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sheenianniTitle: Through the Darkness to the Dawn
Author’s Name:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
sheenianni
Fandom: White Collar
Spoilers: This story is AU to episode 4x16 and takes place several months after Season 4. Minor spoilers through all four seasons.
Characters/Pairings: Diana Berrigan, Peter Burke, Neal Caffrey, FBI Team, Mozzie, Elizabeth Burke, Amanda Calloway
Raiting: PG-13
Content Notice: A bit of torture (mostly off-screen), Language
Word Count: ~ 10,200
Notes: Written forsholio during the ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
wcpairings exchange. Beta-read by the amazing theatregirl7299.
Summary: In order to take down one of New York’s mobsters, Diana takes on an interesting role when she and Peter go undercover. But when the case starts falling apart, she has to do everything in her power to save Peter’s life – and then make peace with her decisions afterwards.
Back to Part I
PART II
Slipping into the role of the Mistress had been easier than Diana had anticipated, especially once she put on the all-black clothes and attached some knifes to her forearms, waist and one to her pant leg.
At first, she had been seriously annoyed when she had to leave her gun with Jones in the van. But she had reminded herself that Peter had her back, and he was still armed. Moreover, while everything suggested that Donovan was greedy and power-hungry, he wasn’t stupid. He wouldn’t want to upset the Raccinis, so the role of the Mistress should be enough to protect her. Finally, Jones and the rest of the team were close on stand by, and they insisted that they would be able to reach her and Peter in less than three minutes if anything went wrong.
The first tense moment came when Donovan’s people, aka a group of three thugs, asked Peter to relinquish his gun and wanted to search them both. Diana exchanged a split-second look with Peter, a quick unspoken discussion on how to proceed.
“Are you trying to harass me before we even begin negotiating?” drawled Diana with obvious displeasure. She paused. “My boss believed that you could be a reasonable man. Apparently he was wrong.” She turned to Peter. “This meeting is over.”
Peter’s eyes widened almost imperceptibly. They didn’t want to lose Donovan. What Diana just did had the potential to completely destroy their operation. Yet deep down, Diana felt it was necessary. Her instincts told her that Donovan wouldn’t trust her if she didn’t protest their treatment, that this had to be done if she wanted to maintain her cover as the Mistress. Not to mention she didn’t like the idea of going anywhere with Donovan’s people with both her and Peter unarmed.
After some haggling, threats and negotiations, Diana had relented on the subject of the gun when Donovan’s people gave up theirs as well. She didn’t like it and neither did Peter, but if they wanted to carry on with the operation, they didn’t really have a choice. And as long as Donovan believed that they belonged to the Raccinis, he wouldn’t dare to harm a hair on their heads.
They settled in the room that had been picked for the meeting. That was when the crucial part really began.
After the experience of the past few months, the team wanted a completely clear-cut case that would lead to an easy and flawless conviction. To ensure that, Diana knew she had to get Donovan to talk about his deals in as much detail as possible. At the same time, she had to be careful not to reveal that her own knowledge of the problem – while not bad – wasn’t nearly as deep as Donovan’s own.
As it turned out, they needn’t have worried. Once Donovan believed that Diana truly was the Mistress and that he had attracted the attention of the Raccinis, he went all the way out to convince her that he could be an asset to the family.
Everything seemed to be going according to the plan.
And then it happened.
Suddenly the door burst open and six men barged in. Diana noticed right away that all of them were armed.
“Doug?” spoke up Donovan. “What is the meaning of this?”
Without a blink of the eye, the guy called Doug pulled out his gun and aimed it straight at Peter’s head. “You seem to be having a mole there, boss.”
Well, shit.
Still maintaining her cover, although it might have already been blown, Diana slowly rose up to her feet.
Screw easy conviction. They would have to make do with what they had. She would rather deal with skeptical DAs again than be carried away in a body bag.
“I don’t recall agreeing to making this into a free-attendance party, Donovan” she said in an icy voice.
Donovan gave her an apologetic look. “Madam, I’m sure this is just a misunderstanding that will be cleared immediately.”
“See to it,” she replied curtly.
She felt Peter’s tension next to her, as well as his silent resolution. She had already said the activation phrase. In three minutes Jones and the team should be there to bust them out. They only had to stall until then.
Donovan frowned. “Doug, you better have a really good explanation for this, or I swear I’ll make you regret it.”
“I know this bastard, boss,” growled Doug angrily. “I met him seven years ago when I was still working freelance. We had a perfect job lined out to the detail, until this son of a bitch got cold feet and went blabbering to the feds. The rest of us were arrested – all except him who disappeared into thin air.”
Everything in the room stilled.
Silence.
“That’s the most ridiculous tale I’ve ever heard,” said Peter at last.
“The feds,” murmured Donovan quietly. “Of course.”
Diana tried to measure the distance between herself and Doug, but then she gave it up as a bad idea. Even disregarding the rest of the armed thugs, she would never make it to him in time before he shot Peter. Now she was seriously regretting that she didn’t have her gun on her. And where was Jones with the team?
Donovan’s signal must have been imperceptible.
Suddenly, the rest of the newcomers pulled out their guns as well and aimed it at Peter and Diana.
This was bad. Really bad.
“Are you sure it’s him?” asked Donovan, not even looking at Diana.
“Positive. I wasn’t sure on the camera, but the moment that I saw him in person, I knew. And I would recognize that bastard’s voice even in my sleep. It’s him alright.”
“I see.”
Donovan’s men surrounded them in a semi-circle, making sure that they wouldn’t escape and that any unexpected move would be met with deadly retribution. Diana knew she or Peter had to speak up, but the words were frozen in her throat. As always, she waited for Peter to give her a lead, a suggestion, instructions on how to proceed… only then she realized that this time, Peter wasn’t the head of the operation.
She was.
