — an atonement of sorts, for all of the pain Dominic had caused his loved ones through his twisted, broken vow: family above all.

Natalie, who had snatched one of the discarded socket wrenches, wielded it high above her head as she crouched beside her brother's fallen body, using her free hand to clutch a handful of the neck of Dominic's top. Her thoughts and feelings were incoherent, rampaging throughout her mind and body in a tumultuous frenzy.

The cold of the metal sent shivers cascading over her arms and down her spine, whilst the edges of the wrench also dug into her soft palm like the blade of a blunt knife.

This is what you've been waiting for, a voice seethed from the back of her mind, breaking through the turmoil, this is what you trained for, Natalie.

Natalie King had always had one focus in mind — revenge. Now that the day had finally come, she couldn't help but try to push for the ending that she felt Natalie needed, and that Dominic Toretto deserved.

No! A much younger voice pitched in, completely polluted with fear and longing. He's our brother, we can't kill him. He didn't mean to hurt our baby...he didn't know!

Natalie Toretto had always looked towards the light, instead of being pulled in by the everlasting darkness that consumed her life. She chose to see the best in people, even after they'd hurt her time and time again. It was a naivety that destroyed her.

Natalie's hands trembled and her breaths had gotten heavier as she forced the heavy wrench to remain in the air. Uncertainty bubbled in her gut, and weighed the woman down like it was made of lead.

"Do it." A broken voice gruffly whispered, forcing Natalie to meet the glossy eyes of her brother. Her lip began to wobble at the acceptance that was written over his face — his features were completely lax, as though he was at peace, but his eyes told a different story.

Andy had always told her how the eyes were the window to someone's soul, and the Shaw woman had only ever really found it true with her husband ─ until now.

Just by meeting the brown eyes that were identical to her own, Natalie could've sworn she felt her brother's emotions as though they were her own: despair, devastation, regret.

"Please, Natalie..." Dominic said lowly, his voice cracking with desperation as a tear trailed from his eye. "Do it for your son."

The Shaw woman's breath caught in her throat, whilst her heart almost pounded from her chest. For years, she had yearned for the moment where Dominic Toretto would fall to his knees and submit to the fate that he oh so deserved, but now that the moment had arrived, nothing felt right.

The hand holding the wrench began to shake so violently that the weapon itself trembled from the movement.

There wasn't a day that passed when Natalie didn't think about her son, and the little amount of time she had with him. See, Dominic was under the impression that Dan had succeeded in taking her child away the night that Natalie left, but in reality, she had almost carried to term — she had felt her unborn son's kicks against her palm, heard his sweet little heartbeat, and designed his nursery all by herself.

But nothing lasts forever, especially peace.

Daniel Poulter had tracked her down to her small apartment in France, completely and utterly crazed with twisted ideas of revenge — Natalie had escaped him, but her son was the price for her freedom.

After a traumatic and horrific labour, the nineteen-year-old girl cradled him in her arms for forty-three minutes. It was forty-three minutes before the premature little boy succumbed to the injuries his father had inflicted, and Natalie had the sound of the flatline from the monitor engraved into her brain.

But now, in her obsession with justice and revenge, she had turned into one of the people she loathed the most — her brother.

Her wielding a socket wrench above someone's head with no intent of putting it down? Natalie had never looked more identical to Dominic, and that terrified her more than anything.

She was like him in every way, and that alone was enough to know that she had failed: as a sister, as a wife, and as a mother.

Natalie couldn't fight the tears that burned as they glazed her eyes, and spilled over her cheeks. Her arm ached from the weight of the wrench, prompting the woman to weakly toss it to the side. The weapon clattered against the concrete, marking her choice and punctuating the silence between the siblings.

"Killing you doesn't bring him back." Natalie cried, despite doing her best to stabilise her voice. "It only makes me like you, Dominic, a-and that's the last thing I would ever want to be."

Releasing the fabric clenched in her grasp, the Shaw woman stumbled to a stand, and loomed over the weak body of Dominic Toretto.

"I hope this moment haunts you forever." She said, meeting the pair of brown eyes identical to her own. The man had begged for death, and she hadn't granted his reprieve — ultimately, Natalie Shaw's humanity had remained intact, whilst Dominic Toretto's had been lost a long, long time ago... ultimately, she had won.

The rumble of two car engines growled from behind the woman, making her gently wipe the tear stains from her cheeks and carefully compose herself into the confident, calculating Natalie Shaw. A blanket of comfort had wrapped itself around her because she knew exactly who was behind the wheels, and they were two of the people that knew her best and loved her the most.

The woman felt a smirk tug at her lips as Dominic climbed to his feet, unsteady as he tried to stand tall and face whoever had joined them. His already discouraged face completely fell when the sound of two car doors slamming shut echoed from behind Natalie's body.

"Jakob..." he muttered, slowly hobbling backwards and away from his estranged younger brother.

"Oh, don't tell me you missed me, Dom..." he mocked, grinning at the fear that consumed his older brother, "because I sure as hell haven't missed you."

"SO, WHAT'S YOUR FAVOURITE food?"

Xavier took a deep breath, restraining the urge to physically remove Finnick Briggs from the passenger seat of his car. Yes, the man was comedic relief in human form, but in an enclosed space? Xavier had never longed for earplugs more. Maybe it was the severity of their situation that nullified any of the Briggs man's jokes; the King man couldn't pull his mind away from the situation that his sister was in, and the dread that pooled in his gut.

"Strawberries." He answered begrudgingly, hoping that responding to what felt like the hundredth question would finally shut Finnick up. His grip tightened on the steering wheel as they drove aimlessly through the streets of Los Angeles, waiting for their objective.

Finnick was silent for a moment, making Xavier let out a small sigh of relief. Peace at last, he thought to himself.

"What about─"

"No." The King man insisted firmly whilst turning a street corner.

"Alright, you grumpy sod." Finnick jabbed lightheartedly, turning to face Xavier with an amused smile on his face. "Just trying to make conversation."

Xavier shook his head, fighting the small smirk that threatened to tug at his lips. "I'd prefer it if you didn't."

Finnick threw his hands up in mock exasperation, huffing. He wore an offended look as he continued to look at the King man.

"Well, would you rather I turned on the radio?" He sassed. When Xavier refused to indulge him by answering, Finnick did so anyway, turning up the volume so far that he had to raise his voice for it to be heard. 'Party in the USA' was blaring throughout the car so loudly that Xavier instantly thought he could feel a migraine forming. "Though, I will warn you, I tend to sing─"

The King man had never reached for the volume dial faster.

"Woah, woah, woah, woah, don't silence Miley Cyrus—" Finnick quickly reached to turn the music back up, shooting Xavier a 'what the fuck did you do that for' look. "It's either this or the badgering, Xav."

The man paused for the slightest moment, pondering the nickname. "Can I call you Xav?"

"Absolutely not."

"Great! Xav it is." Finnick exclaimed with a grin on his face, before continuing to chitter on. "Anyways, pick your poison! Twenty Questions, or my wonderful singing?"

"Xavier, are you there?" Andromeda's voice crackled through their radio. Xavier let out a sigh of relief and snatched it from the cup holder, whilst Finnick begrudgingly turned down the radio.

"Yeah, I'm here, Mum." He assured, holding the button on the side of the radio so that she would hear him. "What do you need?"

"Ramsey switched cars." Andy informed, watching God's Eye on the computer in front of her. "A 1985 Chevrolet Caprice Classic Sedan currently on Olive and Ninth. Pearce and Parker are with her."

Just as the woman stopped speaking, the car's GPS pinged, just as Alice and Bianca's had, except this time, the large red dot represented Roman Pearce's car.

Xavier passed the radio to Finnick, who looked at the device confused, before the King man sharply turned the steering wheel to the left.

The back tires squealed as they swung round, turning the car so that it was facing the way it had just come. Finnick groaned when his shoulder slammed into the window from the force of the U-turn, making Xavier chuckle quietly under his breath.

Swiftly shifting gears, the King man floored it, sending Finnick lurching back into his seat.

"Fuckin' hell," the Briggs man grumbled, rubbing his aching shoulder, "I forgot that the lot of you drive like lunatics."

Xavier chuckled and shook his head in amusement. He continued to race down the road, having no problems weaving in and out of civilian cars, and disregarding every aggravated horn that blared at his risky manoeuvers.

"You can thank Natalie for that." He responded in a light but sarcastic tone, whilst pride swelled in his chest — but not for himself. The man would never forget the first time that he saw his younger sister race a quarter mile; Natalie had a gift, which was by no means surprising. Racing ran in her blood, and it always would, but the way it manifested? Xavier couldn't be prouder of his sister for her passion and talents, and could by no means wipe the bright smile off his face when he witnessed them manifest firsthand.

Taking yet another sharp corner, the pair caught sight of Roman's car just before it slipped out of sight, having made a messy right turn onto the next street over.

Shaking his head in disappointment, Xavier tutted as he took the same route with ease, and quickly caught up to the speeding car with little effort. It tried to gain distance by weaving through the traffic with daring speed, but ultimately, it got Roman's car nowhere.

"Nat made it sound like they'd be better drivers." The King man mused sarcastically, making Finnick snicker under his breath.

Xavier bumped the back of the Sedan with the front of his car hard enough to send it lurching forward, and he could've sworn he could hear Roman's panicked screams echoing from the vehicle.

With their back bumper now dented and their adrenaline pumping, the three members of Toretto's crew watched in shock when the screen of Ramsey's device began to completely short-circuit before going completely blank.

"What the hell just happened?" Roman exclaimed, his eyes darting frantically between the screen and the road.

"I-I don't know," Ramsey stuttered in shock, whilst her fingers flew over the keyboard at a frightening pace, "i-it was working just a second ago─"

The woman paused at the sight of bold, white text popping up on her screen as though it was being typed in real time.

"Wait, isn't that the Monarch's tag?" Tej interjected, leaning over from his position in the backseat to point at the crown symbol, his finger shaking as he did so. The message remained for only a moment more before the device completely shut down, leaving only a black screen.

"Excuse me, for those who don't speak 'nerd'," Roman began, his voice growing in volume with every word, "what the hell is a 'monarch'?!"

"It's not a 'what', dumbass, it's a 'who'," Tej jabbed, shaking his head. "and that 'who' happens to be one of the most famous hackers on this entire goddamn planet."

The driving street racer resisted the urge to slam on the brakes in disbelief and sped up, yet still managed to receive another hit from the furious car behind them.

"So, you're trying to tell me," The Pearce man began again, still in shock and yelling, "we're up against two long-lost Torettos we had no idea even existed, a family full of mercenaries, and the hacker of all hackers?!"

"Don't forget both of Owen Shaw's siblings."

"Oh, thank you so much, Tej!" Roman screamed, his heart beating out of his chest as he took another corner. "That was just the fucking reassurance I needed!"

Back in Xavier and Finnick's car, the two were completely oblivious to the crisis in Roman's vehicle, and were childishly fighting over the radio ─ the weapons specialist was relentlessly trying to turn up 'Don't Stop The Music' by Rihanna, whilst the mercenary was desperately trying to turn it down.

"Listen to what the song's telling you, Xav..." Finnick insisted, turning the volume up so far that he had to yell over Rihanna's voice, "don't stop the music!"

Xavier slapped the man's hand away from the volume dial, making Finnick yelp and shake away the stinging that engulfed the limb. The driver turned the song down until silence engulfed the car, before he turned to face the weapons specialist.

"If you dont leave the music as it is, I will put a fucking bullet through this stereo, even if it means crashing this car." He warned in a low voice, making Finnick snort.

"You're so easy to wind up, you know that?" The man grinned, chuckling whilst he shook his head in amusement. He then reached down into his footwell, just as Alice had done previously, and retrieved another of the jacked-up guns.

Xavier eyed him nervously, watching as the man loaded the explosives barrel and attached the clip of bullets before cocking the gun. The King man wasn't entirely sure that Finnick was responsible enough to handle the weapon, but at the end of the day, Xavier wasn't the weapons specialist ─ Briggs was.

Roman's car swerved off the main road and down towards an underpass, which was headed underneath a bridge. The King man wasted no time in following, though the other vehicle somehow managed to gain a fair amount of distance in the short time that it took him.

As soon as the car was in view, Finnick gave Xavier a quick wink before positioning himself in his open window.

"Keep it steady, would you?" He grinned, ignoring how Xavier rolled his eyes at his antics.

Taking a deep breath, Finnick rested the gun against his shoulder and lined up his shot. It only took a moment for confidence to course through his body, making him smile to himself as his finger pulled the trigger.

The explosive soared from the chamber, sending the gun hurtling back into Finnick's shoulder. It was like a knife being driven into the joint, and that was enough to make his eyes water.

"Fuck me, that hurts—" Finnick hissed, biting back the urge to yell in pain and forcing himself to climb back into the car. He flopped into his seat, muffling a groan when his injured shoulder collided with the leather.

His eyes widened when a deafening 'boom' struck through the air, and flames consumed the Roman's car quicker than Finnick could blink. Shards of glass and distorted metal were expelled like shrapnel, clattering to the ground in the same manner as the car ─ the vehicle itself had flipped through the air, groaning when it finally crashed back down.

Screeching the car to a stop, Xavier tentatively climbed from the vehicle and immediately felt the heat of the explosion slap him in the face.

He observed it for a moment, allowing his eyes to scan over the wreckage for any signs of life — the only movement was that of the flames, which danced across the molten metal. The man would've walked away, had it not been for the glass bottle that rolled towards him from a nearby alley.

Gesturing for Finnick to join him, Xavier retrieved his pistol from the holster on his hip and crept towards the origin of the bottle.

The Briggs man trailed behind, gun raised, and his eyes poised on the entrance of the alley — it was wide enough to drive a car through and have room to spare, which made his heart rate spike with uncertainty.

Their movements were silent as they advanced further towards the darkness, making the three hidden in the alley freeze with fear; they had heard the car doors open and close, but they hadn't heard the rumble of the engine moving further and further away. Instead, the low hum echoed through the night, vibrating to the same frequency as the terror that coursed through their bodies.

Their original plan had been for Letty to meet them in the alley so that Ramsey could continue her hack without being blown to pieces, but the Ortiz woman was further away from them than she thought.

If the trio had known that Letty was going to be 'late', so to speak, they would've just ran through the alley and onto the street when they had the chance — except now, with two highly-trained killers only a handful of steps away from them, they'd be dead before they could even move a finger.

Waiting with bated breath, Ramsey had her quivering hand pressed firmly against her mouth, hoping to muffle her shaky breathing and the cries that had lodged themselves firmly in her throat.

