Title: The Enforcer

Author: Pacacapa

Rating: T

Genre: Drama, suspense

Length: ~10,800

Summary: In an alternate universe, Eliot never left Moreau. When the Italian pits a shorthanded Team Leverage against Moreau, they come face to face with what should have been. AU. Minor supernatural themes. Major spoilers for The Big Bang Job and The San Lorenzo Job, and anything else up until that point is fair game as well.

Disclaimer: I do not own Leverage or any of its characters; I'm just borrowing them for fun and no profit.

AN: This is quite outside what I normally write, given that I'm a stickler for canon. But I was inspired to write evil Eliot, though, so… we'll see how it goes. It turned out quite a bit darker than my other stories, thus the higher rating.

This was quite an experiment for me, so any and all comments, suggestions, and constructive criticisms are welcome. Seriously, don't worry about hurting my feelings. I want to know what you really think.

On the table beside Eliot, a phone rang. He flicked it open and growled, "Spencer."

The voice on the other end was high-pitched and frantic. "Mr. Spencer, my name is Victor Dubenich and I'm offering you $300,000 to help me retrieve…"

Before the man could finish, Eliot silenced him with a curt "no" and tossed the phone back onto the table. He didn't need outside work. He liked the work he had; Damien was a good boss who took care of him and gave him a lot of free reign. Besides, he paid well, and the reputation Eliot had gained working for him… well, that would ensure he never lacked for anything.

Yes, Eliot Spencer saw no reason to leave the service of Damien Moreau.

Two Years Later

"Run it, Hardison." Nate let the words precede him as he descended the steps from his room to his apartment-turned-office. Sophie and Parker sat at the bar in front of the screens, and Hardison was leaning on the other side.

Hardison didn't put the info up on the screen like he had requested. Sophie turned to study him carefully before speaking. "You saw that Italian woman last night, didn't you?"

Avoiding eye contact, Nate nodded. "Making sure we're still keeping up with this Moreau business."

"Is that why we're going after this particular target?" Sophie was speaking diplomatically, but Hardison was a bit more blunt.

"This is crazy, man. Going after one of Moreau's top lieutenants, who is guarded by a literal small army of muscle? It's suicide. We're con men, not hitters. What are we supposed to do if things go wrong?"

Sophie picked up again. "Can't we be more effective if we go after - say - anyone that doesn't require us going toe-to-toe with a bunch of armed and dangerous thugs? Because I don't know if you noticed, but none of us are exactly equipped to handle a fight."

Nate let his eyes linger on his three other teammates in turn. Yes, he had in fact noticed that very unpleasant detail. Unfortunately, the Italian hadn't left him much of a choice. He had to pull this off, and that required a really good plan.

Thankfully, Nate was good with plans.

"We're going after Ross Farrell and that's that. Now, Hardison, put it up on the screen so I can explain how we're going to pull it off.

With a meaningful glance toward Sophie, the hacker turned to face the screen and punched a button on his remote a little harder than necessary. "This man is Ross Farrell, who is responsible for investing and managing large portions of Moreau's funds. He also does a good deal of laundering, and generally keeps the money liquid and legitimate. He's a critical part of Moreau's infrastructure. Taking him out will do a lot of damage to the man in charge." Hardison faced the team again. "It's still suicide."

Nate gestured toward the screen. "Keep going."

"Tonight he's attending a fancy gala hosted by some wealthy friends of his."

Nate took over. "Sophie and I are going to attend that party. I'm going as a successful entrepreneur who is selling off his small business to a big corporation. You, Sophie, will play a prospective buyer who wants to get in before the buyout, when the value will skyrocket, but can't because the asking price is too high."

"You're asking me to get him to invest in something completely intangible, for no real good reason?" She glared at him. "This is a weak plan, Nate. And how much money are we talking about?"

"Uh, Hardison, I need you to dig around in his financials and see how much we need to take in order to significantly hurt him. And Parker, I need you to break into his house during the gala and plant evidence that will lead the police right to his illegal activities."

