Chapter 14

Disclaimer: I do not own anything. Everything belongs to their rightful owners and I am not making any profit from this.

AN1: Sorry I had meant to upload this chapter for a while. Sorry it's been so long I've been insanely busy with Law School. Hope you like.

Having not managed to get much sleep as he couldn't stop thinking about everything that Mike told him, Harvey headed to the office early and ever since he arrived, several hours ago, he has been reading everything he can find about Neal Caffrey.

As she arrived at the office at her usual time Donna looks towards Harvey's office, like she always does, and she is shocked to see that he is already working. Needing to know what is going on Donna heads straight into Harvey's office.

"Harvey?" Donna asks, as she walks in.

"Yeah?" Harvey says, not looking up from what he is doing.

"What's going on? You're never here this early." Donna notes, as she walks over to her boss and friend.

"Mike came by last night." Harvey reveals, actually looking up at his assistant.

"What happened? Is he okay? When's he coming back to work?" Donna asks, her voice slightly hurried.

"He's coming back today, apparently." Harvey reveals.

"Did he explain what the hell happened?" Donna asks, as she sits down across from Harvey.

"The person who's like a second brother to Mike, was shot." Harvey explains.

"Is he okay?"

"Mike said he's healing, and the FBI got the person who shot him, but Mike is apparently still in danger from the person who is pulling the strings." Harvey explains.

"Why would Mike be in danger? Not counting Trevor who would want to hurt Mike?" Donna asks, sounding confused.

"Mike's brothers Neal Caffrey." Harvey says simply, as if that would explain everything.

"Shit." Donna says shocked, "Mike's brothers an international thief and con artist?" She asks, and Harvey nods, "You know that may actually explain a lot." She realises.

"It explains why I couldn't get a read on him." Harvey admits, "Mike wouldn't go into details about why he is in danger, said he was trying to protect me."

"Do you believe him?" Donna asks curious.

"I'm not sure." Harvey admits, "I could tell he was worried, but it seemed like being in danger, having a gun pointed at him, is something he's used to."

"He had a gun pointed at him?" Donna asks, sounding worried, and Harvey nods.

"I came in early to look into anything about Neal Caffrey I could find, hoping it would give me some insight into who's after Mike." Harvey reveals.

"And?"

"I've found plenty about the crimes he allegedly committed, but could never be proved, but nothing that even indicates he has a brother. In fact, I found very little on who Neal is as a person." Harvey explains.

"Just like you couldn't find much about Mike." Donna notes.

"Exactly like that." Harvey says, "There's things Mike isn't saying, and I don't know what to think." He admits, only doing so because it is Donna.

"Try talking to him again. It's the only thing you can do." Donna says.

"I don't know. Last night he seemed pretty against not wanting to talk, he wouldn't even tell me his real name." Harvey reveals, honestly that hurts more than he'd like to admit.

"Wouldn't that be Mike Caffrey? Or did Neal change his name from Ross?" Donna asks.

"I'm not sure." Harvey admits, something he doesn't do often, "Mike said that Ross was his grandmothers Maiden Name, and Caffrey is their mother's maiden name. He said he considers both to be his last name, answers to both, but he also said that neither was the name he was born with."

"That's strange." Donna notes.

"There's been a lot of strange things about Mike lately." Harvey notes, and the two of them drift into silence.

"Here he comes." Harvey says, after a few minutes of Donna and Harvey sitting in silence, and Donna looks up to see Mike walking in the room.

"Donna, it's good to see you." Mike says, with a smile.

"You too." Donna says, standing up, "But it would be better if you had coffee."

"Sorry, I'll remember that." Mike says.

"You should have told me about your bother." Donna tells Mike, giving him a warning look, "And what connection does he have to the FBI apart from the fact that they arrested him?" Donna asks curious.

"He's a criminal informant for the White Collar division, but don't spread that around." Mike requests, "Either of you." He asks, looking between Donna and Harvey.

"We won't." Harvey tells Mike, as he gathered that people weren't supposed to know about Neal.

"Promise." Donna adds, before heading out, and as she leaves she squeezes Mike's shoulder.