The woman's other hand was tightly grasped by one of Tej's, though neither of the two had realised that their hands had automatically gone to embrace each other.

The man was doing his best to steady his breathing and keep it as quiet as possible whilst trying to keep an eye on the alley's opening.

Roman, who was on the other side of Tej, had his eyes squeezed shut as tight as they would go, as though it would ward away the imminent threat that was ready to wipe them out.

All three were pressed against the wall, trying to make themselves as flat as possible in hopes of sinking into the darkness.

Boy, were they glad they did.

The low roar of a car engine echoed from the main street, before a familiar car turned down the alley and sped towards a now-startled Xavier and Finnick.

Letting up on the gas just enough to ensure that the pair made it out alive, Letty muttered an apology under her breath before going straight for the two men.

Neither had time to move before the car collided with their bodies, sending them onto the bonnet, over the roof, and crashing back down near the rear end of the car as though they were ragdolls.

Both Xavier and Finnick groaned, pain flooding their bodies in violent tidal waves. The King man was the first to attempt to recover, but the man struggled to sit himself up, let alone stand. Finnick did his best to keep his eyes open, but ultimately succumbed to the darkness that consumed his vision.

"Let's go! Let's go!" Letty yelled from her open window, ushering the shocked trio towards her.

Tej reached the passenger side first, pulled the door open, and ushered Ramsey into the seat. He met her fearful eyes and gave her a comforting look in an attempt to ease her terror.

"See if you can fight against the Monarch's coding." He advised, even though he knew there was a slim chance that anyone could beat the hacker. "We might get lucky, so don't stop trying, okay?"

Ramsey gave him a shaky nod, before Tej stepped away from the car, allowing Letty to get them both out of there. The tires squealed against the pavement and smoke clouded the back of the car, before it shot towards the main road.

Whilst the others were occupied, Roman carefully approached the two fallen men, who were sprawled out on the pavement. He nudged Xavier's ankle with his foot — the King man was seemingly out for the count, with his eyes closed and his head lopsided, but one could never be too sure. Even the nasty looking head wound did nothing to reassure him, despite the amount of blood pouring from it like a faucet.

When Xavier didn't flinch from the kick, Roman let out a preemptive breath of relief, only to scream when his legs were swept from underneath him by one of Xavier's.

As the Pearce man's body crashed to the ground with a huge 'thud', Xavier's aching one leapt up, despite the crippling pain that radiated throughout his limbs.

Burning pain cascaded over Roman's back once it collided with the coarse concrete, whilst the back of his head slammed harshly against the ground. A loud 'crack' resonated throughout the alley, signalling the fracture of his skull and the deep red halo that pooled around him.

The King man's head spun as he fought to maintain his wavering balance. Xavier managed to remain upright and channel enough strength to stamp on Roman's face, rendering him unconscious and shattering his nose.

Tej took one look at his now-unconscious best friend and charged towards Xavier, his logic temporarily leaving him, rage immediately taking its place.

Too disoriented to dodge in time, Xavier's back, once again, met the pavement in a violent collision, with Tej landing on top of him.

Fury rolled off the man in waves as he raised his clenched fist, before bringing it down on Xavier's face — once, twice, three times.

His fist felt like knives as it collided with the King man's cheekbone, over and over like vicious stab wounds. The hits did nothing to lessen the dizziness or the pain in his head, and were close to rendering the man unconscious (actually unconscious, this time). Xavier could do nothing to defend himself — between his injuries, and the fact that Tej's knees pinned the man's arms down against the ground with a strength the King man couldn't overpower.

Though, before Xavier could succumb to his injuries and the deadly hits of Tej Parker, the body on top of him suddenly fell away, the weight completely leaving his midsection. Shards of thick glass rained down on him, making the man weakly cover his face with one of his now-free arms.

Once glass no longer pattered against the waterproof material of his trench coat, Xavier pulled his arm away from his bloody and bruised face, only for his gaze to land on an unsteady-looking Finnick Briggs — the man had blood oozing from various wounds littered all over his body, yet he was strongly clutching the broken neck of the same bottle that had originally rolled out of the alley.

Blood was caked to the side of his head, and gushed from his now crooked-looking nose. Despite the raw, flaring pain that consumed far too much of his body, Finnick cracked a relieved smile at the man lying on the floor, and Xavier found the strength within himself to mirror it.

"Mowing us down with a car..." Finnick tutted tiredly, his smile morphing into one of equal amusement and annoyance, "they've got to be having a fucking laugh."

A FAMILIAR PAIR OF sharp blue eyes spied down the scope of a sniper, watching the rooftop of a parking garage closely. That rooftop happened to be the same one that Natalie and Dominic were battling on, and that was no mistake ─ Andromeda King had waited for the Toretto man to reveal his chosen location for the fight before setting up in the office building opposite, giving both herself and a certain military agent the perfect vantage point.

Hattie Shaw narrowed her eyes as she watched the siblings fight; well, more like watching Dominic completely submit to whatever attack Natalie sprung on him. She furrowed her brows and adjusted the scope to give herself a better view of what was happening.

A distraught and furious Natalie was shoving Dominic with all of her strength, screaming in his face as she did so. Hattie wished more than anything that she knew what harsh words were being exchanged, especially because she had never seen her sister-in-law look so bloodthirsty.

"How's Nat doing?" Andy asked nervously from her place behind her computer ─ the woman had accomplished an impressive set up with the best technology she could get her hands on, but it didn't ease the fear that clawed at her heart. A minute or two ago, she had set Xavier and Finnick the task of eliminating Ramsey, Roman, and Tej, after the hacker managed to escape Alice and Bianca. She had also set up a lock for Ramsey's device to ensure that the hacker couldn't get anywhere near God's Eye, no matter how advanced her coding was; Andy refused to take any chances.

"Yeah, is she kicking the guy's ass?!" Oliver perked up from his office chair, having stopped his incessant spinning to ask the question with a wide grin.

The Kings didn't trust that the Organisation wouldn't continue their attempts to destroy the McAllister family, and in no way felt comfortable leaving them alone at the garage, so the family of three tagged along with Andy and Hattie.

When the idea was first proposed, the boys were slightly hesitant to stroll into what would be an active warzone, whilst Carmen seemed all too eager to get involved. The McAllister woman's behaviour raised some eyebrows, but the family simply took it that she was terrified of being left defenseless against the people who had murdered her husband.

"She's doing really well..." Hattie trailed off, her face scrunching up even further when Natalie shoved Dominic harshly to the ground, and the man did absolutely nothing to break his fall.

"But?" Andy questioned hesitantly, knowing that there was more from the Shaw sister's unnerving tone.

"She's doing too well." Hattie bit her lip, realising how stupid her words sounded out loud. Too well? Who was she kidding? Of course Natalie was winning, her skills were perfected with years of practice ─ unlike Dominic's.

AJ raised his hand, confusion etched on his face whilst he leant against the wall nearest to Andy.

"Quick question," he started, his brows furrowed as he spoke, "don't we want Nat to win against the tan guy on every steroid available?"

Andy sighed, toying with her necklace nervously as she made her way over to the window and stood next to a crouched Hattie.

"We do," she affirmed, "but something's different with Dominic..."

After catching sight of AJ's puzzled look regarding the name, Oliver rolled his eyes and turned towards his older brother. "Dominic's 'the tan guy on steroids'."

AJ's eyes lit up in recognition as his lips formed an 'oh' shape, though no sound came out his mouth.

"Why is that a bad thing?" Carmen piped up from her place in her own office chair, her elbows resting against her knees with her hands laced together as she leaned forward. Her question went ignored when the Shaw sister caught sight of how the siblings' fight had progressed.

Hattie shifted again, dread clawing at her heart as she held back a gasp ─ Natalie was hovering over a fallen Dominic with one of the large wrenches raised high in the air.

"Andy..." She breathed in shock. The woman was unable to tear her eyes away from the scene before her, but she could sense how the King matriarch tensed before she snatched a pair of military-grade binoculars from the bag beside Hattie.

Andy watched as Natalie refused to put the wrench down and Dominic spoke remorsefully to her, before the mother pulled herself away from the window and sped towards her computers. She knew that the whole plan was revenge, but Andromeda King also knew that her daughter would be destroyed if she had her older brother's blood on her hands for the rest of her life.

Grabbing the walkie-talkie from beside her keyboard, Andy raised it to her lips with shaky hands and pushed the button.

"Deckard, Jakob, it's time." The woman said, masking any emotion in her voice. "Head up to the rooftop."

"Copy that. On our way now." Deckard's gruff voice crackled from the radio in conformation, making Andy sigh in relief and hang her head.

She took a moment to breathe, before returning her sights to Hattie, who moved away from the rifle's scope and smiled gently in reassurance. Natalie had moved away from Dominic, the wrench no longer in hand, and both Deckard and Jakob had arrived on the rooftop ─ everything was going to be fine.

The radio crackled again, except this time, it was Xavier's voice.

"We─uh, may have lost Ramsey." He panted, making Andy furrow her brows in concern, both from the information her son had just passed on, and the way he spoke — Xavier sounded injured.

"Why do you sound like you've either ran a marathon or been shot?" She asked confused, completely disregarding Ramsey for the moment because her children would always come first.

The radio crackled for a moment, before Finnick's manic voice broke through the static, with Xavier swearing in the background about him stealing the radio.

"Try being hit by a fucking car!" He exclaimed, only to shout in pain when his head pounded from the volume of his own voice.

Andy could faintly hear her son saying something about 'karma', but she paid it no mind. Before she could even get her brain to form a coherent response, Alice's voice joined the fray.

"Where are you guys?" She questioned worriedly, and Andy assumed she was sharing a concerned look with Bianca. "You're both obviously in no state to drive; we'll pick you up."

Placing the walkie-talkie down, Andromeda began frantically typing on her computers, with the goal of navigating God's Eye and finding the two injured men's location. After just a few seconds, the tracking device pinned them in an alley off Olive & Seventh.

Andy quickly pinged them on Alice and Bianca's navigation system, just as she had done with Ramsey. Alice's voice echoed from the radio in confirmation before the married couple began racing towards Xavier and Finnick's location, making Andy let out a sigh of relief — at least some of her family was safe, for now.

After taking a moment to breathe, the woman went back to inputting information into God's Eye, and within a few short seconds, managed to retrieve Ramsey's new location. Yes, it wasn't entirely necessary to hunt her out now that Andy had shut her down with some of her most unbreakable code, but Ramsey needed to think there was some hope of getting the tracking device back.

So, she sent Ramsey's location to the navigation system of Ana and Katya's car, before retrieving her radio again and bringing it to her lips.

"Katya, Ana ─ Ramsey's now in a 1973 Plymouth Barracuda on Hope and Eleventh." She informed, letting go of the button and allowing static to fill the space.

"On it." Katya's Russian accent broke through, making Andy nod and return the radio to its place next to her keyboard.

The McAllister boys now sat together, each in their own office chair, and each lost in their own thoughts. Both were bored out of their minds, yet somehow content with the quiet chatter and radio static that fizzled throughout the room.

AJ toyed with the phone in his hands, his mind racing as it fought to catch up with the events of the last day. His day started normally, and somehow that was the thing that irked him the most; the fact that his day had started at 8am, per usual, before he got ready for the day, texted his friends, and headed downstairs for breakfast.

Except, before he could even take a sip of the cup of coffee waiting for him, three fully-armed women busted into his kitchen, with one of them looking like she was his mother's clone. Most of the moments after that were blurry, but one that stuck out to him, and always would, was the death of his father.

AJ knew that he'd never forget the sound of his body hitting the floor, nor the guttural cries of his grieving mother ─ Patrick McAllister was gone, and there was no bringing him back. The father would never go to another football game, or karate practice, or even stand idly in the kitchen, waiting for his family to greet him with smiles in the mornings. It was a dark, twisted pain that seeped into every vein of his heart, constricting the muscle and stealing his breath until he was sure he would suffocate.

It worsened as he stared at the screen of his phone, which was lit up with dozens of messages from loved ones, who were scared out of their minds after Patrick's death aired on the news ─ a home robbery gone wrong, they said.

AJ's knee bounced faster than his racing heart, which caught the attention of Oliver. The boy had been silently observing his older brother battle his inner turmoil, knowing that he himself would go through the same thing, sooner or later.

His mind had granted him temporary reprieve of the demons that had descended, but he knew it was just that: temporary.

That wasn't going to stop Oliver from making the most of it, though, whilst helping his brother bear their shared burdens.

"Let's fight." The twelve-year-old said casually yet quietly, causing AJ to slowly turn his head. The older boy blinked once, twice, before his bouncing knee slowed to a stop.

"What?" He asked in disbelief, as though he had misheard his younger brother's words.

Oliver stared his brother down, his blue-eyed gaze unwavering as he tilted his head towards the empty space beside them.

"We've both got shit— I mean, stuff, to process," he explained, correcting himself in hopes that he wouldn't get scolded by his mother, "why not spar? Let off some steam."

The younger boy then snorted slightly, glancing around the room with a small smile. "It's not like we're doing much to help with Operation: Take Down Muscles."

AJ cracked a small, twitchy smile, and let out a breathy laugh at his brother's jab at Dominic Toretto.

"Don't complain when I knock you on your ass." He jabbed with a bigger smile on his face, before AJ placed his phone on one of the desks and stood from his seat.

Oliver scoffed playfully, his lips curling into a grin as he jumped from his chair and began to crack his knuckles. The two boys stretched the best they could, shaking out their limbs, before taking defensive stances opposite each other.

Both had their fists shielding their faces and feet planted shoulder-width apart, ready to move forwards or backwards if need be.

AJ cracked his neck, before nodding at his brother, who smirked before darting forward. See, the older brother had the advantage of brute force, being stronger and taller than Oliver, but Ollie could take advantage of that — being smaller and slightly weaker meant that he was fast, faster than AJ, and most of the time, that was the skill that would win the fight.

Darting forward, AJ swung, only to stumble slightly when his arm met nothing but air. Oliver had swiftly ducked and dashed to avoid the hit, and now stood behind his brother. The boy struck a kick square in AJ's back, making him hold back a groan and stumble once more.

"What was that about knocking me on my ass?" Oliver taunted, a confident smirk tugging at the corners of his lips. His eyes widened at the side of AJ's leg swinging towards his face. The boy narrowly missed the hit by bending backwards, whilst doing his best not to lose his balance.

Both recovered quickly, and moved to exchange quick blows. They moved as though they were partners in a dance, each move precisely complimenting each other; AJ would hit, Oliver would block; Oliver would strike, AJ would dodge.

However, the two fell out of synchrony when the older brother landed a hit to the boy's gut. Oliver recovered faster than AJ could process, though the younger of the pair couldn't hold back the noise that slipped through his lips.

