ALEC

Flashing lights lit up the room from the outside, red and blue. Alec was struggling to comprehend exactly what had just gone down and how it seemed an entire convoy of officer cars had shown up out of the blue, but the questions fell to the back of his mind when he set eyes on Maize.

Azeal had his hands locked tightly behind his back as she walked the assassin towards Alec. His own eyes traced up and down her form, looking for the injuries he knew she would never mention she had, but other than a slightly roughed up appearance and being covered in dust from the floor, she looked alright—wearing the smirk of a hunter who had caught their mark.

She looked...like Maize.

Alec's eyes met hers, and even from the short distance they stood apart, the mischievous glint in her eyes was present as ever despite the flash of coloured lights outside that threatened to blind them through the windows.

That's when he realized she was actually speaking to Azeal as she brought him closer, and he quickly tuned in.

"Now, my partner, Detective West over here is going to bring you to a place where you'll stay locked up for a long time," she was saying as she flashed him a quick look.

Alec couldn't help his smirk. She finally called him her partner.

He took out the previous handcuffs as Maize handed Azeal off to him. He turned the man around and didn't hesitate to slap each of the cuffs over his wrists right away.

"Prison's full of psychos like yourself. You'll feel right at home," he said as he walked them towards the exit, Maize in tow.

Timely, the doors were thrust open and two familiar officers stood in the doorway, surrounded by a small team. As soon as their eyes fell onto the three of them, Johnson and Monroe immediately ordered for Azeal to be taken from Alec's hands and placed properly under arrest.

Azeal jerked away from the hands of the officers, throwing a pale murderous glare at each of the uniforms he could do nothing to stop coming forth, before whirling to look back over at Alec and Maize in turn.

"I'll be back," he said to them, his eyes going from Alec to linger on Maize with a glaring look. Her arms were crossed but she said nothing.

Alec rolled his eyes and waved a hand in the air disinterestedly as he more or less dumped the guy in the hands of the uniformed police. "Yeah, yeah, famous last words of every master criminal, ever. And if you don't believe me—feel free to ask whichever cellmate you end up with at the county, you guys can trade campfire stories."

Azeal visibly flashed his teeth in anger. "If you think you've won, you're sorely mistaken," he murmured lowly.

Alec felt a knot work in his jaw, but Maize only smiling. "Oh, the old gang? Yeah...don't count on them coming around any time soon." Was all she said.

Azeal furrowed his brows but was forced away by the two officers before he could say another word. Alec's eyes followed as the complying officers came forth and took the man by the arms. Azeal was read his rights as he was led outside to the party of at least a dozen parked cars Alec could count through the now propped open doors. Maize looked at him then.

"Famous last words? Really?" She asked with a quirk of her lip.

"What?" He returned the look, "It's true."

"Oh, I know it's true," she said as she looked to Azeal's retreated from being taken away.

If someone had asked him to explain what he thought Maize's plan had been when they first got her—since she had neglected to tell him—he wouldn't have been able to answer. Now, he found himself rather dumbfounded that he hadn't seen something like this coming; a trump card in her deck. That was why she had been so adamant he followed her supposed instructions at the beginning of all this—she just wanted to scam a guy.

Alec could not be happier about it.

He chuckled to himself as he flashed her a look, "You're full of surprises, Maizey, you know that?" he asked. She smirked in response.

"What happened to Silan?" Came the following question.

Alec sighed and ran a hand through his hair. "I looked but she was just gone. Didn't even give me a chance to catch up with her."

"So she's gone for now?" Maize asked, sounding rather distracted.

"Yeah," he nodded.

"Are you alright?" She surprised him by asking.

"Are you?" He asked back. He didn't miss how her eyes looked to where Azeal was getting in the back of a police car.

"Yeah," she said. At least she sounded like she was telling the truth, for now.

"How the hell did you organize this?" Alec muttered as they began walking towards the door where other officers were silently waiting.

Maize shrugged and smiled, "I had help."

Alec raised an eyebrow and frowned. "You had...oh. Oh fuck," he cursed as his eyes shut in a groan.

"Oh fuck is right you damned detective asshole!"

They both looked up at the same time to see Ryder storming forth with a dark glare on his face, Kota following on his heels. Ryder got right up in his face and began jabbing his finger in his chest with a steel-eyed glare. "Who in the ever-loving hell said either of you could just straight up steal my stuff? Don't think I didn't notice the car outside! And even more, you kidnapped my dog!"

"Didn't actually," Alec said. "He hoped in on his own."

Ryder didn't seem to appreciate Alec's honesty and glared at the both of them like the embodiment of an angry storm cloud. He threw his arms in the air. "You know what, screw it. Why doesn't everyone just take my shit without bothering to ask me, hm? Hell, I'll just post a sign of my garage that says 'Up For Grabs'?" Ryder was clearly ranting out his frustration.

"That would be interesting," Alec considered for a moment but Ryder shot him a scowl.

"God I hate you."

"Play nice boys," Maize laughed as she put a hand on Ryder's shoulder to calm his raging-ass down.

Ryder stuck his hands in his pockets and rolled his shoulders back eventually, but his glare didn't let up in the slightest.

"Take my dog again and I don't care what your excuse is—I will string you both up in a tree and leave you for the bears."

Alec responded with a flat, unamused look. "You have a strange sense of humour."

"It was not a joke," Ryder seethed.

Alec, smiling, was about to open his mouth to send a snarky reply when he caught sight of the approaching figures walking up behind Ryder. Both familiar enough by now to be recognized from a distance under the shadow of dark.

"I'll admit," Agent Johnson said as he came to a stop, facing the still fuming Ryder—who had turned to scowl at the two of them now, "When you told us to 'get our asses into gear because we were breaking up an idiot party', this is not quite what we were expecting."