Shaking his head, Hardison turned back to face the group. "No, man, I'm putting my foot down here. You can't send her into that building - it's a death trap."

"She's good at what she does; she'll be fine."

Glaring, Hardison said, "And what if Farrell isn't interested in your company? He's doing very well as it is."

"Sophie can work her magic, and besides, why is this so much worse than before?"

"You're not controlling the mark, alright? We're operating without a safety net - somebody's gonna get hurt."

Nate opened his mouth to reply, but stopped short as the black man in front of him morphed into someone else - a vaguely familiar long-haired man that he both knew and didn't. They were in this very apartment, with five people gathered… not four. The man made the same complaint Hardison was making now now, warning Nate not to push the team too far.

Shaking his head to clear the vision, Nate refocused on Hardison in front of him. "Trust me. It'll work."

While Hardison held his gaze, Sophie and Parker exchanged a meaningful look. Finally, Parker was the first to nod. "I can do it." Sophie gave him a long-suffering look to signify her agreement, and finally Hardison gave in.

"What do you need me to find?"

A/N: The vision Nate had was from #403, "The Fifteen Minutes Job," about 30 minutes in, when Eliot is griping about Nate being so reckless.

As Nate tightened his tie and straightened his suit in his bathroom, Sophie slid into view in the mirror. "You had another vision, didn't you?"

Nate's fingers slowed, and he gave a mirthless smile. "They're more and more frequent as time goes on."

"Still don't want to share, huh?"

Nate dropped his smile and turned to face her. "No." No need to burden her with the inescapable sense of something missing that he put up with day in and day out. Why did this long-haired man keep coming to his consciousness? What did he have to do with this little family he had formed? Nate didn't even know his name. Unfortunately, that didn't keep the déjà vu from invading his mind at seemingly random intervals.

Sophie opened her mouth, presumably to continue her interrogation, so Nate interrupted. "Try to stay close to the mark, yeah? We're really going to need you to soften him up if we are going to have any shot at this."

Frowning, she crossed her arms and leaned on the door frame. "You're throwing us into the hardest con we've ever tried, recklessly endangering all of us, and you won't even tell us why. Won't tell me why."

"Well, it's important, okay?" He pushed past her, fully intending to let that be the end of the argument.

She wasn't having it. "Nate, listen to me. You're falling apart, and dragging us down with you."

Nate just ignored her. He had heard this speech before, too many times to count, but there was not stopping Sophie once she got worked up like this.

"Don't just walk away from me! Listen to me, Nate, because you are right on the brink of losing your whole team."

That stopped him. "What do you want from me?" He faced her sharply. "We need to get this guy, and I don't have any other ideas for how to pull it off. Do you?"

She simply glared.

"That's what I thought." With that, he turned his back again and left without a word, knowing she would follow. She always did.

At the gala, Sophie watched Nate across the room. He was boisterously chatting with everyone who would listen to him, but she was in no mood for his energy. She was too angry to care right now.

Letting her real anger fuel her acting, she purposefully stormed toward a table of drinks - and coincidentally her mark, who stood by himself at the moment. As she approached, Sophie sighed angrily and quickly downed the first glass of wine she came across. "Can you believe what that man did to me?" She was ranting to no one in particular, but carefully aiming it toward Farrell. "Arrogant jerk is going to cost me months of work. Months!"

Finally, Farrell took the bait, sidling up to her and smirking. "What kind of idiot would blow off a lady like you?"

Innocently running her hand over his arm, Sophie rolled her eyes and smiled a little. She was going to need it to play this right. "The kind who is selling his company and cutting me out. I've been working on buying a significant number of its shares to make an enormous profit when the buyout goes through, but he raised the prices beyond what I can afford. I can only imagine that means the returns will be astronomical." She scoffed. "But only someone with a lot of wealth already could get in on it." Leaving her hand strategically placed on his arm, Sophie tried to play on his pride. Hopefully that would be enough to set him against Nate.

"How much is he asking?"

Hardison's voice in her ear distracted her, but she kept her influence on Farrell. "He's got $70 million between his personal funds and Moreau's."