Finally, Donovan lifted his gaze and looked at Diana. “I have been wondering –”
“Is he right?” spoke up Diana suddenly. With the speed of a striking cobra, she swirled and turned to Peter, one of her knifes slipping into her hand. “Are you working for the feds?”
Donovan’s men stared at them in confusion.
Peter lifted his eyebrows. “I don’t know what he’s talking about.”
“You filthy back-stabbing rat,” gritted Doug though his teeth. “This piece of shit is the reason my brother got twelve years in the slammer, all over some stupid Russian dolls. I’ll shoot his brains out and I don’t care what –”
“Careful Doug. You’re crossing a line there,” Donovan interrupted in a warning tone. However, his eyes remained firmly fixed on Diana and Peter.
It was then when Diana finally remembered the case that Doug was talking about. Seven years ago, Peter had been undercover as an accountant who had been recently fired on suspicion of fraud. The crew they were after hired him to help them launder their money from their illegal smuggling business. And indeed, some of the items were smuggled inside matryoshka dolls.
She vaguely recalled that when the scheme came down, several of the perpetrators had been tripping over themselves to cut a deal. The evidence was so overwhelming that it didn’t even require Peter to testify at the trial – which was a good thing, because back then, Peter’s attention had been almost fully occupied by chasing one Neal Caffrey.
Diana would bet her money that Peter already remembered it all as well. And she was equally sure that there was no way they could talk Doug out of his certainty that Peter was his man.
What now?
Diana gave Peter an ugly smile. “I knew it. I knew we had a snitch in our mist every since the cops crashed our party at the gambling house. You were always too smart for your own good.”
For a moment, Peter was silent, probably contemplating their next move. In the end, he uttered a snort of contempt. “You called that a party? I think the people there were pitiful.”
Damn. She had hoped that Peter would come up with a plan.
However, now she had no choice than continue the charade.
“You bastard.” Diana brought the knife less than an inch under Peter’s jaw. “You will pay for it,” she seethed. “You will pay for every lie, every betrayal, every penny we lost that day – ”
“Can I shoot his brain out now?” called Doug.
“You touch a hair on his head and the deal’s off,” snapped Diana. Doug withdrew a bit – at least for the moment.
Diana stared into Peter’s face. Behind his facade and looking at his throbbing vein so close to her blade, she could read an echo of the same panic that was threatening to suffocate her. Even if Jones and the team had any doubts about the situation there, they’d now repeated their safeword several times. Where the hell was their backup?!
Then Peter’s eyes bore into her. ‘Patience,’ his look said. ‘Trust Jones and Neal.’
Diana blinked that she understood. ‘Okay.’
Donovan was eyeing her with a mixture of curiosity and heavy suspicion. Diana also noted that he hadn’t yet told his people to lower the guns that were aimed at her and Peter. “What is your business with the rat?” he asked at last.
“That rat has been close to far too many family operations. I need to find out what he knows,” explained Diana chillingly. “He and I are going to have a nice long conversation about loyalties and his relationship with the feds.”
To make the show more real, she pressed the blade closer to Peter’s jaw, just close enough to draw a drop of blood. Then she slowly drew two fingers across his neck, hoping that it would look psychopathic and not as cheesy as it felt to her.
Peter bent his head slightly backwards. “I won’t talk,” he pronounced strongly, standing there straight and proud with a several guns aimed at him and the tip Diana’s knife under his jaw. For a second, Diana wondered how the mobsters around them could not admire his courage and morals. Then she slipped back to her role.
“But you will, sweetheart. You will.”
At least one of the mobsters visibly winced. Apparently her role as the Mistress worked as well on these thugs as it had on Neal, Peter and Jones in the safety of the FBI conference room. Except now it wasn’t a game anymore.
She shot a glance at Donovan. “This traitor is mine.”
“As you wish, Mistress,” nodded Donovan at last.
Diana gave him an icy smile. “Good choice, Justin. I’ll have to call my people and inform them that –”
“Boss, what if he told the feds about this meeting?” spoke up suddenly one of Donovan’s people.
Donovan stilled.
Diana shot the man who interrupted them a haughty look. “If the feds knew, they would have stormed this place by now.” And she was going to kill Jones if they survived this. What the hell was he waiting for?!
Donovan stared at Peter for a moment. “Search him,” he said at last.
This was their chance, Diana knew it. To search Peter, one or more of Donovan’s men would have to approach them. If she and Peter could get a hold of their gun – a standstill was bad, but with their backup god-knows-where, this situation was even worse.
“Jackson. Give me your gun and then search him,” said Donovan. When the man obeyed his order, Donovan aimed the gun at Diana. “Search them both.”
“You dare to doubt me?!” hissed Diana angrily.
“It’s nothing personal, Mistress,” replied Donovan with an almost apologetic shrug. “I just can’t take the risk that you’re not who you’re claiming to be.”
At that moment, Diana realized that the dynamic in the room had shifted.
Donovan still respected her, she was sure of that. But the awe and fear he had felt when she had introduced herself as the Mistress was now gone – understandably, since she had supposedly made the inexcusable mistake of bringing a snitch into his house. With that change, their situation became even more dangerous than it had been before.
It was the moment when she fully acknowledged that she and Peter might not make it out of there alive.
* * *
‘How about you, Diana?’ Neal has asked her.
And isn’t that the million dollar question.
“I don’t know,” she starts hesitantly at last. She pauses, trying to put her spiraling thoughts into something resembling a coherent sentence. “I’ve been suspended,” she says then. “I had to give Calloway my gun. And now I feel so damn naked without it.” She shakes her head. “Neal, it was such a stupid plan –”
“The plan wasn’t stupid,” Neal interrupts her.
Diana sighs. “Okay, maybe not. But it had too many holes that we forgot to consider.”
“We couldn’t have known that Peter’s cover would be blown,” points out Neal. “Nor that we would lose contact with the two of you.”
“We should have expected it,” replies Diana sharply. “This sort of stuff can always happen during an operation. But because we were too eager to close this case, we took a stupid risk and it came back to bite us.”
