Chapter Text
“Hey, where’s the fire, guys? There’s no need to-” Neal’s attempt at lightening the situation ended with him being grabbed roughly and dragged along, the sudden momentum and bruising grip enough to cut off his stream of words. By comparison, the coldly silent car ride now seemed rather nice. This close, he could clearly see the gun holstered beneath the jacket of the man next to him - and the other two men clustered too close for comfort were armed as well. Neal’s general dislike for guns was now turning his general discomfort into something more closely resembling panic, and he tried to tamp down on the feeling before it swallowed him.
“A quarter of a million dollars of debt three days overdue says there’s every reason to rush,” the man nearest Neal grunted, the words thick in his jowled mouth as if he were trying to eat them slowly. His grip remained firm on Caffrey’s arm even as his eyes scanned the shadowed warehouse they were swiftly approaching. Neal had grown increasingly uneasy the further they’d driven from populated areas, knowing that he’d already slipped through the FBI’s fingers - through Peter’s fingers. Again. After Peter had saved his skin at Talbot’s party, this felt like an even more rotten betrayal, but it had seemed like a good idea at the time - Kate’s name had come up. But now Neal wished that he’d come to his senses before these men had helped him slip his tracking anklet. By the time he’d realized that there was no Kate in sight, however, and alarm bells had been ringing in his head, he was already in the car with nothing on his ankle to tie him to the FBI.
Peter was going to kill him. They’d had discussions about what a slow learner Neal was, or how he at least had selective memory lapses where he forgot how badly things went for him every time he betrayed the trust of the FBI and used his rather prodigious skills to go AWOL. It was entirely possible that this would be the time that Peter finally lost his patience and let Neal rot in jail for a while. Hopefully only for a while... The thought of not having Peter in his corner made a sudden knot of panic tighten in his gut, painful and sharp.
He tried to do what he did best: talk his way out of things. That hadn’t worked very well at the Talbot party, where he’d been mistaken for an escort, but it needed to work now - since he was without backup. “You know, you guys really should have thought to find someone a little bit less high-profile,” he said, breathless but reasonably smooth, his million-dollar smile coming up like an old hat trick even if it felt less convincing than usual. Being ‘out of the wild’ and in the security of the FBI had domesticated him, apparently. “I mean, I know I’m good, but you also saw the anklet I was wearing until recently. It wasn’t a fashion statement.”
“It’s also gone ,” another man retorted, making Neal wince at the truth. They entered a large, empty building and immediately continued down a set of stairs. “And we’ve got a bit of practice dodging the police, bright-eyes. Besides, it’s too late now to find someone else low-profile.”
Neal’s heart sank as he began to realize how impossible this would be to wriggle out of. Damn. He’d originally figured that if he could slip away as quickly as possible and return contritely to FBI headquarters, things could be forgiven and forgotten. Apparently that wasn’t an option. “So Kate gave you my name, and you just… went for it?” He hadn’t seen hide nor hair of her, further sign that this had been a terrible decision from the start. He wasn’t sure what the best scenario was: that Kate’s name had just been used as bait, or that Kate had actually been involved, but just didn’t care enough to stick around after Neal got roped into this gig. Caffrey felt his heart twisting up painfully in his chest.
“You got the right skill-set, come highly recommended, and are as easy to find as a leashed dog,” the first man as Neal’s elbow clarified with a shrug, then grinned unkindly, “And we’re already at odds with the law, so sneaking you out from under the noses of your FBI handlers isn’t exactly against our moral code. It wasn’t even that hard.”
