Grandma Helen's apartment was small but comfortable- for a person living on their own that is. It had that sort of 'old people' smell yet the smell of homemade pasta soon filled the little place. I take a seat at the small wooden table, which happened to have just enough chairs, but was just a little crowded. I'm about to offer my help to set the table when Helen waves at me to stay seated.

"I don't need help, sit! Sit!" Grandma Helen murmurs something in Italian. "You're just like your father. I have hands and feet, I can get things myself!"

Despite the muttering, Erik grabs some utensils from the kitchen and napkins. Helen looks as if she is about to protest, then sighs, shaking her head.

Erik chuckles. "She's always been a little independent that one." Erik nods towards the old woman, who busily begins filling plates of delicious looking tagliatelle.

I observe the living room, its walls bare, a single TV and single couch against one side of a wall. A slide door outlooked a narrow veranda, a few plants in pots placed neatly on a ledge. It looked like a quaint little home to stay in, but also kind of lonely.

"Buon appetito!" Grandma Helen exclaims, as she takes a seat next to Erik.

I return back from my wandering thoughts as the delicious smell wafts through the room. I stare at the long strings of pasta mixed with red sauce in awe. This is even better than some of the restaurant food we tasted here!

I wrap my fork around another long strand of pasta, and swallow, an instant, delicious flavour fill my mouth. I'm not sure what Grandma had used as ingredients, but the tomato paste was obviously fresh and I was almost certain some herbs had been sprinkled into the plate. Usually, I'm not a big fan of herbs, but the taste seemed to give it that lasting perfection, and I knew now that Grandma's food was definitely better than any restaurant food wed tasted here. Justine elbows me. I turn my head to face her while taking another gulp from the dish.

"You didn't think telling me your grandma lived in Rome was a good idea?" Justine takes a big mouthful.

I shrug. "I totally forgot she even lived here. Dad has talked about her but not that often, plus, for all I knew she could have moved further north or south and I wouldn't have had a clue. After grandpa died..." I hesitated, and, at the mention of her dead husband Helen eyed and Justine and I from across the table. Erik glances up from his plate, and I decided it better to stay quiet and just enjoy the food.

"So..." Grandma Helen's, familiar bright green eyes search each of our faces. "Why are you here? You came all this way to steal from an old lady?" Her accent was quite thick, but I could tell her time in Australia must have improved her English a lot.

"Um," I look at Erik awkwardly. What do I say?

Erik gestures for me to explain. "It's alright. She's a thief."

I stare at my grandma in disbelief. "You're a thief?"

"You think an old woman like me can't steal?" Grandma Helen puffs. "Where do you think your father learnt? I'm the best of the best! I steal from thieves themselves!"

Erik rolls his eyes, but Helen caught the movement. "Don't you roll your eyes at me! You've been my son's friend since you two were little bambini, I know many things about you Erik Bristow, things that you might not be comfortable sharing." Seeing Justine, Mark and Kol's blank expression, I quickly explain that bambini means children.

"I thought you didn't know much Italian," Justine mutters.

"I don't." I reply quietly, curious to return my attention back to the conversation between Helen and Erik.

Erik raises his eyebrows before giving a small shrug. "Fair enough. Always been a bit a bit of a hot-head haven't you Helen?"

The woman mutters something inaudible. Despite her mutterings and her fierce attitude there was something warming about her. Maybe it was her eyes, how they reminded me so much of my dad... and me. Guess green eyes runs in the family.

"So? You still haven't answered my question," the woman dabs at her mouth with a napkin.

"We're looking for something that Dad might have hidden here." I say carefully, not sure how much Erik intended to tell the woman. He nods his approval and I continue.

"We think he's left some... gold, somewhere. We're not sure where though."

"What made you think to come to Rome?" Grandma Helen asks, though something in her face told me she already knew more about what we were talking about than she let on.

I quickly debrief her about some of the events that had happened in the past two week or so. She lets me talk on, without interrupting me once, until I have completely finished.

"So then after the clue on the tree about Rome, we came here. We've searched every place where we think it might be, but..." I shrug my shoulders. "We've found nothing."

"So you steal from old ladies instead?" Grandma Helen muses. "From your own grandma too?"

I blush. "I didn't know it was you! I return everything I steal, I promise... it's just, I want to practice and, with no more clues... we've all kind of had a lot of time on our hands..."

"I see that," Grandma Helen's eyes flit over to Kol for a second before returning to me. Luckily, neither Kol nor Mark seemed to notice the movement. I sink in my chair slightly. She saw the kiss... I can't help but think.

