Bending The Law

When a target is put on the forehead of the Cook County State's Attorney, will the good guys bend the law till it breaks? Written by CL Jordan - Author of the Imperium Chronicles

[bendingthelaws]

Colin Masterson has never backed down from a fight, but then the fight has never put another life in danger like it has now. What started as a case to bring down the head of an organized crime organization is now turning into one to save the life of his intern. An intern, that is receiving back in pieces, literally. With his friends, and eventually his brother who is at odds with, involved in the case as well, it will end up with them all bending the law until it almost breaks.

[bendingthelaws]

15

Chapter 14

There is some tension in the autopsy suite when people forget their place...

Karsten didn’t miss the amused look on Declan’s face when he and Serena walked into the private autopsy suite.  Something told him their moment in the garage had not gone unnoticed or possibly unwatched.  That was a conversation for when Serena and Spencer weren’t around. Even if Spencer knew, he wasn’t going to do anything that would upset Serena, not after finally having some kind of a start with her.

Trying to ignore Declan, Karsten took in the rest of the room.  Looked like Spence had been setting everything up.  “There a reason you stopped what you were doing, Spence?”  An eyebrow rose.  Please don’t let it be that the two men who had been waiting for them were now going to give both him and Rena shit.  Dec busting his balls he expected later, but Spencer?  That would be new.

“That door causes awful wind noise on the mic, and anything said/done is then observable.  Standard procedure.  I was documenting setup, now I’ll turn it back on so we can document the transfer of evidence. Then you guys can get your coats off and Rena can get into scrubs.  Unless you’d prefer to do the examination in your coat and nice suit, boss?”  Spencer winked teasingly over at Serena.  He knew that she already had known the answer, even if Declan looked like he was about to embarrass the shit out of her at any second.  It would be a shame if his scalpel slipped and the big guy was cut so he had to go get stitches.  Declan had promised, and Spencer was going to hold him to it.

“No, scrubs are definitely preferable.  Karsten, lock the door to the hall, please.”  She turned and looked at him with a smile, butterflies still flitting around in her stomach.  He was handsome, strong, brave, and everything good that she could think of.  Their kiss may have come at the absolute worst time as far as timing, but she didn’t regret it. Even if it was going to complicate things with Keegan. However, she couldn’t let any of that get in the way of her work.

Once the door was locked, she turned back to the other two men, giving a pointed look to Declan that had him standing up straighter and the smile wiped off of his face.  She had a feeling that somehow Spencer and Declan knew about the kiss, but she wasn’t going to let this turn into anything other than what it should be:  a respectful situation where the eye of a poor girl who was at that very moment probably being tortured, or worse.  “Whatever it is that you find amusing, Detective O’Malley, I suggest that you get it out of your system, or get your ass out of my autopsy suite.  There is nothing remotely amusing or funny that ever takes place in here; nothing about this situation is an exception.”  Her tone was chiding, and it had both Spencer and Karsten raising eyebrows.  Head ME Cavenaugh was taking charge of her autopsy suite; heaven help anyone that got in her way.

While Karsten had almost choked laughing at the way Rena had put Declan in his place, he was NOT going to let her see his amusement.  Thankfully he was standing slightly behind her because it was clear that the mood in the room had just become a lot more serious.  Just how Declan had reacted before she’d even said a word told him that she must have looked pissed.  Karsten had just made a step forward with her, he wasn’t going to get body-slammed backward now.  “Should we, uh, turn that recorder thing back on so we can get started?  I’m starting to roast over here and I’d like to know what we’re dealing with.  You going to be able to handle that, Dec?”  A sarcastic smile was thrown over at his partner, although his tone said he was all business.  Spence was smirking; smart man not to laugh at the nonverbal barbs being thrown.

“Yes, let’s get this going.  Deterioration of the eye and all.” Spencer cleared his throat and felt a bit twitch now.  Boss was now touchy and he wasn’t going to press his luck.  Reaching up, Spencer flipped the switch to turn on the video cameras and audio equipment, so that it recorded once more.  Once again he stated the date, the new time, and who was in the room.  Then all the procedural bullshit had to take place so that the chain of evidence was maintained.  He hated that part but knew that if things ever made it to court that it would be vital.  

While there had not been a formal recording, there had been video still being taken of the room while the evidentiary recording had been stopped.  This was for two reasons.  1 - Security.  The room was always monitored so that if there WAS any tampering of evidence while the room was empty, there would be documentation.   2 - Safety.  There were a lot of people who wanted things hidden that would come out in an autopsy.  The video camera was a silent witness.  It didn’t pick up audio, but faces were clear as day.  Should anyone come into the room, there was documentation even if there was no actual autopsy going on.

Once Spencer had started the recording again for evidence, she did the handoff to him and headed toward the door that led to the private locker room to the suite so she could change out of the suit she was wearing and into scrubs for the exam.  Even though she was only doing the post-mortem on an eye, she wanted to maintain proper procedure.  One of the things that Constantin Rakeovich had tended to skate out of trouble on was inconsistencies in procedure.  She didn’t want to give him that opening now.

The locker room off of the autopsy suite had two lockers in it.  One for Spencer and one for her.  Serena locked the door behind her and headed to get changed into her scrubs and pull her hair back for the post-mortem.  As she started to change, she could hear the men’s voices low outside the door.  She couldn’t hear what they were saying clearly though.  Hopefully, they had turned off the audio when she had left the room or they were talking about the case.  The last thing they needed was chit-chat being caught on audio.  Since they just needed to document that the cooler had remained sealed while she was changing, they could turn off the audio and just leave the video trained on the cooler.  She’d have to trust Spencer was experienced enough to do just that.  

As soon as Spencer heard the door lock, he turned the audio recording off.   He had no clue what Declan was going to say, but he had a good idea that they didn’t want it recorded.  The cooler, all of the surgical instruments, and all other evidentiary items were in plain view of the video camera he left on.  The lack of audio wouldn’t make a difference as far as the evidentiary chain of custody.  The rest of the room was still covered by the surveillance camera, so if there was any question, that could be viewed as well.  The only thing NOT being recorded in some form or fashion was Serena changing, and there were laws that pertained to that.

“Took you long enough,” Declan leaned up against the coolers that lined one wall of the autopsy suite.  “Thought you were going to be drawing retirement or attending her wedding to Mulvaney before you got the nerve to say something to her.  Nice kiss by the way.”  The smile on the man’s face rivaled that of the Cheshire Cat from Alice.  

He’d known it was coming, but still, Declan’s words almost made Karsten growl.  The look on Dec’s face had made it clear that he’d known what had happened out in the garage.  It wasn’t till he remembered the security camera feeds that went to several of the autopsy areas that he knew how.  Because there was a door directly into the garage from Rena’s private suite, it had a feed of the garage so you could see who was outside the door if need be. It didn’t bother him that they’d had an audience, but if Declan caused Serena to get upset, there’d be hell for someone to pay.

“Fuck you Dec.”  Kase flipped his partner off.  “I was trying to be respectful.  Something you obviously need lessons on.  But I think we all knew that.”  Great, the last thing Kase needed was his partner on his ass about Rena.  At least he knew Dec liked the woman, maybe more than liked.  She was a sweet person and had made more than one case for a cop that the evidence had been a little light on.  They all liked her.