"So, making sure Jessica gets all the votes. What's our first move?" Mike asks curious.

"You remember me telling you why we were able to force Hardman out last time?" Harvey asks.

"You really shouldn't need to ask that." Mike says, "I see where you're going, but how do you think you can use the affair to get him to lose the vote?" He asks curious.

Hearing the question Harvey grins, and begins to explain his plan.

For the next two days Mike has been working hard during the day to use the plans Harvey has come up with to try and make sure Hardman doesn't get the votes required to beat Jessica while also working on his own plan, having used the night before to get the intel he needs.

As he knows that Neal is working all night with Peter Mike has stopped to get himself dinner after working late and is finally heading home.

As he walks, keeping an eye out for any danger out of habit, Mike realises that his phone is ringing so he, while balancing the take out he brought with his bag, pulls out his phone to answer it.

"Hunter?" Mike asks.

"I would love to know what you would have done if it wasn't me." Alex's voice, sounding quite amused, says.

"I would have found a way to explain it." Mike says, sounding not at all bothered.

"I'm in the city. Where do you want to meet?" Alex asks curious.

"How about the apartment, Neal's working late." Mike reveals.

"Sounds good to me. See you in fifteen." Alex says, before hanging up, and hangs up too, putting his phone in his pocket, and being glad that he's nearly home.

Fifteen minutes later, almost to the second, Mike is waiting for Alex in the apartment with the food, and plates for two set out, when there is a knock on the door.

"It's open." Mike says, and Alex walks in, "It's good to see you, Hunter." Mike says, standing up.

"You too, Kid Caffrey." Alex says, before hugging Mike.

"Drink?" Mike asks, as they break apart.

"Sure, I'll have whatever you're drinking." Alex reveals.

"That means beer." Mike warns.

"That's okay." Alex says, sitting down at the table and helping herself to some food.

"Here." Mike says, handing Alex a beer as he sits back down.

"So, what do you need help with?" Alex asks curious.

"Breaking into my bosses' house." Mike says, simply.

'I'm listening." Alex says, her voice natural, like that isn't strange at all.

"Two days from now there is going to be a vote for the new managing partner of Pearson Hardman, and as much as I hate to say it, it looks like Hardman is going to get the votes, even though Harvey's trying to get more votes from Jessica and I've been helping." Mike explains.

"Not seeing why you want to break into his house, other than the fact you can I mean." Alex admits.

"Hardman's dirty, that much is clear. Mozzie has searched his office and couldn't find anything, but Hardman is too anal not to keep some kind of record of everything, and he's too cocky to believe that he would get caught." Mike explains to Alex.

"So you want to break into his house and steal the proof?" Alex asks curious.

"Not exactly." Mike says, "If we just steal the documents it would be too obvious, and it would cause there to be evidence of the crime. I want to find them, memorise them, then recreate perfectly." Mike reveals, "Once that's done I want to drop the documents at Jessica's house with ways to independently verify the information." He reveals.

"Okay, you can do all that alone, why'd you call me?" Alex asks, curious.

"I can memorise the documents, and I could forge his signature, but making the documents look real enough isn't something I think I could pull of." Mike admits, "And having more help finding the documents would be a good idea."

"I should know the answer to this, but why aren't you asking Neal? He's the expert forger." Alex notes.

"Don't sell yourself first." Mike says, "And Neal's got the tracker on, and Peter's been paying even more attention lately, so…."

"You're worried. Don't want to risk getting Neal involved in something that could get him into trouble" Alex realises, "He's probably going to kill me, but okay. I won't tell him."

"Thanks Alex." Mike says, looking relieved.

"So you said the vote is in two days? Have you done recon? Do you know when we're going to do this?" Alex asks.

"I've done recon." Mike confirms, "And tomorrow night Hardman's taking out a bunch of the senior partners probably to try and buy more votes, I figure that will be the best time." He explains, "We can go over all my recon once we eat."

"Good. We need a solid plan, Mike. From what you said we're only going to get one chance."

"I know." Mike says with a nod, and the two of them drift into silence as they eat.

