It was a fight over who got to come with me to Bristol.

Lia and Max, of course, both wanted to come with me. Both of them wanted to have my back and neither wanted to be left out of the action.

Malcolm Ortiz had wanted to come as well. It was both surprising and unsurprising. On the one hand, I had presumed that he would wish to stay with Daniel until his son woke up. On the other, Wes had become something of a son to him as well and it made sense that he would wish to see his rescue all the way through.

The only person who didn't attempt to weasel their way into the mission was Jack. The both of us knew that it was much too risky for the two of us to stay together, especially while entering a Scorpion stronghold. Instead, Jack would be departing for a safe house that neither he nor I currently knew the location of.

In the end, only Max would come with me. He was trying to call in some favours with other agents that he personally knew and trusted to fill the void. Lia would stay with Tasha. Malcolm, for all of his talk, was too injured to come with us. He'd been dealing fine with the injuries he'd sustained in the prison thus far but we didn't want to take the risk that he could be injured worse. He and Grace would be staying with Daniel.

As Max arranged transportation from Munich to Bristol, I spoke with Jack. Driving would take too long. It was over a thirteen-hour drive, excluding traffic and any other troubles we might come across. Flying would be ideal. We could hop on a plane and be in England in a little over two hours.

"You'll be okay?" Jack asked me as he raked a hand through his peppered hair.

It was clear that he didn't want to leave. I understood the feeling. Even though I was having a hard time seeing him as my father and part of my family, it was hard to deny that I wanted to have that relationship with him. Now that he was here in the flesh, I wanted the chance to get to know him better, to learn about my biological mother and the life I could have had if they hadn't been ripped from me at such a young age.

I flipped my auburn-coloured hair out of my eyes. I couldn't wait to dye it back to the blonde I was familiar with. I wasn't sure how long it would be until I was able to take that risk, but I hoped that it came sooner rather than later.

"Yes. We'll be fine."

"Just the two of you..." he grumbled, sounding unconvinced. His eyes slipped down the hallway to where Max was pacing and speaking in low tones on the phone.

"It's okay. We work well together. He's got my back and I've got his. We'll be fine. Besides," I added, "he's trying to call in reinforcements now."

Jack's mouth turned down into a frown. "Only people you trust. If you meet these people he's calling in and they give you a bad feeling, then you go in alone. Don't bring in anyone you don't trust. You're better off doing it yourself at that point instead of watching your back and your front."

"Okay."

Jack stared at me for a long moment and then, unexpectedly, pulled me into a large hug. It was a hug I hadn't expected and one that made me feel warm and oddly safe, like these were the arms that should have been hugging me my entire life. I supposed they were.

"We'll see each other again," he whispered in my ear, sounding choked up. "I don't know when but I refuse to lose you so soon after getting you back."

I nodded and breathed in the moment for a moment before pulling away. "I know we will. When you get settled...?"

"I'll get word to you. I promise."

"Good." I looked over his shoulder. Max was staring at me and when our eyes met, he nodded grimly and turned to walk away. I knew that it was time to go.

Jack had turned as well and realized the same thing that I had. He turned back to face me, gaze somber. "I guess it's time for you to leave now."

"I think so." I shuffled my feet, unsure what to say.

"You'll do great. I know you will. It's in your blood."

My lips turned upwards into a slight smile. "Yeah, I guess it is." I stared up into the gaunt face of my father, looked into the eyes that were the exact same of mine and felt all of a sudden like I was finally ready to go.

It was a moment I'd been eager to have arrive. To finally get to Wes and have him completely out of harm's way. And while I didn't know what the outcome of this mission would be, didn't know if we would all make it alive. Didn't know if I would make it out alive. Now, though, I realized that Wes wouldn't be alone even if I did die. He would have Daniel and his parents and he would have Jack, his uncle who I knew in my soul would come for him if something were to happen to me.

"Goodbye, Jack," I said to him as I went to step past him to head to where Max was waiting.