Grandma Helen chuckles. "It's alright bambina. You wouldn't be able to steal from me even if you really wanted to."

I stare at her incredulously, before realising what she meant. "You left the bag open on purpose didn't you? You lured me!" I stare at her in dumbfounded awe. How...?

"Like I said. I steal from thieves, bambina. No the other way around." Grandma Helen turns to Erik. "You've searched everywhere for this... gold... have you?"

Erik narrows his eyes at her. "You know where it is don't you? You've known about this all along."

Grandma Helen tuts. "You didn't think my own son would confide his biggest secret to me? I taught him all he knows!"

"You know where the gold is!" Erik's eyes widen. Seeing Erik shocked wasn't something that occurred often, and I knew that this conversation was leading closer and closer to the end of this mystery.

By now everyone had either paused, or finished eating. Grandma looks at each of us with an air of satisfaction. "Come, come."

She stands up and heads towards a closed door as we start to eagerly file in after her. My imagination getting the better of me, I expected to enter some dark, mysterious room. I quickly realise, with just a bit of disappointment, that it's just her bedroom. She opens her cupboard.

"Erik. Make those long arms useful." Helen points up near the top on the cupboard where a bunch of clothes were neatly piled on top of each other. Erik reached up and moved the stack of clothes to one side. Behind them, lay a quite plain cardboard box. It wasn't big, or small. It wasn't even an interesting colour. Just plain old brown. Erik gently brings the box down and places it on Grandma Helen's sea-blue bed sheets.

"All this, and you hid some box in your cupboard?" Kol says unenthusiastically.

Grandma Helen tuts at him. "Sometimes the best hiding places, are in obvious places. People will think something of such value should be hidden very, very well, and so they miss the places where they should have looked first."

"I guess..." Kol agrees reluctantly. Though I could tell that none of us had even thought of checking the cupboard for answers, and I secretly admired her for that.

"So our answers are in that box." Mark indicated towards the rectangular object.

Grandma Helen looks at Mark, considering him.

"Unless the actual gold is in there." Mark raises his eyebrows at the woman.

The lady shakes her head. "Of course not! Go on, open it!" she stands a little away as Kol, Justine, Erik, Mark and I crowd around the plain old carton. The first one to reach for it, surprisingly, was Kol. A moment ago he had seemed clearly unimpressed, now a look of curiosity and glee filled his face. He opened the lid and placed it to one side. I'm not sure what anyone really expected. I'm not even sure what I expected really. All I know is that I felt my hope falter slightly as we peered inside and found it stacked with papers. Just papers. Erik didn't seem disheartened though. He reaches into the box, taking out the sheets. He begins to flick through some and then laying them on the bed. From the ones he put down, I could see blueprints, locations, even information about the assassins, which were far more detailed than what Erik had. I glimpse at Erik, who frowns, scanning page after page. Kol, Mark, Justine and I all exchange confused glances. Finally, Erik speaks.

"I don't get it. This is so much more information than I had on the assassins. I mean most of it I knew but..." he continues through some of the pages.

"These blue prints. This is the location we're looking for," Erik murmurs to himself. "Why didn't Michael just show me where he had hidden it?" he turns towards Grandma Helen, waving the stack of paper.

She shrugs. "He said something about not being sure, so he didn't want to waste your time. I'm not sure, he said this to me almost two years ago." Helen sighs irritably.

"He wasn't sure of what exactly?" Erik pursues the matter.

"The gold." I pipe up, as understanding finally beings to creep in. "He wasn't sure if he should've told you where he was thinking of hiding the gold- if it really is gold."

The two adults turn to face me. "What do you mean by 'if it really is gold'?" Erik asks. I shrug, feeling uncomfortable and small against the two adult's gazes. "I don't know. Something just seems a bit off about this whole thing."

Seeing their quizzical looks, I breathe in slowly and continue. "Well, I'm not certain, but think about it. First you claim that they're assassins, which is fair enough seeing as..." I pause for a brief moment, thinking of Anita. I clear my throat. "Anyway, they also happen to be really good at stealing..." I stop again. "Speaking of this gold... where did they even steal it from?"

Erik shakes his head. "That's the other thing. Michael just happened to catch them in action when they were transporting it all. No robbery reports were made by any banks, so the most we could assume was that it was stolen from someone."

I look at Erik sceptically and he shakes his head. "I know it's not all that much, but like I said, they manage to always escape so quickly without a trace."