“You’re right.”
Diana does a double-take. She has expected him to argue with her for longer, not to give in so easily.
“What is really bothering you?” asks Neal a moment later.
Diana takes a swing from her glass of beer and tries to find the answer.
* * *
Fortunately, Donovan’s man didn’t find the transmitter masked as Diana’s hair-clip. But that was where their luck was about to run out. Diana had played every angle she dared to without blowing her cover, but it had been to no avail.
Donovan wouldn’t let her leave with Peter as her prisoner, nor would he let her make a call to her own people, “to inform the Raccinis that we had a rat”. And Jones – Diana was going to break his legs before killing him if they survived this – Jones still hadn’t come to their rescue. Whatever happened, it became apparent that they were on their own.
Donovan insisted that they had to interrogate Peter to find out what he knew. Diana’s vicious objections that she wouldn’t expose the family secrets in front of a stranger fell on deaf ears.
She considered letting Peter grab her blade and “overpower” her, allowing him to take her as his hostage. But Donovan’s attitude towards “the Mistress” had changed too much to ensure that he wouldn’t call their bluff or simply shoot them both, his fear of the Raccinis be damned. It didn’t help that she and Peter couldn’t talk together, nor that there were still far too many weapons pointed at them.
“Tie him up and bring the tools,” said Donovan. “Let’s find out who our friend here really talked to.”
With a chilling thought, Diana realized that she had at least one more option left.
“Forget the tools,” she said aloud. “I’ll do it myself.”
“Madam –”
“Enough.” With as much authority as she could muster, Diana shot Donovan one more psychotic look. “Do you know why they call me the Mistress, Donovan?”
“Forget about the crazed bitch, boss,” snapped one of Donovan’s men.
This was bad. This was really, really bad. They had already zip-tied Peter’s hands behind his back and Diana was losing even the last shreds of control there. She put everything she had into one last deadly glare into Donovan’s eyes and secretly prayed that it would be enough.
“Do you know why, Donovan?”
There was a long pause.
“Yes. I know.”
“Today is your good day,” said Diana. “But tomorrow? The day after? You don’t want me as your enemy. … Unless, of course, I’m mistaken. Maybe you want me to talk to the bosses about your questionable loyalties. Or maybe you want to find me in your bedroom one night for a little friendly visit. You and I could have so much fun together –”
“I understand perfectly, Mistress,” interrupted Donovan. Diana was sure that at this point, he was already planning her demise – once he secured his place with the Raccinis.
“Forgive me my rudeness. The rat is yours.”
Diana smiled at him. “Thank you, Justin.”
She took a few steps and stretched her shoulders. To her surprise, Donovan had apparently given his people another wordless signal, because most of the guns that had been aimed at her disappeared. For a moment, Diana was tempted to stall, still hoping that the team would come to get them. But by then, it was painfully clear that they have somehow lost contact, so she abandoned the thought and returned to her former plan, even though the mere idea made her almost physically ill.
If she messed this up, Donovan could change his mind and kill them both. To hell with her principles – she could worry about them after she got them out of here alive.
With a controlled, only slightly crazed smile, she zipped open Peter’s leather jacket and then slit through his T-shirt to expose his bare chest. She needed to make it look professional, like she had been doing this for many years.
Diana thought she did rather well when she didn’t throw up.
With a slow stroke that supposedly mocked gentleness, she ran her empty hand across Peter’s now half-bared left shoulder and all the way down, hoping to find his cell-phone there. No such luck.
Aware of all the eyes on her, Diana knew she needed a distraction before she attempted the same thing at the other side.
She pressed the tip of her blade against Peter’s chest.
And then she found she couldn’t.
Her hand began to shiver.
This was Peter, her boss, her friend. Peter, who had listened to her suggestion about how to catch Caffrey, even when there were far more experienced agents around. Peter, who had trusted her with the music box and the treasure hunt. He was her mentor; the man who talked to her after her first shooting, the man she respected more than anyone else since Charlie’s death.
Diana couldn’t do it.
“I won’t talk.”
She almost jerked when she heard Peter’s voice. Then she looked into his eyes.
She saw the same faith in them, the same determination and unshakeable trust that she had always admired about him. Then Peter gave her an almost imperceptible nod.
Diana swallowed bile. “This is gonna be fun.”
Staring into Peter’s eyes, she found the same unwavering determination. She clenched the knife, and then she moved it down in a clear cut.
Peter screamed.
* * *
“Six cuts,” Diana says at last, although she knows Neal has seen them himself. “One before I found Peter’s phone. The other five until you arrived.”
Neal reaches across the table and gently clutches her hand.
“I stalled,” continues Diana. “I boasted and talked shit like a crazy egomaniac to prolong the time between them. I tried to do as little damage as possible while not tipping Donovan off.” She takes a gulp of her beer and stares at the table surface. “And the whole time, Peter kept looking at me with this – this – ”
Encouragement? Blind faith?
After that first scream, Peter kept biting his lips to make it easier for her, letting out only small grunts of pain. It didn’t help. It was only that look of unwavering trust that kept telling her to go on.
“I couldn’t have done it without that,” concludes Diana without further explanation.
“You did what you had to do to get both of you out of there alive.”
For a long while, Diana remains silent.
“Diana?” says Neal softly.
She runs her hands through her hair before she looks at him.
“You did what you had to. Peter’s gonna be okay thanks to you.”
“I know that,” she replies finally, even though a part of her wonders if Neal is just telling her the words she wants to hear. “I’m not stupid, Neal. I mean, maybe there had been a better solution –”
“That’s not – ”
“ – but we both made it out alive, so I guess that worked. It’s just…”
“It’s still hard to accept it,” finishes Neal gently when Diana trails off.
“Yes.”
For a moment, there is silence.
“How did you text us without them noticing?” asks Neal.