"I'll see you soon, kid."

I felt Jack's eyes on my back as I approached Max. My brother stared down at me with an undeterminable expression on his face. "You ready to go?" he asked. He was standing in front of the elevator and as I reached his side he pressed the button.

"Yes," I said. "I am. Is everything in order?"

"No, but it should be by the time we land in Bristol."

"How are we getting there?"

I still couldn't read Max's expression. He was keeping it carefully blank for a reason I couldn't understand. "Our ride is going to meet us at the Munich airport in an hour. Private plane. We've got it worked out so that we won't need to worry about getting through customs. The last thing we need is to have your face run through passport facial recognition software. Scorpion could be watching the airways. If they see where we're going..."

"They'll know exactly what we're planning," I finished. The elevator doors in front of us slid open and we stepped inside. Max hit the button that would take us down to the main floor from which we could exit to the parking lot. As the elevator lurched to a start, I asked, "Who did you get as a pilot that would help us on such short notice."

Max, for the first time, betrayed a little bit of emotion. "You're not going to like it."

"Tell me."

The elevator clanged to a stop and the doors opened. We stepped out onto the main floor and headed for the exit. "Patrick Callaghan."

I faltered at the though of seeing my ex-boyfriend again, someone I hadn't spoken to in close to a year, but kept walking as we passed through the doors. Our car, one of the large armoured vehicles from the mission was sitting in the first spot, right where we'd left it. "Patrick is coming here?"

"Yes. He said he's been working an op. in Moldova. When I said you were in trouble he jumped at the chance to help out. He's flying in now." Max unlocked the car and slid into the driver's seat. I hopped in next to him and shut the door as he started the engine and pulled out of the lot.

"Won't his team need him?"

"He said they could get by without him. He told them it was a personal matter. Family kind of thing and that he really needed to be there so he's coming."

It was only then, when I realized that my ex was on his way to help me save my brother's life, did I remember something that had completely escaped my memory. The conversation I'd had with Giulia came flooding back.

'Your father, especially. Jack never trusted a lot of people, but he really didn't like Niall Callaghan."

Max looked down at me, saw the hesitant expression on my face. For once, his assumption was incorrect. "Look, Mel, it'll be fine. He's not mad that you broke up with him, anymore—"

"It's not that." I shook my head and kicked myself internally for my stupidity. "The woman who gave me my intel about the prison also told me that my parents never trusted their handler when they were on the run. It was Patrick's father. Niall Callaghan. I wish I'd remembered to talk to Jack about it but with everything that happened, Daniel and Tasha, it slipped my mind."

His hand's clenched against the steering wheel as he turned the car, the skin on his knuckles turning pale white. "I hate to ask this but do you think Patrick's father is one of them? Do you think Pat is?"

I shrugged. "I have no idea. Patrick is a good agent, he's smart, resourceful...it's possible that he played us like fools while we were at school. And if he happened to figure out who my biological parents were and was trying to use me as leverage then it could explain why he got so angry when I severed ties with him."

"It's possible." Max nodded, considering. His foot pressed against the accelerator with more force and the car began to pick up speed, flying down the street in the early morning light. "But the two of you spent a lot of time alone together. He would have had plenty of opportunities to get you to Scorpion."

I'd considered this as well. What I didn't know was whether or not Patrick had been planning this and had been soiled by inopportune moments or if my breaking up with him had limited his chances and caused Scorpion to pursue other options to get me on my own and vulnerable...like murdering my mother and father and sending me on the run.

"It's too late to call him off," Max said. He looked over at me, eyes hard. "He'd get suspicious and if he and his father are working for Scorpion then they'd just tip them off to what we were doing. He doesn't know why we're infiltrating Scorpion, just that time is of the essence and discreetness is a must. If we can keep him in the dark until we get in there and find Wes then we'll be fine. Then, if either of us get an inkling like he might be working against us then we can leave him behind and get out with your brother."

"Okay."