Rolling her eyes again, Sophie shifted against the table and opened her mouth to speak, but before she could, Farrell straightened and jerked away from her. Nervous, she glanced around for what might have spooked him, but saw nothing.

Farrell gave her a tight smile and a small bow. "I'm sorry, miss, but I have to be going. Wonderful to meet you." With that, he turned and walked briskly away.

Dumbfounded, Sophie simply stared after him. "Hardison, what was that? Our mark just… left. I was influencing him, everything was going well, I had him on the hook, and then he left! What caused him to flee like that?"

His voice was back in her ear. "I don't… I don't know. I can't find anything that should have set him off. Parker? Did you set off any alarms?"

"Not it!" The whisper was barely audible over Nate's chatting. "But I'm having no luck getting in either, thanks to all the guards. Give me electronic surveillance and I'm a ghost, but real people? Ugh."

Sophie was so distracted by the conversation that she didn't even hear someone coming up behind her until he greeted her. "Excuse me, ma'am. Mind if I grab a glass from behind you?"

Sophie whirled around, blushing. She had forgotten she was blocking the refreshment table. "Of course." Sliding out of the way, she cocked her head a little as a long-haired gentleman with a charming smile reached past her to lift a glass of wine.

He lifted his glass in a little toast. "Aaron Coburn. You enjoying the party?"

Carefully hiding the sinking feeling he wasn't going away any time soon, Sophie smiled gently. "It's lovely." Hopefully her curt answer and lack of eye contact would indicate her disinterest.

Instead, he just leaned closer and reached around her back to set the wine on the table. He was so close his hair touched her neck, and she tensed. A shiver ran through her body and she felt her heart rate increasing.

He drew back, only slightly, before leaning in again and brushing her hair behind her ear. At that, she jerked away with an indignant gasp. He just smiled a little and held his hands up. Every instinct screamed at Sophie as he approached again, more slowly this time, but she held her ground. Surely he wouldn't try anything in a public place, and the last thing she wanted to do was show weakness in front of him, so she crossed her arms and lifted her chin.

Now within reaching distance, he stopped. "Sorry, ma'am. Thought you had something in your ear."

It took all of Sophie's willpower not to respond to that. Had he seen her earbud? Who was this man? And what was she supposed to say to him? Laughing a little, she shook her head. "Thank you, but I'm fine." She knew her body language was loudly contradicting her words, but she was quite shaken after everything that had happened that night.

Instinctively, she scanned the room for Nate, tightening her arms around herself when he didn't immediately come into view.

Suddenly, there was a hand on her arm, and she jerked but couldn't get free. Her distress was plainly visible as she stared at the still smiling not-such-a-gentleman in front of her. He was a lot stronger than he had looked, thanks to the unremarkable suit jacket and wire-rimmed glasses he wore, and suddenly there was a harshness to his eyes that froze her blood in her veins.

"Ford isn't here any more." The whisper was barely audible but terrifying just the same. "If you want to see him again, you'll come with me without causing a scene. Wouldn't want to ruin such a lovely party, would you?"

Sophie felt like her tongue was lodged in her throat as she allowed herself to be led out of the room. She had no idea what he wanted, but he obviously knew who Nate was, and that she was with him. They had come to the party separately, which meant he had done his research. Dread grew in the pit of her stomach as the worst case scenario chilled her to the bone.

Sophie didn't even want to imagine what would happen if she and Nate had been caught by Moreau.

As soon as Sophie was out of view of the party, the man shoved her toward two more, who looked much more like traditional thugs.

"Get the bug out of her ear and smash it."

Sophie winced - he did know about that. The taller of the thugs wrenched her arms behind her back and zip tied them together, while the other jammed his fingers in her ears and roughly dug the earbud out. The light crunch of the device being crushed crunched her hopes as well.

The tall thug dragged her to a van and the other opened the back door. Sophie's heart dropped to her stomach at the sight of Nate, bleeding and unconscious on the floor. The thugs grabbed her shoulders and feet and practically tossed her onto the floor beside him. Just before the door shut her in, she turned and caught a glimpse of diamond hard blue eyes focused on her.