Half an hour later Mike and Alex have both eaten and are going over all the recon that Mike has done.

"Pretty good work you've done here." Alex comments, not overly surprised as Mike has been around enough pros to know what to do.

"Thanks. I've watched Neal plan things enough; I knew what I needed to find out." Mike explains, but before Alex can respond the door opens and Mozzie walks in, the second the door opens Mike hurriedly tries to hide what they are doing.

"Hey Alex." Mozzie greats, not even phased that she is there, "What's going on here?" he asks surprised.

"Nothing, nothing at all." Mike comments, trying to hide what they are doing.

"Wow I really thought you were a better liar." Alex informs Mike.

"I usually am." Mike admits, with a shrug.

"We're breaking into Mike's bosses house." Alex reveals, as Mozzie grabs a bottle of wine, and glass.

"Harvey?" Mozzie asks, confused about while Mike would break into Harvey's house, as Mike gives Alex an annoyed look.

"Hardman." Alex corrects, "You just asked me not to tell Neal."

"That makes more sense." Mozzie realises, "So, what makes you finally want to cross the line with Hardman?"

"There's a vote in two days, and if he wins Harvey and Jessica are going to be gone from the firm." Mike explains, "They've both mean a lot to me, and I know how much the firm means to them, I just can't let them lose it."

"You Caffrey's, always going to insane lengths for the people you're in love with." Mozzie comments, looking slightly amused.

"So you finally admitted to yourself that you're in love with Harvey?" Alex asks, Mike curious, as she has been able to tell since Mike started working for Harvey that Mike had feelings for him, she was just waiting for him to realise it.

"Yeah." Mike confirms.

"It's about time." Alex says, looking amused, "You going to act on it?"

"Not any time soon, it's way too complicated." Mike admits.

"And yet you're still going to break into his bosses' house to make sure he can keep his job." Mozzie says, looking amused, "He know you're going to do that?"

"No, and he's not going to." Mike reveals, "Harvey might cross lines, but I think this is something he wouldn't be okay with."

"He's hired someone he knows isn't a lawyer and you think he's going to have problem with a little breaking and entering and stealing?" Alex asks, giving Mike a look.

"He's a normal person. Normal people don't consider stealing an option, unlike us where it's the first thing that comes to mind when needing to get something done." Mike reveals, causing Alex and Mozzie to exchange looks, that Mike doesn't notice.

"Let's see this plan of yours." Mozzie requests, and Mike shows Mozzie everything he tried to hide.

For the next few minutes Mozzie looks over everything that Mike and Alex planed, while Alex and Mike watch him, waiting for her reaction.

"Nice plan you two have got here, but you've got one flaw." Mozzie reveals, looking between Alex and Mike, hearing that both of them look down at the plans, trying to pick up on what Mozzie's seen and at almost the exact same time the answer comes to them,

"Lookout." Alex and Mike says.

"Yep." Mozzie confirms, "You're plan on having two people searching the office is good, you don't know how many documents you are going to have to go through, and there might be a safe which will take time to crack, but you're going to have no warning if Hardman comes home."

"We need a third person." Mike realises, and in perfect unison he and Alex look at Mozzie.

"What do you say Moz? You in?" Alex asks curious.

"Sure, you don't have time to find someone else." Mozzie comments, making it seem like he is just doing them a favour, but the truth is he wants to be involved.

"Thanks Moz." Mike says, relieved, "Don't tell Neal." He asks.

"Oh, I'm so not going to get in the middle of that." Mozzie reveals, as he is pretty sure he'd rather get shot again than be in the middle when Neal finds out what his brother is doing, "I won't bring it up, but I'm not going to lie either."

"Sounds fair." Mike says, with a nod.

"No chatting boys, we've got less than twenty-four hours." Alex says, and the group of three start to plan."

For a while Mike, Mozzie, and Alex have walked together to plan, having come up with a detailed plan about what they are going to do. Having left Alex and Mozzie inside to talk about something other than what they are going to be doing, Mike has headed out to the balcony to watch the city and drink his beer.