That, unaccountably, made the ex-con angry. He tugged back hard enough on the grip on his arm to actually bring them to a halt at the next landing, and glared defiantly when an impatient look was directed his way. “That’s just because Agent Burke hasn’t caught up with you yet,” he stated, voice self-assured despite the seed of worry in the back of his mind. He’d been complicit with this plan when it was first told to him - with Kate’s name sealing the deal - and had therefore helped in his own criminal elopement. With their combined efforts, Caffrey had really outdone himself, but now he felt a lot like a fox that had slipped out of the henhouse only to realize that he was running with a pack of foxhounds. Still, he put his best game-face on and added, “He’s caught me twice.” And hopefully he’d be willing to try and do it again, despite Neal once again betraying his trust. Things had been going so good after the Talbot incident - that had been just a week ago, and even though Neal still had no idea what all of that meant for his relationship with Peter, it had left him feeling warm in a way he hadn’t felt since Kate left him. Now he wasn’t sure that he’d get a chance to investigate that warm feeling further, and the thought of Peter’s impending, coldly disappointed anger had Neal’s insides cramping up. He felt like vomiting.
Apparently his new ‘friends’ saw the cracks in Neal’s warnings, because the hand around his arm tightened painfully again and yanked forward - proving that Neal didn’t have the weight or strength to match the other men. In fact, at least two of the three men surrounding him were built muscular and large, and the man jerking Neal around possibly weighed as much as Neal and Peter combined. Caffrey found himself toe-to-toe with him and tensing like a cat over hot water. “I don’t think you understand, Caffrey,” the brute murmured with false politeness and a small smile that was all poison, “I’ve got guys far scarier than your FBI breathing down my neck, and since you agreed to help, I expect you to follow through. I don’t have time to pander to your feelings just because you’re getting cold feet. So either you walk forward-”
Neal froze entirely and forgot to breathe as he suddenly felt something hard and narrow prod against his stomach. He didn’t want to look down, but knew without having to that he had a knife against him. There was no one else around but the criminals, he realized with a sudden, sickening feeling - no Good Samaritans to call out if things unexpectedly got messy. Nothing to make the man think twice about gutting one white-collar criminal who had changed his mind about this plan.
The thug paused long enough to let his threat sink in. “Do you understand?”
Swallowing, jaw clenching briefly while his arm shook from the numbing grip crushing it, the forger replied hoarsely, “Understood.” The chuckles around him made humiliation flush his cheeks, but Neal was a pragmatist, and would take embarrassed over dead any day. He didn’t look away from the beady, cold brown eyes in front of him - thinking about what he wouldn’t give for Peter’s brown eyes right now, far warmer and more compassionate - until the knife was put away again and his arm was released. Rubbing at his sore biceps and beginning to feel the true depth of the danger he’d waltzed right into, Neal glanced around to see the other felons loosely circled around behind him. No escape. Not without someone physically catching him or a bullet in the back of his skull. Or both.
Neal hated kidnapping situations. He hated it even more when he had no one to blame for the situation but himself and his stupid attachment to Kate.
~^~
As an opportunist, Neal Caffrey was known for slipping through the smallest loopholes and escapes that anyone could possibly imagine - but guns made him nervous, as did the promise of pain he saw in his companions’ eyes, and nervous hands never got a job done right. It was making his current task a whole helluva lot harder than it needed to be, and forgery was already hard. The hope of seeing Kate was growing sour in his mouth, too, although there was still the possibility that she could somehow alleviate the danger a little bit. Kate was good at getting out of trouble, and more at ease around firearms besides. Maybe she would still turn up, as he’d been promised she would.
“You’re going to have to let go of my arm if you want me to do anything,” Neal pointed out, the pain of the grip around his biceps starting to get to him - and maybe making him a bit more mouthy than was strictly safe. Instead of shutting up, which would have been the safe option, he babbled further, “Threatening my dominant hand might sound really gangster of you, but trust me, that’s not how to get a forger like me to do their best work for you.”
“Shut up.” Even as the man holding him - Wilson, he’d introduced himself, Neal belatedly remembered through the panic - grumbled that, he let Neal go, pushing him forward as he did so. Caffrey stumbled forward into a windowless room with a table and a few chairs in it; they were definitely in a basement. No doors but the one they’d just entered. The others - Kurkson and Dodds, Neal forced his memory to reboot and recall - filed in after him, a formidable wall between him and any sort of escape. Wilson crossed his arms and added, “If you get on my nerves, I might just break your hand after you make those documents for us.”