Diana breathes out. “Something you taught me. I used a distraction. I grabbed the phone in Peter’s pocket and then jabbed Peter into his back with it. He caught on right away and pretended that I was – scratching him, or grabbing him or something. I typed the message with one hand while I used the other to do the second cut in the front.”
“7-6-7. SOS.”
Diana nods. “Donovan and his thugs didn’t notice a thing.”
Neal squeezes her hand. “That was good.”
Diana shakes her head. “Not good enough.”
* * *
Somehow, Diana knew that they were here even before the door burst open.
“FBI! DROP YOUR WEAPONS! DROP YOUR WEAPONS!!!”
In the moment of distraction when the SWAT team led by Jones made their impressive entrance, she was already cutting through Peter’s zip-ties and supported him as he almost fell down.
“Peter. Peter!”
He caught balance by painfully grasping Diana’s shoulder. “I’m okay. Di… I’m okay.” The six bleeding lines on his chest were visible like some sort of a horrible pattern.
“The hell you are,” snapped Diana, feeling her eyes moisture. She could feel Peter’s shaking run through her whole body. “Come – sit down. Boss, I’m so –”
“Good. You did good. Diana…”
BANG!
An unexpected force tore Peter from Diana’s arms and threw him backwards. For one endless moment, Diana simply stared at him before comprehension settled in.
“PETER!!!”
The rest was a red haze.
She remembered yelling. Remembered pressing Peter’s cut T-shirt into the wound in his shoulder. Remembered Neal pulling her away from Peter when the ambulance arrived, and remembered yelling some horrible things at Jones.
She only snapped out of the haze when Neal put his hand on her shoulder. She shrugged it off, but then she followed him to the hospital.
And there, they waited.
* * *
“What exactly happened?” asks Diana. “Why didn’t you get there when we first gave the takedown signal?”
“We lost your transmission – ”
“But how? Why?” presses Diana. “How did that happen? Did they have a jammer or – ”
“No, nothing like that.” Neal hesitates before he gives her a grim look. “We have no idea what happened.”
Diana stares at him. “What?”
“The Bureau claims it was equipment malfunction. We lost the audio on you about ten minutes after you moved inside. Since we could still see your signal and neither you nor Donovan’s people left the building… I texted Peter, he replied everything was okay, so Jones decided to continue the operation.” Neal sighs. “Obviously Jones has been beating himself up over it ever since we got your message.”
Thinking back, Diana realizes she vaguely remembers Peter fiddling with something on his phone.
The last traces of anger she felt against her colleague and friend dissolve into thin air. “It wasn’t Jones’s fault,” she says with a sigh. “If I were in his place, I might have made the same call.”
“Maybe you could tell him that later when we meet him at the bar?” suggests Neal. “If you want to come, that is.”
“You’re meeting Jones at a bar?” asks Diana with some disbelief. She wouldn’t have thought that Jones would be in much mood to socialize this evening.
“He said he’d be there,” replies Neal a bit evasively.
Ah. So Caffrey blackmailed him into it somehow. Diana wonders what Neal told Jones before she decides to let it go.
She stares into distance. “Equipment malfunction. I can’t believe it.”
“Neither could I and Moz,” says Neal darkly.
Diana’s head snaps as she looks at him. “What?”
Neal hesitates. “You’re gonna think I’m crazy.”
“I’ll try to withhold my judgment.”
For a moment, Neal remains silent. “It’s a bit curious that the equipment mysteriously malfunctioned right during a meeting with a wannabe-crime boss. Do you remember the last time Peter ended in a hospital?”
When Diana finally comprehends Neal’s train of thoughts, she snorts out. “You’re right Caffrey, that is crazy.”
”I never said it wasn’t.”
“Not everything is a conspiracy theory,” continues Diana. “Sometimes malfunctions happen on their own. Nothing mysterious about it.”
Silence.
There isn’t anything mysterious… right?
“You’re right,” says Neal at last. “Malfunctions happen. I’ve probably been spending too much time around Mozzie.”
Probably…
No. She would not go there. Diana knows that if she starts being paranoid, she will go crazy before the end of the week.
“Well, I think that we’ve officially finished the Pork skillet,” says Neal completely off topic. Then he grins at her. “Maybe that was why I came here in the first place. I wanted to steal your dinner.”
“Wow, was that a confession? Maybe I should arrest you,” says Diana with a ghost of a smile.
Neal smirks. “You’d have to catch me first.”
“I could do that,” replies Diana seriously.
“Well, then I’d better help you with the dishes to destroy the evidence.”
“Evidence tampering now? That’s a serious offence, Caffrey.”
“You can’t arrest me if you help me do it,” pointed out Neal with another smirk.
At first, the bantering is almost mechanical, just an old habit that’s hard to turn off. But as they continue needling each other, Diana feels some of her weariness fade away.
She still feels sick when she thinks of Peter’s injuries, although she knows that the feeling will diminish over time. Another part of her is chilled how easy the act came to her – not the torture, but the rest of it. It was like she used a part of her personality, twisted it and removed everything else. Did Neal do the same whenever he worked a con? Diana doesn’t know.
She feels tired and empty and shattered, but somehow, she has begun to put the pieces back together. What she wants the most now is to talk to Peter, but that will have to wait until tomorrow. But for now, she realizes that she wants company.
“So where did you say that we’ll be meeting Jones?” she asks at last.
Neal smiles.
* * *
Standing in front of the hospital room, Diana’s hand hesitates above the door knob.
She knows Peter, and she knows he won’t blame her for what happened. And yet, for some reason she is afraid to face him.
But nobody has ever accused Diana Berrigan of being a coward. She takes a deep breath and opens the door.
There are two beds in the room. The left one is empty. On the right one, Peter lifts his head when he hears the sound of the door opening.
“Hey Diana.” His voice is a bit croaky, but his smile is warm and genuine.
“Hey boss.”
And as Peter invites her to take the seat, Diana finally knows that things are going to be just fine.