Mike has been out on the balcony for well over ten minutes when he hears footsteps and Alex walks out and stands next to him.

"I thought you might want another one." Alex says, placing another beer in front of Mike.

"Thanks." Mike says, taking a drink.

"Can I give you some advice?" Alex asks curious.

"Since when do you ask?" Mike asks, and Alex just gives him a look, "Go ahead." Mike says, with a sigh.

"When you said Harvey's normal, you were right, so you need to remember that you're not." Alex says, and Mike just gives her a look, "You might not be a con in the most tradition sense, but you are one. Neal taught you things, and you've spent so long watching him, and Mozzie, and Me, even Kate, that if you were to try you'd probably be as good as any of one us." She reveals, "Neal may have tried to keep you away from this life, but you still leant so much, and everything you've seen, everything you've been though including whatever it is that happened before you and Neal came to this city, has affected you, changed you, in ways that someone like Harvey couldn't understand." Alex tells Mike, as even though she knows it might be hard for him to hear this she feels like he needs to know.

"Alex…" Mike starts to say.

"Just listen." Alex says, "I want you to be happy, Mike. I want you to be with someone who loves you, and treats you in the way you deserve, but I also think you need to go into a relationship with your eyes open."

"I do think I love him." Mike admits, "But with everything going on I don't want him to get caught in the crossfire, and I don't know how'd he reacts to the complete truth of who I am, what I can do."

"If you really want to be with Harvey then you're going to have to be honest, tell him everything and let him decide if all this is something he can handle." Alex reveals, and Mike looks down. "Hey, look at me Mike." Alex requests and Mike looks up at her, "I'm not telling you all this to convince you not to tell Harvey, in fact I think you'd be really good together." She admits.

"You've never meet Harvey." Mike reminds his friend.

"I haven't, but I've heard the way you talk about him." Alex admits, deciding not to mention that she has looked into him, and spied on him as well, "Which is why I'm telling you this. Like I said Harvey's normal, by our standards at least, so if you're going to be in a relationship with him I think you have to be honest, and you need to accept that it's not going to be easy, or simple, otherwise you're just going to get hurt."

"I know." Mike says.

"Good." Alex says, taking a drink of her drink, "You should also make it clear to him that if he hurts you Neal, Moz and I will make him pay." She says, in complete seriousness causing Mike to laugh.

"I'm glad you're here." Mike says, as Alex isn't the romantic Neal is so she gives him the relationship advice that he may not want to hear, but he needs to hear.

"So am I." Alex says, as Mike puts his arm around her shoulder.

"You need a place to stay tonight?" Mike asks curious, "Because if you do you can take my bed and I'll share with Neal."

"I'm good, but thanks." Alex says, and once more the two of them drift into silence.

At nine pm the following evening Mike, Alex, and Mozzie, all wearing black, in Mike and Alex's cases black leather jackets, are meeting outside of Hardman's house, as well as being dressed in black all three of them are wearing gloves.

"He left with the partners about forty minutes before I left. So I'd say we've got about an hour at the absolute most." Mike reveals, as he tried to get out as quick as possible, but had some problems.

"Okay. Then we want to be quick." Alex says.

"Here." Mozzie says, handing Mike a two-way radio, "I'll contact you when Hardman gets home so you two can get out, other than that we should keep radio silence." He advices.

"No argument here." Alex says, "We should get moving."

"Yep." Mike says, and the two of head towards the house. Moving as quietly as possible.

Once they get to the house they both head to the security box which Mike noticed in his recon. Once they open the box Alex pulls out her tools,

"Hold this." Alex says, handing Mike a torch which he shines on the wires that Alex is about to start working on.

"Less than two minutes right?" Mike asks, keeping his voice low.

"Way less." Alex says, "I'm by passing the alarm so that it thinks it's connected when it's not. When we leave we're going to have to get rid of the bypass." She reveals.

"Okay." Mike says.

"Okay, done." Alex says.

"Good." Mike says, turning off the torch, and putting it his pocket as Alex closes the security box.

Once more sneaking in complete silence Mike and Alex head to the back door, which according to the plans Mike got a hold of is closest to Hardman's office.