Dodds, the skinniest of the group but with a glint to his eyes that Neal didn’t like, smirked and chimed in, “You can be a frontman just fine with broken fingers.”
Suddenly Neal came alert with a whole new level of alarm. “Wait - frontman?” Kurkson and Williams glared mildly at Dodds, who had the good grace to look embarrassed. Neal moved his hand in a negating gesture. “No one said anything about a frontman. Even if I hadn’t said no, this deal was just to mock up some fake IDs for you.” What had started out sounding as an acceptable risk… and had then dawned on Neal as a bad idea… was swiftly becoming worse. Forging a few things - forgivable. Sometimes he even did that for a case, if Peter was more interested in results than he was in following every rule to the letter. Actually getting involved in a gang as their frontman, being an active part of the con? That felt like he was crossing a far more serious line, and suddenly the thought of Peter letting him go to jail for good felt all the more likely.
Apparently deciding that the cat was out of the bag and there was no real purpose in punishing Dodds for doing it, Wilson turned back to Neal with a shrug. “Plans change. Maybe if you hadn’t tried to back out on us, we could have discussed it - and paid you extra for the bonus work.”
“Because now you’re definitely not getting paid,” Dodds snickered under his breath, and this time Kurkson elbowed him in the ribs.
“No,” Neal repeated, firmer this time. “I’m not going to-”
He was cut off by Wilson closing the distance between them like an approaching crocodile and wrapping a hand around Neal’s throat.
“Let’s get one thing straight from the start, Caffrey,” words were spoken hotly into his face for the second time that day, although most of Neal’s focus was on trying to get a grip on the fingers around his neck, to try and pry them loose. He was listening by default, but he was also struggling to breathe, pushed backwards by Wilson’s approach and scrambling to regain his footing. “I don’t like it that you’ve had a sudden resurgence of conscience, but I’ll deal with it. The girl warned me that you might. All I care about is getting the job done, and regardless of your cooperation, that’s going to happen.” Wilson’s hand lifted, and it was horrifying to realize that this man was not only big enough but strong enough to lift Neal up on his toes, air becoming a rarer commodity still. Wilson went on, voice level, clearly unbothered by what he was doing, “So you’re going to do what we say and you’re going to do it without arguing.” Neal used to run criminals, yes, but even at his worst days he’d avoided men like these - the ones that had become inured to hurting and killing other people. Now he thrashed and tried to cough out words, anything to get some air before his chest imploded. “Your only choice is whether or not you do what I say with or without blood and bruises involved. Understood?”
As Wilson asked that last question, he let go. Caffrey just about dropped right to the ground, managing to stagger back and keep his feet under him just barely. Although he didn’t end up on his ass, Neal did end up holding his throat and wheezing loudly, the rushing return of air so painful and sweet that it brought instant tears to his eyes.
But when Wilson barked, “I asked you a question, Caffrey. Do we have an understanding?” Neal just nodded. His mind was latching onto the part of Wilson’s speech about ‘the girl,’ and the increasing understanding that Kate had lured him out into the woods just to be eaten by wolves.
~^~
They wanted Neal to forge them IDs to get them past the security of the Heissburg Building, a new skyscraper where many of the rich and famous lived - and which also boasted secure, high-end storage that no one ever talked about. The rich and famous had to keep their belongings somewhere, after all. Even Neal had to respect their security measures, although it was new enough that he’d never had the opportunity to test them. He knew that they employed a mixture of human and technological measures to keep both their occupants and treasures safe - meaning that IDs alone weren’t going to get them through. “The IDs will only get us so far,” he immediately told the other three, hoping to convince them that this was an impossible task so maybe they’d let him go before Peter got too upset about the cut tracking anklet, “Into the building, yes, but beyond that there are guards who would notice a bunch of new faces long before we reached the storage areas.”