“If you two want to have a hug fest, I suggest you do it in the hall.  Boss is going to have one or both of your asses if you get into it in here.  She’s pretty handy with a scalpel, and I don’t want to have to clean up the blood.”  Spencer rolled his eyes and sat down at the desk to take some notes before everything got started.  He knew the two cops very well; they were like brothers, sometimes a little too much.  

“Nah, we’re good.  Aren’t we Kase?”  Dec gave Karsten another shit-eating grin.  “I’m just proud my boy here’s balls finally dropped.  Maybe now his voice will deepen a little more.”  He winked at Karsten.  Spencer again rolled his eyes and turned his back to the cops.  He wanted no part of this.  Nope, none at all.

“You are a royal ass, Dec!” Karsten growled.  He knew he was going to keep hearing about this.  At least his partner seemed smart enough not to say anything in front of Rena.  If he did, there would be bigger issues between them.  “Like I was just supposed to just move in the day after Rob left.  I’m not that big of an ass.  I’m already going to hear it from Mulvaney and we both know it.  Not that I give a fuck.  Glow bug can kiss my ass.”

Dec full-out laughed.  “Yeah, he’s going to have a problem with it alright.  From what I hear from Riaz over at the station house, he’s been working on getting close to her since the day Rob walked out.  He didn’t wait, then again maybe he has a set of balls. That she’s been hanging out at Kelleher’s hasn’t hurt any either.  Now that yours have finally dropped, you can get on with things too.”  Dec shook his head.  “Am I going to have to keep you two separated for a while?  Two males fighting over a bitch in heat.”

“If he’s got a problem, that’s his problem.  He knew how I felt even before Rob left.  If he thought that was going to change after Rob left, that’s not my problem.  And watch it, asshole, that’s Rena you’re talking about.”

“Yeah, you landed the big fish this time.  But can you keep her in your bed and not have her going to visit her favorite glow bug?  I mean, they have been pretty chummy.  I’ve heard she’s been over to his place.”  Now he was just getting under his partner’s skin for the hell of it.  He knew Karsten couldn’t do anything with Spencer and Serena around.  Watching the red creep up Kase’s neck was amusing the fuck out of him though, boy had it bad for the doc.

“I think I’m perfectly capable of keeping Rena happy, asshole.  I don’t think she’ll be looking anywhere else for satisfaction.  I’ll keep her nice and happy in my bed, not that it should be a worry of yours.” Kase was gritting his teeth.  At times he wanted to deck his partner.

Good god, they were not going to shut up about this and where this was going was about to piss Spencer straight off.  Spinning around in his chair, Spencer leveled a pointed glare at both of them.  “Might I remind you both that we’re talking about my boss, your friend,” he looked over to Declan, “and someone you claim to care about.”  Now it was Karsten’s turn to come under scrutiny.  “This isn’t one of your cop groupies that hangs out at Mulligan’s hoping to snag one of you boys in blue.  Either knock off talking about her like she’s some prize to be won,” the glare he gave Dec had the larger man actually shrinking back slightly, “or a bitch in heat or get the fuck out of this autopsy suite.  I get you boys like to talk about your conquests like drunken frat boys when you’re at the station or out drinking, but I’m not going to have it.”  He started flipping a spare scalpel between his fingers.    

Spencer stood up and looked between the two cops.  He wasn’t big enough to take on Declan, but Karsten possibly.  Either way, he was tired of listening to them.  Hadn’t Serena been put through enough by a cop?  “Now, either of you have a problem with that?  Or do I need to turn the audio back on so Serena can hear exactly how little respect either you have for her?”  Arms crossed over his chest he looked at the two men, almost daring one of them to open their mouths again.  The banter had started fine, but he’d had enough when they’d started talking about bedding her.

Karsten rubbed the back of his neck in agitation.  Spencer was right and he knew it.  He’d let Declan bait him into sounding like an ass.  “I’m done with the conversation.  The only other person besides Rena herself that I need to talk about any of this with is Mulvaney, and I guarantee you it’s not going to go the way this one did.  The glow bug actually has some class.”  He leaned back against the cold concrete wall behind him.  That wasn’t a conversation he was looking forward to either.  He was either going to lose a friend, or probably Rena, he hoped not both.

Declan looked at the floor.  He’d been so focused on goading Kase that he hadn’t thought about how it sounded, or how he’d referred to someone he did consider a friend, an ally, and an all-around good person.  “I’m done.  Sorry, Spence.  Sorry, Kase.” Spence was right, they’d been asses and had sounded like frat boys.  He was disappointed in himself, he wouldn’t have talked about any of the female officers he worked with that way.  He respected Rena, highly so, and Spencer was right that she didn’t deserve how he and Kase had handled things.  He knew Kase had responded how he had because Dec had irritated him till he didn’t think before talking.  He was thankful for small favors that Rena hadn’t walked back out while they were talking.

“Good.  Now one of you go get coffee because I haven’t had enough to deal with your bullshit and an eye from some poor girl that is probably being tortured as we speak.  Get one for the boss too.  And if either of you gets out of line once she’s back in here, you won’t have to worry about her prowess with a scalpel, I’ll castrate you myself.”  Both men’s eyebrows rose as Spencer flopped back in his desk chair and spun around to resume paperwork.  His normal patience was gone, and for the first time in a long time, he’d just snapped at someone.

[cljordan-imperium]

14

Chapter 13

“You know we might want to get in there pretty soon, kitten.”  Kase’s voice sounded a little hoarse to his own ears before he chuckled.  He had a pretty good idea that was partly because of the thoughts and emotions he was having at the moment, the ones that had led him to a spur of the moment decision he was hoping she wouldn’t make him regret anytime in the near future.  As much as he wanted to stay in the garage and keep kissing her, or talking about what this meant for the two of them, he knew that they were being waited on.  It was better to end the moment now, than have his partner, or Spencer, interrupting.  Not to mention that there was an eye in a cooler down next to his leg.

“Not that I want to let you go.” He added, one side of his mouth lifting.  Why did his timing have to suck for shit like this?  He could have waited till he took her back to her car after the examination of the eye.  But, as Kase knew all too well, some moments never happen again and he wasn’t wanting to chance this being one of them.

As Serena nodded, she couldn’t take her eyes off of his sparkling crystalline blue ones.  As she felt drawn into him, she wondered if he realized how open his emotions were in that moment.  It was like his feelings were flowing through his expression.  She didn’t regret even a second of what happened, but they both knew that it was going to complicate things for them.  At the moment, she was not really caring about that, but they would have to talk about it eventually.  Now, however, was not the time.

“I don’t want you to either, but I think you’re right.”  Finally Serena answered, her voice soft as the butterflies in her stomach took flight again.  “There’ll be time later, Karsten.  All the time we want.”  That both excited her and scared her.  How did she end up in this situation again?  Abandoned by Rob, only to now be torn between Keegan and Karsten.

Giving him one last, quick and soft kiss, her hands slid down his back as she pulled away.  She was dreading going into the morgue, and dealing with things; but it could only be put off for so long. The faster she got to work with the examination of the eye, the faster that they would be done and able to focus on other things. Now it was time to get to work.