A hiss of pain from behind her made both Andy and Hattie spin around, their bodies on high alert, only to suppress a smile at the sight of what they thought was AJ and Oliver play-fighting — though there wasn't much that was playful about it.

Hattie raised a brow as Oliver blocked the hits from his brother with daring precision. AJ's hits themselves were calculated and skillful, furthering not only her curiosity, but also her concern: why would two kids have the ability to fight better than most adults?

She turned her gaze to Carmen, who watched her boys closely, as though she was worried they would injure themselves or each other. Andy followed Hattie's line of sight and landed on Carmen, except she didn't see the same motherly concern that she herself had worn more times than she could count — no, she saw expectancy. Like she was analysing their every move for flaws, instead of simply watching them with pride.

It flooded her gut with a malicious, uneasy feeling that made her realise they truly knew absolutely nothing about the McAllister family.

Carmen felt both women's stares on her, and a sweet smile grew from her pink lips. She laughed as she pointed towards her sons, before meeting the hesitant eyes of Andy.

"They're incredible, aren't they?" Carmen praised, her eyes glittering with an emotion neither of the other women could decipher. A fool would simply call it pride, but they knew it was something much more complex than that.

"Yeah, they really are." Hattie forced a bright smile onto her wary face; it seemed so genuine that Andy could barely tell that it was fake, so she had not the faintest idea whether the McAllister woman could see through it or not. "Where did they learn to fight like that?"

"Combat classes." AJ piped up, panting slightly as he wiped his brow, making all three women turn to look at him. "We've been going to them all our lives. You name it — Karate, Taekwondo, Judo, Muay Thai, Kung Fu, Aikido — we've done it all."

He continued to block Oliver's attacks, which were rapid and back-to-back, giving him little time to gather his thoughts. AJ began to ramble slightly, like he does when he's stressed.

"Y'know, I don't remember the last time I got to skip one of those lessons." He ranted, not realising that his words fuelled the dread that continued to pool both Andromeda and Hattie's guts. "Same with the computer science classes. I mean, c'mon! It took up all of my damn time. I never got to have friends over after school or anything─woah, Ollie! Ease up."

AJ dodged a particularly nasty swing from his brother, glaring at the grinning boy who had almost knocked him out.

Oliver pushed his messy, loose curls away from his eyes in order to meet Andromeda's familiar gaze. The woman saw an undying strength that she hadn't quite caught before, but it didn't come without a glint of lost innocence; no amount of normal childish or teenage activities, like video games or hanging out with friends, would make up for the hours, days, weeks the McAllister boys lost to their 'training', so to speak.

Carmen's silence spoke louder than any of her words ever could. She made no move to explain why her sons had been subjected to, seemingly unnecessary, combat classes, whilst other kids their age would take up sports like football or swimming. Instead, the woman had taken to absentmindedly swivelling her wedding rings around her finger, with her eyes still locked on her sons.

AJ and Oliver continued to battle, though they felt exhaustion seeping into their limbs like lead. Knowing that he needed to take advantage of the energy he had left, the older of the two managed to get behind his younger brother and wrap an arm around his neck.

Oliver gasped as his windpipe was tightly nestled in the crook of AJ's elbow, making it hard to breathe, but not impossible. Though after a few moments trying to wriggle, hit, and kick his way out of the hold, the boy grunted in disappointment and tapped AJ's forearm three times ─ he had conceded.

With a grin, the older brother released Oliver, allowing the red-faced boy to splutter for air, before gasping and breathing at a steady rate. He rested his hands against his knees for support, leaning over whilst glaring at a cocky-looking AJ.

Oliver let out a series of 'coughs', before muttering "Bastard" under his breath. Despite his attempt at covering the insult, it was heard clear as day by everyone ─ AJ bit back a scowl, whilst Hattie raised an amused eyebrow at their antics, and Andy chuckled. Carmen remained silent, despite her dislike for the language.

Both boys collapsed to the floor, sitting tiredly as they caught their breath and nursed their egos. Andromeda noticed how red and sweaty they had become, and whilst they hadn't packed any bottled water, she knew where they could get some.

Grabbing her wallet from her trouser pocket, she flicked it open and grabbed several dollar bills with gentle hands. She paused when she spotted the picture displayed in the clear plastic window, and took a moment to softly trace the edge of it with her fingers.

It was a photo of all four of her children, taken just a year after Natalie had become family: they were sitting on the leather couch in the living room of the King Estate, with a 24-year-old Xavier and a 22-year-old Natalie in the middle, and the younger two leaning against them. Alice, who was 16-years-old at the time, was holding two fingers up behind Xavier's head, as though they were bunny ears, whilst grinning brightly. 18-year-old Nick had an arm around Natalie's shoulders, allowing his hand to reach his older brother's ear and tug on it, annoying the absolute shit out of him. Natalie, who was the only one not doing anything chaotic, simply basked in the comfort of her siblings with a soft smile. Her bleach-blonde hair was splayed over her shoulders in soft curls, and almost covered half of her younger brother's face.

Andromeda felt herself being jerked back into the present by more of the McAllister boys' bickering ─ even when they were breathless from a fight, they still had enough air to whip up a witty insult.

Sighing and closing her wallet, the woman forced the ache in her chest to go away as she flashed her perfect smile, like she had done so many times before. Andy tucked it back into her pocket, before approaching the brothers with the money held gently in her hand.

"Hey," The King woman started off, making them both cut their latest insults short and turn to face her with slightly startled, yet curious eyes, "I saw a vending machine down the hall when we were coming in. Why don't you both grab something to drink, and maybe a snack?"

Oliver grinned and nodded, thanking her profusely as she passed him the money. AJ offered the woman a small, appreciative smile, which was more than enough for her, before both of them headed out of the door.

Turning back around to face her setup, Andromeda didn't have the chance to press even one key before something whistled past her ear. At first, she thought it was her imagination playing tricks on her, but reality turned out to be far worse. Her heart lurched in her throat when Hattie's hand shot up to grab the back of her neck, revealing a dart of some kind sticking out of the pale skin.

The Shaw woman couldn't even grasp the thing before her body thudded to the ground, completely unconscious. Her sniper was knocked to the side with her fall, sending it tumbling from its stand and clattering to the ground.

Andromeda gasped, but not just because of her friend's sudden collapse ─ no, she gasped because of the cool metal blade that was now pressed firmly against her throat, drawing droplets of blood from the now broken skin.

"Careful, now, Andromeda..." A familiar voice tutted, though it had a darkness and an edge that she had never heard before. "You wouldn't want any more blood on that white blouse of yours."

Carmen McAllister gripped the large knife tighter, a calculating smirk twisting from her once softly-smiling lips. Her breath brushed against the shell of Andy's ear, sending chills cascading over every inch of skin. Nothing could have prepared the King woman for the maliciousness that dripped from Carmen's very being ─ it tainted her touch, her face, her words, even her soul.

"Just hand over God's Eye, and no one from your precious little family has to die." She taunted, making Andy stiffen at her words. What could someone like Carmen McAllister possibly want with God's Eye?

Swallowing nervously, the King woman held back a wince when the knife was pressed even harder against the soft flesh of her neck. "Why?" She simply asked, her soft voice shaky as she did so.

Carmen laughed callously ─ the cold, shallow sound attacking Andy's ears like nails on a chalkboard. The woman laughed as though Andromeda had asked the simplest question in the world, oblivious to how much confusion actually consumed the King matriarch's brain.

"Oh, honey," She cooed with fake sympathy, sending another round of chills coursing over Andy's body, "you were played from the beginning. How do you think Katya Petrova mysteriously caught wind of an attack against Zoey's biological family, hm?"

The King woman stayed silent, her mind on a rampage as it fought to sift through the information she'd been given. Carmen leaned closer, her lips almost grazing Andy's ear as she continued.

"It was a set up." She hissed, her smirk never slipping from her lips. "Hell, the entirety of 'the McAllisters' was a set up."

Andromeda's eyes remained glued to Hattie, desperate to see any sign of life from the frighteningly-still woman, despite the urge to try and catch sight of Carmen's sadistic face.

"But what about─" She started, only to be cut off by more pressure from the blade. At this point, Andy was sure that she'd be decapitated before her assailant managed to slit her throat, considering how hard the sharp, silver knife was being pressed against her bloodied skin.

"If you're about to ask about Patrick," Carmen drawled, "I wouldn't. That man lost sight of the cause that we both dedicated our lives to, all because he began to care for those delinquents in the hall."

The woman let out a cold chuckle, chilling Andy to the bone, before continuing on in a seething rant.

"The mission was simple really, just not for Patrick." Carmen sneered, her rage palpable. "He just had to love the children, who were supposed to be no more than test subjects. The fool couldn't stop himself from looking for a way out, for all three of them...the Organisation didn't take that lightly."

Andromeda sucked in a short, panicked breath. She was in far more danger than she ever realised, and so was her family — if the Organisation was still in play, and decided to turn up whilst the Kings were fighting the Toretto crew, they weren't making it out of LA alive.

"His death wasn't accidental." Andy breathed out, realising that the cost of loving and protecting the McAllister boys was Patrick's own life. His betrayal of the Organisation signed his death warrant, and condemned the kids to a life with their psychopathic mother as mere weapons to be used by those around them.

"Ding, ding, ding!" Carmen chimed sarcastically, but it only fuelled the fear that consumed the King woman's insides. "One point for you, Andy."

Wrapping an arm around Andromeda's waist to keep her neck firmly pressed against her knife, the Organisation agent pushed her closer to the computers. "Now that you've figured out those golden pieces of information, how about I give you another?"

Carmen glanced at the side of the woman's face, grinning in satisfaction at the underlying fear tainting her features. "There are agents positioned to retrieve our lost assets, Zoey Jenkins and Katya Petrova, and are fully equipped to take out anyone who stands in their way. So why don't you work on giving me God's Eye, hm? And maybe your children can be spared."

Andromeda sucked in a sharp breath at the mention of her kids, and a fire ignited deep within her chest ─ if there was one thing she would give her life to protect, it was the four people who had given her the title 'mother'.

The fury brought a revelation that she couldn't help but question.

"Why are you doing this to your kids? AJ? Oliver? Zoey?" Andy quizzed, her tone tinged with genuine confusion. She thought she might have found a point of weakness, one that she could exploit, but clearly, she had overestimated Carmen McAllister. "Surely you care for them, especially after spending so long with the boys?"

Cold, jarring laughter permeated the air, making the room feel colder as it echoed. It was as though Carmen found the question the funniest thing in the world.

"Oh, please," She scoffed, rolling her eyes, "you make it sound like I'm supposed to care. They're not my kids, Andromeda! They never were. I thought you were smarter than this! They were a mission, and that was it ─ simply a 'means to an end', if you will."

Andy paled at the revelation, unable to tear her thoughts away from the three people who had, at one point or another, grown to trust Carmen as their mom, as their protector. Zoey had just made amends and began the journey in rebuilding a mother-daughter relationship, except it wasn't with the woman who had brought her into the world and abandoned her in it.

She couldn't even begin to imagine how AJ and Oliver were bound to feel ─ the woman who had raised them, taught them how to write, made their birthday cakes, couldn't give two shits whether they lived or died.

"And before you ask, yes, they're all still siblings ─ full siblings, in fact. Their poor parents thought Zoey passed at six months old from pneumonia, but that didn't stop them from trying for their second child a few years later." Carmen illustrated mercilessly, tutting at the end of her sentence. "It was really quite tedious faking AJ's death, considering his father was driving the car we crashed. He almost saw us take the boy, but his hallucinations were blamed on his head injury."

Andromeda felt nausea rumble violently in her stomach; she couldn't believe everything the parents had been through, but most of all, she couldn't understand why. Why them?

"Oliver's was quite easy, really." The McAllister woman continued, not seeing how horrifying her actions were. "The mother was already having complications with the delivery and had to be taken to surgery. We made it seem like they both didn't make it."

Andy couldn't help but grit her teeth in rage and devastation: both of which completely took over her voice as she hissed. "Why would you destroy a family like that? Why that family?! What did they do to deserve mourning all three of their children?!"

"Genetic potential." Carmen revealed, her smirk forming, once again, with her next words. "They showed the most promising biological disposition towards the skills we wanted...revenge against the mother for previous atrocities was just an added bonus."

The McAllister woman continued to watch Andy's reactions with the utmost attention, whilst the furious woman caught sight of Hattie's fingers twitching ─ she's alive, Andromeda thought, relief countering some of the dread that weighed her down.

"The boys were a part of a specialised, long-term mission. It looked into whether promising children could be raised in the field and still turn out to be top-tier assassins." Carmen explained with a gloating smirk tugging at her lips. "As you saw from their little fight, it went quite well. Still room for improvement, but..."

The woman clicked her tongue condescendingly, before continuing, "it appears we've run out of time, haven't we?"

Andy gritted her teeth, forcing herself to seem as unbothered and unreactive as possible. She doesn't deserve any more satisfaction, the woman thought bitterly.

Quickly growing bored of their 'storytime' and the lack of reaction from the King woman, Carmen forced Andy so close to the desk of the computers that her body almost slammed into it.

"God's Eye. Now. I won't ask again." She practically growled, making the woman beneath her blade swallow harshly. Though, Andy realised something crucial: God's Eye is just a chip that can be removed by anyone. If Carmen knew that, she'd have no need for this questionable hostage situation...which meant that the King woman could get away with doing something, anything to prevent the Organisation getting the programme.

She began typing lines of code into the computer, making it seem like she was reuploading the tracking device to the chip, but in reality, she was doing the only thing she could think of: picking the lesser of two evils.

Andy undid the lock on Ramsey's device, resuming the hack on God's Eye, which was already at 97%. The woman managed to play it off as though she did nothing but retrieve the programme, before counting down in her head as she carefully reached around the back of the computer.

Three, two...one.

Andromeda pulled the chip from its slot, knowing that the hack would've succeeded by now, and took a deep breath when the pressure on her throat eased up slightly.

"It's yours." She spoke confidently, holding it out to her side for Carmen to retrieve. "Just take it and go."

The chip was pulled from her grasp quicker than she could even blink, making her muffle a gasp of surprise.

It felt like gold in Carmen's lethal hands, and the woman grinned maliciously as she tucked it into her pocket.

Hattie's eyelids fluttered as she watched the exchange with blurry vision, her body fighting to recover from whatever Carmen had put in that dart. Her phone was clutched tightly in her hand as she desperately tried to send a message to someone, anyone that could help them.

The drowsy woman stole a glance at the screen and saw that she had clicked Zoey's contact, before managing to type three simple letters — SOS. The message was instantly marked as read, filling Hattie with hope that they may just survive Carmen McAllister.