“Good thing we’re not all going in there then,” Williams replied with an unsettling grin. By the way everyone was looking at Caffrey, their intent was clear.
And when Neal gritted his teeth and opened his mouth to argue… Dodds took out a gun and placed it on the table. Neal drew back from it instinctively, his instinct to avoid it; perhaps Peter would have taken the opportunity to maybe make a grab for the weapon, but Peter also knew his way around weapons. Neal knew his way around a paintbrush, and it was clear to everyone in the room that he’d never be a threat to anyone but himself with a loaded weapon. The gang chuckled as Caffrey backed down again.
“So. You were saying?” Williams pushed, faux-friendly.
Grudgingly, Neal sighed, “I guess I was saying that I was going to go in on my own, and make sure that no one got suspicious of one friendly face.”
“Good man.”
“But this still isn’t that simple,” Neal pushed back, because while he wasn’t stupid enough to argue with a gun, he also wasn’t stupid enough to just waltz into a high-security building full of rich people and their things and expected to get good results. Although… the thought of going in on his own and fucking up and getting arrested honestly sounded fantastic. Because if he was arrested before he did anything, then Peter couldn’t be mad, right? So he tried to backtrack his first sentence as subtly as possible, “Well, I mean, if you guys want IDs just for fun, then it’s not simple. Because that takes time and materials.”
“If you’re going to make yourself a pass, it can’t be that much harder to make one for all of us,” Kurkson grunted back.
Without missing a beat, Neal flashed his best smile and promised, “Who said that I needed any ID in the first place?”
~^~
Maybe Neal had promised too much. The Heissburg Building really did have keen security. The Trio of Mean that had roped him into this had even assisted in doing a bit more research to help him get a better grasp of just how keen, although that process had taken hours longer than necessary - mostly because they refused to give Neal uninterrupted access to either a phone or computer, and they themselves clearly didn’t know how to research.
He should have taken the time to forge some ID cards, he thought, as he watched someone swipe their card to get through the front doors. Neal then reminded himself that, for once, he wanted to mess up and get arrested. As much as that rankled his professional pride, he found himself feeling ridiculously hopeful at the thought of Peter showing up amidst a chorus of police sirens.
“Not so fast,” Wilson said as the forger made to jump out of the car and race right into the most desired disaster of his life. Neal’s hopeful mood was severely damped by the hand that gripped his arm - right where it had grabbed him before, too, making him wince at the reminder of bruises. And the reminder that he hadn’t escaped yet .
Neal reluctantly settled back into the car, drawing his attention away from the prospect of returning to his old captors, glancing grudgingly at his less-pleasant, current captors.
“I just want to make it clear that we’ve got eyes on you, Caffrey,” Williams said, and Neal did his best to look attentive and reasonably grim about this, because that was expected of him. In reality, he was barely listening, because they could watch all they wanted - but after he was through that door, there wasn’t a lot they could do to him. However, at that point, he noticed Dodson leaving the vehicle, and warning bells of suspicion started off in his head. He tried to follow the lean man with his eyes, but Williams kept talking, drawing his attention back, “And when your girl told us your reputation, she mentioned all of your reputation.”
Something sour was settling in the back of Neal’s throat. The warning bells had become a whining white noise in his ears that could have been, perhaps, impending panic as it dawned on him that he wasn’t going to like what Williams said next.
“She mentioned how slippery you could be in tight situations, so because of that, Dodds is going to be out there waiting to try his luck at this heist if it looks like you fail. And he’s going to try his luck with a lot more firepower,” Williams finished in a darkly steady tone.
There were some days when Neal wished he was still in the game, still out living a life of crime. Today was not one of those days.