THE END
Author’s Name:
sheenianniFandom: White Collar
Spoilers: This story is AU to episode 4x16 and takes place several months after Season 4. Minor spoilers through all four seasons.
Characters/Pairings: Diana Berrigan, Peter Burke, Neal Caffrey, FBI Team, Mozzie, Elizabeth Burke, Amanda Calloway
Raiting: PG-13
Content Notice: A bit of torture (mostly off-screen), Language
Word Count: ~ 10,200
Notes: Written for
sholio during the wcpairings exchange. Beta-read by the amazing theatregirl7299.Summary: In order to take down one of New York’s mobsters, Diana takes on an interesting role when she and Peter go undercover. But when the case starts falling apart, she has to do everything in her power to save Peter’s life – and then make peace with her decisions afterwards.
Back to Part I
PART II
Slipping into the role of the Mistress had been easier than Diana had anticipated, especially once she put on the all-black clothes and attached some knifes to her forearms, waist and one to her pant leg.
At first, she had been seriously annoyed when she had to leave her gun with Jones in the van. But she had reminded herself that Peter had her back, and he was still armed. Moreover, while everything suggested that Donovan was greedy and power-hungry, he wasn’t stupid. He wouldn’t want to upset the Raccinis, so the role of the Mistress should be enough to protect her. Finally, Jones and the rest of the team were close on stand by, and they insisted that they would be able to reach her and Peter in less than three minutes if anything went wrong.
The first tense moment came when Donovan’s people, aka a group of three thugs, asked Peter to relinquish his gun and wanted to search them both. Diana exchanged a split-second look with Peter, a quick unspoken discussion on how to proceed.
“Are you trying to harass me before we even begin negotiating?” drawled Diana with obvious displeasure. She paused. “My boss believed that you could be a reasonable man. Apparently he was wrong.” She turned to Peter. “This meeting is over.”
Peter’s eyes widened almost imperceptibly. They didn’t want to lose Donovan. What Diana just did had the potential to completely destroy their operation. Yet deep down, Diana felt it was necessary. Her instincts told her that Donovan wouldn’t trust her if she didn’t protest their treatment, that this had to be done if she wanted to maintain her cover as the Mistress. Not to mention she didn’t like the idea of going anywhere with Donovan’s people with both her and Peter unarmed.
After some haggling, threats and negotiations, Diana had relented on the subject of the gun when Donovan’s people gave up theirs as well. She didn’t like it and neither did Peter, but if they wanted to carry on with the operation, they didn’t really have a choice. And as long as Donovan believed that they belonged to the Raccinis, he wouldn’t dare to harm a hair on their heads.
They settled in the room that had been picked for the meeting. That was when the crucial part really began.
After the experience of the past few months, the team wanted a completely clear-cut case that would lead to an easy and flawless conviction. To ensure that, Diana knew she had to get Donovan to talk about his deals in as much detail as possible. At the same time, she had to be careful not to reveal that her own knowledge of the problem – while not bad – wasn’t nearly as deep as Donovan’s own.
As it turned out, they needn’t have worried. Once Donovan believed that Diana truly was the Mistress and that he had attracted the attention of the Raccinis, he went all the way out to convince her that he could be an asset to the family.
Everything seemed to be going according to the plan.
And then it happened.
Suddenly the door burst open and six men barged in. Diana noticed right away that all of them were armed.
“Doug?” spoke up Donovan. “What is the meaning of this?”
Without a blink of the eye, the guy called Doug pulled out his gun and aimed it straight at Peter’s head. “You seem to be having a mole there, boss.”
Well, shit.
Still maintaining her cover, although it might have already been blown, Diana slowly rose up to her feet.
Screw easy conviction. They would have to make do with what they had. She would rather deal with skeptical DAs again than be carried away in a body bag.
“I don’t recall agreeing to making this into a free-attendance party, Donovan” she said in an icy voice.
Donovan gave her an apologetic look. “Madam, I’m sure this is just a misunderstanding that will be cleared immediately.”
“See to it,” she replied curtly.
She felt Peter’s tension next to her, as well as his silent resolution. She had already said the activation phrase. In three minutes Jones and the team should be there to bust them out. They only had to stall until then.
Donovan frowned. “Doug, you better have a really good explanation for this, or I swear I’ll make you regret it.”
“I know this bastard, boss,” growled Doug angrily. “I met him seven years ago when I was still working freelance. We had a perfect job lined out to the detail, until this son of a bitch got cold feet and went blabbering to the feds. The rest of us were arrested – all except him who disappeared into thin air.”
Everything in the room stilled.
Silence.
“That’s the most ridiculous tale I’ve ever heard,” said Peter at last.
“The feds,” murmured Donovan quietly. “Of course.”
Diana tried to measure the distance between herself and Doug, but then she gave it up as a bad idea. Even disregarding the rest of the armed thugs, she would never make it to him in time before he shot Peter. Now she was seriously regretting that she didn’t have her gun on her. And where was Jones with the team?
Donovan’s signal must have been imperceptible.
Suddenly, the rest of the newcomers pulled out their guns as well and aimed it at Peter and Diana.
This was bad. Really bad.
“Are you sure it’s him?” asked Donovan, not even looking at Diana.
“Positive. I wasn’t sure on the camera, but the moment that I saw him in person, I knew. And I would recognize that bastard’s voice even in my sleep. It’s him alright.”
“I see.”
Donovan’s men surrounded them in a semi-circle, making sure that they wouldn’t escape and that any unexpected move would be met with deadly retribution. Diana knew she or Peter had to speak up, but the words were frozen in her throat. As always, she waited for Peter to give her a lead, a suggestion, instructions on how to proceed… only then she realized that this time, Peter wasn’t the head of the operation.
She was.
Finally, Donovan lifted his gaze and looked at Diana. “I have been wondering –”
“Is he right?” spoke up Diana suddenly. With the speed of a striking cobra, she swirled and turned to Peter, one of her knifes slipping into her hand. “Are you working for the feds?”