“Look alive!  Boss lady and your partner incoming!”  Spencer called out with a laugh as he spun his chair away from the monitor, then stood to start to get everything organized for the examination of the eye.  Things would have to be done with meticulous attention to detail and documentation. Everything would have to be recorded via video, audio, and written records, backups of backups made. No detail of the exam would be too small to be recorded in the record.  For the next few days, Spencer and Serena would be a team working in tandem to accomplish only one goal: to ascertain as much information from that one small eye as they could.  Technically there had been no breach in protocol, and as long as no one ever looked at that security tape, there would be no questions regarding the chain of custody and transportation of the eye.  Even then, the eye was never really out of sight or reach of the ME and the lead detective, even if they were paying absolutely no attention to it for a few minutes.  Spencer was certainly not going to be the one to make mention of it.  Sometimes you just knew to employ discretion.

“I will avoid embarrassing your boss, but I’m going to bust Kase’s balls over that one.”  Declan pointed at the screen where he could see Kase and Rena heading in.  There was no way he could pass that up.

“Just don’t cause a fight in the morgue and I honestly don’t give a shit.  He needs to have them busted for taking so long.”  Spencer chuckled then grew serious.  “Time to look like we’ve been doing something other than standing and watching what they were doing.”  He gave a brief chuckle then hit the button that started the video and audio recording in the room for evidentiary purposes, “beginning recording of examination of the human eye and attached partial ocular nerve that was delivered to the offices of the Cook County Assistant District Attorney Colin Masterson’s office….”  Spencer went on to record all the pertinent case information and details as he laid out the surgical instruments that Serena would need to perform the post mortem on the eye.  There was a great deal of procedural information that had to be recorded in just the right order and with just the right verbiage that Spencer could almost do it from memory except for the parts that changed.

When he heard the click of Serena unlocking the door to her private suite where the eye autopsy was to take place, he made a note of the time to the second, and paused the recording so that any chit chat wasn’t about to become public record. 

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[bendingthelaws]

kinda doing this backwards cuz I wasn't paying attention obviously....but hey...I did a thing!

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[bendingthelaws]

13

Chapter 12

Waiting for Karsten & Serena

“Did he just…?”  Declan leaned over Spencer’s shoulder as they watched the security camera that covered the loading dock.  They’d been waiting for Karsten and Serena to arrive, watching the feed to see when the Detective’s truck pulled in.  So, they’d seen the whole situation unfold between the two in the carpark, every second of it.

“Yep.  He did.  Like you’re really shocked?” Spencer chuckled and looked up at Declan.  He wasn’t surprised in the slightest that it had happened.  The only thing he was surprised about was how long it had taken Karsten to get up the nerve, and possibly he picked that day of all days to do it.   Anyone with eyes could see the romantic tension between Karsten and Serena for some time.  Even before Rob left, there had been a way about how Karsten looked at Serena that said he wanted to be the one that made her smile. 

“That his balls finally dropped?  A little.”  He smirked and shrugged with a chuckle.  How long had Declan been hearing about Rena and her douchey ex, Rob?  It seemed any time that Karsten had felt Rob was out of line, Declan had heard about it.  That was more than long enough he knew this was coming, especially after Rob left and the conversations started taking a slightly different turn when it came to the beautiful doctor.  “Should we interrupt them, I mean they have the eye?”  Declan was all but laughing now, he had to hand it to his boy, he’d finally grown a pair and made his move.  When rumors had started about Keegan and Serena, he’d started to doubt Karsten would do anything, but it seemed those rumors were overblown.

As heavy as the day had been, it felt good to laugh and Spencer sure as fuck was at Declan pointing out the obvious.  They both needed it too.  “I doubt the eye minds!  Hell, it is probably the most positive thing to happen around it in a while.  It’s kind of like a romantic vacation before we start poking and prodding it again.”  You got a warped sense of humor working in the morgue.  Sometimes Spencer forgot that not everyone was as comfortable joking about death and body parts and bodies, which he realized as Declan looked at him a bit horrified before he busted out laughing too.

“You have issues Tidwell, you know that?”  Declan shook his head and laughed, continuing to watch his partner and Rena on the monitor.  The little lab rat was strange, but the cop still liked him.  Few could handle what Karsten and Declan saw on the regular, both Spencer and Serena were two of those people, and they were both still pretty sane.

“You have no clue, O’Malley.” Spencer grinned maniacally at him before both men broke out laughing again.

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[bendingthelaws]

12

The last time we saw Karsten & Serena

The drive to the morgue is over, now what...

There was a slightly awkward silence for the last few blocks to the morgue.  Karsten was kicking himself for being too forward, or at least he felt he had been.  He knew she had been hanging out with Keegan at Kelleher’s, and he couldn’t pretend he didn’t know how his friend felt about the woman.  Keegan knew how he felt too, and it hadn’t stopped him from trying to have a relationship with her.  Regardless, Karsten wasn’t about to say or do anything more that would make her uncomfortable. Finally they pulled into the underground parking at the morgue.  Parking between two of the removal vans, he turned the engine off.  “Hold on, I’ll come around and help you out with that.”  He gave Serena a smile before unlocking the truck and hopping out of his side.  As if the morning hadn’t started bad enough, he’d just made it suck more and be uncomfortable at the same time.  Way to go Karsten!

Opening her door, he offered to take the cooler again.  “Here, we’ll do it reverse.  What do you say?”

The look in Karsten’s eyes when he’d said he wouldn’t hurt her had stopped Serena’s heart.  He meant it, but not just as a friend.  Not that she’d been oblivious to how he’d felt before, but it had been so clear that she couldn’t ignore it.  Just like she couldn’t ignore how Keegan felt either.   She was so messed up in the head and heart, there was a part of her that wanted both of them.

The silence had killed her those last few blocks, so when they pulled in, she’d been relieved that it would be over.  She just hadn’t known what to say, and she was sure that Karsten probably thought that she was blowing him off.  It was all such a mess, and it was all her fault.  It just made her hate Rob more for what he’d done, his deception, and his sudden disappearance.

Looking down at Karsten after he’d opened her door, she handed the cooler over, and started to get out.  This is when their height difference became apparent and slightly humorous.  “Good lord, Karsten, I feel like I’m going to have to jump down.  You need a step or something for those of us with short legs.”  She looked over at him and laughed as she tried to figure out the best way to do this without falling.  The last thing she needed was to jump down and end up falling, possibly hurting herself. That would really make the morning complete.

“Hold on, doc.”  He laughed and had her turn sideways as he slid the cooler into the floorboard of the passenger seat.  “It’s not that high, Rena.  You’re just not used to it, yet.”  The last word was a wish of his, but he kept his tone light so it didn’t seem like he was hitting on her again.  “Here, I’ll help you down.”  He reached up and put a hand on each side of her waist, picking her up out of the truck and taking a step back before setting her down on the ground.  “See, not that bad.” He gave her a wink and a smirk, but how close they were wasn’t lost on him. 

For a moment it was hard for him to breathe, their bodies brushing seeming to send an electric charge over him. Looking down into her dark eyes that seemed to pull him in had him transfixed.  His mouth seemed overly dry, his lungs tight, and he wasn’t sure if he could have pulled away if he wanted to.  She certainly had some effect on him, and he wondered if he even had a drop of that kind of effect on her.

