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

Chapter 13

With the meeting done — Hobbs told them about a refrigerated truck carrying a server farm, and Ramsey suggested something about hard drives, uplinks and trojan horses — Letty had finally become free to leave. The moment Little Nobody mentioned wrapping it up there, she'd slipped out of her chair and left Dom to sit and talk with Hobbs. Hash out the alpha male bullshit now, Letty figured, and it wouldn't interfere with the mission later.

"Aren't you meant to be part of the team, Shaw?" she called out, walking past the line of six cars to her right. Elizabeth sat at the end beside the thirty-something year old Zhiguli, cross-legged on the floor, a sheaf of papers in hand and a toolkit beside her. Under the car itself was a growing pile of parts. "Didn't see your ass upstairs."

"I've got more important things to do."

"Like fix that piece of crap?"

Until she found an active landline, with a modem attached to it, or Hobbs and his little government lackey allowed her access to an internet connection, there was little Elizabeth could do but sit, and solder, and draw and wait. "Yeah."

"Okay." Letty chuckled. If Shaw thought she could keep that thing's tyres from flying off the axles every time she took a corner, more power to her. Zhiguli, or Lada as they'd been sold in the States, were notorious for falling apart. Every old Russian guy she'd talked to during her Moscow heist had spoken of fond and not so fond memories of fixing the car up while they froze their ass off. "Good luck."

"Thanks."

Letty continued down the aisle towards the other end of the warehouse. Right now, all she wanted was a strong cup of coffee and five minutes alone. No team, no Dom, no Hobbs — just herself and an almost-lethal dose of caffeine and sugar. It wasn't exactly a morning ritual, nor anything on par with meditation and all that mindfulness shit. Letty simply enjoyed having space to breathe after so many years of crowded rooms and confined spaces.

Upstairs, Dom leaned on the table, palms flat, resting all his weight on it. Hobbs and Brian sat at one end of the table, Deckard and Owen at the other. Roman, Tej and Ramsey were downstairs, dealing with things their own way. "So how long do you think this'll take, Hobbs?"

"Weeks, possibly months. Cipher hasn't exactly left a trail," Luke said. He'd done his best to avoid mentioning any timelines during the meeting. There was no sense in giving them false hope about going home early, or revealing the card up his sleeve with Owen in the room. "Luring her out is the best option."

He wouldn't say it aloud but Dom had been hoping it'd be a few days, two weeks at most. He didn't want to be away from Marcus any longer than he had to be. Then there was Letty — her words had played on a loop in his head. Their conversation outside the car, the one from his dream. Everything was bringing his fears to the surface, no matter their age. "Whose ass would be on the line?"

"Yours," Deckard said. "Your team's."

If Cipher had kept a copy of God's Eye, she'd only have to use facial recognition and backtrack their movements. Toretto's face and those of his team would be on every camera between here and Los Angeles, providing a yellow brick road Cipher could follow all the way to Nowhere.

Given his family's not-so-discreet extraction from London and subsequent illegal entry into the States, it was doubtful that anyone was aware of Deckard's presence in the country, let alone that of his siblings. With any luck, he'd keep it that way. The last thing Deckard wanted was someone tipping off his grudge-holding enemies.

"Why?"

"Cipher doesn't know where we are, or of our involvement," Deckard said. Despite Hobbs' connections, he and Mr. Nobody seemed to be keeping the mission firmly below the radar. That was kind of a given when he thought about it, what with Cipher being their target. "The longer we stay in the shadows, the better the odds of catching her."