"You want to do the honours?" Alex asks Mike, in a whisper.

"Sure." Mike says, pulling his lock pick out of his pocket before kneeling in front of the door, as he does Alex pulls a second torch out of her pocket and points it at the lock so that Mike can see what he's doing, "I could do it without the light." Mike reveals, as he starts to pick it, as he picks locks by the feeling of doing it, not by sight.

"Of course you could." Alex says, not at all surprised as she hears the sound that tells her that Mike successfully picked the lock.

"After you." Mike says, standing up, and opening the door.

"You know the way." Alex points out, and they both head into the house.

"Office is though here, according to the plans." Mike says, as he and Alex make their way through the corridors.

"Got it." Alex responds.

Moving in complete silence, as even though they believe that they are alone it's better to be careful, Mike and Alex make their way to the office.

Once they get there Alex and Mike find the door un locked, not that it would have been a problem if it was locked, and head in.

"I'll start checking things in the file cabinets." Mike says, in a whisper.

"Okay. I'll look for the safe and crack that." Alex says, as while they don't know for sure they believe that Hardman will have a safe, and most likely it will be where what they need is.

"Okay." Mike says, and while Mike heads over to the file cabinets, Alex starts to look for the safe.

For the next few minutes Mike searches through the filing cabinets, which he had to pick, memorising things as he goes while Alex searches for, and after a few more minutes, cracks, the safe.

Once she has the safe opens Alex starts to search though what's inside,

"Mike, you've got to see this." Alex says, and Mike puts what he is memorising back before heading over to Alex.

"What is it?" Mike asks.

"Just look." Alex says, handing the documents over.

"Holy shit. This is everything we need." Mike says, feeling amazed.

"Start memorising anything I put in front of you." Alex says, and that is exactly what Mike does.

For the next few minutes Mike memorises everything that Alex puts in front of him, while he also works out the ways to make it so Jessica, and Harvey, and quite possibly him, could independently verify everything they have found.

"Mike, Alex." Mozzie's voice says, and Mike quickly pulls the two-way radio out of his pocket.

"Yeah, Moz?" Mike asks.

"Hardman's car's coming. You've got to get out of there." Mozzie says, And Alex takes the two-way radio from Mike.

"How long have we got?" Alex asks, as Mike hurriedly tries to memorise the last few pages.

"Two minutes, max." Mozzie says.

"We've got it Moz." Alex says, as she and Mike exchange looks and both start to hurry with what they have to do.

Almost five minutes after he contacted Mike and Alex Mozzie is standing in the meeting point that he, Mike, and Alex decided on.

"Where are you two?" Mozzie asks himself, not wanting to risk using the two-way radio just in case they are hiding.

A few seconds later Mozzie hears footsteps and he turns to see Mike and Alex, coming towards him.

"So?" Mozzie asks, seeing them.

"We've got everything we needed to take him down." Mike says with a grin.

"Then let's get out of here." Mozzie says.

"You don't have to tell me twice." Alex says, and they all sneak away.

A little while later Mike, Alex, and Mozzie are arriving back at the apartment.

"Okay, we don't have long to pull off step two, so we're going to have to be fast." Mozzie comments as they get to the apartment door.

"I know." Mike says, as they walk in, not realising that the apartment isn't empty, "Moz I'll recite to you, and you type. Alex start to do what you have to do to make the documents look like the ones that we found in the safe." He says, looking back at Alex and Mozzie, before turning forward, and as he does he sees Neal working at his easel, and from the look on his face, he realises that his brother is far from happy, "Neal, I didn't realise you were home."

"Obviously." Neal comments, and everyone can hear that he isn't happy.

"Moz, balcony?" Alex asks curious.

"Yeah." Mozzie says, and the two of them flee to the balcony, leaving the two brothers alone.

"What's going on, Mike?" Neal asks his brother, standing up.

"Nothing, nothing at all." Mike lies, "Except of course apparently Moz and Alex are scared of both of us." He says, "That makes me feel kind of proud." He admits.

"Michael." Neal says, in a warning tone of voice.