A soft blush rising to her cheeks as she could feel the weight of his gaze, Serena gave a soft laugh. “I should have known that I could count on my favorite detective to help me out of a jam.”  She didn’t move back from him, though.  Their sudden closeness like this was acutely noticed by her, and she too was struggling by the feelings it was evoking in her.  Feelings that she had been fighting and trying to find places for. In her chest, her heart was thudding and she had butterflies.  Since Rob had left, she’d avoided being close to either of the two men that she knew there were mutual attractions building between.  Even at Kelleher’s she kept space between her and Keegan.  At the moment she didn’t want that space with Karsten, just the opposite.   As she looked up at him, her teeth caught the corner of her lower lip while she tried to figure out if they were thinking the same thing and what that meant.

Well, now wasn’t this something?  Maybe that silence hadn’t been as awkward as he thought it had been.  He found his arms going around her waist, and he smirked down at her.  His fingers played with the fabric of her shirt, waiting to find out if she was going to push him away or welcome his touch.

When he spoke, his voice had lowered some, taking on a slightly husky tone as well. "Favorite detective, huh? You know, I like the sound of that!" Damn he couldn't keep the grin off of his face if he tried.  He thought he’d completely blown it by touching her face like that in the truck; but she wasn’t pulling back and he wasn’t being hit, so there was hope he wasn’t misreading things now.

Serena could feel the heat of his touch through the thin fabric of her dress shirt and it caused her skin to pebble and ache for that fabric to be gone.  As close as they were, she wanted to be closer.  Where had these thoughts and desires come from?  She wasn’t quite sure, nor was she sure when they had started, but she was tired of closing herself off to try to keep from being hurt again like Rob had done.  Karsten wasn’t Rob, and he wouldn’t be like him either.

Moving slightly closer, her hands landing on those slim hips of his, her eyes raising up to meet those intense blue ones of his, one brow slightly raised. "Do you now? I thought you knew." Tease was laced through her voice, but there was a slight nervousness as well.  He had to know about Keegan, the two men were practically best friends after all.  Yet here they were.  There could be no way he could miss the attraction she felt to him, it was written all over her face.  She just hoped he couldn’t tell how tight her chest was and the amount of butterflies she was feeling.

A soft chuckle came from him at her tease.  Damn, she was relaxing and that smile of hers could stop his heart.  When had he become such a sap?  "After your last experience with cops, gorgeous, I wasn't sure you'd want to be this close to any of us." He pulled her in closer.  All she had to do was tell him to stop and he would, but he was hoping she wouldn’t.  "I had my suspicions,” he winked at her with a grin.  The way she was looking up at him was making him a little sure of himself, “but it's always good to know for sure."  One of his hands rose to gently caress her face, his expression softening.

"I don't paint everyone with the brush of one who hurt me, Karsten." Her head tipped back a little more to look up at him.  Not wanting to be in Mulligan’s didn’t equate to not wanting to be around Karsten.  She wasn’t sure he would understand.  "I do know a good man when I see one."  There could be no missing her meaning of those words, her expression and tone made it clear.  He was a good man, a good cop, and one she’d realized she had feelings for in recent times when they’d worked together on the Rakeovich case and trial prep.

"You know flattery will get you everywhere with me, doc." He grinned slowly, lowering his head, bringing his forehead near hers as he looked in her eyes.  "As will that smile of yours." His hand started to barely caress the skin along her jaw and then neck.  The feel of her skin under his rough fingertips was something he could get used to, and wanted to.  "Absolutely everywhere." His lips met hers softly, slowly, deepening as his fingers found the back of her neck to pull her into the kiss.  He’d waited for this, and if it was the only one he ever got, he’d make it one to remember.

The second their lips met there was a strong spark between them, one that Sereba hadn't seen coming but wasn’t going to fight. As the kiss deepened and their tongues danced together, her hands found his back to pull herself to him. She’d deal with whatever there was between her and Keegan later, she wasn’t going to dull this moment at all.   Serena’s focus was only on the handsome detective that had her in his arms at the moment.  His kiss was doing a good job of removing all other thoughts from her mind. As she kissed him back as passionately as he was kissing her, her hands found their way under his jacket and up the back of his shirt.  There was something about the way that his muscles reacted to her touch that had her pressing fully against him and melting more into their kiss.

Hot damn! She was kissing him back, and fuck did she do it well. There was no missing now that she was as attracted to him as he was to her.  He’d meant what he said in the truck, he’d never hurt her.  Karsten wanted her, but he wanted her happy more. It wasn’t just lust, he genuinely cared about her, and he had a feeling she knew it.  Watching what Rob did to her had gutted him.  Those sparkling eyes had dulled, her smile never reaching her eyes - not till she’d looked at him right before their kiss. He’d never let it be dulled again.  

In the past he'd been respectful that she was with a brother in blue, but when that had ended he'd seen an opening. He’d been patient and supportive, tried to be a good friend to her, but he’d also hoped she’d see him more than just a coworker and friend.  Now it was clear she had, he wasn’t going to do anything to jeopardize that.

When their lips finally parted, Serena found herself a little breathless. Eyes rising to meet his, she spoke slowly with a breathy voice "is that why you were wanting to help me out of the truck, detective?" Tease and temptation danced in her words and eyes.  Her head slightly spun and she knew that she was in trouble.  It would be too easy to fall for Karsten, and she was still kind of scared of falling for anyone.

His thumb grazed her jaw, "no, but I’ll help you out of the truck, your car, hell even your office chair if I get more of those.”  Karsten’s hand came up to caress the side of her face again.  Rob was a fool, but he wasn’t.  As much as he wanted to take her out, make her his, and be only hers, he wasn’t going to rush a damn thing.  Some things were worth waiting for, she was one of them.  “No pressure though, doc.  I can be a patient man when it comes to waiting for something I want, and I want this.” His forehead rested against hers, she had no clue how bad he wanted this.

"Who says you have to wait?" Mischief swirled in her eyes as she brought her lips to his this time. Her hands ran up his back, bunching the fabric of his shirt under her fingertips as they pressed harder against his back. Again she melted against him, losing herself in his arms and his kiss.  Never had she felt anything but safe with Karsten, and that was very true now only it was her heart she was trusting him with as much as her life.  

He was a goner, a flat out goner for this woman, and he didn't give a fuck about it.  He knew how his friend felt, and it would have to be dealt with eventually.  Right now was not that time.  Karsten had never hid how he felt towards Serena from Keegan, and it hadn’t stopped his friend from making his own moves from what Karsten had heard.   Keegan might think he had a lock on the gorgeous doc, but it clearly wasn't the case. Karsten was going to make sure it never was.

[bendingthelaws]

11

Colin leaned up against the wall of his office as the lab techs swept his office.  They had arrived shortly after the others had left.  The techs were meticulous, he would give them that.  They were picking through every square inch of the office he spent the greater part of his life in.  It made him reflect on that life and the choices he had made that brought him to the present.  The drive within him that had caused him to chase Constantin to the point that both of them were staring insanity dead in the eyes, and wondering who would blink first.

As the techs seemed to work without sound, Colin could hear the wind outside of the windows.  It was cold, it was hard, and it didn’t care who got in its way.  It would push and it would blow, unyielding in its drive to reach the final destination of its journey.  Much like when Colin was pursuing a conviction, everything but the end goal faded away.  He had become a force of nature himself, but now he wondered if that force of nature he had become had finally met its match.