"You know, I really was starting to like you, Andy..." The McAllister woman grimaced mockingly towards her prey, toying with the slightly bloodied knife.

Andromeda tensed, her hairs standing on end. The woman finally spun around and faced the crazed Carmen McAllister, and not a moment too soon — the knife was wielded high above her blonde head of hair, already being driven towards Andy's chest in a swift, powerful attack.

The King woman's eyes were wide as she narrowly dodged the blow, turning her body to the side and staggering backwards. She watched as the knife soared a few inches in front of her pale face, Carmen's white-knuckle grip on the handle never letting up.

Using the woman's pent-up momentum to her advantage, Andromeda grabbed ahold of the back of Carmen's shirt and shoved her, grunting as she did so. The McAllister woman crashed into the computer set up, which Andy previously stood in front of, and sent every single piece of equipment to the tumbling floor, as well as the table it all rested on. The commotion dislodged the tranquiliser gun from its place in the woman's waistband, sending it skittering across the floor.

Carmen growled, managing to catch herself before she ended up on the floor with the destroyed devices. The knife never left her grasp, killing the hope that Andy had of the woman dropping it in the commotion.

Her head snapped towards the King woman, who had darted over to a barely-conscious Hattie and was desperately trying to wake her up enough to walk. Andromeda's panic crept up her throat, the woman knowing that she stood no chance of carrying the Shaw sister out of there.

Her glossy eyes frantically darted from Hattie to Carmen's reflection in the large window, which was regaining its balance and creeping towards her. Realising that she had no choice but to fight her way out, Andromeda's hand discreetly reached for the bag of supplies that lay next to the fallen sniper.

The woman leant down so that her face was near Hattie's ear, acting as though she was still trying to rouse her from her involuntary slumber, and began to whisper.

"If there's a chance, run." Andy advised so softly, the Shaw sister nearly missed it. Hattie wanted to yell back at the woman, and beg her to just save herself instead of risking it all for someone who couldn't even fight against a damn sedative. The semi-conscious woman forced herself to shake her head the best she could, in hopes of dissuading Andromeda from doing anything rash, but deep down, she knew that it was no use.

The King woman's steady hand had found a knife of her own, fuelling the determination that swelled within her previously fearful body ─ Andromeda King was the last line of defence for not only Hattie, but also for the young boys in the hall. She couldn't bear to think of what Carmen was capable of, especially now that she had revealed her deep-rooted hatred for the kids that called her 'Mom'.

Gritting her teeth and pushing her fear down as deep as it would go, Andy gave Hattie's pale hand one final squeeze before she calmly rose from her crouched position.

The woman's unwavering glare clashed head-on with the malicious glint shining in Carmen's narrow eyes, neither of them showing any signs of backing down.

"It's cute that you think you can save them all..." The McAllister woman cooed mockingly, tilting her head to the side, "truly, Andy, your optimism is astounding!"

Carmen's exclamation almost made the King woman jump; though, what scared her the most was the laughter that followed ─ hollow, chilling chuckles which sent shivers climbing up the length of her spine.

Forcing her hands to remain steady, Andromeda's grip on her knife tightened to the point where the limb was starting to lack any circulation.

She refused to back down any longer — there wasn't a knife against her throat or a tranquiliser dart in her neck holding her back, and all Andy was left with was her undying determination and boiling rage.

Wasting no time, Andromeda darted forward, swiping the knife towards Carmen's throat in a motion that would've slashed it open. Though, the McAllister woman leant backwards, narrowly missing the hit before snatching the wrist of Andy's armed hand into her tight grasp.

Carmen went to stab her in the abdomen, only to howl in pain when her arm was sliced open — Andy had dropped the knife from her restrained hand into her open one, before taking a swing at the arm reaching out to hurt her.

Out of instinct, the McAllister woman stumbled away, giving her opponent the perfect opportunity.

Andromeda grunted as she struck a roundhouse kick to the woman's injured arm, ignoring the strain of her muscles and momentary pain as Carmen's knife clattered to the floor. The now-disarmed woman groaned and staggered backwards from the force of the blow, unintentionally moving further and further away from her knife.

Andy allowed herself a small breath of relief at the sight of Carmen McAllister defenseless, but the woman knew that it wouldn't last if she didn't make a move.

Marching over to the fallen weapon, Andy kicked the knife away and sent it scattering across the floor to the opposite side of the room. The woman flexed her aching hand without releasing her weapon, before regaining her tight grip on the handle.

Carmen's bloodied arm hung limp by her side, the deep wound curving from just below her elbow all the way down to her wrist. Dark red droplets dripped from the tip of her shaking fingers, splattering onto the ground.

Despite the horrific, debilitating pain that shot through her arm, Carmen's face remained chillingly stoic — she wasn't wearing her usual sadistic smirk, or even appearing mocking. Somehow, the woman's blank face was a hundred times worse than the cold laughter and dark quips.

Within a fraction of a second, the McAllister woman leapt toward Andy, armed with nothing but her fists. Carmen swung a punch towards her face, only for the King matriarch to lean backwards, effectively dodging the blow.

Andromeda tried to take another swipe with her knife, except the McAllister woman dropped to the floor and swiped Andy's legs out with her own outstretched leg. The hacker's back and head hit the ground with a loud thud, pain shooting throughout her spine and her grip on the knife slipping. Andy's head spun violently, her eyelids fluttering as she tried to keep a firm grasp on her consciousness.

The weapon clattered to the ground, leaving Carmen free to retrieve it with a maniacal glint shining in her dull blue eyes.

"Enough of this." She growled, before moving the knife in a way that would change everything.

The blade slashed open Andromeda's throat in one swift, violent motion, splattering both Andy and Carmen's faces with droplets of red; the gaping wound immediately gushed dark blood and stained Andy's previously-grey hair a vibrant, morbid maroon.

The woman's eyes shot open as she gasped, before desperately grabbing her neck in shock. Her hands were slick with her own blood, completely coated in red, along with the pool that was beginning to form beneath her.

Hattie couldn't stop the nausea that attacked her as she listened to the horrific sounds of her sister-in-law's mother being attacked; she did her best to remain still, despite wanting nothing more than to leap up and protect her. The Shaw sister knew that the sedative was slowly wearing off, but not quick enough for her to intervene.

The blood-coated metal blade glinted in the overhead light, highlighting the droplets of red that dripped from the edge and splattered against the floor.

Red soaked the white blouse, gushing from the wound in a fashion that was essentially signing Andy's death sentence. The fiery pain was unbearable as the woman writhed weakly on the floor, unable to do anything to alleviate her suffering.

The King matriarch's eyelids fluttered as her vision swam, dark spots obscuring her sight of Carmen's malicious smile.

Though, through her haze of pain, Andy could make out the sound of footsteps, and with everything in her, she hoped that it wasn't the McAllister boys — they did not need to see the monster that their woman was, and they never should have to witness the destruction she caused.

"It seems we have visitors." Carmen grinned, though nothing about it was pleasant or reassuring. The woman nonchalantly wiped the blade on the fabric of her trousers, before looking at a half-conscious Andromeda.

She held her finger to her pouting lips, gesturing for the woman to stay silent before moving to tuck herself behind a slight alcove in the wall next to the door. The knife was still clutched in her hand, terrifying the barely awake woman who was bleeding out on the floor.

A tear trailed down out of the corner of Andromeda's glazed eyes, before they fluttered shut ─ there was nothing she could do to stop what was coming, and combined with the excruciating pain, the woman didn't have any fight left in her.

AJ HUFFED, JAMMING HIS thumb against the vending machine button repeatedly. The damn thing had taken Andy's money, but was refusing to give him his candy.

"Stupid fucking machine." He groaned, slamming the side of his fist against the glass. To make matters worse, Oliver was leant against the wall, bag of chips in hand and munching as loud as humanly possible. The bag rustled as he reached in for another chip, only for AJ to reach over and slap it out of his hands.

Oliver yelled in surprise, a crushed-up chip still mushed in his mouth. The remnants of the snacks scattered over the floor by his feet, with the wrapper crinkling when it hit the ground. He turned to glare at his older brother, who had his forehead leant of the glass of the vending machine as he stared at the snack he craved.

"What was that for, Dickhead?!" Ollie exclaimed, after swallowing his last mouthful of chips.

"I'm starving." AJ groaned, gently slamming his head against the glass. It was like the peanut M&Ms were taunting him with their iconic yellow packaging and colourful candy, which the boy knew were inside.

"Doesn't mean I have to be!" The younger brother cried out, refraining from looking at his fallen chips too long. Though, his stomach rumbled violently, forcing him to glance at them, once, twice, before sighing.

"Screw this," Oliver muttered, crouching down to shove the chips back into the packet "five second rule."

AJ grimaced, turning to face his brother with a scrunched up face. The younger boy sniffed one of the potato snacks before shrugging and popping it in his mouth. He resumed his place leaning against the wall, torturing his brother with his crunching and munching.

AJ reached his limit ─ he grabbed either side of the vending machine before shaking it as hard as he could. Cascades of candy, chips, and drinks fell from their slots, clattering against the metal window at the bottom.

The catastrophe stopped as the boy let go of the machine and stepped back to admire his work.

"Finally." AJ sighed, rolling his blue eyes and grinning in relief. His stomach was aching with hunger, despite the pizza he had at the King's garage, and he felt weirdly restless ─ the boy was jittery and unnerved, by what, he didn't know, but it was making him feel sick.

Just as he was reaching into the stockpile of snacks, AJ froze. The hairs on the back of his neck stood painfully on-end as his ears picked up on familiar voices down the hall. Except, there was something strange about one of them ─ it had almost deepened, and it was tinged with a malicious undertone that made his skin crawl.

Abandoning the vending machine, AJ passed his puzzled-looking brother whilst trying to keep his steps quiet, creeping towards the room they had left only a minute ago. Oliver stared at him in bewilderment, wondering what had caused such a sudden, massive change in his brother's behaviour.

"What happened to 'I'm starving'─" He questioned whilst simultaneously mocking AJ, only to be harshly shushed by the older boy. Oliver pulled a face, scrunching it up as he squinted, unafraid to quip back. "Don't tell me to─"

AJ's eyes widened as he doubled back and pressed a firm hand to his brother's mouth.

"Something's going on," the nineteen-year-old whispered, causing Oliver's face to go slack beneath his palm, "so just shut up for a second."

Ollie nodded, albeit hesitantly, so AJ tentatively removed his hand from the boy's mouth before gesturing for him to follow. The brothers treaded lightly, trying to muffle their steps as much as possible as they crept towards the open office door.

Neither had any idea what was happening inside the room ─ they didn't know that their 'mother' had shot Hattie with a tranquiliser gun she had stolen from Finnick's weapon stash, or that she was threatening to slit Andromeda's throat with a knife she had also taken from the weapons specialist. The brothers had no idea that their entire life was a lie...well, until now.

They flattened themselves against the wall just outside of the room, not yet daring to peek inside because of the conversation that shattered everything they had come to know.

"Oh, honey," Carmen cooed with so much underlying malice that both boys shivered. That did not sound like their mom. "you were played from the beginning. How do you think Katya Petrova mysteriously caught wind of an attack against Zoey's biological family, hm?"

AJ furrowed his brows whilst his heart pounded against his ribs, the feeling of Oliver's fingers digging into his arm grounding him.

The younger boy was paralysed by Carmen's words, having no idea about the revelations that would shatter any semblance of family he had ever known. It left a pain deep within his chest, whilst his gut was unsettled with uncertainty.

"It was a set up." their mother's voice then hissed, and AJ swore he could sense the smirk that accompanied her words. "Hell, the entirety of 'the McAllisters' was a set up."

Both boys paled: Oliver muffled his own gasp with his shaking palm, his eyes glazing over with tears he refused to shed, whilst AJ just felt numb ─ he was sure that he was just dreaming, and that the nightmare would be over after he woke up in his own bed.

The rest of Carmen's words blurred together as the older boy stared at the floor beneath him.

Their parents were working for the Organisation. Their mother never cared for them. Hell, Carmen and Patrick weren't even their parents ─ their real parents were killed in cold blood, just because of 'genetic potential'. The only 'parent' they had to love and protect them was dead.

AJ couldn't breathe; his whole life was a lie, and he never had any idea. Within his haze, the older brother's heart broke when Oliver pressed his face into the side of his torso, muffling his desperate cries as the boy clutched AJ's shirt with every ounce of strength left in his quivering body.

Without even realising, the older brother had wrapped an arm around Oliver's shoulders and used his other free hand to cradle his head of blonde curls. He pushed the boy's face further into his torso, whilst absentmindedly brushing his hair with his gentle fingers.

AJ couldn't break down, not yet ─ Oliver came first, and he always would, regardless of what Carmen and Patrick McAllister were: Organisation, parents, or otherwise.

"I want Dad." Ollie sobbed, pulling his face from the fabric just enough for his brother to hear him. The ache in AJ's chest grew tenfold as he listened to the boy's heartbreak, burdening his body with a pain that would never lessen.

"I know." AJ whispered shakily. His head hung forward as he squeezed his eyes shut, whilst clinging to his brother tighter. "Me too, Ollie."

The brothers continued to clutch each other, as though they were each other's lifelines, waiting for the moment where they wake up from this nightmare. Somehow, their reprieve came in the form of Zoey.

The assassin appeared at the end of the hall, pale-faced and terrified, with her husband right next to her, looking equally as panicked. The message that Hattie had sent less than a minute ago held no details, but they knew it was bad if the Shaw sister didn't have even a moment to explain what was going on.

Zoey's wide eyes instantly landed on the tears streaked across her brothers' faces, and her heart began to fracture within her chest. They hadn't had many moments to connect, with everything going on, but there was still an unspoken bond between the three ─ all of them had missed out on so much, whether it was their entire childhoods or living a lie for their entire lives, and none of the siblings wanted to miss out on each other.

Still keeping their steps light, AJ and Oliver dashed towards the couple, with the younger boy being the first to crash into Zoey's startled body and wrap his arms tightly around her waist. AJ came to a stop just a step away from his siblings, watching closely as the woman hugged Ollie tightly and leant down to press a gentle, almost motherly kiss on top of his messy curls.

It made him yearn for the same, so when Zoey opened an arm and gestured for him to join, the teenager couldn't fight it for long. AJ took the final step forward, into his sister's arm, and let himself feel just a fraction of the turmoil riddling his body for a fleeting moment.

He buried his quivering face in the crook of Zoey's neck, hoping that her frizzy blonde curls would shield his tears, but when the boy's body began to shake with sobs, AJ realised that his efforts were futile.

