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"Why would I lie about one of my most favorite missions?" Chris sharply turned to Shane with one eyebrow raised, though the smile on their lips showed they were not offended by the man's doubt. "It was an insane mission, especially when the Red Sparrows learned I was a spy."
“Oh shit, how’d you get out of there?” Shane asked, leaning forward in interest. The pile of folders lay discarded by his side, and his full attention was on Chris.
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A bright smile exploded on Chris' face as they began to remember that moment. "While I was trained with the Red Sparrows, I knew things that they didn't—had training that they didn't. It's pretty easy to use someone's own work against them when you know how." they let out a soft chuckle and rubbed their temple. "Men were set as honeytraps as well, and they were the ones who were the easiest to manipulate." Chris' happy expression turned into a frown for a moment as they added. "Doesn't mean it was easy, or that it came without pain."
Shane was entranced by Chris’s story, and winced when they mentioned the downsides. “Yikes. That sounds rough,” he murmured sympathetically. He rubbed a hand across his jaw and looked away. “I’ve never even left the state,” he admitted. “Traveling so far away with no one to rely on.. that’s pretty brave.”
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"Brave, dangerous, but a hell of a lot of fun." Chris patted Shane's arm lightly, a surprisingly innocent look in their eyes. The concept of never leaving the state was so surreal in their mind that they almost pitied the man. "Well if you want, I can take you on a trip? Anywhere you want to go, you name it, and we will go."
“Sounds lovely,” Shane said quietly. He gave Chris a small smile. “Could I have a rain check on that offer, though? Right now, I’m needed at home more than ever.” He tugged his jacket off of the chair and spread it over his lap. To be honest, Shane was rather scared to admit that he had no idea where he wanted to go.
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"I think we are all needed at home more than ever." Chris glanced around at the others in the room, convinced that only Tam was in the house 24/7. They turned their attention back to the discarded files with only a half smile on their lips. "Lets get back to work shall we?"
"You've been needed at home for years," Tam said mildly, reaching over for one of the files and scanning through it with only a cursory level of interest. His Russian was nowhere near passable, he only managed to catch a few words. "Anyways, what are we looking for again?"
“Grudges, enemies, that kind of thing. People with a motivation to kill Bear.” Shane listed them off on his fingers.
Tam nodded, flipping through a few more pages before he grabbed another. And another. And another. "Grudges and enemies are great, but isn't this all covert ops? Even if Cris got their cover blown, nobody knew they were linked to Bear."
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"That's where you are wrong." Chris took all the papers and set them out on the floor. They grabbed a highlighter pen off the desk and started drawing all over the papers. Every bright yellow line was another enemy's name, another incident concerning Bear and the family. They took all the other files and did the same thing. Of course, everything had been written in code, of course Tam wouldn't have seen the names. "That should make it easier for you." Chris sighed, capping the pen and chucking it among the papers on the floor.
Shane tilted his head in consideration. “Good point. Maybe we should be looking broader. Perhaps anyone who could’ve seen our organization as a threat, or groups working in our same field.” He looked on at Chris’s edits, and smiled. “That’s… a lot.”
"But everyone sees our organization as a threat." Tam offered Chris a grateful smile, picking up one of the slightly less mysterious-looking folders and starting to work on deciphering it. "That's kind of the whole point. I'd say we're better off looking into people who would gain from our family's collapse but haven't shown outright aggression for a while."
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"I am a very thorough person." Chris tossed their hair flamboyantly and cocked their hip. "I always have to prepare for the worst, so any little detail is worth noting down." They picked up one of the papers for an example. "This document is talking about my time in the Sparrow school," with one perfectly manicured finger they pointed at one of the highlighted lines. "This line here mentions a completely different thing regarding the Spanish mafia and their activity against Bear." They carefully placed the paper back down on the floor, and a solemn look befell their features. "It didn't matter what I was writing about at the time, if I had information to give I would write it down anywhere, even in the middle of a sentence." It was Chris' job to do that after all. After scanning over the rest of the papers, they picked up another one and handed it to Tam. "If you're looking for someone who would benefit from all of this then this is the one you want to read."
Tam took it eagerly, flipping through the pages with an every growing smile. "Oh! This is just perfect, Chris! Aggressive, dangerous, just smart enough to stay under the radar. It's exactly the right profile for someone who plans to uproot our little criminal empire. What's this line here say?" He pointed to a rather large chunk of highlighted text.
“Spanish mafia… They pulled off a big job on our turf a few years ago, but nothing since…” Shane mused. “I do think that sounds convincing.” He lounged back and leaned against the chair, eyes half-closed. “It’s real funny we have so many enemies,” he muttered sleepily.
