Vaughn led them down a narrow, dimly lit hallway — his pace brisk, but still a walk. There were doors on either side of the hallway, and Sydney felt the urge to check behind each, but Vaughn seemed to know specifically where he was going, which made the anger begin to well in her again.

He halted suddenly when he reached what she counted as the sixth door on the right. She listened for any sounds from Will — anything to acknowledge that he was in there, alive and hopefully unharmed — but there was no noise from the room.

Vaughn turned the deadbolt, a gesture from Jack's Walther making it clear that any surprises on the other side would not be acceptable. And there was a surprise when he opened it —

Will was gone.

Jack made a more significant gesture with the Walther, and Vaughn began to stammer.

"I — I swear! This is where they were keeping him. Jack — Jack, I'm not lying to you. This is the last place I saw him. They must have moved him."

Sydney's father relaxed his arm slightly, and Vaughn's expression relaxed as well. "Then I suggest you figure out quickly where it is they might have moved him."

Sydney found the rage inside her growing — she had come too far, uncovered too many half-truths and lies to take any more. She spun around to face Vaughn, catching the lapels of his tuxedo and slamming him against the wall.

"Where?" she growled, her face only inches from his. "Where is he? If you lied to me again…" Close, so close, to his lips — she remembered the heat of his mouth on hers, and shuddered. "If he's hurt in anyway, if you don’t find him right now, I swear — "

"Sydney, no, I swear — he was here! I don’t — they must have moved him. Irina was — " he gasped, as Sydney shoved him even harder against the wall. The casual mention of her mother’s name only reminded her that Vaughn had lied to her lied to her since the beginning. She could feel his heart pounding under her hands, and she wished she knew if it was because he was afraid, or because he was afraid he had been caught in another lie.

"He — there is another place they could have taken him," Vaughn choked out. "The Ops room, in the sub-basement. He could be there." She so wanted to believe that he was telling the truth. Sydney let his lapels go suddenly, pushed away from him.

"Go," she commanded. He tugged his jacket straight, and hesitated for a moment — looking to her and then the gun in Jack's hand — before he turned and started walking down the hallway again.

Vaughn led them through three more hallways and then down two flights of stairs, pace quicker than it had been before. The hallway at the bottom of the stairs was darker than the previous ones were, and the air there felt cold and clammy on her skin.

There was a single door at the end of the hallway, large grey metal, protected with an electronic keypad. She wondered briefly how they were going to get in, because that particular model was tough to hack, and she certainly didn't have any gadgets —

But of course, Vaughn knew the code. His fingers were slow and deliberate through each number, and accurate, because the lock clicked when he finished. She stepped closer to him as he opened the door, desperate to see what was inside — if Will was there.

The room was vast, and as dark as the hallway, lit only by a bank of video monitors at the front. She scanned the shadowy recesses in the back and realized quickly that Will was not here either.

Vaughn seemed to realize it, as well, and he glanced at her — eyes glowing fear in the dim light — before darting over to the video monitors. "We can find him here," he said, desperately. She followed him, forcing down her anger, and began to scan each monitor with her eyes. "These cover every room on the premises."

"Assuming he's still on the premises," Jack said, stepping behind them. She felt panic rising in her with her father's statement. What, if they had taken Will somewhere else, or Vaughn was still lying? She might never find him, might —

Her thoughts were interrupted as light flooded the room. Her mind whirled, for a moment, and she looked at Vaughn's hands, wondered what he had done, but there was no light switch anywhere near them. She spun around, then, with a sudden realization, at the same time as her father.

Standing there, bathed in the light of a desk lamp, was her mother. Older, more gray in her hair, pulled into a tight bun, her face cool and intent — an expression Sydney could not recall seeing before. And a Sig Sauer P226 in her hands, trained directly on her father.

"How nice of you to bring me guests, Michael," she said, her accented English forcing Sydney to remember that this woman was not the mother she remembered. "Now why don't you go tend to Mr. Tippin. I'd like to have a few words with my family."

"I don't know where he — " Vaughn responded.

"Where do you think he would be?" Irina said, voice calm, as if she was talking to a child.

"Right," Vaughn nodded. "I’ll take care of him."

Sydney felt hot tears burning in her eyes as he turned and walked out of the room.

He did not look at her as he left.

It had still been a lie, she thought, a fucking lie, the tears streaming down her face. Her attention snapped back to her mother, as Irina stepped closer, her gun still trained on Jack.

"Hello, Jack," Irina purred, accent suddenly absent. "You look…well." Sydney felt sick when she saw the fury on her father’s face.

"You bitch," Jack's voice was venomous as he brought his gun up. Time seemed to stretch out impossibly as Sydney saw her mother’s Sig Sauer flash. The shot was deafeningly loud, drowning out her scream as she saw her father buckle and fall to the floor.

* * *

Will had been working on loosening the handcuffs — they made it look so easy on TV — when he heard indistinct voices from the front of the limo. He recognized one voice, but it took him a moment to place it. The man from the hallway. The one that had been talking to R.B. The one that knew Sydney.

He could see his shadowed form now, as the-man-who-knew-Sydney leaned in, spoke to the limousine driver, told him he wanted to "have a word with Mr. Tippin. In private." Will heard the driver's door open, and he squirmed upright, suddenly tense.

When he heard the driver’s door slam, he realized that Sydney knew some Very Bad People. Will had seen her after she came home from Taipei, terribly bruised.

He jumped when the back door clicked open, and the man-who-knew-Sydney peered in. Will didn’t think he looked very intimidating, sandy hair rumpled and green eyes bright in the dome light — but then the man brought his hand forward, and Will saw the pistol. It glinted in the streetlights — oddly pretty — pointed directly at his head.

* * *

Everything flicked into slow motion, as it always did during missions. But this was no mission. This was her father, blood pooling around him already, hand flung out, gun skidding across the floor. Sydney and Irina both leapt for the Walther, but Sydney was closer, and scooped it up, heart racing.

She spun around, training it at her mother's head.

"Give me one reason!" she screamed. "Give me one reason why I shouldn't pull the trigger, Mom." Her voice was quivering, and she had lost all control, might have lost the last person she could trust.

And right now she had nothing left to lose.