He had to swallow thickly and clear his throat before he could speak, and when he did, he knew his voice sounded hollow because his previous hopes had just been dashed, “How about we do our best to avoid that then?” When Kurkson just chuckled from the driver’s seat in front of him, Neal gritted his teeth and tried to ignore the sound. “You know what, I think this is probably going to take at least two trips.”
“Funny. That’s not what you said back at the warehouse,” Williams reminded. He didn’t look too surprised, though, and Neal wondered fatalistically if they’d been prepared for his betrayal attempts - and had likewise been waiting to spring this threat on him. As desperately as he wanted to get out of this mess, he couldn’t do it if it meant civilian deaths.
“Well, any job is a constantly evolving system - I couldn’t know everything until I got here,” Neal replied as smoothly as he could, managing a shrug when Williams obliged to finally let go of his arm. “And now I know that I still don’t know enough, so that’s why I’m telling you that I need to go in there and at least do some reconnaissance before we try anything drastic.”
“How do I know you’re not just stalling?”
“Look, I want this over with just as much as you do, all right?” Neal pressed - which was actually the truth. He wanted this over so badly that it was like an itch beneath his skin, making it hard to sit still, hard to think like a thief and stay calm. “Right now, even getting in the door is going to be tricky-” God, he’d forgotten that he didn’t have an ID to get in. “-And I can’t even see the whole layout inside until I get in the door.”
Now Kurkson felt the need to intrude, saying in a puzzled tone, “But we got you those blueprints.”
Clearly, Kurkson was the stupid muscle of the group. Neal tried not to let his voice sound as patronizing as he felt. “Blueprints show me the building, but it doesn’t show me the people,” he tried to explain patiently. “If we’re going to get in and out without everything going up in flames-” ‘And without you shooting up the place.’ “-I need to get a sense of the people at the front desk, the guards, things like that.”
“You’re finally starting to make sense,” Williams said, and he did sound patronizing. Caffrey felt a twitch starting up in his eye as he held in any sort of reaction, because screaming or slapping the guy wouldn’t get him anywhere good. When Williams reached out, this time it was just to slap Caffrey on the shoulder, and it took effort not to flinch away. “Kate was right. You’re a smart guy. Once you see the big picture.”
Somehow that hurt just as much as the realization that he wasn’t getting out of this, and when Neal dragged himself out of the car, it was with far less eagerness than before.
“Don’t go out of sight, and don’t so much as touch a phone,” was Williams’ last warning before closing the car door behind him with a thud.
~^~
Neal managed to get in. It took stealing an ID from someone just leaving, flirting like a cad when the woman at the front desk started looking suspicious because she didn’t recognize his face (proving that this was going to be harder than expected, with alert desk staff that knew people personally), and then lying scandalously about an older woman on the- No, not the top floor, what was he saying? Definitely the ninth floor. He was so glad he’d paused to talk to someone who knew, so he didn’t knock on the wrong door! It took all of Neal’s skills at reading people and reacting on the fly (and probably all of his luck, too) to pass off his story of being a ‘love interest’ who’d been allowed to borrow a key. It helped that the woman at the front desk also clearly fancied him, and she was also older, so she was delighted by the handsome young man who had no problem making nice with women past their prime.
The whole while, though, Neal was aware that he couldn’t leave the lobby or else Dodds might just take it upon himself to shoot up the place.
That was where luck came in, and it turned out that the older woman on the 9th floor wasn’t in. Neal said that that was perfectly all right - and his own dumb fault for getting his days mixed up. She’d wanted him to visit Sunday , not Saturday! All the while he surreptitiously scanned the place, gathering information like a good little thief, and feeling his back crawl at the realization that Dodds was likely pointing a gun at him from some hidden window across the street. The face of the lobby was all glass, and he’d never felt less safe.