Knowing that his older brother needed Zoey more than he did in that moment, Oliver unwound his arms from the woman's waist and slipped away from the pair. He wiped away the tear stains from his splotchy cheeks and watched as AJ let Zoey in for the first, and definitely not the last, time.

Nick approached the younger boy from behind and placed a gentle, warm hand on his shoulder — a form of silent comfort that Oliver's muscles relaxed under, which slowly eased the tension in his trembling body.

Without even realising, the younger brother gravitated towards Nick, and ended up tucked under his arm, whilst pressed against his side.

The King man's lips twitched with a smile because of how quickly the McAllister boys were growing comfortable with them in such a short amount of time ─ it made a warmth grow in his chest, knowing that his wife's brothers were going to truly become family.

Zoey gently rubbed circles over AJ's back, soothing him as he continued to sob into her shoulder. The woman wished more than anything that she could take his pain away, despite not knowing just what had caused it, or how it would impact her just as badly. In truth, Zoey lived in a state of unawareness that AJ could only dream of.

The boy sucked in a deep breath, before bottling all of his feelings back up and forcing the glaze over his eyes to dry up, leaving him only with the tears that stiffened his cheeks. AJ sniffled, before carefully unwrapping himself from Zoey's embrace. He wiped away any trace of the despair that had trailed over his cheeks, before meeting his sister's concerned, maternal gaze.

It was that exact moment when he realised that Carmen had never looked at him that way ─ nineteen years living in their perfectly-crafted lie, and AJ had never seen his so-called mother show as much care, attentiveness, or love as his sister had in the space of a mere few hours.

The thought also drew the boy's mind back to Natalie, who radiated a maternal energy that was hard to resist. He'd be surprised if she wasn't a mother, judging by the way she took to caring for both him and Oliver as if it was the most natural thing in the world.

"I-it's Carmen." AJ whispered, swallowing the lump in his throat as he pushed himself to continue, even though it would almost destroy his sister. "She's one of the people who's after us. S-she─"

"She's Organisation." Zoey muttered in realisation. The woman's already-pale face was drained of the little colour it had left, whilst her dulling, blue eyes zoned out towards the floor. How could you be so stupid? Her thoughts hissed, making the King woman's head spin. You knew it was too good to be true, yet you said nothing. Weak.

Flexing her hand, Zoey gritted her teeth and forced her thoughts away, before grabbing the gun Finnick had given her. It was on a shoulder strap, meaning it had been dangling at her side during her interactions with her brothers.

She gripped it tightly, paling the skin of her knuckles, and refocused her gaze on AJ.

"There's a black 2014 Hyundai Sonata parked right outside." Zoey instructed firmly, whilst retrieving the car keys from her back pocket with her free hand. "Wait for us in the car, and if we're not back in five minutes, you drive away, okay?"

AJ began to shake his head, furrowing his brows as he looked at her in disbelief. Oliver joined his side, the boy's wide, blue eyes tainted with a glint of fear that made the woman's heart clench painfully.

"You drive away, and you keep driving until someone can come and get you." She insisted. Despite her harsh tone, which left little room for argument, the woman grabbed AJ's wrist with the lightest, gentlest touch and pressed the keys into his shaky palm.

Nick closed his eyes for a moment, the family's hurt too palpable for him to handle, before stepping forward to stand next to his wife.

"Everything's going to be fine." He assured with the best, stable tone he could manage. The two boys' stares darted between the pair before AJ sighed and nodded. "We'll see you both in a minute, I promise."

The metal of the keys dug into the older brother's palm as he clutched them tighter, before leading a reluctant Ollie down the hall and out of sight.

Without even realising, both Zoey and Nick let out simultaneous breathes of relief, their minds a little clearer now that AJ and Oliver were safe from immediate danger. The two shared a look that conveyed everything words could never say as they grasped each other's hands.

Both of them gave their partner's hand one final squeeze before letting go and grasping their weapons.

Shaky breathes filled the silence as the couple advanced towards the nearest open door, which had dull rays of light stretching from within the room. All of the other doors were closed, with no signs of the room being inhibited by the three women they were looking for, leaving them with only the open door.

Nick, who by no means wanted to take any chances, stepped in front of his wife, raised his gun to eye-level, and stepped through the doorway.

A blur of blonde flashed in front of him, the man's eyes catching a glint of metal before he instinctively leapt back.

The point of what he could now make out as a large knife grazed across his lower abdomen, slicing open both his shirt and his skin. Nick hissed in pain, but was thankful that he had moved away, considering that if he hadn't, his guts would be spilled on the floor ─ instead, the cut wasn't nearly as deep, yet the man could already feel the blood pooling onto his ripped shirt.

Zoey grunted when her husband stumbled into her, as she was standing almost directly behind him, and gasped when she caught sight of the woman in front of him.

Carmen McAllister stood there, clutching a bloodied knife with a malicious, chilling look on her blood-splattered face ─ the way her eyes appeared darker in the little amounts of light and the way her lips were curved into a satisfied smirk sent paralysing shivers crawling up Zoey's spine.

Blood was smeared across the torso area of her grey top, along with the upper leg of her pants. A long, deep cut ran the length of her right arm, giving Zoey reason to believe that the red stains were Carmen's own blood, but the mound of dread in the pit of the King woman's stomach continued to grow; deep down, she knew it wasn't the McAllister woman's blood, and that was terrifying.

"Nice of you two to join the party!" Carmen exclaimed, her smirk growing into a grin as she wiped the knife against her trousers. Nick's fresh blood joined the dried patch of deep red on the fabric. "Though, I'm not exactly sure how you got an invite?"

Her brows furrowed in mock confusion as she glanced around the room, prompting the couple to do the same: the King woman first caught sight of Hattie, who was strewn across the floor by the window, with her equipment scattered around her seemingly-limp body. Zoey couldn't see any visible injuries on the Shaw sister, but that didn't dislodge the lump in her throat by any means.

"See, none of our guests are exactly in the position to call for help, so..." Carmen drawled, her wicked grin never faltering whilst she watched the horror cross the couple's faces.

Nick's eyes were glued to the other side of the room, where a familiar body laid in a pool of dark maroon, skin pale and green eyes closed.

Andromeda King was half-way to dead, and her son had never felt more enraged. His protector, his comfort, his mother was in excruciating pain and defenseless, despite having done nothing but welcome every lost, wandering soul with open arms.

The man clenched his jaw, his nostrils flaring as he averted his gaze towards Carmen, whose clothes were caked in blood— no, the blood of his mother.

He caught sight of the knife in her hand and just snapped.

Cocking his gun, Nick didn't hesitate to put a bullet through the woman's right shoulder, which was the same arm wielding her weapon. As soon as he heard the knife clatter to the ground, he disregarded his gun and lunged at her.

Zoey's yell of his name echoed in the back of the man's mind, but was completely drowned out by the blood rushing violently through his veins.

Nick's body crashed into Carmen's, taking them both to the ground, with the woman's back taking the brunt of the fall.

Blood leaked from her fresh gunshot wound, but it didn't stop the woman from using that same arm to harshly drive her elbow into the crook of Nick's neck. She had hoped it would force him to fall off her aching body, but no such luck.

The man muffled a grunt, and despite the pain that flared through his neck and shoulder, wrapped his hands around her neck.

"Why would you do that to them?" He hissed, completely blinded by rage as he squeezed, digging his fingers into the skin. "To her?"

Carmen, despite the little air seeping into her lungs, laughed, though it came out as a grating wheeze. Her face had flushed dark pink, almost purple, from Nick's grip, yet she was acting as though there was nothing wrong.

"Special orders from the boss." She strained, her smile never slipping even when Nick's hands were wrapped tighter and tighter around her neck. "Apparently they have some rough h-history."

Even with the newfound, confusing information, the man's grip never let up once as he lifted her head by the neck, before slamming it back down on the ground, hard — this was his mother they were talking about, and there was no way in hell Nick King was letting Carmen get away with it.

"Who?" He seethed, narrowing his eyes at the dying woman, who simply continued to smirk at him knowingly.

"H-he goes by Maverick." Carmen managed to splutter out, the lack of oxygen starting to truly get to her. "That's all I know."

Zoey, who knew full well that her husband could take care of himself, had rushed over to her mother-in-law; Andy hadn't so much as twitched since they had entered the room, making the assassin's heart pound painfully against her ribcage.

Kneeling in the pool of thick, sticky blood, Zoey swallowed a gag as she cupped Andy's pale, blood-splattered face with her trembling hands.

"Andy?" She called out, gently brushing the woman's cheek with her thumb. It was mainly in hopes of rousing the King matriarch, but it was also partly for comfort — Zoey had no idea how much pain her mother-in-law was in, and she hoped she never had to find out. "Can you hear me? Andy?"

The woman made an indistinguishable noise of pain as her eyes fluttered open, making Zoey let out a massive sigh of relief. None of them would survive losing Andromeda — not her children, not her children-in-law, not her granddaughter, no one.

Andromeda King was the heart of the family, and she always would be.

Zoey, now knowing her mother-in-law was alive, frantically looked around the room for something to stop the bleeding. Thankfully, one of the boys had left their sweatshirt behind, making the woman jump up and snatch it from the office chair it was on.

Retaking her position next to Andy, Zoey forced herself to breathe deep, steady breaths as she pressed the fabric against the woman's horrific neck wound.

"I-I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, Andy." She chanted under her breath whilst trying to block out the moans of pain coming from her mother-in-law. "I know, I know it hurts."

Fire flooded Andromeda's body in tidal waves, completely consuming her muscles and every inch of her skin. Black spots danced across her vision and darkness crept in from the edges whilst Zoey pressed the sweatshirt against her gruesome wound even harder, doing everything she could possibly do to slow the bleeding.

The younger woman continued to chant her apologies under her breath as she did so, hating how she was causing Andy even more pain.

A familiar, warm hand splayed across her shoulder blade, making her flinch and turn to face whoever it was, only to sigh in relief.

Nick knelt next to her and pressed a gentle kiss to her temple, which eased some of the tension that had built across her body.

Behind him laid the unconscious, but alive, body of Carmen McAllister, whose neck was flaring reds and purples in the shape of handprints. Nick wasn't proud of what he did by any means, but he couldn't say without doubt that the woman didn't have it coming.

"We have to get her out of here." Nick said hoarsely, forcing his voice to remain steady for every syllable as he stared at Andy. He couldn't break down, not yet — not until his mother was safe and patched up.

Zoey nodded wordlessly, before her eyes darted over to Hattie. The Shaw sister's limbs were beginning to shift as the sedative began to wear off properly, but it was clear that she would need some help walking out of there.

"Could you carry your mom?" She asked gently, swallowing the lump that had built in her throat. "I-I need to help Hattie."

Nick didn't hesitate to nod and flash a reassuring, tight-lipped smile to his wife, before carefully scooping Andy into his arms.

Zoey quickly made her way over to Hattie, with blood still caked into the creases of her hands and practically dripping from the calves of her black denim jeans.

The woman forgot to wipe her reddened hands before helping Hattie up, accidentally smearing Andy's blood on the pale skin of her arms.

The Shaw sister loosely wrapped her arms around Zoey's neck, doing her best to fight against what remained of the drug that coursed through her veins and pulled herself up to a stand.

"I-I'm sorry," Hattie panted, her eyes fluttering as she leaned heavily against the King woman. Before Zoey could ask what for, the Shaw sister continued, "f-for not stopping her. It's m-my fault—"

"Stop, Hattie." Zoey immediately cut off, shaking her head vigorously. "This is not your fault, you hear me?"

"None of us saw this coming." The King woman continued, although with a quieter voice, as though she was trying to reassure herself instead of the woman in her arms.

The two staggered towards the door, where Nick stood waiting with his mother cradled in his arms. Blood was dripping against the ground, a ticking clock that dictated how much time Andromeda King had left.

Just as the four were about to leave the room, the large floor-to-ceiling windows behind them all shattered, sending shards of glass raining down on the ground where Hattie had been laying moments before. All that remained was the jagged bits of glass still embedded in the perimeter of the sleek, metal frames.

Fear clawed at Zoey's gut as four figures rappelled from what she assumed was the roof of the building, and swung into the room through the previously-broken windows.

The members of the Organisation landed on their feet with their guns raised, making the Kings scramble for the hallway as they cursed under their breaths. Though, just before the two blonde women slipped out of the room, Zoey's blue eyes slipped over the agents one by one, until they stopped dead on the man she had fought only earlier that day.

Sebastian stared back at her through the shoulder-length strands of his dark hair. His blue eyes still held that same look from back in the McAllister house, the look of complete vacancy ─ no recognition, no emotion, nothing. It cut her open just as deeply as it did a few hours ago, and the woman was certain that the pain would never lessen.

It startled Sebastian, the recognition in the blonde woman's eyes: the way her gaze held thousands of memories, moments, and emotions that he would never see from his own perspective. It was enough for him to freeze, just for a moment, as the agent's mind fought against the instructions and mental blocks the Organisation had instilled in him from the very beginning.

Before Sebastian could even think of trying to decipher the neverending mess in his mind, the head of curly blonde hair was gone ─ any hope of escaping the blood-soaked clutches of the Organisation and his vacant mind went along with her.

Gone.

A SLEEK, BLACK CAR'S engine roared with power, blurring against the buildings as it sped down the street. Every other civilian vehicle on the road blared their horns in outrage, though immediately stopped when the drivers caught sight of a blonde woman leaning out of the window, gun in hand.

Katya Petrova's grip was tight, her green eyes narrowed in concentration as she sprayed bullets at a 1973 Plymouth Barracuda, which tore deeply into the metal ─ the back windscreen had already been shattered, along with any hope Ramsey harboured of making it out of that car alive.

The click of an empty clip echoed in the air, forcing Katya to give them a moment of reprieve whilst she reloaded the gun.

"So..." Katya began with a large sigh, her body slipping from its position in the window back into the passenger seat. "A little birdy told me that you and Toretto have some pretty steamy history, hm?"

The Russian assassin snagged another clip of bullets from the duffle bag at her feet, whilst Iliana Starling shot her a look of disbelief. Yes, the two women had spoken a few times during the past few days ─ a handful of times at the King Estate, when they were finalising plans, and after Ana returned from infiltrating Dominic Toretto's crew ─ but that didn't mean they were close, and it certainly didn't mean that Katya was in a position to hear any truthful answers to her question.

"I have no idea what you're talking about." Ana rebutted, her knuckles whitening as she tightened her grip on the steering wheel with frightening strength. The Starling woman scoffed lightly, whilst fighting the urge to clench her jaw.