"Took you long enough to follow," was all Ryder replied with as he glowered moodily.

Monroe shot him a dark glare full of accusation. "Yes. Only after you thought it was necessary to hijack one of our officer's cars and drive off with it," he stated, his tone giving away just how happy they must have been about that. Ryder shrugged in the air of which he did everything else—unbothered and unapologetic.

"He can have it back now," he offered plainly.

Johnson actually had to put a hand in his partner's shoulder with a hidden grimace as Monroe's left eye twitched with the expression that said just how much he would have given to do something like strangle Ryder right then and there had he not been in the presence of people, or a cop himself.

Johnson pulled him back and cleared his throat purposely as if to remind him of that exact latter fact. Monroe deflated and calmed.

Alec couldn't help but give a slight pout of disappointment turned away from the view of his own pointedly staring partner. He would have paid money to see how an argument between the deranged sniper sociopath and the RCMP agent.

Maize sent a not-so-subtle elbow into his side. Oh, had his expression been too obvious?

Ignoring how he rubbed the new soreness from his ribcage, Maize's expression blinked as if she had just remembered something.

"Oh, here," Maize said as she pulled the phone from her pocket—the one from police evidence—and tossed it quickly at Johnson. "Had to borrow it but you can have it back now."

The agent raised an eyebrow, even going as far to flash a questioning glance at Alec but he just shook his head. "Take my advice; just turn around and don't ask," Alec told him. Monroe frowned and Johnson looked like he wasn't even sure how to answer to that.

"Right...well, in any case, please refrain from borrowing from us again without permission," he said—for some reason looking pointedly at all three of them.

Alec frowned, feeling offended. Monroe stared at him hard. "One of our officers noted a missing pair of cuffs and firearms as well," he said accusingly, staring right at Alec.

Oh. Right.

"Well you have the cuffs back now at least," he answered with a grin.

"God damn it all, you guys are the worst."

"Did you at least follow up on the tip we gave you?" Maize asked, ignoring Monroe's shaken-head remark, as well as Alec and Ryder's following sounds of argument. Johnson was the one who spoke over the rest of them, speaking to Maize with the officialness in his voice that never seemed to leave.

He nodded. "We've already got task teams put on working to round up all Syndicate conspirators. Now that we've got our newfound friend in custody, it will be much easier to finish clearing out the weeds now that the plant had been uplifted from the root. Can we put you two down to testify against his actions in court?"

"No," Maize answered evenly. Alec didn't argue, feeling this was her call to make. She then added, "But I'm sure between his associates and the number of guys you rounded up, you guys will have more than enough to convict him for a long, long sentence."

"We can't thank you enough," Johnson said sincerely.

"I think it deserves to be the other way around," Maize replied.

"Our pleasure," he answered with a chuckle as she and Johnson shared a professional smile. "If any of you ever need a hand or happen to be in the area, give us a call."

"No thanks," Ryder said immediately, hands in his dark pockets and glaring look in his steel eyes. Johnson only laughed while Monroe flashed a slightly rueful smile.

"See you guys around," Alec said with a quirk of his lips.

Monroe gave one last gesture of goodbye with a two-fingered salute. Unbeknownst to him after his back turned, Ryder mimicked the gesture in response, with only his middle finger.

Classy, Alec thought with a sarcastic roll of his eyes. He didn't miss how the woman beside him had brought a fist up in front of her mouth to mask her quiet chuckles with a cough, warranting another eye roll.

The agents left the premise along with the vehicle that would be escorted Azeal all the way down to their headquarters to be charged and properly locked up. The remaining team left over were divided between those sweeping the remainder of the area and the other out securing a perimeter around the blockade landscape to see if they could track down the missing associate of the arrested convict that Alec himself hadn't been able to find. Though Silan had managed to give him the slip, there was still a chance the officers might be able to track her down. It might have been easier with a trained canine, or perhaps even Kota, but it was clear just from the look on his face, Ryder was not letting his dog go anywhere without him—not again today. Which meant neither of them were going out to help the search party at all.

The last few were the morgue team that documented the evidence of Luke Sokolov's body, and then wrapped the tarp over him for transport into the ambulance vehicle for transportation. Alec told himself he should not have kept his eyes on the body so long as the tarp-hidden figure was rolled away on a mobile cart, but still. The small pang of guilt in his chest had not been for the man he had killed in order to prevent him from shooting Maize—he would make the choice again if he had to—but it was for the look he had managed to see behind the eyes radiating their loathing; simply the look of losing a family member.

"I'm sorry," Maize had said when she had noticed the expression in his eyes as he stared at the leaving body too long. She didn't say 'thank you', it wouldn't have been right, not in this case, but the thought was still implied. For saving her life.

Instead of replying, Alec had only stood there in a moment of silence. And Maize, as if she just knew, respectfully shared it with him.

Of course, damned Riley had to go and ruin any sentimental moment he was trying to have by letting out a loud breath of air that nearly came out as a whistle, perking the ears of his canine and effectively dissolving any more thoughts of solemn reflection for Alec. He could have also sworn from the brief look the steel-eyes man flashed him that the action may have been purposeful for that exact reason.

But then again—this was Ryker—who was he kidding?

"So," Alec breathed as he ran a hand through his hair lazily and restored to his regular self with a slight smirk, "What now?"

"You're actually asking us?" Ryder questioned with a tone of disbelief. "Shocking."

Instead of retorting immediately, Alec simply flipped the guy off with a flash of a grin and looked to Maize expectantly.

Your call, his gaze said to her.

He watched those deep amber eyes flicker in a moment of thought, if only a moment before the bounty hunter shrugged and tried to hide some form of a smile. "Isn't it obvious? We go back home."