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Chris' eyebrows knitted together as they read and re-read the highlighted chunk. After a couple of seconds they nodded their head. "After scouting out the home of Gilda Johannes, the leader of the Nordic Drug Syndicate, I found that Yves Sodean, the leader of the French street gang over in the states, had frequently visited for approximately 447 minutes a day. I managed to install a listening device into the major rooms of her home while posing as a maid, and discovered they plan to team up should Bear's reign end. While I don't currently feel they are a threat individually, if they were to form an alliance against Bear, the family may be in danger."
“Oh heck.” Shane sat up suddenly. “That does not sound too good for us. The Nords and the Frenchies teaming up is like something out of a nightmare.” He shivered involuntarily at the thought. “I should see if those two are mentioned as working together anywhere in my private documents.” He blushed the moment the words came out of his mouth. “Whoops. You guys weren’t supposed to know about those.”
"Yeah, those two are pretty much the dream team. Frenchies just got a shipment of illegal arms straight from Chinese smugglers and damn are they ready to step onto our turf." Tam seemed almost cheerful at the prospect, practically salivating over the thought of the guns. "And I can save you the trip to your secret diaries, Shanie Poo, we've cracked down on them three times to try and stop them from collaborating."
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A shadow crossed Chris' eyes as they turned their attention to Shane. "My life's work is here, on the floor, exposed for everyone to see, and you were planning to keep your personal documents to yourself?" The disbelief was unreal, the anger began to boil Chris' blood. They turned away from Shane and crossed their arms under their chest. "Unbelievable."
“Well, that was your choice! We’re in the goddamn mafia for Christ’s sake, and you act like I’m not allowed to keep secrets? Stop being so high and mighty,” Shane retorted angrily. He stood up and looked Chris right in the eyes, regardless of the fact that Shane was almost half a foot shorter than them.
Davie scoffs, “You may be right there, but we keep secrets from them. Not each other. We don’t keep secrets. We’re a family. Secrets is what lead to the death of the big guy. Secrets is what lead to the demise of several families before us. We do our job and a damn good job of it. That won’t be stopped by some need to keep secrets from people who always kept your best interest in mind.” He says, leaning farther back in his chair, “But that’s just my paranoid two-cents”
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Everything abut this situation was messed up, so why did they expect there to be no secrets between family members? "Lets just get back to work." they said firmly, a cold expression on their face. Chris never liked the phrase 'high and mighty', too many people had said it to them over the years and it was really starting to get on their nerves. "So, what now?"
“I’ll get my files, and you can translate yours,” Shane replied, a current of anger still running through his tone. “With both sources, I bet we can cover a lot more ground.” He stomped out of the room before realizing that he had forgotten where he had put his documents. “Shit,” he said under his breath.
Davie shakes his head, “Since we’re getting documents, i suppose I should retrieve any ones that I have?”
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"That would be helpful." Chris waved their hand dismissively. "Anyone else with documents? If so, kindly go and get them." While it was obvious Chris was just a little pissed off, they couldn't help but feel a proud that the others had thought to keep documents as well. They weren't as stupid as they seemed after all…
Shane stalked towards his room upstairs, figuring it would be a good place to start. He pushed open the door so it crashed into the wall with a satisfying thunk. A petty move, for certain, but Shane was feeling rather petty. Crouching down in front of his dresser, he began to rummage through his drawers. Each was filled with dozens upon of papers, organized by Shane’s nonsensical system that ensured he was the only one who could find anything in the mess. He let out a soft “yay!” when he found the folder he was looking for, wedged and crumpled in a corner.
Davie quickly went up to his room, retrieving any document that he had kept, he wasn’t the most organized so there wasn’t very many, but every little bit counts. He things to himself as he takes the small pile upstairs.
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Chris spent a lot of time in silence, rewriting and translating documents. Old memories came back to them, memories that they didn't realise they had forgotten until reading the documents. The mission in North Korea was the worst one to remember, a lot had happened then.
'The situation is worse than I thought. Men, women, even children, are being executed in the streets just for being themselves. I want to do the work that has been asked of me, but it's difficult to properly focus when the person you are trying to make a deal with keeps women as slaves. I tried to help them out, no one should be treated like that, but once they made it past the border they were captured and raped by Chinese traders. I myself almost became a victim. I found someone, another spy, who was willing to help me, but I needed to make a couple of sacrifices. Since I already have the typical Korean skin tone, that wasn't an issue, but I had to cut and dye my hair, and contacts were a must. My—'
Chris closed the file abruptly as they realised that tears were falling down their cheeks. Perhaps they weren't as strong as they told themselves they were.
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(bump?)
