Harry

I woke up the next morning feeling much more at peace now that I had finally gotten my knife back, and that I had finally confronted Tate about her relation to James Collins. Judging by the absolutely bewildered and terrified expression she had on her face, I think she might have actually been telling the truth, that he was just a neighbor. Quite ironic that she felt safe walking home with one of the second in commands to a large organized crime group, if only she knew.

I had to say, I was momentarily impressed when she began to talk back to me, the explicit words she used sounding so unnatural falling off her lips in that shy sweet voice of hers. I knew it was probably the adrenaline talking, but still, I usually had grown men begging for their lives in that kind of situation, and here was this five foot five girl, practically spitting in my face, fully aware that she could be killed at any moment.

Once I decided that she was probably innocent, I decided to threaten her by telling her that I knew where she lived, in order to avoid any run-ins with the cops. I really didn't need that right now, not with the merging of our organization with Grayson's. I had a feeling that she wouldn't be a problem, and I was relieved to be done with the whole situation.

When I got to the fort, I managed to get through Ralph's patronizing antics quicker than usual this morning, as he was much more interested in getting back to some game he was playing on his phone than antagonizing me. We had a meeting in about twenty minutes, with Grayson and James and some of their team members. Abel and their best tech guys were supposedly going to start working on getting the software up and running today and to run a few tests before we started making any major plans to use it. I'm sure Abel couldn't sleep last night, probably far too excited to start cracking open one of the most powerful software systems the world had ever seen.

I made my way over to the elevator, grateful that I was alone and didn't have to endure Whit's incessant button pressing. Soon enough I was on the fifth floor, strolling down the hallway towards to conference room. The rest of the guys were already there, sat in a row, with one extra seat next to Will saved for me. It was just us so far, and I guessed that Whit was probably still in his office, tweaking some last-minute things for the meeting.

The boys all turned to face me.

"Yes. I got it," I smiled, slipping my hand into my back pocket and pulling out the knife, showing it to them. I finally felt secure again knowing I had it with me so that if I finally had the opportunity to use it for the destiny I had intended for it, I'd be prepared.

"Did you have any issues with the girl?" Niall asked, picking around in a pack of trail mix, pulling all of the chocolate candies out to eat them first.

"Nope. It was a perfectly simple mission. Don't worry about her, she won't be bothering any of us, and if she tries to, I have some...let's say, insurance, to make sure that she doesn't succeed," I smirked.

Just as I finished speaking, the doors to the conference room flung open, revealing Whit, with Grayson and James stood beside him, along with two other men, who I assumed were the tech guys here to assist Abel. We all stood up to greet them, exchanging handshakes and hellos and introducing ourselves, as per Whit's numerous texts to all of us this morning, telling us to be on, "our best fucking behavior," and so, we were.

Once we got all of the formalities out of the way, we all took our seats, James giving Will and I a grateful smile as he sat down, we just nodded our heads knowingly at him. Grayson and Whit sat side by side at the head of the table, both of them pulling out various folders and their laptops, signaling to everyone else to do the same.

"Gentlemen," Grayson suddenly spoke, causing everyone's eyes to drift over to him. "I just want to say a personal thank you to you all, for saving the life of James. Truly, words cannot express how grateful I am for what you have done. I am ready and eager to begin this journey into our alliance with you, and to hopefully take down Quinton Beck, and drain him of everything that son of a bitch is worth."

This earned him a round of applause from the room. We may be from two different groups, but if there was one thing we could all agree on, it was that Quinton Beck needed to be taken down, and we were more than willing to come together and ensure that it happened.

Whit raised his hands to shush our clapping, waiting until the room had fallen completely silent before beginning to speak.

"Grayson and I have been meeting with each other the past couple of days, going over different ways to implement the software in a way that could bug Beck's entire operation. After mulling it over, we have both come to a mutual agreement of what the best course of action to do that will be," he paused, looking at Grayson, waiting for him to proceed in telling us the plan.

"As I am sure you all know, I am in pretty deep shit with Quinton. I stole a large sum of money from him, and the clock is ticking for me to return it. What Whit and I have decided to do is to kill two birds with one stone. Quinton originally gave me two weeks to return the money, but after many long phone calls with him, I managed to persuade him into giving us more time. I told him if he gave me two months, I could not only return the money that I stole from him, but I could triple it, earning him an extra ten million dollars. The terms of our agreement state that if I have given the money to him by the agreed-upon date, I get to walk free, any bad blood buried in the past."

He glanced at Whit, signaling to him that it was his turn to speak.

"So, here's the deal. We have exactly two months to get this software up and running. We have to make sure that everything goes off without a hitch, or else we are fucked. We will test it on a couple of small targets I have lined up, to ensure that everything is running smoothly. Once we are absolutely sure that it won't fail on us, we will place the software on a flash drive. When Grayson goes to meet with Quinton, we will use you all," he paused to point at Me, Will, Niall, and Abel, "to get inside the building during their meeting. You will find out where their main security and technology facilities are, and you will use the flash drive to implement the software into all of Quinton's resources. You will get in, and get out. Quinton will think that he's just made ten million extra dollars, when really, we now have the means to drain him of every last cent he owns."