I was glad to have Max by my side. While it terrified me having both of my brothers in danger, he was the only person who really knew the way that I thought and acted. It was nice to have him beside me and knowing that he would be fighting to save my brother's life just as hard as I was.

Just over an hour later, Max and I arrived at the Munich airport. We'd just pulled up to the tarmac in the back when the door to a small plane opened and Patrick Callaghan himself appeared in the flesh.

He was just as handsome as he was the last time I'd seen him. He was tall and fair-skinned with dark features. His hair was the colour of a tar pit and his brown eyes were so dark they were nearly black. There was a pair of dark browns drawn low over his harsh eyes. Even from a distance, I could make out the sinewy muscles that accentuated his arms and legs. He looked strong, fierce, and deadly.

When we stepped out of the car and began to approach him, the corner of his mouth lifted in an almost imperceptible twitch. "Maxwell Bennett as I live and breath." Patrick's thick Irish accent fell over me. He hailed from a small coastal town called Dun Laoghaire, a town that was just over nine-miles away from Dublin.

"Patrick," Max replied. "How are you?"

"Well enough." The dark gaze slid over to me. "Melanie."

"Hey, Pat." I tried for a smile and didn't quite manage. I couldn't get the thought of his father potentially working for Scorpion out of my head and couldn't quite escape the idea that we were about to escorted into a viper pit by the very serpent himself.

He regarded me cooly for a moment and then a wry smile graced his face. The change was immediate. He went from dark and unapproachable to the guy you would want to buy a drink for at the local pub in an instant. His face lightened considerably and humour fell into his eyes.

"It's nice to see you," he said. "You look good."

"You, too."

Patrick beckoned us on board. "Let's go. We are in a hurry, yes?"

The plane ride was slightly awkward. Max sat up front in the co-pilot's seat with Patrick and the two of them spoke in low tones throughout much of the trip. I stayed in the back, surveying the impressive array of weaponry that Patrick had brought along with him. He said that he wasn't sure what kind of situation we were walking into and had wanted to be prepared for anything.

He was.

The various hidden compartments on his plane were filled with knives and guns of varying lengths and calibers. He had grenades and grappling hooks, vials of poison and even a rocket launcher. I had no idea where that had come from and wasn't much inclined to ask.

Eventually, the plane touched down in Bristol. It was still early morning. We'd left Munich at a little after eight a.m. It was a two-hour flight but, due to the time difference, we arrived in Bristol at nine-fourteen a.m.

I didn't know what to expect when we disembarked the plane in Bristol but what happened had never crossed my mind. The first thing that I saw when we stepped off of the plane was a town car that sped across the tarmac and came to park only fifty feet away. And from the driver's seat appeared the last person I'd expected to see.

Henri Lemoine was staring at me, a wide and pleasant smile on his face. His light brown hair was blowing softly in the breeze and he was wrapped up in a dark blue sweater that brought out of the colour of his eyes.

I turned to Max. "Did you know he was coming?"

"Not for certain. I called him and hoped that he would show up." But there was a twinkle in his eyes that told me he'd been more than certain that Henri would help us.

"How are you doing?" Henri asked me as we approached. He pulled me in for a rough one-armed hug when we were close enough. Max followed tightly beside me while Patrick hung back, watching the three of us interact with an unreadable expression on his face. "Max told me that Tasha's been injured and that you needed me. Are you all right?"

"I'm fine but I'll be better once this mission is over."

He nodded grimly. "What are we after? Max didn't have a chance to say over the phone. Said he was worried that someone might be trying to listen in on the conversation or something and that we needed to be discreet."

"It's not a what but a who. A prisoner but I can't tell you who it is. Confidential."

Henri swallowed thickly but there was a hard, determined glean in his eyes. "Tough but I can work with it. We should get moving. We need to be prepared before barging in."

And so we went.

