An Eye For An Eye (Fast & Furious | Hobbs/OFC)

Chapter 18

Elbow-deep in dishes, with only the stovetop light for illumination, Elizabeth scrubbed the last of the plates clean. Toretto had cooked some variant of paella while Ramsey and Parker whipped up the best jerk chicken she'd ever tasted. O'Conner had offered to help wash up, but a quick 'I'll be working late' shut them all down before anyone else could try to press the issue.

With any luck, the warehouse would be vacant now. The clock on the microwave said it was close to midnight, and Hobbs had disappeared shortly after dessert. Where he went was anyone's guess, but so long as the Fed wasn't on her arse, his business was his own.

"You aren't subtle, are you?"

That cold voice was the first indication she wasn't alone. It made the hairs on the back of her neck stand up and raised goosebumps along her arms. There'd been no footsteps, no noise to indicate a presence of any kind. You're good. Elizabeth wrapped her fingers around the handle of a kitchen knife and lifted it out of the sink, then proceeded to dry it with the tea towel tossed over her shoulder.

She turned to stare at the figure in the kitchen doorway, eyes straining to make anything out. They were completely swathed in shadows, head angled perfectly so as to hide any distinguishing features. "You know who I am."

"It's why I'm here."

Male. American.

"And you know what I'm capable of?"

Teeth flashed for a moment as he chuckled. "It's why I'm here. Cipher sends her regards."

"There's a 'but' coming, isn't there?"

"Unfortunately, she won't be needing your services this time. Her new team is…uniquely qualified."

Elizabeth helped herself to a seat and propped her boots up on the table. She twisted the knife back and forth in her hands, careful not to nick herself. "Cipher says that to all the girls," she sighed. "Is that everything?"

"Whatever you think you're playing at, Miss Shaw, I wouldn't."

In the few seconds it took her to glance down at her lap then up at the doorway, the figure disappeared through the emergency exit. Elizabeth groaned and dropped her feet to the floor then stood, returning the kitchen knife to its block. No doubt an alarm of some kind had been triggered.

Or not.

If it was rigged to the security system then whoever that'd been had to know how rapid the response time was. After a moment, she returned to the sink, washed and dried the remaining plates, and stacked them away in the cupboards.

Twenty minutes later, she descended the stairs with a steaming mug. In an ideal world, Elizabeth would've been asleep by ten o'clock, but it was not, and whoever had been standing in the kitchen doorway bore a clear message: stop.

"Not gonna happen," she murmured to herself, "and you know it."

There was no turning back now. Not when the money was within arm's reach. Certainly not because some wanker had decided he was the new Michael Myers. She walked down the center aisle, eyes scanning her orange-tinted surroundings, and drank her tea as she went.

At night, the warehouse switched over to dim safety lights, but Elizabeth could still read the plates on Toretto's car and make out the labelling on equipment. She was also perfectly able to recognise the figure lifting weights on the bench press.

"I'd ask if you're watching me," she called out, "but seeing as there's only one gym, I think it's safe to say you can't sleep."

A sinking feeling had formed in the pit of his stomach after Owen's car slipped off its jack, and no matter what Deckard tried, he just couldn't shake it. Something was off about the entire mission. The same feeling had struck him the day ETEON came calling, and the night Owen was meant to leave Spain. "You either, eh?"