Finally, unable to take the feeling of being paralyzed to do anything to help the situation, Colin decided to return to his house and try to get some work done there.  Even if he was unable to, at least he would not have people walking by to gawk, and see if they could get information for the latest gossip exchange on a smoke break.  Being the next exhibit in the zoo was not a life he wanted.  

Leaving word with his secretary to forward all calls to his cell, he called a car, packed up his laptop, and headed down to the front of the building.  There was a heaviness to the building that seemed to lift off of him as soon as he exited the front doors.  The anchor that had been dragging behind him since he’d found the box was removed and his steps increased in speed.  While concentrating with guilt weighing on him like a lodestone as he circled around all of the details of the case would be difficult, it would be easier away from the site of the most recent event.  Trying to focus in the main building was going to be an effort in futility, he was sure.

Things weren’t much better at his house, it was just a change of scenery and fewer people.  The walls seemed to be closing in on him.  This is what he got for always living alone.  He’d been so focused on his career that he had never really taken time to make many connections outside of work.  When he went out to dinner, it was with associates in his office or with members of some organization he was a member of.  The most socialization he did was to go for a celebratory drink with some of the cops at Mulligan’s after winning a case.  That’s where he’d first met Karsten, who was probably the closest thing he had to a real friend after Demitri.  

There had been one who had gotten under his skin, but he’d let her slip away when she had to go home to NYC when her assignment as part of a joint task force with the DEA and Marshal's service came to an end. He missed her and felt like an idiot for not doing more to keep in contact or go visit.  Once again, his personal life had taken a back seat to his job.  He’d been so focused on bringing down Constantin Rakeovich that he’d let everything in life slide.  Most he didn’t care about, but she was something else.  

*****

It had been a while since Aoife returned to New York from Chicago.  Before she’d left, Colin had said he wanted to make things work between them.  All he’d done since was prove why lawyers could never be trusted, even prosecutors.  They’d talked on the phone a few times, exchanged texts and even face timed a couple of times.  However, even when he’d had off for Christmas and New Year’s he hadn’t shown up like promised.  His Christmas gift still sat wrapped on the entry table of her apartment.  It made her feel like a fool every time she looked at it, but reminded her why she was keeping distant.  She’d really stopped trying to reach out to him a couple weeks ago, if he wanted to connect then he’d need to step up.  She was no one’s fool and at no one’s beck and call.

Ever since she’d returned the guys at the precinct had known something was up.  No matter how hard she tried to hide a broken heart behind excuses of jet lag and then frustrations over her cases in the city, she knew she was failing.  This is why she stayed closed off, whenever she felt something, it was deeply.  Things with Colin were no different, and the fact it was now affecting her work bothered her.

After she’d stopped being the one to initiate contact, there had been random texts and a couple calls.  She was starting to try and heal from the heartbreak and disappointment.  So when the phone rang and it was Colin, her initial instinct had been to reject it and ignore.  Unfortunately matters of the heart weren’t as black and white as the law, and she caved right before it headed to voicemail on its own.

“Flanagan.”  The word was said clipped and her tone left no doubt that this wasn’t the most friendly greeting.  A flip of her head took her bangs out of her eyes as she blew out a breath as he answered.  Colin wasn’t a man to say please, so she did wonder what he had to say, but she was still pissed at him.  “I haven’t hung up yet, Colin.  What have you got to say that’s so important you call me in the middle of the day?”  She would listen, to a point.  After that point, she’d just let him talk to dead air.

*****

Colin had been pacing in his house, but now he leaned up against the counter in his kitchen with his back facing it.  A hand ran through his hair, sending it in all directions, before scrubbing across his face.  He wasn’t sure what he had expected, but her abruptness didn’t help him feel any better or more relaxed in talking to her.  It was like when he highlighted witness testimony to point something out, it just brought more attention to his failings and missteps.  

How many times had he been behind the eight-ball just like this in the courtroom and been able to talk himself out of it?  He’d honestly lost count, but he was about to see if he was able to do it again.  The stakes were high, but that didn’t frighten him.  What frightened him?  Losing.

As he listened to the ringing after he’d dialed her number, he was pretty sure that he was going to get sent to voicemail.  Not that he would blame her, but he still had hope she’d listen to him at some point.  So, when she answered he took a deep breath and prepared to win this just like he did every time that he walked into the courtroom.   If he didn’t win, it wouldn’t be his first defeat, but it would sting more than any other.  “Aoife, please don’t hang up.  I know I’m a jackass and you can rip me a new one for being a major one.  Just please don’t hang up, I need to talk to you. Will you listen?”

“Aoife,  I’m not going to try to make excuses for my failings.  I own them and I know what they are.  I’ll even list them if that would make you feel better to know I am fully aware of what a thoughtless asshole I can be.”  He took a breath and looked at the floor.  Unlike in a courtroom, he wasn’t as polished at what to say when it came to his personal life.  Things weren’t as cut and dry.  The outcome was based on far more than a yes/no decision.  “I had something happen that has started to put things in perspective for me.  I’ve had tunnel vision for too long and I’ve let things slide, things I shouldn’t have.  I was so honed in on one thing, it became my world and life.”

He didn’t want to make excuses, and what he was saying wasn’t one.  Colin still wanted Aoife to understand that he knew what he’d done though.  He could only hope she’d forgive him.  So far she hadn’t said anything so he was hoping she was still listening.  “I wanted things to work between us, Aoife, and I know I screwed that up by being an oblivious fool.  I’ve not done my part at all.   I’ve just had everything put in a crystal clear perspective and if there is any way to salvage what was between us, I’m hoping that you can find enough faith to let me prove what I’m saying.  I want us to work.”  He closed his eyes and sighed.  He didn’t deserve any kind of redemption, but Colin hoped that she’d give him a shot.

*****

Something was off, she could tell that.  What Aoife couldn’t tell was what.  This wasn’t the Colin Masterson that had seemed so in command of everything in Chicago.  No, this sounded more like a man broken.  She was a bit surprised; she didn’t think anything or anyone could break Colin.  Still, she wasn’t ready to trust him just yet.

“Are you having problems getting your social calendar full, Colin?  As I remember there were several females interested in filling it and your bed.  Or are they not enough?”  Her feet came down off of her desk where she’d had them propped with ankles crossed.  Now her feet were flat on the floor as she leaned over her desk.  “Or maybe, just maybe, it’s that the great Colin Masterson can’t let a woman walk away from him.  Is that it? You have to be the one to leave, well you already did that.”  The bitterness in her own voice surprised her.  It had been a long time since she’d trusted anyone and what was going on right now was exactly why.

*****

Her words stung, but then Colin figured they were probably meant to.  He’d earned every single one of them, and the insinuation that they carried.    There was little doubt that her next words were probably going to be telling him to kiss her ass and then hanging up.  He’d earned that too.

“I deserve that, and more, Aoife.  You’re light years away from the truth though.   Do you remember the case I was starting when you left against Constantin Rakeovich?”  He waited till he heard her make some kind of acknowledgment before continuing.  “We filed an indictment a week ago.  The next day the intern assigned to me disappeared.  He’s mailing her back to me in pieces.  Today I got her eye.”  Revulsion hit him again at the thought of it and he had to pause to keep from vomiting, again.  The thought of that poor girl made it hard for him to concentrate on much else, but he needed to if he was going to convince her he was serious.  “I don’t care if my bed’s empty, Aoife.  I don’t want my life to be, and it has been.  The only time it didn’t feel that way was with you.”  