Donovan’s men stared at them in confusion.
Peter lifted his eyebrows. “I don’t know what he’s talking about.”
“You filthy back-stabbing rat,” gritted Doug though his teeth. “This piece of shit is the reason my brother got twelve years in the slammer, all over some stupid Russian dolls. I’ll shoot his brains out and I don’t care what –”
“Careful Doug. You’re crossing a line there,” Donovan interrupted in a warning tone. However, his eyes remained firmly fixed on Diana and Peter.
It was then when Diana finally remembered the case that Doug was talking about. Seven years ago, Peter had been undercover as an accountant who had been recently fired on suspicion of fraud. The crew they were after hired him to help them launder their money from their illegal smuggling business. And indeed, some of the items were smuggled inside matryoshka dolls.
She vaguely recalled that when the scheme came down, several of the perpetrators had been tripping over themselves to cut a deal. The evidence was so overwhelming that it didn’t even require Peter to testify at the trial – which was a good thing, because back then, Peter’s attention had been almost fully occupied by chasing one Neal Caffrey.
Diana would bet her money that Peter already remembered it all as well. And she was equally sure that there was no way they could talk Doug out of his certainty that Peter was his man.
What now?
Diana gave Peter an ugly smile. “I knew it. I knew we had a snitch in our mist every since the cops crashed our party at the gambling house. You were always too smart for your own good.”
For a moment, Peter was silent, probably contemplating their next move. In the end, he uttered a snort of contempt. “You called that a party? I think the people there were pitiful.”
Damn. She had hoped that Peter would come up with a plan.
However, now she had no choice than continue the charade.
“You bastard.” Diana brought the knife less than an inch under Peter’s jaw. “You will pay for it,” she seethed. “You will pay for every lie, every betrayal, every penny we lost that day – ”
“Can I shoot his brain out now?” called Doug.
“You touch a hair on his head and the deal’s off,” snapped Diana. Doug withdrew a bit – at least for the moment.
Diana stared into Peter’s face. Behind his facade and looking at his throbbing vein so close to her blade, she could read an echo of the same panic that was threatening to suffocate her. Even if Jones and the team had any doubts about the situation there, they’d now repeated their safeword several times. Where the hell was their backup?!
Then Peter’s eyes bore into her. ‘Patience,’ his look said. ‘Trust Jones and Neal.’
Diana blinked that she understood. ‘Okay.’
Donovan was eyeing her with a mixture of curiosity and heavy suspicion. Diana also noted that he hadn’t yet told his people to lower the guns that were aimed at her and Peter. “What is your business with the rat?” he asked at last.
“That rat has been close to far too many family operations. I need to find out what he knows,” explained Diana chillingly. “He and I are going to have a nice long conversation about loyalties and his relationship with the feds.”
To make the show more real, she pressed the blade closer to Peter’s jaw, just close enough to draw a drop of blood. Then she slowly drew two fingers across his neck, hoping that it would look psychopathic and not as cheesy as it felt to her.
Peter bent his head slightly backwards. “I won’t talk,” he pronounced strongly, standing there straight and proud with a several guns aimed at him and the tip Diana’s knife under his jaw. For a second, Diana wondered how the mobsters around them could not admire his courage and morals. Then she slipped back to her role.
“But you will, sweetheart. You will.”
At least one of the mobsters visibly winced. Apparently her role as the Mistress worked as well on these thugs as it had on Neal, Peter and Jones in the safety of the FBI conference room. Except now it wasn’t a game anymore.
She shot a glance at Donovan. “This traitor is mine.”
“As you wish, Mistress,” nodded Donovan at last.
Diana gave him an icy smile. “Good choice, Justin. I’ll have to call my people and inform them that –”
“Boss, what if he told the feds about this meeting?” spoke up suddenly one of Donovan’s people.
Donovan stilled.
Diana shot the man who interrupted them a haughty look. “If the feds knew, they would have stormed this place by now.” And she was going to kill Jones if they survived this. What the hell was he waiting for?!
Donovan stared at Peter for a moment. “Search him,” he said at last.
This was their chance, Diana knew it. To search Peter, one or more of Donovan’s men would have to approach them. If she and Peter could get a hold of their gun – a standstill was bad, but with their backup god-knows-where, this situation was even worse.
“Jackson. Give me your gun and then search him,” said Donovan. When the man obeyed his order, Donovan aimed the gun at Diana. “Search them both.”
“You dare to doubt me?!” hissed Diana angrily.
“It’s nothing personal, Mistress,” replied Donovan with an almost apologetic shrug. “I just can’t take the risk that you’re not who you’re claiming to be.”
At that moment, Diana realized that the dynamic in the room had shifted.
Donovan still respected her, she was sure of that. But the awe and fear he had felt when she had introduced herself as the Mistress was now gone – understandably, since she had supposedly made the inexcusable mistake of bringing a snitch into his house. With that change, their situation became even more dangerous than it had been before.
It was the moment when she fully acknowledged that she and Peter might not make it out of there alive.
* * *
‘How about you, Diana?’ Neal has asked her.
And isn’t that the million dollar question.
“I don’t know,” she starts hesitantly at last. She pauses, trying to put her spiraling thoughts into something resembling a coherent sentence. “I’ve been suspended,” she says then. “I had to give Calloway my gun. And now I feel so damn naked without it.” She shakes her head. “Neal, it was such a stupid plan –”
“The plan wasn’t stupid,” Neal interrupts her.
Diana sighs. “Okay, maybe not. But it had too many holes that we forgot to consider.”
“We couldn’t have known that Peter’s cover would be blown,” points out Neal. “Nor that we would lose contact with the two of you.”
“We should have expected it,” replies Diana sharply. “This sort of stuff can always happen during an operation. But because we were too eager to close this case, we took a stupid risk and it came back to bite us.”