Despite that constant threat buzzing at the back of Neal’s mind, he kept talking. Ideally, he’d make a visit like this a couple of times - long enough to become a familiar face not only to this receptionist (he’d already seen a schedule on the wall, and knew when she’d be in, based on her nametag) but to the guards as well. He didn’t think that he’d be getting his usual timeline, though, not with Williams already making the overdue nature of his debt so clear. Neal didn’t even know for sure what they were stealing, but he knew loud and clear that this wasn’t a long-con. Still, he felt his panic rise as his peripheral vision caught Williams stepping out of the car - ostensibly to take a smoke, but his body language screamed all sorts of threats to Neal. Internally cursing because this wasn’t enough time , Neal nonetheless tried to extricate himself as naturally as possible. He couldn’t very well tell the nice lady, “If I don’t go now, someone’s going to shoot through those windows and end our conversation even faster,” but he did make some sort of smiling excuse about, “I think I’ve overstayed my welcome,” and canted his head towards the nearest guard. The guard heard him (as intended) and looked away with a frown and a flush.
“Don’t mind Leonard - he’s secretly sweet on old Maud, too,” the receptionist replied with a wink and a smirk. Neal’s returning smile was a bit more real than before, finding humor in the conspiratorial banter even as he tucked that information away for later.
Just as he turned to leave, he nearly had a heart attack as the receptionist - Linda - called back, “Oh! I don’t think I caught your whole name, young man.”
The swift rabbiting of Neal’s heart was less because he was being asked a personal question (this was normal, and he’d had a fake name on the tip of his tongue this whole time anyway) and more because he knew the Williams and the others were watching. Would they see him pause and think he was stalling? Think he was doing something he wasn’t? Skin prickling now with the precursor to a terrified sweat, Neal only turned enough to talk over his shoulder, and hoped that his smile looked okay. Peter always seemed able to see through it, but he didn’t think Linda would. “Of course,” he replied, and then suddenly felt a spark of inspiration hit so hard that he very nearly jumped. The next words tumbled out of his mouth almost too eagerly, sudden desperation pushing them past his teeth even as he fought to keep his voice mild and even; he didn’t care if the guards heard, “When Miss Maud comes back, give her my number-” He rattled it off by heart. Then he flashed a wink at the receptionist and added, “If anyone wants to get hold of me, that number’s the way to do it. Just say the name ‘Nick Halden’.”
As Neal walked out, reluctantly returning to his unwanted handlers, he hoped desperately that someone would call that number - Maud, Linda, the guard Leonard, anyone - and specifically say ‘Nick Halden.’ Because the number he’d left was Peter’s, and maybe this way Peter would get a clue as to where Neal was and check the Heissburg Building security cameras (where Neal’s face was clearly visible) before this got worse.
~^~
Williams, Dodds, and Kurkson weren’t happy with how little headway Neal seemed to have made, despite Neal stating - repeatedly and strenuously - that he’d actually gotten a whole helluva lot for only being given fifteen minutes. The fact that he’d left his stolen ID just inside the front door made them even more furious, to the point where Kurkson just about snapped. There was a moment of chaos where everyone was yelling and Neal thought he was going to get hit, but Williams managed to calm things down - not before Neal was backed up against the wall with his body on high alert, arms defensively in front of his face, and heart pounding wildly in his chest, though. Maybe it was all to get any lingering secrets out of Neal, and it fucking worked, because Caffrey talked fast after that. He’d left the stolen ID because they couldn’t afford to raise suspicion, not if they wanted this job to stay safe and simple, and he’d already gotten a good enough look at it that he’d be able to make more of his own now. Plus, he knew the schedule and some of the names, so it was just a matter of learning a bit about the people.
“You have until the end of the week,” was all Williams said after he listened to what Neal had to say.
Neal had been hoping for longer - not only because gathering all of that information and the supplies to make fake keycards took time, but because that meant more opportunity for Peter to find him.
Peter surely thought that Neal was long gone by now, though, not hunkered down in the city right under his nose. And the hidden clue he’d left with Linda had been a longshot anyway.