*****

Listening to him, she wanted to accuse him of lying.  She worked in NYC, she knew that there were some sick and twisted individuals out there, but for someone to take a DA head-on like that, that was something new.  Colin’s voice and his cadence in speaking told her that he wasn’t lying though.  He was troubled and feeling off-balance, then again who wouldn’t be to be sent another person’s eye?  

Her voice lowered and softened before Aoife continued, “Colin, I can’t trust you.  I’m sorry.  I can tell you’re going through hell, but that doesn’t change what happened when you weren’t.”  Her fingers combed through her hair.  Despite her words, she wanted to trust him.  She wanted to believe that he meant what he said and that it would be different.  The past had made her a bit too jaded for that though.

*****

“I’m not asking you to trust me, Aoife. I’m asking you to give me a chance to prove it.  If I don’t then you can rip me apart for it.  Yell, scream, throw things at me, whatever will make you feel better.  I don’t intend on letting that happen though, this is something I want; and you do know what happens when I really want something.  I get it.”  He sounded a little firmer this time, more in control than before.  Colin didn’t feel it, but for once his powers of self-control were paying off.

[bendingthelaws]

10

Demitri and Colt had left shortly after the meeting in Colt’s office to go and talk to some of their contacts.  They also needed to decide how to handle the fact that they WERE still the attorney on record for Constant Rakeovich and neither of them wanted to remain such.  After what had happened in his office, Colt thought it better for that conversation to happen somewhere that Abby would not overhear them again.

Sensing his dark mood, Abby covered the top of Colt’s desk in post-its. Each one with something goofy, or a question out of her Bar Exam study guide. He'd left those post-its of hers from the other night on his desk all night, ones she’s just put smiley faces on after he’d won his latest court case...she wondered what he'd do with all these.  She knew if left to just the two of them, both Colt and Dimitri would stew.  Somewhere in the last five years, she had become the one to break the tension, and this was her newest way. Dimitri would get a dozen pryaniki on his desk in the morning, he was brightened up more with food, and seemed to love teaching her to bake treats from his homeland.

***

Colin was in danger, his intern being tortured and murdered, and Colt was in a fucking shitty ass mood from everything he and Dimitri had found out while they were out of the office. So when he opened the door to his office and saw the top of his desk, he came to a complete stop. The little imp that was his assistant had covered the top of his desk in pastel colored post-it notes…again. Dear god, there were dozens of them.  He thought there had to be even more than the last time she’d done it.  Her antics from the other night had been topped, but what the fuck had she put on them this time?

He went over to his desk and started looking at them. Her elegant writing was on each of them. Some made him laugh and others just had him shaking his head. What in the fuck was she doing?

Then it hit him and he felt like an idiot, she was distracting him. That's what she was doing. And she'd done a damn good job. While I'd been reading every single one, two hours had passed and I hadn't thought of where his brother was, or what was going on with him. He had relaxed. He had even laughed. It was what he needed. Damn little imp.

"ABBY!" Colt’s voice rang out it his office, more than loud enough for her to hear in her little alcove of an office off of their waiting room.

Abby's head peaked around the corner, her brows raised as she pretended not to know what was going on. "Yeah, boss? Has something more happened?  You didn’t need the Smith filings until the morning, I’m still working on getting them all entered.  I hate this case, just so you know."  She gave him a sarcastic smile, still playing stupid

Had something more happened? So, the imp would play stupid. It almost made him laugh. "Yes, it has. SOMEONE has vandalized my office. I need you to call Detective Kase and tell him he'll need to come by. This is the work of someone devious.  Boxes left on Colin’s desk and apparently pastel post-it notes on mine.  Might be the work of the same person." He was smirking and he was trying to keep from busting up laughing.

"Vadalism?  Are they threatening?" She stepped into the doorway. Surely he recognized her handwriting. "Are you sure it's not a friendly prank? Someone just being silly?" If he hadn't docked her pay in the past, he was going to now. Or maybe even fire her. Her heart raced and she felt light headed, the color draining from her face slowly once more.

Wrong day to be sarcastic, apparently it was the wrong day for Colt to do anything. Putting down the few post-its he had in his hand, he walked over to where Abby stood looking like she was about to panic. Demitri was eventually going to kill him for upsetting her, it was just a matter of time.  Maybe he’d get a warning shot in the shoulder if he was lucky.  Although he’d never known his partner to be especially generous in that department.

"Sweetheart, I was teasing." He took her face in his hands and tipped her head to look at him. "Just a tease. I knew it was you, and it has helped my mood." He leaned forward slightly to look her in the eyes. "You need to relax, or you're going to have your other boss kicking my ass." He chuckled as he looked down at her.

Heat flooded her cheeks, bringing with it a bright pink tinge. "Oh, oh god, I'm sorry, Colton. I guess I'm just on edge." The feel of his hands on her face was distracting, as was how close he was. The scent of his deep and rich cologne wasn't helping. You weren't supposed to be attracted to your boss. "I'm glad it helped. If Demitri gets too grouchy, I'll just pour more Yellow Spot in his coffee. That seems to do the trick." She gave him a nervous smile, trying not to get lost in those yellowish-green eyes of his.

"I'm sure it does help," Colt chuckled and moved his hands to her shoulders. If he kept them on her face, he was going to end up kissing her and then there really would be problems. She was a decade younger, and he was her boss. There was no way that it would get him anything but slapped and hated. "You know I'd never really dock your pay, right?" That had bothered him, Demitri was right that she was far better than either of them deserved.

"I, umm, well I would have deserved it if you had." Butterflies were filling her stomach and she felt very nervous suddenly.  Her hands fidgeted nervously between them as she was now very acutely aware of how close he was, the weight of his gaze, and the feel of his hands still on her.

There was little she could have said that would have made him feel like more of an ass. They were going to lose her when she passed the Illinois Bar Exam.  It was far past time to talk to Demitri about that. He wasn't ready for her to walk out of his life, maybe it took such a situation to make him realize it.

[bendingthelaws]

9

All the way from the office building to where his truck was parked in the municipal parking garage, Kase had been on guard. His hand had been firmly in the middle of Rena’s back, his eyes scanning everything around them. Whoever had left that eye for Colin could still be around. While he had no doubt that Rakeovich was behind it, that didn’t mean he’d done it personally. Whoever had, they were psychotic. He wasn’t going to let someone like that anywhere near Rena. Hell, anyone even started towards her acting funny and he’d take them down at this point.

Once they got into the garage, his hand was on the butt of the gun till they got up to the level where he’d parked. He wasn’t going to take one chance right now. Finally they made it to the truck without incident, and Karsten opened the door to the truck and held his hands out to Serena, “give me the cooler, doc. Once you’re up in the truck, I’ll give it back to you.”

After she had her belt on, he handed her the cooler with all the evidence back. Closing the door, he hit the lock button on his fob then walked around the truck looking at everything. He even got down on his stomach to look under the truck to make sure nothing was mounted underneath. At this point he put nothing past Rakeovich and the doc was the last person he’d take a chance of getting hurt in all this bullshit.