“You’re right.”
Diana does a double-take. She has expected him to argue with her for longer, not to give in so easily.
“What is really bothering you?” asks Neal a moment later.
Diana takes a swing from her glass of beer and tries to find the answer.
* * *
Fortunately, Donovan’s man didn’t find the transmitter masked as Diana’s hair-clip. But that was where their luck was about to run out. Diana had played every angle she dared to without blowing her cover, but it had been to no avail.
Donovan wouldn’t let her leave with Peter as her prisoner, nor would he let her make a call to her own people, “to inform the Raccinis that we had a rat”. And Jones – Diana was going to break his legs before killing him if they survived this – Jones still hadn’t come to their rescue. Whatever happened, it became apparent that they were on their own.
Donovan insisted that they had to interrogate Peter to find out what he knew. Diana’s vicious objections that she wouldn’t expose the family secrets in front of a stranger fell on deaf ears.
She considered letting Peter grab her blade and “overpower” her, allowing him to take her as his hostage. But Donovan’s attitude towards “the Mistress” had changed too much to ensure that he wouldn’t call their bluff or simply shoot them both, his fear of the Raccinis be damned. It didn’t help that she and Peter couldn’t talk together, nor that there were still far too many weapons pointed at them.
“Tie him up and bring the tools,” said Donovan. “Let’s find out who our friend here really talked to.”
With a chilling thought, Diana realized that she had at least one more option left.
“Forget the tools,” she said aloud. “I’ll do it myself.”
“Madam –”
“Enough.” With as much authority as she could muster, Diana shot Donovan one more psychotic look. “Do you know why they call me the Mistress, Donovan?”
“Forget about the crazed bitch, boss,” snapped one of Donovan’s men.
This was bad. This was really, really bad. They had already zip-tied Peter’s hands behind his back and Diana was losing even the last shreds of control there. She put everything she had into one last deadly glare into Donovan’s eyes and secretly prayed that it would be enough.
“Do you know why, Donovan?”
There was a long pause.
“Yes. I know.”
“Today is your good day,” said Diana. “But tomorrow? The day after? You don’t want me as your enemy. … Unless, of course, I’m mistaken. Maybe you want me to talk to the bosses about your questionable loyalties. Or maybe you want to find me in your bedroom one night for a little friendly visit. You and I could have so much fun together –”
“I understand perfectly, Mistress,” interrupted Donovan. Diana was sure that at this point, he was already planning her demise – once he secured his place with the Raccinis.
“Forgive me my rudeness. The rat is yours.”
Diana smiled at him. “Thank you, Justin.”
She took a few steps and stretched her shoulders. To her surprise, Donovan had apparently given his people another wordless signal, because most of the guns that had been aimed at her disappeared. For a moment, Diana was tempted to stall, still hoping that the team would come to get them. But by then, it was painfully clear that they have somehow lost contact, so she abandoned the thought and returned to her former plan, even though the mere idea made her almost physically ill.
If she messed this up, Donovan could change his mind and kill them both. To hell with her principles – she could worry about them after she got them out of here alive.
With a controlled, only slightly crazed smile, she zipped open Peter’s leather jacket and then slit through his T-shirt to expose his bare chest. She needed to make it look professional, like she had been doing this for many years.
Diana thought she did rather well when she didn’t throw up.
With a slow stroke that supposedly mocked gentleness, she ran her empty hand across Peter’s now half-bared left shoulder and all the way down, hoping to find his cell-phone there. No such luck.
Aware of all the eyes on her, Diana knew she needed a distraction before she attempted the same thing at the other side.
She pressed the tip of her blade against Peter’s chest.
And then she found she couldn’t.
Her hand began to shiver.
This was Peter, her boss, her friend. Peter, who had listened to her suggestion about how to catch Caffrey, even when there were far more experienced agents around. Peter, who had trusted her with the music box and the treasure hunt. He was her mentor; the man who talked to her after her first shooting, the man she respected more than anyone else since Charlie’s death.
Diana couldn’t do it.
“I won’t talk.”
She almost jerked when she heard Peter’s voice. Then she looked into his eyes.
She saw the same faith in them, the same determination and unshakeable trust that she had always admired about him. Then Peter gave her an almost imperceptible nod.
Diana swallowed bile. “This is gonna be fun.”
Staring into Peter’s eyes, she found the same unwavering determination. She clenched the knife, and then she moved it down in a clear cut.
Peter screamed.
* * *
“Six cuts,” Diana says at last, although she knows Neal has seen them himself. “One before I found Peter’s phone. The other five until you arrived.”
Neal reaches across the table and gently clutches her hand.
“I stalled,” continues Diana. “I boasted and talked shit like a crazy egomaniac to prolong the time between them. I tried to do as little damage as possible while not tipping Donovan off.” She takes a gulp of her beer and stares at the table surface. “And the whole time, Peter kept looking at me with this – this – ”
Encouragement? Blind faith?
After that first scream, Peter kept biting his lips to make it easier for her, letting out only small grunts of pain. It didn’t help. It was only that look of unwavering trust that kept telling her to go on.
“I couldn’t have done it without that,” concludes Diana without further explanation.
“You did what you had to do to get both of you out of there alive.”
For a long while, Diana remains silent.
“Diana?” says Neal softly.
She runs her hands through her hair before she looks at him.
“You did what you had to. Peter’s gonna be okay thanks to you.”
“I know that,” she replies finally, even though a part of her wonders if Neal is just telling her the words she wants to hear. “I’m not stupid, Neal. I mean, maybe there had been a better solution –”
“That’s not – ”
“ – but we both made it out alive, so I guess that worked. It’s just…”
“It’s still hard to accept it,” finishes Neal gently when Diana trails off.
“Yes.”
For a moment, there is silence.
“How did you text us without them noticing?” asks Neal.