Memories of the kiss at the warehouse flitting through her mind like a movie, over and over, as though the film tape was broken. The way his lips moved against hers, the warmth of his cheek beneath her touch, the passion that burned in the pit of her stomach — it filled Ana with a warm, familiar feeling before it was tainted by her dark reality. The warmth turned sour as the cherished memories were tainted by sadistic, maniacal promises of annihilation.

Betrayal breeds destruction, her sister would always hiss, and as much as Ana had grown to hate her toxic, maniacal family, there was some truth to the words: Iliana betrayed her blood, completely enraging her sadistic sister, which thereby forced her hand in destroying the bond she had with Jakob Toretto.

If she hadn't, the man she loved would have gone from six feet tall to six feet under.

Katya, missing the dazed look in Ana's eyes, let out a short laugh at the woman's blatant lie, before cocking her gun. Her eyes twinkled with mischief and knowledge, which in no way reassured Iliana.

"Oh, you liar." The Russian assassin grinned, holding back another laugh. She gave the stunned Starling woman no time to respond before she resumed her place in the window and realigned her aim to Letty's battered car.

The 'pop' of bullets piercing through metal startled Ana for the first time that night, yet it wasn't the action itself that embedded fear deep within her.

The woman knew the way the Kings operated: they were too kind for their own good, and would try to help her if they found out just what was happening — or maybe they would kill the Starling woman themselves for the pain her family had caused them.

None of them knew of her dilemma, or of her relations, which is exactly how Iliana wanted to keep it.

Swiftly switching gears and lifting her foot from the accelerator, the woman pushed the break with a light touch and jerked the steering wheel to the right. The sleek, black car drifted around the street corner, following the path Letty's vehicle had taken not even a moment before.

Ana could hear Katya's string of curses as the blonde clung to the car however she could, trying not to fall from her perch in the window and onto the pavement below. The Starling woman winced, having momentarily forgotten about her acquaintance's precarious position, and watched as Katya managed to steady herself just before they followed their targets into a tunnel.

Letty was driving maniacally, weaving in and out of civilian vehicles, determined to get herself and Ramsey out of there alive. The weight of the silver cross around her neck was almost paralysing, considering what it represented: her marriage to Dominic, her four years as an amnesiac, the pain and separation her family had suffered. Despite the jewelry being her husband's, it also represented Natalie ─ see, all four of the Toretto siblings had identical silver cross necklaces, though Mia didn't wear hers anymore. The woman was keeping it safe so that, one day, she could pass it down to her son, Jack.

Natalie also never wore her necklace. Letty had never figured out why; all the Ortiz woman knew was that after the night her best friend was kicked out, she had never seen the necklace sat around Natalie's neck again. Whether the Toretto had simply lost it or there was a deeper meaning behind it, Natalie refused to tell her ─ she acted as if the jewelry had never existed at all.

"Oh my God," Ramsey gasped from beside her, clutching her device's screen with a tight grasp, "it's unlocked."

Letty's brown eyes flickered from the hacker to the road, her brows tugging together as Ramsey's screen flickered back to life. The hacker turned to look at the woman with a bright smile, and turned the screen to show her the text flashing above a progress bar ─ 100% COMPLETE.

"We have God's Eye back." Ramsey breathed, beyond relieved that the hack had worked. She had no idea why the Monarch had unlocked her device, as the woman knew that none of her coding had broken through, but it didn't matter ─ the tracking program was back in her possession and safe.

Neither had time to celebrate before the heat of sudden flames licked at their backs and the car was blown forward with a deafening boom. The rear end lifted from the ground due to the impact of Katya's explosive, causing Ramsey to scream and attempt to brace herself against the dashboard.

Letty sucked in a panicked breath as she frantically turned the wheel, desperately trying to regain control of the car. The back end of the car slammed back down onto the ground, jolting the women in their seats.

"Hit!" Katya called out to Ana, before swiftly slipping back into her seat. Like with Alice and Finnick, the kickback from the weapon had assaulted her shoulder, though the woman knew how to bear the pain — in all honesty, it was barely an injury compared to what she had experienced before.

"So, back to you and Jakob..." The Russian assassin drawled, a cheeky, small smile on her face. She watched closely as a number of emotions flitted across Ana's face: fury, devastation, hurt, but the most prominent one was love. It shone brightly in her green eyes, no matter how much she tried to hide it.

Katya's heart clenched at the sight. It was as if she was looking in a mirror and catching sight of her reflection — a pained woman carrying a torch for a man she'll never be with again. Just based on the heartache alone, the Russian woman decided to drop the subject. Katya would despise it if someone kept pestering her about Owen, and she wanted nothing to do with making Iliana feel the same way.

"Nevermind." She muttered, returning her focus to the burning car ahead. They were reaching the end of the tunnel, and it was clear that more damage needed to be done to Letty's car if they were to succeed in the objective Andy gave them: eliminate Ramsey.

Ana felt as though she had whiplash — one minute, Katya's nose couldn't be deeper in her business with Jakob, and the next, she had dropped the subject completely.

The redheaded woman opened her mouth to respond as they exited the tunnel, only to be cut off by a deafening 'boom'.

Bright orange consumed the groaning metal as the car flipped, tumbling down the road once, twice, three times. Fallen scraps trailed behind the wreckage, only stopping when the vehicle rolled to a halt, roof against the ground.

On the bridge above the tunnel stood a bulky, shadowy figure, who refused to take their eyes away from the crash. They lowered the RPG from its place on their shoulder, carelessly tossing it down to the side before climbing to the ledge and stepping off.

The wire attached to their belt allowed them to repel down to the ground without harm, before it was swiftly detached by the person's gloved hand.

Within the wreckage, Iliana Starling was the first to come to — the woman groaned, blood dripping from the corner of her mouth whilst the pounding of her head overwhelmed her senses. Every limb ached with deep-rooted pain, leaving her fearful to move.

The woman's blurred vision swam as she fought to make sense of her surroundings, her trembling hands pressing against the roof of the car instinctually. The smell of burning made her cry out, knowing that it was only a matter of time before whatever flames consumed the whole car, both women included.

Ana groaned when shards of glass pressed against her palms, but she knew that it was the least of her worries. She couldn't quite tell what damage the crash had done to her, but at least she had a seatbelt on─ oh God, Katya.

The woman's heart slammed against her aching ribcage as her head whipped towards the passenger seat, where, instead of pinned to her seat as Ana was to hers, Katya laid crumpled on the inner roof, face down, surrounded by pieces of the broken windshield and patches of maroon. With how fuzzy her sight was, Ana couldn't tell if the woman's chest was rising and falling, and that was enough for her to immediately reach for the buckle of her seatbelt.

The Starling woman groaned when her back collided with the debris littering the ceiling of the car. Pushing the pain aside, Ana reached for Katya with a shaky hand, whilst fighting against the black spots dancing across her vision.

"K-Katya." She grunted hoarsely, panting in exhaustion as she dragged her aching body closer to the Russian assassin's. "Katya, wake up."

Ana shoved the woman's shoulder with as much strength as her battered body would allow, causing Katya to stir. A heavy sigh of relief spilled from the Starling woman's lips as the blonde head of hair began to lift, albeit shakily, from its place against the ground.

White, hot searing pain was all Katya Petrova could focus on — the way it was a permanent fixture seared deep into her skin, her muscles, her bones. It felt like everything was broken, though she knew if that were the case, she'd be dead already.

All Katya was able to do was give a groan of pain before her consciousness slipped away from her for the second time that night. Her head fell back to its place on the ground, instilling hopelessness deep within Ana's gut.

Though, the Starling woman felt it begin to fade when her unfocused gaze caught sight of a familiar black and yellow radio laying undamaged in the wreckage.

THE CRACK OF FIST against flesh shattered the tense silence that consumed the parking garage rooftop.

Jakob had launched himself forward, the man refusing to suppress his pent-up emotions any longer when the sole reason for his isolation, rage, and pain was standing breathing in front of him.

Dominic took the punch, except he didn't give his younger brother the same treatment that he gave their sister — he fought back with every ounce of strength left in his battered body.

The older man didn't hesitate to strike a kick to Jakob's knees in a calculated attempt to make him stumble away, before landing a right hook to his jaw.

Jakob barely reacted. He simply gritted his teeth and clenched his jaw, flexing the muscles in his face whilst not even bothering to let out a sound of pain, making that the exact moment Dominic Toretto realised he was in deep fucking trouble.

Deckard knew he should be involved in the fight instead of watching from the sidelines, but he couldn't tear his eyes away from his wife ─ Natalie Shaw, despite her best efforts to hide it, looked broken. Her reddened cheeks were marred by tear stains, which she had clearly tried to wipe away, whilst her eyes held a look the man hadn't seen in years: the walls that he had fought tooth and nail to bring down over ten years ago, had returned in full force. What he found strangest, though, was the way those same eyes were glued to one specific spot.

Deckard followed his wife's gaze, only to catch sight of a worn leather journal, laying discarded on the ground. Instinctually, his brows drew together in concern, whilst the man's eyes narrowed at the object, as though it had personally offended him. In all honesty, it had ─ if the book had the power to hurt his wife, then Deckard wanted nothing more than to burn it to ashes.

Tearing his eyes away, the man closed the gap between him and Natalie with a few purposeful strides, making the woman's gaze flick to his tense face.

The Shaw woman couldn't help but fantasise of a life where Deckard had the chance to meet her son ─ a life that he wasn't stolen from less than an hour after his birth, one that gave him a chance of knowing a father that wasn't Daniel Poulter. Instead, he would have a father who cherished him and every achievement, no matter how big or small. Natalie knew that fate would have brought her and Deckard together, one way or another, and that the man wouldn't have hesitated to welcome her son as his own.

It made her heart ache with a unique pain she had never felt before, and Natalie hoped she'd never have to feel it again.

The only thing that the Shaw woman found the physical strength to do was take Deckard's hand in her own, relishing in the warmth it brought her, before squeezing it three times: I love you.

The man didn't hesitate to reciprocate the action, his calloused hand clutching the soft skin of Natalie's palm thrice: I love you too.

Unable to hold his gaze any longer, Natalie gave him one small, final smile before turning towards her brothers. She swore to herself that she would explain everything to him once the fighting was over ─ the attack in France, her son, everything ─ even if it destroyed her marriage.

Moving towards her brothers, Natalie didn't hesitate to snatch a discarded wrench from the ground, the very same one she had nearly used to kill Dominic, and stood behind her older brother.

In one swift move, the woman slipped the wrench in front of his neck, grabbed the other side of the weapon, and pulled — the metal dug deep into the soft, tan skin and began crushing Dominic's windpipe, leaving him gasping for even a wisp of air.

His back collided with Natalie's chest, and despite him being over a head taller than her, he couldn't seem to disrupt the leverage she had over him.

Jakob struck a punch to Dominic's already-injured cheek, coating his knuckles in dark blood, whilst the man's head whipped to the side from the jarring impact.

Despite the hits and blows the younger brother had already given, Jakob's rage continued to grow, like a pit of flames that consumed him, instead of dying down from the catharsis of physically confronting Dominic — his blood was boiling in a way it hadn't in years, and that was fucking irritating.

Jakob thought it would feel better, making his older brother suffer for what he put both himself and Natalie through, but if anything, the pain aching in every part of his soul only worsened.

So, he hit harder. Faster.

The man grunted as he struck a nasty blow to Dominic's gut, before landing another against his cheek. The first hit had the older brother fighting to hunch over, straining against the wrench Natalie had an undying grip on.

Dominic coughed, face darkening as his lungs constricted, only for overwhelming pain to blossom from his cheekbone, again. Darkness crept into the edges of his already-swirling vision, and Dominic knew that he didn't have long before he was either unconscious or dead against the pavement.

Chanting apologies in his mind, the man swung his left elbow back into Natalie's ribs, jabbing the exact area covered in black and blue bruises. Despite the hit itself being relatively weak, compared to the strength he could channel without injury, the woman groaned and immediately squeezed her eyes shut in an attempt to block out the excruciating pain.

Her grip on the wrench weakened as it slipped to the floor, and Natalie clutched her fiery ribs with shaking hands ─ Dominic might as well have driven a knife into her side with the way stabbing pains violently consumed the left side of her ribcage.

She stumbled away from where her older brother was now leant over, desperately trying to regain his breath before either Jakob or Deckard pounced.

Immediately, a warm hand was pressed flush against the small of her back.

Deckard watched, equally concerned and furious, as his wife fought to catch her breath and quell the fresh waves of pain.

"I'll be fine," she assured through gritted teeth, clenching her jaw before continuing, "I just need a second."

The Shaw woman peeled open her eyes in order to meet Deckard's wary ones, and nodded reassuringly — a silent way of telling him to go and help Jakob.

Hesitating for just a moment, the man took one final look at the pain Natalie was in before darting towards Dominic, who had only just managed to get to his feet. No one could lay their hands on his wife and get away with it; hell, no one could lay a hand on any member of his family and walk away unscathed.

Natalie knew it all too well, and wasn't at all surprised when all of Deckard's military training rushed to the surface. Through blurry vision, the Shaw woman watched as both her husband and Jakob took turns landing hits, kicks, and shoves against Dominic, who was barely clinging to his consciousness.

Without even realising, Natalie's hands drifted from where they cradled her ribs to graze against her abdomen, before resting against it. The action somehow gave her an inexplicable comfort, before it was overwhelmed by a familiar feeling she had grown accustomed to over the recent days ─ the violent swirling of her stomach that only ever resulted in her head in a toilet bowl.

Breathing deeply and squeezing her eyes shut, Natalie willed her nausea to go away with all the strength she could harness.

Not now, she begged silently, before her pounding heart oh-so-kindly reminded her of how much she despised throwing up. Actually, not ever, the woman changed her plea.

Her stomach began to settle, making Natalie sigh in relief and also exhaustion.

Meanwhile, Dominic could've sworn that he'd seen the light at least three times already during his fight with Deckard and Jakob.

Tumbling to the floor for the umpteenth time, the man groaned as blood pooled his mouth. Dominic forced himself to turn onto his side, weakly spitting the now-red saliva onto the grey concrete. He could feel his two adversaries looming nearby, waiting for him to stumble back to a stand and retake his place as their human punching bag.

Dominic went to push up onto his hands, only for a glint of metal to catch his eye ─ one of the wrenches laid discarded just an arm's length away, waiting to be retrieved. Doubt tinged his thoughts, making him wonder whether he should just accept the karma that had clearly been sent his way, but Jakob's deep, unfamiliar voice told him otherwise.

"He was my dad too, you know." The younger Toretto brother began sorrowfully, unable to hold back his feelings for what happened any longer. "D'you know what it was like, being the last one to work under the hood of his car? Knowing that Dad died because of a stupid mistake?!"