"Sound easy enough, gentleman?" Grayson asked, reaching his arm up to clap Whit on the back, as though they were old friends planning a fishing trip, not dangerous criminals going to hack into an even more despicable organization's entire operation.

We all nodded in agreement, looking around the room to confirm silently with each other that we knew what we had to do.

"Great!" Whit chirped, rubbing his hands together excitedly.

"Then Abel, let's go ahead and have you and Charlie and Nick get going on pulling up the software and just getting the basics done," he instructed, gesturing towards Charlie and Nick, Grayson's tech guys, who, like Abel, already had their computers out, booting them up to begin one of the greatest accomplishments of their careers.

Whit slid some files and a hard drive across the table to Abel, who caught it swiftly, grabbing a cord from his bag and attaching one end to his computer, and the other to a port in the hard drive.

Abel, Charlie, and Nick all huddled together, scooting their chairs closer to one another so that they could all peer at Abel's screen, and I watched as Abel began to tap his foot anxiously.

There were a few moments of silence, and then all of a sudden the sound of the three boys' fingers flying across their keyboards began, and the rest of us turned away to let them do their thing, while we chatted about work-related things.

A few minutes had passed before we suddenly heard Abel's faint voice speak.

"What the fuck?" he asked, staring at his computer screen in disbelief.

We all turned to face him, concern evident in everyone's facial expressions.

"What is it? What's the problem?" Whit asked, and even though he was trying to hide it, I saw a hint of fear in his eyes.

"The software..." he began, reaching up to scratch his head. "It's password protected."

Whit let out a sigh of relief, chuckling a bit. "Well then, Abel, last time I checked, you boys are all experts on finding out things such as passwords. Just run a few scans or whatever it is that you all do on those things and find the password. Being that it is such powerful software, I am sure whoever created it hid the password in encryption somewhere in the coding," he offered, leaning back in his chair.

Abel didn't say anything for a second, looking at Charlie and Nick, who seemed to be as equally perplexed as Abel was.

"The thing is, we already ran all of those tests, that's what we've been doing the whole time. Between the three of us, we just tested every possible option of how to get this password, and there's nothing there," Nick spoke, defeat evident in his voice.

Charlie nodded in confirmation. "I'm serious, there is no other possible way that we haven't tried yet. The password just isn't there. It's not on anything technology related."

Grayson placed his elbows on the table, cradling his chin in one hand and leaning forward, narrowing his eyes at the three boys.

"So what are you saying?"

Abel audibly gulped, pulling at the collar of his shirt, before speaking.

"What we are saying is, whatever the password is, it's not on anything we could find technologically. It has to be on a physical document of some sort."

Whit placed his hands on his temples, closing his eyes and massaging them, looking like he was about to snap at any moment.

"Gentleman, there has to be something you can do. Is there any way to scan the software for a source of some sort? A name, a location? Even without the password, you should be able to at least find some point of origin? Right?"

"We can try," Abel shrugged, looking at Charlie and Nick who nodded in agreement, all three of their hands landing back on their keyboards, and going to work.

We didn't converse like last time. This time, we all sat in silence, staring at the three boys furiously typing on their computers, waiting for something, anything, that would help us gain access to the software. Because if we didn't, this alliance, this mission, everything, would be for nothing, and we would be utterly and completely fucked.

"Wait, I think I found something," Abel spoke, his usually soft voice sounding so loud amongst the deafening silence we had all been sitting in.

"Well?" Whit asked, the impatience clear as he waited for Abel to tell him what he had found.

"It's not a location, it's a name. A last name, I think." he peered closely at his laptop, pressing a few more buttons before speaking again.

"Bridges."

Immediately my head snapped up, and I noticed that James' did too.

I felt anger coursing through my veins, beginning to regret letting Tate go last night. She was good, really good. To think she had me convinced that she was just an innocent bystander, that she was completely clueless, when really, she knew what she was doing all along.

It had to be her. Why else would she be seen with both James and my knife all within a short span of time. Coincidentally when we were in the midst of our biggest mission of all time. She had to be working for someone, Quinton, maybe, or another organized crime group.

James and I must have been obviously perplexed, as I suddenly noticed everyone in the group staring at us. I looked down at my fists, my knuckles now white from clenching them so hard.

"Um, James, Harry? Is there something that you would like to share with the group?" Whit asked.

James looked at me and nodded, urging me to reveal to the rest of the group what I knew.

"Yes, there is, actually. I think James and I know exactly who we are looking for, and even better, we know exactly where to find them." I felt a smug grin creeping its way onto my face, and James smiled back at me, with a glint in his eyes.

"So what are you thinking exactly?" Grayson hummed.

I chuckled a bit before replying.

"Well, gentlemen, it would seem to me that we have a kidnapping that needs planning."

AN: OMG OMG OMG!! WHAT?!?!? WHAT DO YOU GUYS THINK IS GOING ON?!?!?!?!?!? I TOLD YOU THIS STORY WAS GOING TO START GETTING INTENSE SOON! I will do my best to have chapter 10 up today or tomorrow, but for now, don't forget to vote and comment and let me know what you all think! You guys are the best! Thank you for all that you do! xx