There was no missing that Karsten was on guard, not that Rena blamed him. There was something comforting about his demeanor. Even with all that had happened that morning, she felt safe with him and knew he wasn’t even taking the slightest chance. She wasn’t sure that either of them would breathe easy till this day was over, and maybe not even then. Even after this had all been handled, Constantin was still out there and still had some young girl hostage. He was a monster.

She’d been glad for the help with the evidence when getting into the truck. She wasn’t exactly short, but it was a good step up into it. But when Karsten locked her in the truck, Serena had a moment of panic. Had he seen something? He hadn’t said anything before hitting the lock button and that worried her. His head bobbed in and out of her view till he finally unlocked his door and was in the driver’s seat, immediately locking the door again.

“Everything okay?” She tried not to sound as nervous as she felt. Karsten was a good cop, but he seemed more on edge than Serena ever saw him before. She trusted him, which meant she also trusted his gut if he felt something was wrong.

Kase looked over at her and sighed, he was scaring her and it seemed for no reason. “No, but I don’t trust Rakeovich and whoever he got to do that little delivery you’re carrying. I’d rather be overly cautious than to assume he wouldn’t try something else.” He reached over and took her hand in his, letting his thumb move across the back of her hand. “I’m not going to let anything happen to you Rena.” She got a tight smile and a wink before he let go of her hand and fired up the engine. Time to get to the morgue and find out what more Rena could tell them all.

“You know, I haven’t seen you at Mulligan’s lately.” Kase tried to change the subject once he’d pulled out onto the city streets. Distraction time.

“That’s because I haven’t been there. I’ve been down at Kelleher’s.” Rena looked down at the cooler in her lap. Karsten had to know why. She was sure there was also a reason he pointed it out.

He glanced over at her, his expression one of resignation to what she was saying. She was hanging out with the glow bugs, not the cops. It didn’t take a genius to figure out why. “You know that you’re missed, right? Rena, you’re one of us, no matter what happened in the past.” There was another reason he missed her, but this wasn’t the time.

Raising her head, she looked over at Karsten. “I miss you guys too. Every time I have started to go, it’s just felt weird. Memories and stuff, I always end up changing directions and hanging out with the Keegan’s boys.” Her eyes fell for a minute, a soft sigh escaping her slightly parted lips. “It’s just hard.”

Keeping his eyes on the road, Karsten reached over and took her hand again. “I know, Rena. Maybe if you had someone to walk in with. You know you don’t have to walk in alone. Declan and I would really love to have you back.” His partner might tease him about his feelings for Rena, but he liked her too. Some days Kase thought Declan liked her more than he liked him.

A small smile started to form on her face, Karsten and his partner had been two that she and her ex had always hung out with. “I know. I kind of baled on you guys. It’s still hard, Karsten. Rob ghosting me like that, when all of you knew he was leaving. It still just…” she sighed, “yeah.” He ex had decided to work elsewhere and his squad knew, but he hadn’t told her. He’d just disappeared one day with no word and no way to reach him. All of the others in his squad were shocked to hear what he’d done, but that didn’t make it any easier. It was one of those “we thought you knew too” situations.

He wanted to growl and hit something. Months later and he still wanted to find Rob and beat his ass into the ground for doing Rena like that. Worse, he’d made it look like they’d all been keeping it from her on purpose. No one had mentioned it because they were sure that it would be a sore subject and no one wanted to upset her. In the end, it just looked like they’d all covered his trail. Karsten knew Rena knew better, but the fact she hadn’t been back to Mulligan’s made it feel otherwise. He and Declan weren’t the only ones that missed having her around.

The light turned red ahead of them and he turned more to face her when they stopped. “Rena, if I’d known you had no clue, I would have told you. Dec would have too. We wouldn’t do you like that.” His hand left hers to gently hold her face. “Beautiful, I would never hurt you.” Karsten sighed, he wanted to help her forget and move on, but didn’t know if she’d let him. Not exactly like this was the best time for the conversation they were having, but would there ever be one?

[bendingthelaws]

8

Abby had just come up behind Dimitri as he and Colt were discussing her pay.  She really had thought Colt had docked her, but he’d never said he would except when he had every right to.  She would have never complained if he had, and she now hoped that her mentioning it wasn’t going to be a problem with Colt and Dimitri.  They were like a little family in the office, even if the two men barked at each other a lot.  Professional hazard from working with lawyers from what she’d ascertained.  

“I, uh, I’m sorry.  I didn’t mean to cause a problem.”  She stood slightly behind Dimitri since he was still blocking the door into Colt’s office.

Dimitri’s teeth ground, the glare he was shooting at Colt was murderous, and he wanted to beat some sense into Colt; but the fact the babe was in the office would keep Dimitri from it.  In his old life, he wouldn’t have given two shits, but he’d left that life behind..mostly.  

He trusted few, even fewer trusted him, and he damned well liked it that way.  For those who he did trust and have his loyalty, he would rip the city apart for them.  He had the connections still to do it, and those who hired Colt often knew that.  It’s why they’d never had a problem with any clients; they knew better than to fuck with him.

If Dimitri ever figured out how to kill someone without touching them, Colt was sure that he would be the first victim.  “You didn’t cause any problems, sweetheart.  It’s just a discussion.”  He looked over at Dimitri with a “happy now” look and gestured for him to get out of the doorway.  They really needed to have this discussion because he needed both their help with what was going on.

After they’d both made it into the room, Colt leaned against the front of his desk, his hands grabbing the front edge on either side of his thighs.  “My brother called earlier.”  He caught  Dimitri’s eye roll and glared.  “We knew he was getting ready to indict Constantin Rakeovich.  We’re still his attorney of record.  Just after the intent to indict was filed, one of Colin’s interns disappeared.”  Now he had Dimitri’s attention and Abby paled.

“Sweetheart, sit down, you look a little pale.”  Colin motioned to the chairs in front of him or the couch off to the side, then waited for her to sit.  “A few days ago they received a,” he considered how to phrase this.  So far he’d been sucking at doing that well.  “An indication that she was not being treated well.”  He looked at Dimitri, it was clear that the Russian understood the meaning.  “Another was received two days ago.  This morning a package was sitting on his desk.  It contained a human eye.”  

Abby couldn’t contain it, she gasped and started to shake.  One of their clients was doing this?  Her stomach rolled and she felt light headed.  She wasn’t sure whether she was going to pass out or throw up, or both.  Constantin Rakeovich had been in their office.  He’d leaned up against her side board and talked to her.  He was charming and friendly.  Now she knew he had cut out some poor woman’s eye.  Her chest felt tight and she couldn’t think straight, panic was setting in. 

One look at Abby and he knew that she should not have been part of this conversation.  What the fuck had Colt been thinking including her.  His starched white shirt had more color than Abby did at the moment.  Colt was lucky he was out of arm’s reach.

“Darling, look at me.”  Dimitri gently took Abby’s face in his hands as he knelt down in front of her.  The girl was more like a little sister to him than an assistant and he was worried about her.  “Abby.”  He was fighting to keep his voice calm.  Thankfully her name got her attention. 

“You’re safe and we’re going to keep you that way.  Understand?”  Her head shook in his hands.  “Good, now you’re going to lie down on Colt’s couch till you have more color in your face.”  Again she nodded. 