Jakob clenched his jaw, rubbing it with his bruised, bloody hand. He took one, long blink before stepping towards where his older brother lay strewn across the concrete.

"You," He hissed, shooting down to crouch beside Dominic and grab the back of his shirt, yanking him over onto his back, "didn't have to watch our sisters cry over the empty coffin we put in the ground because there was nothing left of him to bury!"

The words landed like a blow straight to Dominic's gut — the man had missed his own father's funeral, all because he couldn't stop himself from beating Kenny Linder to a pulp that day on the racetrack. Dominic hadn't realised that all three of his siblings had poured their winnings from races together to pay for the burial, because they wanted a proper goodbye and some closure.

Abuelita contributed as well, wanting nothing more than a place to visit her only son and talk to him. She had agreed to take custody of the Toretto siblings in order to stop them from going into the foster care system, but couldn't bring herself to live in the house where her son had spent the last of his days.

So, Natalie agreed that she would take care of Jakob and Mia, despite being only sixteen, leaving Abuelita free to return home and grieve Jack Toretto.

Looking back on it now, Jakob had no idea how their Abuelita thought that was the sensible thing to do — trust one grandchild to raise the others when she was just that: a child. The decision never should've fallen onto Natalie's shoulders, despite how sure the girl was that she was up to the task. But then again, Jakob had never known the pain of losing his only child, not like Abuelita, and unbeknownst to him, not like his sister.

Natalie Toretto's childhood ended the moment her father's car crashed into that metal fence, and whilst she wouldn't change a thing about raising her siblings, the woman mourned the life she could've had: with her father, her older brother, without Dan.

Maybe if Jack hadn't died, Daniel Poulter wouldn't have preyed on the innocent seventeen-year-old girl working behind the counter of his regular bar.

What-ifs were enough to drive anyone mad, especially the boy who could only dream of a world that was kinder to his older sister.

Grabbing fistfuls of the front of Dominic's shirt, Jakob's hands shook as he used his grip to lift the man's upper body from the ground, before slamming it back down. Unbeknownst to the younger brother, Dominic's hand inch closer and closer to the handle of the silver wrench.

"Maybe if you'd stayed outta Lompoc, our family wouldn't of been fucking torn apart." The younger brother spat, unwilling tears stinging at the back of his glossed-over eyes.

That was the final straw.

Smashing the wrench into the side of his baby brother's head, Dominic groaned as a deafening 'crack' resonated through the night and Jakob tumbled to the side. His body slammed into the ground, blood caking the side of the man's face as he lay paralysed with pain.

Deckard clenched his jaw, not hesitating to snatch what were his wife's weapons from where they lay on the concrete nearby. He watched for a moment as Dominic stumbled to a stand, unsteady on his feet whilst tripped unknowingly towards Natalie's car.

The Shaw man adjusted his grip, ready to pounce, but hesitated at the sight of his wife rejoining the action ─ there wasn't a chance in hell that Deckard was going to risk harming Natalie in any of his attempts to bring Dominic Toretto's life to a close.

Natalie was overwhelmed by deja vu as she leapt onto the hood of her car, before using that momentum to land herself on Dominic's shoulders.

Pain ricocheted through the man's body at the impact, his spine burning from the pressure on his shoulders and the bruises that littered his body.

The Shaw woman swiftly twisted her body so that her torso was in front of his face, attempting to force her brother to the ground, only for Dominic's wrench to clatter to the ground and for him to grab her ribs.

She yelped in pain, his grip directly on her black and blue bruises. Natalie's mind blurred from the vice-like hold, preventing her from following through with her original attack.

Instead, the woman used one hand to keep herself steady, whilst she used her elbow to jab the spot right where the neck and shoulder merge. The bone of her arm dug deep as she drove it once, twice, three times before Dominic swung his body forward and slammed Natalie's back down onto the hood of her car.

The blow dented the metal, whilst her head took a hard hit ─ she could already tell by the warmth pooling beneath her skull that her stitches had ripped, reopening her wound from earlier in the day. Natalie's previous headache returned in full force, momentarily blacking-out her vision and dragging a groan from deep in her throat.

Despite wanting nothing more than to rush over and check on his wife, Deckard knew she wanted him to get the revenge he needed, for Owen. The Shaw man swung his pipe high, ready to bring it down on Dominic's head.

Despite his extensive injuries, the eldest Toretto sibling foresaw the attack and ducked, staggering backwards and snagging his own wrench from its place on the ground. He barely had time to wield it before the Shaw man was going for another hit, followed by an attempted jab at Dominic's torso.

The Toretto clumsily avoided the attacks, before trying to enact his own, equally-unsuccessful ones.

Jakob, who stirred from his involuntary sleep on the ground, ignored the slick blood coating the tan skin of his face and managed to stumble to a stand.

At first, he thought Dominic must've hit him so hard that he'd begun to hallucinate Iliana Starling's voice, as the woman's familiar, slightly raspy American accent echoed from somewhere nearby.

But after a long moment, the man realised it drifted from the radio in his car, which was only a few metres away. The usual calm, yet firm demeanour of her words was nowhere to be found as Jakob's fuzzy mind zoned in on the pain, panic, and exhaustion that her pleas were steeped in.

"M-Mayday, Mayday," Ana panted, "we need immediate backup o-on Hope and Eleventh, there's a third party in play. I-I repeat, there is a third─ fuck, a t-third party. Come quick."

Static.

The pain-filled voice of the love of his life, calling for help, snapped something deep within Jakob. It didn't matter that she claimed to hate him, not love him, whatever — Ana was in danger, real danger, and that was the worst pain he'd ever felt.

Glancing over at his sister, who was sliding to a stand from her place on the bonnet, the man felt a violent tuck, deep in his gut.

Natalie needed him. He couldn't leave her.

The Shaw woman felt his gaze on her and turned to face him: Natalie had heard Ana's warnings and pleas, and she recognised the worry flooding his features — it was a look the woman had worn every time a job went sideways and she feared for Deckard's life.

A realisation flickered in the back of her mind.

Jakob's story from the garage, about the woman who left him heartbroken. The stolen glances. The subtle touches. The kiss in the warehouse that Deckard had told her about. It all pointed towards one very obvious fact that Natalie had completely missed — Iliana Starling and Jakob Toretto were each other's reasons to keep fighting, to keep living. They were so in love that being near each other was like coming up for air after fighting to stay afloat in a sea of raging waves.

Natalie knew that if she were in her brother's shoes, if it was Deckard who was on the brink of never coming home, she would've already been behind the wheel, pushing the accelerator to the floor.

Giving Jakob a certain, firm nod, the Shaw woman told him everything her words wanted to say ─ go.

The man didn't hesitate to climb into the driver seat of his car before slamming the door shut, and peeling out of the parking garage quicker than he'd ever driven before.

Leaving the Shaws to deal with Dominic Toretto.

DESPITE ALL ODDS, JAKOB made it to Hope and Eleventh in under ninety seconds.

And in those ninety seconds, he could've sworn his heart had stopped dead in his chest, completely unmoving as though it was waiting to see if its other half was still beating. It drove him insane, not knowing anything about what had happened ─ who was the third party? How badly was Ana hurt? Was Katya okay?

His racing questions came to a halt, along with his car, as soon as he caught sight of the horror that awaited him. Screeching to a stop, Jakob's body jerked forward, before he scrambled to open his car door and leap from the vehicle.

Flames reflected in the sheen of tears that had covered his eyes. Bright, burning orange danced over the molten metal of what was once Ana and Katya's car, consuming the vehicle entirely.

His eyes frantically darted around, trying to see if they had somehow made it out. Jakob's entire body was shaking as he ran towards the wreck, the heat licking at the front of his body.

"J-Jakob?"

The man spun towards her voice so fast he was sure he had whiplash.

There Ana was, limping towards him and clutching her side, blood caked over more of her body than not. Her call of his name was desperate, almost disbelieving, as though she was certain seeing the love of her life was her mind playing tricks.

Jakob couldn't find any words for the relief that flooded every inch of his body; it was as though he had been rendered utterly speechless.

The only thing he could bring himself to do was take the woman into his arms.

For the first time in over seven months, Jakob Toretto got to hold his girl, and Iliana Starling got to pretend that she'd never gone through with the hardest decision of her life — everything faded away with the warm arms that enveloped her battered, bruised body, and her face nuzzling into his chest. The tension straining her body eased, and Ana allowed herself to breathe.

Well, until Jakob's breath snagged in his chest.

The man caught sight of who he assumed was Ana and Katya's attacker, holding their gun high with the barrel pointed straight towards the woman encased in his hold.

Jakob didn't even have to think about it.

Clutching her closer to his chest, the man spun them around, using his own body as a human shield for the woman he loves.

One singular gunshot rang out in the night, followed by a second: the first went straight through Jakob's shoulder, the impact sending both him and Ana tumbling to the ground. Though the second wasn't from the assailant's gun — no, the bullet went straight through the Organisation Agent's head, courtesy of Katya Petrova.

Ana had managed to pull her from the wreck and rest her against a nearby building, before the Starling woman was pulled away by the sound of Jakob's car.

She may have been on the brink of death, but the Russian Assassin never missed her mark.

Groaning, the blonde woman let her pistol clatter to the ground. Her trembling hands went to the deep, gruesome wound on her thigh, which was pooling blood onto the concrete beneath. A large, jagged shard of glass protruded from her skin, and Katya knew better than to yank it out.

Instead, the assassin clumsily unbuckled her tactical belt before ripping it from where it hugged her hips. Looping it above her wound, right near the top of her thigh, Katya slipped the strap through the buckle and counted down in her head.

After three seconds of silent counting, no more and no less, she yanked the belt as tight as she could manage, screaming in pain at the makeshift tourniquet that was now keeping her alive.

Ana's eyes fluttered open from an unwilling sleep for the second time that night, except this time, her blurry sight was met with her favourite pair of brown eyes, albeit they were flooded with concern.

Jakob cradled her bloody face gently, lovingly, completely focused on her instead of the gunshot wound in his left shoulder. Thick, red blood ran down his arm, dripping onto the concrete beside the woman's body, but the man couldn't care less for the pain ─ not when Ana was the first to hit the floor with almost all of his weight on top of her.

"You okay, baby?" He all but whispered, whilst trying to ignore the way Ana's head instinctually nuzzled into his palm, seeking the warmth and comfort she had so desperately missed.

The woman hummed, her head still spinning from the fall. It wasn't until she saw the trails of blood on her ex-lover's arm that Ana truly brought her mind back into focus.

"Oh my God, were you hit?!" She gasped, forcing herself to sit up so that she could examine the wound herself. Her voice had its usual rasp, which always had the Toretto man's heart beating faster, but combined with her gentle touch against his shoulder, his heart was ready to burst from his chest.

Jakob simply nodded, watching in admiration as he caught a glimpse of the Iliana Starling he once knew. "Better me than you." He revealed softly, causing Ana's green eyes to dart up to his own in surprise.

The two stayed there for a moment, savouring the feeling of each other's presence, each other's touch, everything that they had only dreamed of since their abrupt split.

"As much as I love that you two seem to be figuring things out, I could use some help over here!" A familiar, Russian voice called out, making the two turn toward the woman sitting against the brick wall of a building.

A sheepish expression crossed both of their faces as the ex/not-so-ex-lovers broke eye contact with each other. The two stumbled to a stand and headed towards Katya, who, despite all of her injuries, managed to keep her sarcasm intact.

"Took you long enough." Katya joked to the pair, before grunting when they helped her up, slinging an arm of hers over each of their shoulders. The weight wasn't great for either of Ana or Jakob's injuries, but they knew bearing the physical pain was much easier now that they seemed to be on a path, the same path, leading them back to one another.

Helping the woman into the backseat of Jakob's car, Ana shut the door and turned to Jakob.

"She needs a hospital." She said quietly, worried for the woman's life. "Kat's already put a tourniquet on, so it's only a matter of time before she loses her leg entirely."

Jakob nodded, mind taken by his knowledge of Los Angeles as he thought of the closest hospital. "Dignity Health is only two minutes from here."

"Well, we can make it in one." Ana smiled, remembering all of the times she had the thrill (and sometimes nightmare) of sitting in the front passenger seat of Jakob's car. Patting his chest in a joking manner, the woman nodded towards the vehicle before moving towards the passenger seat. "Come on, J, let's—oh my god, I think that's them!"

Her sudden outburst settled panic deep in Jakob's gut, but before he could ask what had happened, the familiar sound of a helicopter sounded overhead. It bore an almost indistinguishable logo on the side, which was painted almost the same colour as the helicopter itself. Jakob thought it looked like a broken 'O', with the broken ends sharpened towards the centre of the letter.

"That's the group that attacked us."

And it was headed straight for the three fighting on the parking structure.

THE SHAWS FIGHTING TOGETHER was like a dance — fluid, elegant, and a little theatrical. They went back and forth, taking it in turns to land blows to Dominic Toretto's body, all whilst supporting each other in their attacks.

Deckard felt no need to explicitly tell Dominic why he was doing what he was doing, because he knew fully well the man was aware of his reasons: Owen, Natalie, and the pain Dominic had caused their families.

All of the nights Natalie woke up screaming. Smack.

Owen lying in that hospital bed. Kick.

His wife's scar flare-ups. Punch.

The months of mourning his brother. Jab.

The Shaw man was blinded by the entirety of the past year; all of the emotions that he had held back for his family's sake, because they needed him to be strong, came flooding to the surface. But instead of the sadness, or the sheer helplessness, it was the rage that came out on top ─ the grief that Deckard refused to process, the mourning.

Shoving Dominic towards Natalie, Deckard watched as his wife struck a harsh kick to the back of one of her brother's knees, forcing him to kneel. The Toretto man did nothing but take it and hang his head in remorse.

"I'm sorry, Nat." Dominic breathed, coughing and clutching his ribs. He made no move to get up, and it made Natalie pause for a moment, a small moment ─ and that was all it took. The Shaw woman's heart clenched painfully in her chest, anticipating the man's next words. Dread and a slither of eagerness battled it out in her mind: Natalie fought the urge to scream, to tell her brother to stop before he revealed a secret that wasn't his to share, but a part of her wanted to hear what he had to say — she'd been waiting almost fifteen years for an apology, and she'd be damned if she stopped it before it truly started.

"I-I'm sorry for Dan, for believing him," Dominic didn't have the energy to hide anymore. Exhaustion overwhelmed him, finally leaving him vulnerable for once in his life. The man's eyes stung with every tear he should've shed over his sister and nephew, before they began to trickle through the bloodstains smeared across his cheeks, "b-but most of all, I'm sorry for..."

