Chapter Text
They were halfway out of the door when the delivery-man stopped Eliot and handed him a plain white envelope and asked for a signature.
„What is it?“, Parker asked from over his shoulder.
He smiled at the man and gave him a tip. “What’s it look like? A letter, Parker.”
“Why did you get a letter? From who?”
“I don’t know. It doesn’t say.” The envelope didn’t give a hint about who sent it but the letter certainly wasn’t junk. It had been delivered by UPS instead of normal mail but that didn’t tell him much except that it wasn’t likely to be advertising. Still – it was a letter so it couldn’t be that urgent. “I’ll read it later. Let’s go get the food.”
Parker’s fingers were in his pocket before Eliot could react and she jiggled the car-keys just out of his reach. “I’m driving. You can read the letter in the car!”
Eliot groaned. “If you’re driving, I can’t even read the street-signs, let alone a letter. Gimme the keys. Parker!” But she was already at the car and behind the wheel and so he prepared himself for ten minutes of practicing his meditation-techniques and took the passenger seat.
He forgot about the letter for a while over bickering with Parker and trying to teach Harry some basic evasive moves. How the guy hadn’t been punched in the face more often was a complete mystery, considering the job he used to do and the people he’d screwed over in the process. But as everyone was leaving the kitchen for their own rooms, Eliot felt the crinkly paper in his pocket and opened the envelope on his way to the stairwell.
There was just one page in it and on that page just two words.
Ceci. Please.
Well – fuck.
**
“Run that by me again?” Sophie’s eyebrows were about to meet her hairline, her dark eyes glittering in a surprising mixture of astonishment and hope that she’d heard wrong. “You’re going where?”
He didn’t feel like explaining everything, he really didn’t. Hadn’t they just recently talked about how he didn’t owe them anything? Well … apparently that wasn’t exactly true, but it wasn’t like it was a surprise. Eliot knew who owed what to whom, and he was on the top of the list.
The who list. Not the whom one.
“San Lorenzo,” he repeated with as much patience and calm as he could dig up.
“Okay, so I did hear it right. But… why?”
God, as much as he loved them – could they not maybe just accept things without excavating everything and anything? Even Breanna was there and although she stayed quiet, Eliot saw her head twitch slightly as her ears perked up.
“What’s in San Lorenzo?” Harry asked as he stepped into the room, “better yet - where is San Lorenzo? Isn’t that in Middle America somewhere?”
“That’s San Salvador,” Eliot grumbled. “San Lorenzo’s a different continent. Less of a mess.” Pretty much anything was less of a mess than San Salvador – although a lot of countries were pushing hard to be competition.
“When?” Eliot had known Parker was above them on the rafters and he’d suspected that she was the reason for the not-in-his-pockets-anymore letter. Even if he’d have liked to keep his trip out of general knowledge, he hadn’t even thought about keeping it from her.
Keeping secrets from Parker was nearly impossible and most of all, he didn’t like doing it.
“Tomorrow. Already booked a flight.”
“Okay,” she said, accepting and probably re-scheduling everything. “Two tickets?”
Eliot nodded. At least Hardison was not here. He’d be pissed that he didn’t know about this and maybe Sophie would be as well but Alec would be pissed-pissed. He still took major offence if he found out things he felt he should have known already, especially from Eliot. Parker always got a pass but that was okay – Parker was pretty much the exception to every rule.
Maybe not gravity, but that was a close thing as well.
Sophie had been suspiciously quiet but she obviously got it before anyone else. “You’re going to talk to Moreau, am I right?”
“What!?”
“Really?”
“Who?”
“Yeah.”
Closing her eyes briefly to gather strength, probably, Sophie sighed. “Is that a good idea?”
“It’s not. I don’t have a choice.”
“Oh Eliot. We always have a choice.”
So apparently, he’d got it wrong as she clearly didn’t really get it- get it. “Well, maybe,” he conceded. ”But right now, I’m making this one.”
“Who is Moreau?”, Harry asked, intrigued at the history he was clearly missing and Breanna, who probably knew about all that drama from Alec, was typing something on her tablet and handed it over to him. “Ah. Oh…” Harry’s widened. “That Moreau. Oh boy…”
“Did you ever work for him?” Sophie asked Wilson, looking for possible connections and interesting little coincidences. Eliot very much doubted it – Damien had never liked lawyers very much and he wouldn’t have hired one from America if he’d needed one. He’d been rather snobbishly arrogant towards Americans.
With at least one exception, obviously.
To his side, Harry shook his head and let his hands shift across the countertop. He always did that when he was feeling self-conscious about his work and Eliot wondered if he himself had a tell for that same occasion. Probably. “Oh, no. No, my clients had all been a little less… obvious crooks. I’ve heard about him, of course. I’m certain one or the other of my clients have dealt with him, directly or indirectly, but I never came across him.”
Breanna snatched her tablet back and started typing. “Good,” she muttered with an angry frown. “Better stay clear of him. He’s a nasty piece of shit.”
Oh yeah, she knew about him from Alec, alright.
“Should I pack my taser?” Parker asked, now from beside him. Her shoulder was pressing into his, a steady ‘I’m here, I won’t leave’ that Eliot appreciated more than he’d ever be able to say. He shook his head.
“No. I’m pretty sure you can get one in San Lorenzo. Easier than taking it on the plane.”
“Ahem, excuse me, but why are we just calmy talking about Eliot going to visit Damien Fucking Moreau in prison? Why’m I the only one slightly bothered by that?” Sophie put her hand on Breanna’s shoulder but angrily, she shook it off. “No! The guy is a criminal of mafia-proportions and he nearly drowned my brother and killed all of you! I’m not going to calm down unless someone explains to me why we’re all so chill right now!”
