Imagine my surprise when I showed Boss the pictures of Rafael on my phone, and he said these words to me.
"Wow, Elysium. You initiated a stake out of your own, I'm impressed. Nothing I didn't already know, though. Who do you think set Ossini up with that job?"
I stood there in front of Boss' desk dumbfounded. When he saw my obvious look of confusion, he explained some more.
"Ossini came to see me. He told me all about his time away and having to work under contract with penalty of death. That asshole, Dex, in the other town, keeping my team member, making me think he was dead for two fucking years, threatening Ossini's life if he didn't work for him?! I thought about it though, and I asked Ossini if he had made sure to pay attention to that other team's secrets while he was stuck there. He didn't disappoint me when he said yes... so, we are going to set an operation in motion that will severely deplete our enemy's resources, as punishment for him stealing Ossini. Having him work at that restaurant is the first step."
"You're not upset at me?"
"No. After we finished the discussion of him being back, he asked about you, so I told him where you were. I know you guys were close before his supposed demise. Truthfully, I had wondered how long it would take you to get suspicious of Ossini. I know it's in your nature, which is something I love about you. So, I also told Ossini not to tell you that he'd already been to see me. I was testing you to see when you would suspect him, and see how you would handle it. Orchestrating your own stake out was impressive. I'm guessing you wouldn't be here if your stake out had been unsuccessful, right?"
I nodded, still in a very large state of shock from the words I had just heard come out of Boss' mouth. I still felt like I couldn't breathe, almost as if I'd been holding my breath this whole time. Everything felt surreal.
"You trusted him after the first night he was back?"
"No, of course not. I didn't know if he was back because he'd switched sides and Dex was now trying to use him against me, or if he truly was back. That's why I waited for these two months before I gave him a job. I did the routine surveillance on him, finding out that he had just been staying at that hotel, watching tv, and texting you. I didn't want to tell him anything about our operations yet, of course, but I knew it in my heart that he wouldn't hurt you based on how you guys acted when I first hired you, so I felt comfortable telling him where you were on that first night. I hope you don't mind."
"No, I didn't mind, I liked seeing him again. I thought he might have been sent to kill me because of what had happened that night, though."
"Of course you would. That's your mistrusting nature coming out again. Anyway, good job, Elysium. I'll see you back at work tomorrow. Also, I'm giving you thug privileges on your next shift, due to you impressing me."
"Thank you!"
I left Boss' office and got back into the rental car. I could finally be at peace about this whole thing. Boss wasn't mad at either Rafael nor I, and Rafael was on our side. I felt the weight I had been carrying on my shoulders lift itself up and disappear. I slept soundly and went to work the next day, as normal. Boss told me some stuff about the operation we were doing at the Bridgeport Cafe & Casino where Rafael was working. He said that Dex owned a franchise location of the Bridgeport chain of cafes, which he was using as a front for money laundering. Bridgeport Cafe was a chain establishment, and their franchisees got a certain portion of the proceeds from all the cafes in the chain. Since we were in Bridgeport, the headquarters for the company was in our town, and Boss was planning to have delete the information off the computer for Dex's franchise orders, so that he wouldn't get any of his supplies for the week, effectively screwing him over so that his cafe wouldn't run properly. After that, the plan was for Dex's dirty money to start showing through, once his cafe was no longer making any real money. My part was to be the lookout for the person who was going to delete the files and make sure no one got in. This was sure to be an exciting night.
Natalia's Progress: Natalia is now a Level 3 Thug. She gets to be the lookout for the team, and take out any people who try to get in the way of their operations.