It was the fastest and slowest few hours of my life. Henri drove the four of us back to the hotel that he was staying and we unloaded our gear, most of it weapons stolen from Patrick's stash on his plane, in his room. Henri had been working fast—while he'd come to get us he'd left his computer running. He'd installed some of Tasha's software on his computer and as it ran it had hacked into Scorpion's Bristol compound where he was able to get a layout of the building, as well as, some employee profiles before Scorpion's own tech experts had pushed him out of their system permanently.

We decided that Henri would stay behind, running point from the hotel and directing us around as best as he could. He would try and hack back into Scorpion's database once more, attempting to get onto their surveillance feeds, in order to keep us out of harm's way and try to figure out where my brother was being kept though for secrecy sake, we hadn't yet told either Henri or Patrick that it was my brother we were after. As far as they knew, the target's identity was confidential and that the only Max and I really knew who we were after.

The two had, of course, heard of my misgiving's with the CIA and MI6 and Interpol. They knew that I was wanted and assumed that the person we were after would be used to clear my name. I was just lucky that the two of them knew me well enough to look past the events of the past week and a bit to help me out.

The European branch of Scorpion's business was run out of a large corporate office in downtown Bristol. It was a shock to me even though Jack had already told me that this was where it was. It was strange to think that an office building, much like the skyscrapers that littered the Manhattan skyline in New York, could be home to such a foreboding and dangerous group.

I wasn't entirely sure that it was smart to go into enemy territory with only three of us. Especially since I wasn't certain that we could even trust Patrick. Max, I knew, shared my concerns for he met my confused gaze with a searching one of his own on several occasions.

We hadn't included Henri in one the truth of my parentage and our doubts of Patrick. Neither of us were opposed to telling him the truth but the opportune moment to do so hadn't arisen. Patrick was always in the too-near vicinity for me to get even a whispered word to Henri and so the secret stayed between Max and I.

Even though the corporate building was home to one of the most dangerous organizations in the entire world, there were still working offices and departments inside of the building. It was more than a thoroughly believable guise. It seemed that this outpost in Bristol was were Scorpion did most of their business and where they attained the majority of their funds that went towards the group.

In conjunction with their terror organization, the building also housed two floors of lawyers' offices, several independent contractors offering a variety of services, a few accountants and financial advisers, and an entire floor devoted to security.

I was certain that every single person who worked in the building was packing at least one handgun, if not multiple. The security personnel were probably agents who were too stupid to do little more than be Scorpion's muscle. Everyone else, I assumed, served an essential purpose to Scorpion's corporation.  

We entered the building under a pretense. We had an appointment with one of the lawyers, courtesy of Henri who hacked in and slotted us in. As far as the lawyer was concerned, we were there to discuss the changing of a will. We got in easily enough. I was worried about a security camera picking up my face on a feed—of the three of us entering the building, I was evidently the one they would be on the lookout for—and so we waited for a large crowd to enter in order to semi-hide in their encompassing mass.

Even so, we had to enter through security alone. There was a set of metal detectors meaning that we were unable to sneak any of our weapons in. That was where Henri came in. From three blocks away, on the eighth floor of a respectable hotel, he hacked into the computer system that controlled the metal detectors. They would not go off even if the person walking through them were carrying a metal briefcase. Instead, they beeped pleasantly, alerting the security staff that we had nothing metal on us, even though each of us were packing two handguns, several knives, and communications units.

I did not understand how Henri had been able to manipulate the system so easily and completely but I was pleased that he was on our team instead of the oppositions'.

Max, Patrick, and I split up. It wasn't ideal but since there was only three of us and we had a lot of space to cover it was the only plan we could fathom that made any sort of sense. Henri would be scouring the security feeds, searching for any sign of Randall Walker. He was the key to finding Wes. Jack had assured me of this. He had been absolutely certain that Walker would be keeping my brother nearby, hopefully somewhere in this building.

"Anyone find anything promising yet?" Max asked in the communications unit in my ear. He was wandering about the ninth floor.

I was five floors above him. "Not yet," I muttered, low enough that the words were impossible to pickup on the security cameras.