The slam of the door made her jump, but she quickly slid over to Nate. There was little she could do with her hands tied behind her back, but she surveyed him for damage nevertheless. There was a large cut at his hairline, and the blood had run down the side of his face to soak into his jacket. Thankfully, no other injuries were apparent, but that didn't mean he wasn't bruised. The best news was that he was breathing.

After kicking her heels off, Sophie scooted as close as she could to Nate and settled in for the ride.

Hardison's fingers flew across his keyboard, clearing a path for Parker into this impenetrable stronghold Nate had insisted on breaking into. It wasn't going well at all, and so far, she had barely made it inside, much less searched the place for a safe of any sort. Assuming a safe even existed.

He sighed and took a large gulp of the orange soda. This was easily one of Nate's worst plans ever, and he was stuck running one of their most delicate operations from Lucille. What he wouldn't give to have the wall of monitors back home…

An ear-piercing squeal jolted him to attention, and the bright red NO SIGNAL alert on Nate's earbud's stats sent a jolt of fear through him. Somehow, the earbud had been destroyed. A minute later, another screech assaulted his ears and Sophie's earbud went offline.

"Parker, get out of there!" Hardison didn't care that he was shouting, or that he was freaking out. This was Moreau they were fighting, and with Nate and Sophie officially offline, he couldn't leave Parker out there to get captured as well.

"What was that?" Parker's whisper came through loud and clear.

"We - we lost them, Parker. I'm trying to track them down but… just get out of there, okay? If they get you too, we're finished."

"I'll be there as soon as I can."

Hardison pulled up the camera surveillance of the party. It didn't take too long to find what had happened to Nate. Three big, burly guys in black suits approached him, surrounded him, 'escorted' him out, and promptly bludgeoned him in the head. Hardison nearly gagged at the blood smearing on the ground as they dragged Nate's limp body outside.

Hardison glanced over at Sophie, who was engaged in conversation with a long-haired man Hardison didn't recognize. He was rather… touchy, with her, and seemed intent on invading her space and making her uncomfortable. It worked, clearly, and Hardison watched their master grifter slowly fall apart.

Soon, they walked out together. To anyone watching, they would seem perfectly natural, but Hardison could see the tension in Sophie's shoulders and the hesitance in her steps. Once they were out of the building, though, Hardison could't pick up anything on the cameras.

These guys were pros, he was sure of it, because how else would they have caught onto Sophie and Nate so fast? The two hadn't even arrived together. Worse, Hardison had no surveillance of where his teammates had gone once they were outside. The kidnappers had found a camera blind spot and used it well.

Worst of all, the entire time the long-haired man was with Sophie, Hardison hadn't caught enough of his face to run facial recognition. He knew where the cameras were and deliberately avoided them.

Hardison started facial rec on the three who had taken Nate, because they had been much sloppier, before broadening his search. There was no way the other guy had been able to keep his face off camera all night long, and Hardison just had to find one slip up.

…Turns out, he actually was good enough to keep his face completely hidden. The only glimpse Hardison had gotten was a clear reflection in a mirror. Thankfully, with a little doctoring, he was able to run facial rec on the reflection.

The results froze his fingers over the keys.

It was bad enough for them to go up against the army of bodyguards surrounding Ross Farrell. Hardison had wanted to pull out then. Now? Now they were facing Moreau's second in command and top enforcer, Eliot Spencer. The man was legendary for two things: making any and every problem go away, and doing it with vicious efficiency.

They were finished.

How in the world were Hardison and Parker supposed to rescue Nate and Sophie from him, much less pull off the job they had set out to complete?

"Who's that?"

Hardison nearly jumped out of his chair at the unexpected voice behind him. "Parker! Don't do that to me!"

She just stared at him, apparently wanting her question answered.

Sighing, Hardison faced her completely. How could he put this so she didn't have the same pit of fear in her stomach that he had?

TBC