“Well, I’m not chill,” Sophie said and Eliot wholeheartedly believed her. “But the man’s in prison and will remain in prison and if Eliot feels the need to talk to him, he’ll do so with or without us being calm. So I prefer to not waste irritation on something I won’t be able to change.” She turned away from Breanna and locked onto Eliot, who met her gaze without flinching. “I am, however, waiting for a bit more of an explanation.”
From his side, Eliot felt Parker raise her hand. “Me, too.” Then she let if fall back down again. “Oh – does it have to do with the letter?” To practically nobody’s surprise, especially not Eliot’s, she pulled the crumbled paper out of her own pocket and unfolded it. “So – who’s Ceci?”
“Cecilia Santi.” Eliot was really, really glad Hardison wasn’t here. “She’s my god-daughter.”
**
“Wait wait wait.” Breanna’s face was a mixture of disbelief and anger, so much like her brother in so many ways, not just the love for technology. “You’re saying Damien Fucking Moreau snatched your god-daughter and is what? Blackmailing you?”
Despite not wanting to, Eliot huffed a laugh. “No, kiddo. Some things aren’t as black and white as we want them to be.”
“Huh,” Harry said quietly and when Eliot looked up, he met his gaze with a wry grin. “This letter – it’s from Moreau I assume?”
He nodded.
“He said ‘Please’,” Sophie murmured as she turned the otherwise empty page over. “That doesn’t sound like blackmail.” She met Eliot’s eyes and now he saw her get it, saw the tumblers click and fall into place. “She’s his daughter.”
”What?!”
So glad Hardison was still in Madagascar, or wherever.
“You are the godfather of Damien Moreau’s daughter?” Harry blinked and then grinned wide and sharkish. “You’re even more interesting than I’d assumed. And I’ve already assumed you to be very interesting.”
Eliot couldn’t help but chuckle.“As compliments go, I’ll take it.” The past was still a sour spot on his mind and left him with too many nightmares and regrets, but if he couldn’t sometimes joke about it, he’d go completely insane.
But Breanna didn’t want to be amused. She had her arms crossed and the look on her face was painfully reminiscent of her brother, the anger palpable in the space between Eliot and her. “Spill,” she said and while she didn’t have the same rights as Alec, Parker or Sophie to Eliot’s secrets, he liked her and wouldn’t want her to be truly mad at him.
He also didn’t want her to start digging for herself and maybe find things that should be buried and lost.
Eliot took a seat even though theoretically, the story wasn’t that long or complicated. “When I worked for Moreau, he would have his daughter over every weekend. She was … I think she was five the first time I saw her.” He knew exactly how old she’d been. Five and two-quarters, because she’d come right at him and struck her hand out, smiling all over her pudgy little face covered in chocolate and proudly said so. Five and two-quarters. ”That’s five-and-a half, pipsqueak,” Eliot had responded without thought.
”Really? How do you know that?”
“Maths. Don’t worry – you’ll learn that, too.”
He’d not thought much about it, just a few words with a little kid. Damian had, though.
“So whenever she was there, Moreau appointed me her bodyguard. After someone kidnapped her and I got her back, he’d asked her if she would like me to be her godfather.” Eliot shrugged. “She said yes, so… that’s it.” He shrugged once more, dismissively, as if that hadn’t been a big deal. As if that moment hadn’t been one of the best in his life at that point. Damien had been shaken by the attempt on Ceci’s life and Eliot hadn’t been much better, the kid too much part of his life by then to not be. The two of them had sat in front of her bedroom all night, peeking inside every hour or so to make sure she was alright. They hadn’t spoken, hadn’t talked. Just sat and worried, a quiet companionship that Eliot had missed like a lost limb after he’d cut himself free of Damien’s orbit.
It was the day after that he’d asked Eliot if he would consider becoming Ceci’s go-to father if he’d be killed. ”That’s a bold choice,” Eliot had joked. ”Considering that if you’re dead, I failed to do my job.” But Damien had insisted and because Ceci was adorable and her father was his boss, on the verge of being a friend, Eliot had agreed on the condition that she’d be okay with it.
She had been. Very okay.
“When she was nine, it became obvious that she wouldn’t be able to visit her father anymore and she hasn’t been in contact with him since.”
It sounded easy but he remembered the discussion and planning the two of them had done to make her invisible to prying eyes.
”Eliot… I… Do you think I’m being fair to her?” They were sitting in the living-room, Eliot on the couch and Damien in his comfortable leather arm-chair. “I want her around, want to see her grow up. But I’ve got too many enemies now. You know that better than anyone.”
Eliot nodded. Just the day before, he’d taken down two formerly trustworthy security-guards who’d come dangerously close to killing Damien in his office. Those two would never be a problem for anyone or anything, but there would be others. “I do. And I agree - I don’t think she should be here.”
Damien sighed and sagged into the leather, sadness and devastation hidden behind determination on his face. “I love her. She’s the best part of me and if she grows up in this house, with all that I can offer and give her but with all the restrictions and security-measures she would need to stay alive, I’ll be trapping her like a princess in a tower. And I’ll be the dragon.”
“Mad witch, more like it.” Eliot smirked and Damien grinned and raised his wine-glass.
“Indeed. So – let’s erase her from my life.”
“So let me get this straight. Not only did you work for Moreau, you’re also his daughter’s godfather, you quit, he tried to kill you, you and y’all put him into prison forever and now he’s asking you for… something to do with that girl? Am I getting this right?”
“That’s what I’m getting, too,” Harry piped in. “What happened that he would bring her up?”
Eliot growled. “I don’t know! That’s why I’m going to San Lorenzo tomorrow and when I’m back, I’ll let you know.”
He might need them. There would have to be something very serious going on with Ceci for Damien to ask Eliot for help.
Please.