"God I hate that voice." Mike says, looking far from happy, "I should take Moz and Alex a drink." He says, trying to side step his brother, but Neal blocks his path.

"Fine, if you're not going to talk I'm going to guess." Neal says, looking his brother up and down, "You, Alex, and Moz are all in black, and you're talking about finding documents in a safe, which you're now going to forge, where did you break into?"

"Hardman's." Mike reveals, knowing that there is no point in lying anymore, "And I didn't tell you because I didn't want you to stop me, or have you involved because it could have gotten you in trouble from Peter." Mike explains to his brother, "We found the proof I need to make sure Hardman doesn't only lose the vote, but loses any position in the company." He reveals, "I memorised them, and we're going recreate the documents, and then I'll take them to Jessica's house with ways for her to independently verify everything in time for the vote." Mike explains, "So if you want to yell it can wait, because I'm on a clock." Mike informs his brother as he undoes the leather jacket he is wearing.

Looking at his brother Neal pauses for a few seconds, his face being impossible to read, and honestly it makes Mike a little nervous, as he really isn't sure how his brother is going to react.

"MOZ, ALEX, GET IN HERE, WE'VE GOT WORK TO DO." Neal yells.

"Really?" Mike asks, looking at his brother in shock.

"Really." Neal confirms, "You're plans a good one except Alex should be in charge of getting started on the ways for Jessica to independently verify everything while I make everything look right."

"You're the expert." Mike says, completely trusting his brother, as Alex and Mozzie walk in.

"So?" Alex asks.

"Like Neal said, let's get to work." Mike requests, and that's exactly what they do.

After hours of hard work, Mike is arriving back at the apartment having come from dropping off the documents at Jessica's, where he rang the bell, more than likely waking her up.

As he walks into the apartment Mike sees Mozzie asleep on the couch, and Alex asleep in his bed, and Neal outside, so he walks out to see his brother.

"I did it." Mike reveals, as he walks over to his brother.

"Were you seen?" Neal asks.

"I don't think so." Mike admits, "How mad at me are you?"

"I'm not, not really." Neal reveals, "I mean I was, but I'm not anymore." He admits, telling the truth.

"Really?" Mike asks, sounding surprised.

"Yeah." Neal confirms, "I wish you told me what you were planning, I would have wanted to be involved."

"That's why I didn't." Mike reveals, "Hardman's place is outside your radius, and I didn't want to risk you getting in trouble. I was trying to protect you."

"It's my job to protect you, Mike." Neal tells his brother.

"No, we protect each other." Mike tells Neal, "From the second Harvey told me about the vote I knew that I would have to cross lines, more than Harvey was anticipating, to end this, and nothing was going to stop me, not even you." He explains, "It was something I had to do." Mike says, reminding Neal a lot of himself.

"You really love working at Pearson Hardman, don't you?" Neal asks his brother.

"I love working with Harvey, and Donna, Jessica, Rachel, and even Louis." Mike reveals, and as he does he gets an almost sad look on his face.

"What's wrong Mikey? You did well tonight." Neal tells his brother, putting his arm around his brother's shoulder as while he doesn't like that Mike didn't tell him what was going on beforehand, he can't deny that Mike did well.

"I feel like I belong at the firm, I'm finally doing what I feel like I should be doing, and the people are incredible." Mike reveals.

"I can hear the but." Neal realises.

"But, one day, maybe next week, or next month, or next year, the wrong person is going to find out that I never went to law school and everything going to blow up. I'm going to lose everything I've gained." Mike admits, admitting what he would only admit to Neal, as while he would show his fear to others, he wouldn't show it this much, "I don't know if I'm going to be able to handle that."

"You're right. That day probably is coming, but I'm going to do whatever I have to do to protect you." Neal tells his brother.

"Somethings are out of your control, Neal, and this is one of them." Mike informs his brother.

"No, it's not." Neal assures his brother and the two brothers just drift into silence as they stand side by side, Mike thinking about the fact that the day his secret is revealed, is going to destroy him and Neal is thinking about the fact that he will do whatever he has to do to protect his brother from the fall out when that day comes.