Diana breathes out. “Something you taught me. I used a distraction. I grabbed the phone in Peter’s pocket and then jabbed Peter into his back with it. He caught on right away and pretended that I was – scratching him, or grabbing him or something. I typed the message with one hand while I used the other to do the second cut in the front.”
“7-6-7. SOS.”
Diana nods. “Donovan and his thugs didn’t notice a thing.”
Neal squeezes her hand. “That was good.”
Diana shakes her head. “Not good enough.”
* * *
Somehow, Diana knew that they were here even before the door burst open.
“FBI! DROP YOUR WEAPONS! DROP YOUR WEAPONS!!!”
In the moment of distraction when the SWAT team led by Jones made their impressive entrance, she was already cutting through Peter’s zip-ties and supported him as he almost fell down.
“Peter. Peter!”
He caught balance by painfully grasping Diana’s shoulder. “I’m okay. Di… I’m okay.” The six bleeding lines on his chest were visible like some sort of a horrible pattern.
“The hell you are,” snapped Diana, feeling her eyes moisture. She could feel Peter’s shaking run through her whole body. “Come – sit down. Boss, I’m so –”
“Good. You did good. Diana…”
BANG!
An unexpected force tore Peter from Diana’s arms and threw him backwards. For one endless moment, Diana simply stared at him before comprehension settled in.
“PETER!!!”
The rest was a red haze.
She remembered yelling. Remembered pressing Peter’s cut T-shirt into the wound in his shoulder. Remembered Neal pulling her away from Peter when the ambulance arrived, and remembered yelling some horrible things at Jones.
She only snapped out of the haze when Neal put his hand on her shoulder. She shrugged it off, but then she followed him to the hospital.
And there, they waited.
* * *
“What exactly happened?” asks Diana. “Why didn’t you get there when we first gave the takedown signal?”
“We lost your transmission – ”
“But how? Why?” presses Diana. “How did that happen? Did they have a jammer or – ”
“No, nothing like that.” Neal hesitates before he gives her a grim look. “We have no idea what happened.”
Diana stares at him. “What?”
“The Bureau claims it was equipment malfunction. We lost the audio on you about ten minutes after you moved inside. Since we could still see your signal and neither you nor Donovan’s people left the building… I texted Peter, he replied everything was okay, so Jones decided to continue the operation.” Neal sighs. “Obviously Jones has been beating himself up over it ever since we got your message.”
Thinking back, Diana realizes she vaguely remembers Peter fiddling with something on his phone.
The last traces of anger she felt against her colleague and friend dissolve into thin air. “It wasn’t Jones’s fault,” she says with a sigh. “If I were in his place, I might have made the same call.”
“Maybe you could tell him that later when we meet him at the bar?” suggests Neal. “If you want to come, that is.”
“You’re meeting Jones at a bar?” asks Diana with some disbelief. She wouldn’t have thought that Jones would be in much mood to socialize this evening.
“He said he’d be there,” replies Neal a bit evasively.
Ah. So Caffrey blackmailed him into it somehow. Diana wonders what Neal told Jones before she decides to let it go.
She stares into distance. “Equipment malfunction. I can’t believe it.”
“Neither could I and Moz,” says Neal darkly.
Diana’s head snaps as she looks at him. “What?”
Neal hesitates. “You’re gonna think I’m crazy.”
“I’ll try to withhold my judgment.”
For a moment, Neal remains silent. “It’s a bit curious that the equipment mysteriously malfunctioned right during a meeting with a wannabe-crime boss. Do you remember the last time Peter ended in a hospital?”
When Diana finally comprehends Neal’s train of thoughts, she snorts out. “You’re right Caffrey, that is crazy.”
”I never said it wasn’t.”
“Not everything is a conspiracy theory,” continues Diana. “Sometimes malfunctions happen on their own. Nothing mysterious about it.”
Silence.
There isn’t anything mysterious… right?
“You’re right,” says Neal at last. “Malfunctions happen. I’ve probably been spending too much time around Mozzie.”
Probably…
No. She would not go there. Diana knows that if she starts being paranoid, she will go crazy before the end of the week.
“Well, I think that we’ve officially finished the Pork skillet,” says Neal completely off topic. Then he grins at her. “Maybe that was why I came here in the first place. I wanted to steal your dinner.”
“Wow, was that a confession? Maybe I should arrest you,” says Diana with a ghost of a smile.
Neal smirks. “You’d have to catch me first.”
“I could do that,” replies Diana seriously.
“Well, then I’d better help you with the dishes to destroy the evidence.”
“Evidence tampering now? That’s a serious offence, Caffrey.”
“You can’t arrest me if you help me do it,” pointed out Neal with another smirk.
At first, the bantering is almost mechanical, just an old habit that’s hard to turn off. But as they continue needling each other, Diana feels some of her weariness fade away.
She still feels sick when she thinks of Peter’s injuries, although she knows that the feeling will diminish over time. Another part of her is chilled how easy the act came to her – not the torture, but the rest of it. It was like she used a part of her personality, twisted it and removed everything else. Did Neal do the same whenever he worked a con? Diana doesn’t know.
She feels tired and empty and shattered, but somehow, she has begun to put the pieces back together. What she wants the most now is to talk to Peter, but that will have to wait until tomorrow. But for now, she realizes that she wants company.
“So where did you say that we’ll be meeting Jones?” she asks at last.
Neal smiles.
* * *
Standing in front of the hospital room, Diana’s hand hesitates above the door knob.
She knows Peter, and she knows he won’t blame her for what happened. And yet, for some reason she is afraid to face him.
But nobody has ever accused Diana Berrigan of being a coward. She takes a deep breath and opens the door.
There are two beds in the room. The left one is empty. On the right one, Peter lifts his head when he hears the sound of the door opening.
“Hey Diana.” His voice is a bit croaky, but his smile is warm and genuine.
“Hey boss.”
And as Peter invites her to take the seat, Diana finally knows that things are going to be just fine.
THE END