"Miles." Natalie whispered hesitantly, the name leaving her lips as no more than a breath, almost as if it had simply been a wisp of wind, mistaken for words. "H-his name was Miles."

The Shaw woman averted her gaze to the floor before squeezing her eyes shut. She bit her lip so harshly that the familiar taste of copper flooded her mouth, the action keeping her sobs at bay. Natalie clenched her fists in an attempt to keep her hands from shaking with grief, but they trembled regardless, betraying what little resolve she had left.

Deckard felt clueless ─ he thought he knew all of the reasons that the two eldest siblings had fallen out all those years ago, and none of them included someone named Miles. The man never pushed for Natalie to tell him anything, and he never would, but it would be a lie if Deckard said he wasn't at least curious to know more about the person whose name had prompted such a visceral reaction from the person he loved more than anything.

As of right then, at that moment, Deckard Shaw didn't care that his wife had kept something so clearly devastating to herself for so long. All that mattered was that Natalie Shaw knew that the burden was no longer hers to bear alone ─ it was theirs, and from that point onward, it always would be.

Carefully making his way over to his wife, Deckard closed the short gap between them by enclosing one of her shaking hands in his own steady one, before interlacing their fingers. He squeezed tightly, the warmth from his calloused palm flooding the woman's icy skin.

Natalie felt as though she could've collapsed from relief then and there. She knew her husband better than she knew herself, and him holding her hand wasn't a simple gesture ─ no, it was Deckard's way of saying that he was there, ready to listen whenever she was ready to tell. It may have seemed like a small thing for anyone else, but to Natalie? It meant the world.

Especially because of how she had been silenced in the past.

The Shaw woman swallowed thickly, trying to regain the steadiness that her voice had previously possessed whilst tightening her white-knuckle hold on Deckard's hand.

"Hating you," Natalie began firmly, though a certain softness crept into her tone, with her eyes darting to a tearful Dominic, "i-is exhausting, Dom. I don't have it in me to k-keep going for another fourteen years, or however long this lasts, because it is quite literally killing me."

Her moment in the bathroom with Jakob flashed through her mind, along with all of the other times Natalie was reduced to a shaking, sobbing mess because she missed her older brother.

"But I can't bring myself to forgive you," the Shaw woman continued. Dominic, who had managed to climb to his feet, met her gaze with a devastated look ─ he knew he deserved it, but that didn't stop the sting that shot through his aching heart. Natalie shook her head gently, trying to ignore the way her blood pulsed in her ears and threatened to drown out her thoughts, "not yet, anyway."

Deckard swore he could see nearly all of the physical tension caging Dominic Toretto's body fade almost instantly; a relief that he was very familiar with, thanks to Hattie clearing the air between them on the plane ride to LA.

Part of him wished that his revenge for Owen had gone further, but after taking a glance at the sheer number of injuries Dominic sported, Deckard realised that he'd had his fair share of blows. Not only that, but if they did kill the man, they'd only be repeating the cycle: Toretto's loved ones would come for their family, so the Shaws and Kings would return the favour. It would just end in funeral after funeral after funeral.

The promise of eventual forgiveness was more than enough for Dominic ─ in fact, it was better than anything he had anticipated the fight to include, considering that Natalie was ready to swing a wrench down on his head not even an hour ago.

"I─" Natalie began, only to correct herself to include her husband; it was his fight and revenge too, after all, "─we just need some time..."

Her voice drifted off, confusing the two men, until they too caught the low hum infiltrating the nighttime air. The helicopter blades whipped through the semi-calm atmosphere, instilling a strong sense of foreboding deep in Natalie's gut.

Before any of the three could move or even take another breath, the whistle of an explosive inched closer and closer, and crashed into the concrete behind them.

Heat flooded towards them, along with the force of the blast, sending both the Shaws tumbling to the ground. Their hands unintentionally broke apart as they fell, leaving both Deckard and Natalie to try and catch themselves.

The Shaw woman managed to catch herself from slamming to the concrete ground completely, but at the expense of her left wrist — it twisted in a way that certainly wasn't natural, and took the brunt of her fall.

"Shit." Natalie hissed, groaning at the pain that shot up the length of her arm. Microscopic debris floated in the air, clinging to her skin and flooding her lungs, forcing harsh coughs from deep within her chest.

Pushing herself onto her feet, the Shaw woman's eyes darted around her obscure surroundings, before they landed on her husband.

Deckard, who was covering his mouth and nose in hopes of breathing in air that didn't consist of powdered concrete, had also managed to climb to a stand, making Natalie sigh in relief. He seemed okay, with no visible injuries that she could see through her clouded vision.

Retaking his free hand with her non-injured one, the Shaws both sighed in relief at the sight of each other's dust-covered faces. Though, their relief was short-lived.

A deafening 'cracking' echoed throughout the night, followed quickly by the sound of concrete crumbling ─ the very ground beneath them was shattering, and there was nothing they could do.

Natalie was able to spare one final look towards her brother, who was crouched on the floor from the blast and wide-eyed. Dominic was less than a second away from calling out for her ─ from screaming her name, just as she had done for Owen when he was tossed from the plane ─ but it was too late.

The ground beneath the couple caved, sending them falling through the air. The garage collapsed around them, floor by floor. Natalie did her best to retain her white-knuckle grip on her husband's hand in the commotion, but her efforts were futile.

"NO!" Deckard yelled hoarsely when the feeling of Natalie's hand vanished. It had slipped from his grip, leaving the woman to fall even further in the wreckage. They managed to lock eyes one final time — a final clash of chestnut that conveyed everything words could never say.

The Shaw man's fall was stopped by a large slab of concrete; he crashed into it with a thud, the blow to his head rendering him unconscious. The tension that pulled his muscles taught finally eased, and his chest continued to rise and fall with steady breaths.

Natalie Shaw didn't have it in herself to cry, yell, or scream. She simply reached up to her neck and grasped her necklace; the one that held her husband's wedding ring, before allowing her eyes to flutter closed.

Her back struck a piece of debris bigger than her body, sending shooting pains throughout every one of her limbs for just a moment before it dulled to nothing.

Darkness.

Nothing but darkness.

"DECKARD! NATALIE!"

HATTIE'S HOARSE cries shattered the night, fracturing the stillness that had overtaken after the final ruins of the parking garage had come to a halt. The dust had settled, and showed no signs of ever being disturbed by those still trapped in their makeshift concrete cages.

Oliver couldn't help but bury his face into his brother's side, forcing back the second wave of tears that night and any notion that the Shaw couple was truly...gone. AJ couldn't bring himself to look away from the rubble, his eyes hopeful as they darted around for any signs of life. His arms were wrapped tightly around Oliver's shoulders, whilst the boy's were wound around AJ's waist, holding on for dear life.

The trio had been the first to reach what was left of the parking garage.

Nick and Zoey had taken Andy to the hospital, and entrusted the recovering Shaw sister to take care of the boys. The trio had fled from their position in front of the building, but didn't make it far before they saw the helicopter flying overhead.

Hattie knew. As soon as she caught sight of it, she knew something was off, and her fears were proven right as soon as they saw the plume of orange and grey blossoming from the top of the concrete building.

The Shaw sister's legs were moments away from giving out from beneath her. Her lips trembled and her eyes stung with unshed tears, ones that she tried so hard to hold back.

The siblings had just reconciled ─ Deckard and Hattie hadn't been allowed even 24 hours before something else tore them apart, and maybe for good this time.

Multiple car engines roared from behind the trio, making them turn apprehensively towards the powerful sounds ─ they had no idea if it was whoever caused the building to collapse coming to finish off the job.

Their nervousness faded at the sight of many familiar faces emerging anxiously from their three vehicles: first, it was Alice and Bianca scrambling from the front seats of their car, followed by a slightly worse-for-wear Xavier and Finnick. From the second car, a 1973 Plymouth Barracuda, climbed a distraught Letty and a concerned Ramsey. The final car, a civilian's black SUV that had been hotwired, contained Brian, who couldn't mask the shock that consumed his features.

Without even realising, Finnick, despite his injuries, had sought out Hattie in his inexplicable need to comfort her, to be near her. He approached her carefully, narrowly avoiding tripping on the larger chunks of jagged concrete, before gently pressing his hand to the small of her back.

It was a small gesture, yet it opened the dam that Hattie Shaw had been working so hard to keep closed. Her legs finally gave way from beneath her, except she brought Finnick down with her.

The man couldn't care less about his injuries at that moment as he wrapped a strong arm around her waist, slowing her fall and lessening the impact on her limbs. He crouched beside Hattie, who had fallen to her knees and pressed a trembling hand to her lips.

The Shaw sister leant back into Finnick's chest, almost curling into it as she suppressed her sobs. The man refused to let the grunt of pain slip from between his lips at the action, given that his pain was the least of his worries. Instead, he pulled Hattie further into his chest and tightened his hold, never wanting to let go.

Another engine rumbled nearby, signalling the arrival of a frantic Jakob Toretto ─ he had managed to get Ana and Katya to the hospital in record time, the same hospital Nick and Zoey had taken Andy to, before high-tailing it back to his sister, despite his own injuries.

The car had barely screeched to a stop before Jakob leapt from his seat, not bothering to close the door behind him.

"Where is she?" He questioned harshly, his panic completely consuming him. The man stepped towards the collapsed building, only to be stopped by Xavier and Alice's hands against his chest. Jakob looked at the two, both of them wearing pained expressions. "Where's our sister?!"

"Jake..." Alice trailed off, her voice shaking along with her trembling lips. He knew that tone...

"No...no! You're lying─" Jakob shook his head whilst his eyes widened in fear. "Why are you lying? She's not d-dead. Why would you even think that?!"

The truth was that hope was a deadly thing ─ the Kings, by no means wanted to face reality, but they knew that living in blissful ignorance about the state that both Deckard and Natalie were currently in would almost kill them, especially if the family's worst nightmare turned out to be true.

Letty was the next to step forward. She desperately clutched the silver cross dangling from her neck, unable to accept that she had just lost both her husband and her best friend in one fell swoop.

"They're not gone." She insisted, agreeing with Jakob and shaking her head incessantly. The panic was building in her chest like a balloon filling with air ─ growing bigger with every passing moment and bound to explode. "They can't be gone."

The family couldn't help but cling to the woman's words like a lifeline ─ there was no way that Deckard and Natalie Shaw were dead; the two could survive anything, even a building crumbling from beneath them.

Well, at least one of them could.

The group flinched at the sound of the rubble shifting and grating against other pieces of concrete. More dust jumped back into the air around a small opening they hadn't seen before ─ one that led to a small pocket, which had protected one of their own.

It was just a matter of which one.

A figure emerged from the darkness, dragging themselves from the depths of rubble which had taken everything from them.

"Natalie!"

Natalie Shaw crawled from the remnants of the parking garage, her eyes barely open and her face coated with blood from a fresh, deep gash on her forehead. Dust clung to every inch of her skin and every strand of brown hair, painting her almost entirely gray. There wasn't a single part of her body that didn't burn with deep-rooted, almost debilitating pain, but the part that stuck out to her most was the stabbing pain in her chest.

With great difficulty and pain, she pulled herself to a stand and stumbled away from the building, before turning back to look at it with the same slither of hope her family clung to ─ if she had survived, why couldn't they?

The shine of hope glistening in her tearful eyes began to dim with every second, and deep down, she already knew; Natalie Shaw had lost her other half, and she had no idea how long for. He could be alive and simply trapped, destined to be taken into police custody by the sirens that drew closer and closer, or...

Natalie's already scraped knees hit the coarse concrete rubble beneath her; pain ricocheted through her legs and up her burning spine, but she didn't care, nor could she truly feel the extent of her physical injuries.

Her upper body leant forward as a guttural sob ripped through her lips, grating at her throat as she clutched the jewelry looped around her neck. Gasping for breath, the woman then delved into a fit of sobs that brought her family to tears ─ they were raw, gut-wrenching; a complete onslaught of devastation that racked her entire aching body like never before. Natalie's heart was tearing itself in two: one half hers, the other half his, and wilting in her chest like she had truly died under the rubble.

A feeling built deep within her gut, before it climbed up into her heartless chest and clawed its way into her dry, sore throat. She tried to fight it, but it wasn't much of a battle ─ the most guttural, earth-shattering scream ripped her apart, and shattered any peace the Los Angeles night had once held. It shredded the inside of her throat, though the pain didn't exist to the woman at that moment. Apart from the debilitating pain in her chest, Natalie felt entirely empty, as though the rest of her had been consumed by a void and simply didn't exist anymore.

He couldn't be gone ─ she needed him more than she needed air in her lungs, and right now, Natalie Shaw was suffocating. His departure was a noose around her neck tugged tight, bruising the skin and holding her spasming lungs in place, unable to take in the oxygen they so desperately needed.

The woman didn't have the energy to pay mind to her family, who were either staring at the collapsed building with more misplaced hope, or pinning their burning, concerned gazes on her back, unsure of how to comfort someone who had just lost the other half of her heart, of her soul.

Natalie Shaw simply remained knelt on the ground, shaking with violent sobs as she waited for her husband to climb from the wreckage without a scratch on him, hold her in his arms, and whisper gentle reassurances in her ear.

But that time never came.

END OF ACT TWO

HAYLEY WRITES...
weeks of writers block,
no motivation, and a few
tears later, act two has
finally come to a close.

i genuinely cannot thank
each and every one of you
enough for your incredible
amounts of patience, kindness,
and support. it truly means more
to me than you'll ever know.

not only has this account recently
hit 400 followers, this book hit 98k
reads, and there will never be enough
words to describe my endless
gratitude. thank you.

act three is even more of a
rollercoaster, and i can't wait to
show you what it has in store. it's
the longest act yet, and let's just say
my least favourite character is making
their first proper appearance, and it's
not gonna be a good time for nat...

this book will hopefully be returning
to normal updates every sunday, even
though it means the chapters will be
a lot shorter than they have been
recently. but i'm going to be honest
with you guys, i have important
exams coming up that i really need
to do well on so i can apply to uni,
so i apologise if the updates aren't
perfectly on time. i will
absolutely do my best though :)

i would absolutely love to hear
your thoughts on this chapter,
especially about the plot twists
and the ending... you have full
permission to yell at me rn

also, just to clarify a few things:
hobbs never left the hospital to help,
his injuries from the office fight
were too extensive for him to get
involved.
jakande is also not in the final fight,
instead, he died on the mountain
when ramsey was being rescued.

please let me know if you have any
questions or requests of things to see
in act three!

don't forget to vote by clicking
the little star at the bottom of
your screen!

until next time, lovelies :)