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

Chapter 7

"Who was your friend?"

Elizabeth looked back at Hobbs, wary of engaging him any further. Despite the assurance of Owen's presence, and Deckard's, she was still in enemy territory without a guaranteed escape route. After Owen's attempted placations and reminders that they needed to get along, Hobbs putting himself in the ring was the last thing she'd expected. "Excuse me?"

"Your friend. The one you said I killed." Luke walked past Deckard and ignored his silent protests, gave the situation not a single thought, and planted himself right between Owen and his sister. "What was her name?"

"Special Agent Riley Hicks."

Oh. Luke fell silent, staring at Shaw with a mixture of unease and sympathy. A piece of him genuinely felt sorry for her. She'd lost a friend, someone she was close to by the look of it, and now she was being forced to work with the people who'd tried to destroy her family and ruin her life. "I'm sorry. She was a good agent."

"Yeah, she was," Elizabeth muttered. She turned away from Hobbs, focusing on the clouds of dust being kicked up in the distance. The less she thought about Riley and everything Owen had told her, the better — at least for the moment. Everything inside her was being torn apart and scattered in so many directions that the only thing Beth could do was focus on what was right in front of her: the mission. Find Cipher, take what they were owed, and get the hell out of Dodge before these government lackeys changed their minds. "Now she's dead and that's something I can't fix."

If a situation needed fixing, she did what she could; if someone needed fixing, she asked for more information and then tried to help. Unfortunately reversing the effects of death in people was a little outside her skill set. You couldn't switch out a capacitor, solder a couple wires, and turn someone back on like you could a radio or TV.

"How long did you know her for?" Luke asked. One look at Owen's face told him everything: Shaw was pissed. Deckard said he'd handle it and while Luke trusted his word, he didn't trust his ability to wrangle his manipulative psychopath of a brother into line.

"Long enough to realise she had piss poor taste in men."

Deckard and Owen spoke at the same time and wore the exact same irritated look. "Beth!"

"Vsyo pizdets." Everything's fucked up. She hoped Owen would realise that sometime soon. This entire situation was more messed up than she'd anticipated and the longer she stood there thinking about it, the longer Elizabeth's mind would spin in circles like a broken compass. Her loyalties were torn, she told herself, and there was absolutely nothing she could do about that till she learnt where they lay.

"They're here," Eric announced as two sedans drove through an electric side gate. They were large, bulletproof, and the only things he could use to separate the Shaws from one another. Whichever car Owen got in would be temporarily diverted before it reached Nowhere, but the one he hoped would contain the other two Shaws would go straight to the facility they'd be calling home for the next few months. "The second you get in those cars, you work for us. That means the past is left where it belongs, understood, Miss Volkova?"

She rolled her eyes and crossed her arms over her chest. Her right foot tapped the sand-covered concrete runway, kicking up a tiny dust cloud, while she focused on the horizon. "I know what professionalism entails, thank you. You might want to explain what it is to Hobbs though."

The cars pulled up, one behind the other, and Luke finally allowed himself to relax. His shoulders dropped, his spine loosened, and his hand stopped resting on his revolver. "You just keep on running your mouth, Shaw, see where it gets you."

"I'm hoping for Cuba. I quite liked it there." Elizabeth felt the weight of the door as she pulled it open, could see the thickness of the glass windows that'd been perfectly fitted into place. The dashboard, on the other hand, was a cluttered mess of lights and tech, and behind it would undoubtedly be a veritable nightmare of circuits and wiring. "Wow."