~^~
Neal was tired from the constant stress and dragged down by the realization that he was in too deep by the time that third day rolled around. He could barely sleep even when Williams and the other two let him, and they were truly using him fully as a frontman - meaning if there was anything that needed to be bought or anyone that needed to be talked to, it was Neal doing it, so his face would be the first thing law enforcement saw if they were discovered. So far, though, they were managing to be careful, and with every passing day Neal tried harder to maintain that secret, because what would he do if Peter found where he was now? By this point, everything pointed to Neal purposefully slipping his leash and immediately diving head-first into a heist. If Peter found Neal now, he wouldn’t be rescuing him, he’d be arresting him for good, plain and simple, and that left a hollow, sick feeling in Caffrey’s chest. That feeling had good company, too, right next to the increasingly dead feeling that came with knowing that Kate had set this all up.
Dodds in particular was pretty chatty, and Neal had learned a bit more from him about the Kate situation - enough to know that it really was her, and that she’d given up Neal’s name just so that she didn’t have to get involved in this. Part of Neal felt a martyred sort of pride in that, but with every passing day it got harder and harder to feel like he was the hero here protecting the innocent damsel by taking the dangers all upon himself. He’d known from the beginning that Kate wasn’t an innocent anything , and as much as he liked the thought of keeping her safe, he kept realizing more and more that she never protected him from anything in return.
Guard Leonard had a sick aunt. It was pretty easy to find out, at least by Neal’s standards, although the fact that he wasn’t allowed to go or call anyone unsupervised put a bit of a crimp in his style. The information he got was useful, though, especially when he learned how often Leonard would leave work just to see her - especially late at night, when things were quiet anyway. Kurkson immediately suggested they set off a fire alarm during one of those late night quiet-stretches, and Neal had to remind himself that it wasn’t Kurkson’s fault he was stupid. “If we do that, then what? Suddenly everyone who was quietly in their rooms is down on the main floor milling around,” Caffrey stated. When Kurkson looked on the verge of hitting him, Neal tried to soften his tone to something hopefully less antagonistic. He raised his hands in a universal peaceful gesture. “I know information about Leonard’s aunt at the hospital, and I’ve got his number now. When we’re ready to do this, I’ll call him and pretend I’m an attending nurse and that he needs to get to the hospital right away. That’ll mean we only have two other guards, so they’ll be spread thin - easy to get past if we don’t make a mess.”
It was sad to think that Williams was the voice of reason amidst the three, but he did take that in with an approving nod of happy surprise, and calmed Dodds and Kurkson. Neal felt like he’d dodged a bullet. Or maybe just a fist.
Then Kurkson punched him in the gut later when he was just finishing up the fake IDs, and the blow was hard enough that he ended up on his knees on the floor without quite remembering getting there. Kurkson nearly hit him again when Neal then wheezed out something about Kurkson fulfilling entirely too many villain stereotypes, but Williams stepped in to hold the heavier man back. While Williams lectured Kurkson on how they needed Neal - to get the goods and then to help fence it for cash afterwards - all Neal could hear was Peter saying, in that long-suffering voice of his, “You get mouthy when you’re nervous, Neal.” Ironic, Neal realized, to be so aware of a flaw and yet so unable to stop it. The comparison to his connection to Kate was too strong, and the bitter chuckle died in his throat. She was another personal flaw that both he and Peter were aware of, and yet he’d swanned after her just like always, and just like always, now he was in the middle of a mess with no Kate to share the burden with him.
Neal finished up the IDs while nursing sore ribs and a sorer heart. Hopefully neither were broken.
What they were stealing exactly remained a mystery. Williams told Caffrey that he didn’t need to know; he just needed to get them into the locked storage area, and they’d do the rest… if he could pick locks on a lockbox. Williams wouldn’t say more than that, and after the punch from Kurkson and threat of gunfire Dodds, Neal was less eager to ask. Curiosity, he reminded himself, would not actually kill him - but Dodds, Williams, and Kurkson might.