Ride or Die - Brian O'Conner

1.7

After dinner at the house, Knox and Brian helped Mia clean up and were assisting dry plates when Vince came in chuckling "you can wash my car after you're done." 

Knox rolled his eyes before warning Vince "enough." 

"Seriously Knox," Vince spoke getting angrier. "You're really going to let this nobody join us?" 

Knox sighed and put down the cloth he used to dry the dishes as Brian stayed silent and observed. "Yeah, I am because he got my brother out of jail and Dom trusts him so I'm willing to give him a chance. If you're not then that's your problem and not mine." 

Brian held back a snort at Knox's sarcasm but felt the beginnings of guilt in his stomach that Knox and Dom were so trusting of him but he was going to end up betraying them. 

That was the very same thought he had the next night as he snuck up the wall onto the roof and broke into the window of Toretto's shop. He brought a flashlight and looked around only to be hit in the back of the head by a rifle as Vince appeared behind him. 

He looked stunned as Dom and Knox both joined him and Vince. Knox looked at Brian "what the hell is going on?" 

Before Brian could respond Vince looked at Knox and Dom "he's a cop guys." 

Knox rolled his eyes so hard that he almost passed out. "Are you fucking serious? This again?" 

Dom looked between the two confused as all hell wondering just what was going on between them. He looked at Brian and stared at him "are you a cop?" 

Brian shook his head "no." Knox wasn't an idiot. He caught the slight uptick in Brian's voice indicating that Brian wasn't telling the full truth about something but he didn't say a word. 

Dom sighed and nodded his head "let's take a ride." They drove to the Tran's warehouse and climbed over the fence before dropping into the garage. 

They looked around before Vince sighed "yo, Dominic." Dom, Knox, and Brian all followed the sound of Vince's voice and shined their lights on a bunch of cars with no engines. Vince looked at them "there's no engines." 

"What are they going to race with? Hopes and dreams." 

Knox snorted "thoughts and prayers maybe." Brian hid a laugh with a cough as Knox smiled but then Brian's eyes caught on packages in the back and walked towards them. Dom got a call from Jesse that mentioned Johnny and the others coming. 

They all hid as they heard Johnny Tran's crew race into the garage. Brian hid next to Knox with Brian and Vince behind them as they watched Johnny drag a man out of the car. "Come on Ted," all four men watched as a gun was held to Ted's head. 

Johnny looked at him "do you see anything wrong here?" 

"No," Ted spoke and Knox grimaced knowing immediately that it was the wrong thing to say. The other three knew it as well. 

They were proven right when Johnny grabbed Ted and pushed him so his face was in the hood of the car "WE GOT NO ENGINES, DO WE?" 

"NO!" Ted yelled in pain which was the smart thing to do. 

Johnny pulled him up and looked at him again. "A couple of Nissan S.R. twenty motors will pull a premium...one week before race wars, huh?" 

"Probably," Ted spoke warily. 

"You're a smart fence, Ted. Maybe too smart." Johnny walked past Ted and took off his jacket. "What are you feeling Lance? 40 weight, 50 weight." 

The man holding a gun to Ted or Lance as the four in hiding now knew him stared at Ted as he spoke. "A 40 weight sounds nice." They took him down to the floor and took the gasoline hose shoving it into his mouth as Brian, Knox, Dom, and Vince watched. 

They watched as Johnny pumped gasoline into Ted's mouth until the fence spit it up and gave up the location of Johnny's engines. Ted gagged on the floor until he finally got his breath and could kneel on the floor still covered in gasoline. 

The four watching were horrified. Brian, Knox, Dom, and Vince had done their fair share of awful stuff but nothing like this. Brian jumped when he felt something touch his hand and looked down to see Knox slipping his into Brian's. 

Brian allowed it before looking back at the scene in front of him. They watched as Johnny and his crew left to go get their engines. Once they were gone all four men hiding stood up and left pretty quickly. 

Once they were back at Toretto's garage, Knox allowed himself to lose composure as he threw up outside. Once he came back in wiping his mouth Brian looked at him "are you alright, Knox?" 

Knox nodded "yeah, that just brought up some bad memories." 

Dom who had just walked back into the garage asked "Nick?" 

"Yeah," he then turned to Brian. "My best friend when I was a teenager. His dad was a monster who loved torturing his son. Nick was beaten up almost daily and eventually was waterboarded by his father." 

Brian nodded not saying anything because there wasn't much to say there. He knew what it was like to have an abusive/absentee father and you don't want the sympathy. 

That night as Brian watched Dom hug Knox, it was the second time he really saw them as a family which was making him rethink this assignment.