"So then, all we know is that they're multi-talented," Justine crosses her arms.

"What was this 'gold' transported in?" I prod.

"A truck." Erik replies. "Michael happened to catch them near a lonely alley way somewhere off the coast of Queensland." He shakes his head. "It was pure luck, coincidence and timing I'll tell you that. Your father and I happened to be walking that late night, complimenting ourselves on another job well done and that's when he saw it. A suspicious looking truck all on its lonesome. We snuck up to the truck and found two men dressed in black by the back of the van. They seemed to be arguing over something and didn't notice us. The back of the truck was open and Michael peeked inside." Erik glances down at me. "And well, I guess that's when all this started. He saw the gold, the men and put two and two together."

"Then what?" I inquire.

Erik smiles. "Well... you can guess. Your father's a thief. So he stole the keys to the truck and then we kicked butt."

Justine cringes. "Please don't talk like that. Don't be one of those old people who try to talk like us teenagers, please."

Erik laughs. "I'm not that old!"

"Why were there only two people in the vehicle?" I ask Erik, trying to stay on the topic. I was getting closer, I knew it, but I was missing something.

Erik sighs. "I don't know Audrey. We assumed they were just robbers, but next thing, we were being flagged by others. We guessed they were backup, but there were too many for this to be a simple robbery. We managed to get rid of them, but we knew it wouldn't be long before they were after us again, and this time, they'd be ready."

"Then what?" Kol actually looked partially intrigued.

"Remember when your father said he was headed to Gladstone for work for a whole week?" Erik questions me.

"Yes." I say, trying to grasp at the vague memory.

"Well that was the week he left. Disappeared for a whole week, and didn't tell me where he went. He was worried that the hitmen might torture it out of me so the less who knew, the better. But now I know where he disappeared to that week. He came here. He told you didn't he?" Erik turns his eyes on Helen who shakes her head.

"I don't know where it is. The answers are in that box, but I've never looked in there. The week Michael disappeared he came and handed me this box, swearing me not to look in it."

"You weren't even curious?" Mark raises an eyebrow.

Grandma Helen's green eyes seem to flash as she narrows them at us. "Once you know something, you can't not know it," she finishes. "I should know, it cost my son his life."

There's a dead silence that seems to stretch on for a minute too long.

"So, explain the rest to me," I say quietly to Erik.

He nods. "Well the gold was in crates. He wanted to move it immediately so he was gone the day after we had stolen it. I wasn't sure before where he had moved it to, but now I'm quite certain he must have taken a private plane to Italy."

"He did." Grandma Helen affirms.

"Did he have a good look at the gold?" I probe. "Maybe there was something else..."

Helen shakes her head, a strand of grey hair falling from her tight bun. "He almost got killed. The pilot turned out to be one of those blasted men." She swears to herself in Italian. "He managed to throw the man off the plane and then fly the rest of the way here."

He threw someone off a plane? I knew that it was a matter of life and death, but the thought that my own father threw someone to their deaths sent a shiver down my spine.

"Where did he go?" Erik asks Helen.

She shakes her head. "I don't know. He went missing for a few days and came back saying that he found a good place. Then he handed me this box and left."

"Woah, check this out." Justine picks up a piece of paper that seemed to be a profile of someone.

"Ha!" she points at it, showing me. "Look who it is!"

The name Thorn was scrawled in my dad's neat handwriting. A picture was attached to the sheet with a paperclip showing a picture that I was sure my father had taken of Thorn himself. The photo was taken on a bit of an angle, showing Thorn's, long and deep, ugly scar on the side of his face where his hood did not cover properly. I scan down the page, reading some information.

"Placed in gaol numerous times for various criminal offences but was always released due to lack of solid evidence." I read out loud, chill going down my spine.

Kol grabs the paper from me, scanning the page himself. "Wow your father really went all out with all this information didn't he?"

"Okay guys, let's get back to the matter at hand." Erik announces, placing a piece of paper on the bed for all to see. "I believe this is where we're heading. It doesn't show the exact location, but I think your father thought it safe not to, in case this information ever got into the wrong hands. Anyway, shouldn't be too hard to find the hiding place this time, it's a small town."

Justine scrunches up her face in bemusement. "Monterano? What kind of a town is that?"

Erik begins to pile the papers back into the box as he answers. "A ghost town."

*Dedicated to @Frequently_uncommon for all the votes and comments and votes!! It means the world <333*