Letting go of her head, Dimitri helped her to lay down and draping his suit jacket over her, before he stood up and walked over to Colt.  His voice dropped and his expression became hard.  “You ever pull that shit in front of her again, I will hurt you in ways you cannot imagine, Masterson.  Learn some damned tact and manners.  You seem to have forgotten both of those lately.”

[bendingthelaws]

7

Colin's brother Colt Masterson has heard from him, now it's time to talk to the other two in his office...and it doesn't start well...

A headache was starting right behind his eyes as Colton Masterson looked out of his office window to the street below.  Maybe it was a tumor and would take him out quickly.  The coffee in his mug wasn’t going to help much to alleviate it, nor were the ibuprofen he’d almost chewed a few seconds earlier.  This day was going to be pure shit, there was no way around it.  All he could do now was pray that someone assassinated his client for one of the many sins he was guilty of, no matter whether he could be proven that way in court or not  As he waited for his partner and their paralegal to make it into the office, he considered hiring the assassin himself.  Fuck, who was he kidding?  He was considering doing it himself.

Colt had sent text messages to Dimitri Andromedev  and Abbigail Cresthaven an hour ago, as soon as he’d reached the office and gotten his temper under control, a small feat in intself.  He’d been on the phone with his brother, Colin, the entire way from his penthouse to the office; getting screamed at for ever having Constantin Rakeovich as a client and somehow blamed for the current situation that was transpiring with Colin’s intern.  Colt had never been one to back down from Colin, he actually enjoyed pissing his brother off and did it very effectively, but this wasn’t a situation where he wanted to further antagonize the other man.  There wasn’t much he could argue with what his brother was saying, and he hated that.  While they were not close, hell they barely could tolerate one another, they were still the only blood that either of them had left on the planet and there was something to that.  Not liking Colin was a whole lot different than tolerating someone threatening someone close to him or even his brother, himself.

As much as the Masterson brothers were vastly different, they were also very much alike.  The longer the time stretched on, the more anxious Colt became and he began to pace from one side of his office to another.  One hand ran over the stubble on his jaw, his elbow perched on his other forearm that was across his chest.  Anyone that knew him knew this was his pensive stance, and approaching him required announcing yourself first so he didn’t take your head off for breathing.  When deep in thought or ruminating on a point of a case, it was how you’d find him.  What was rolling through his head now was what the fuck his brother had done to have one of his interns being tortured, most likely to death?  And what was going to happen to Colin when they ran out of parts of the young woman?

This was the condition that Colt was found in when Dimitri made it into the office. Not one to be summoned, Dimitri wasn’t happy about it happening now.  What had crawled up Colt’s ass to have him demanding his presence as the ass crack of dawn at the office?  He had been doing surveillance work to dismantle a case against one of their clients for the entire night.  It had been after 2 AM when he’d gotten home so being up and at the office less than six hours later was not making him happy.  Not that the Russian was ever truly in a good mood, but this morning was especially foul.

“Trying to wear the carpet out so we have to replace it?” Dimitri stopped at the door watching Colt pace.  There was something wrong, the man in front of him’s whole demeanor just screamed it.  Arms crossed over his chest, until Colt shared what the fuck was going on, he was going no further.  As stubborn as the Masterson brothers could be, they paled in comparison to Dimitri.

“Yeah, because that is what I wanted you here for.” The sarcastic bite in Colt’s voice had Dimitri’s brows raising, but he said nothing.  “Sit down.  We need to wait for Abby.”  Colt’s demeanor was brusk.  He wasn’t in the mood for Dimitri’s sarcasm or bitter wit this morning.  Normally they had a rapport that flowed easily, but after the call from Colin, his mood and entire day, week, month, life was spiraling.  He might hate his brother, but he wouldn’t wish what Colin was going through on anyone.

“I’ll stand.  You pace.  Get whatever is up your ass out of it before she gets here.” It was not a request, it was a command, and one that now held the heavy Russian accent that he normally hid perfectly.  Dimitri’s jaw also had tensed.  Many would miss it, and that would be a mistake.  “Last thing she needs is your moody ass ruining her day any more than your demanding text first thing in the morning did.  I still don’t know why she puts up with you.”  Dimitri leaned up against the door frame with his arms crossed over his chest.  Colt was as tight as a bow string and if he snapped, he’d prefer there be a buffer between him and the only sane one in the office.  He hadn’t been lying when he said he didn’t know why Abby put up with Colt, fuck why did she put up with him either?

Running late, Abby was the last one to the office.  She’d been half way there when she’d gotten Colt’s text and she knew she would be.  Normally punctual, it seemed like everything conspired against her and there seemed to be far more police on the streets than usual.  Not that it mattered too much, but it meant that traffic was more snarled than usual.  Add it to why she hated her commute, but loved where she lived and where she worked.

Rushing into the office, she was greeted by the sight of Dimitri’s back in Colton’s doorway.  She’d worked with them for five years, and in that time she’d learned to read both of their body language.  While to some Dimitri might have looked relaxed against the door frame, to her he looked like a predator who was calculating the best way to strike.  That was never a good situation. The last time she’d seen him like that, they’d had to have a bookshelf in Colt’s office replaced from a client’s ex-husband being put into it. “Oh geez!  I’m the last one here. Sorry guys, I can’t seem to be anywhere on time today.”  Abby hustled into her office and dropped her coat and purse in her chair before scurrying back towards where Dimitri was standing.  “You can dock my pay again if this is considered late.  I’m so sorry!”  She hurried over, this wasn’t how she wanted the day to start.

A droll stare was cast over at Colt who had finally stopped the fucking pacing.  “You dock her pay?  EVER?” There was a growl to his voice, Dimitri was NOT amused by that bit of information.  Good god, was the man daft?  “I hope you’re paying her a ton of overtime as well then.” The woman worked long hours and while Colt was the one responsible for her pay, Dimitri figured it was far less than what she was worth.  He had never considered the fact that Colt would actually dock her pay for anything, not after all this time and it just being the three of them.

A hand ran down his face as Colt looked at his partner. Great, now there would be a fight over what he paid their assistant.  “No, I don’t dock her pay.”  He’d told her he would, yes.  He never had.  He wasn’t stupid.  If she left, they’d be lucky to find anyone who would last a day with their combined temperaments anymore.  He knew they were damn lucky she’d stayed for the five years she had.  Once she passed the bar, he had a feeling they would have to make her a partner as well, or they’d lose her.  Not something he wanted to think about at the moment.  

“Yes, I pay her overtime.  I’m not looking to have to hire another one.”  Colt swore he could hear Dimitri’s teeth grind.  For someone who stood up before a judge or jury and made legal arguments for a living, that was probably the worst phrased way he could have put that.  He just sighed, the hits were not going to stop coming today.  He held up a hand. “Before you say a god damned word, asshole, it has NOT been a good morning, and you KNOW what I meant.”  Maybe instead of someone assassinating Constantin, he could have them take him out instead.

[bendingthelaws]

6

When tensions are high, it's only a matter of time till someone snaps.. TW - they are talking about a dismembered eye, so blood mention lightly, death mention, autopsy mention, but nothing graphic

Declan stepped in front of Colin instantly and brought him to a halt.  Karsten also had started to move from behind the desk.  A human can only take so much physical and emotional strain before they snap, and Colin Masterson just had.

The situation had just gone from bad to worse.  As if an eyeball that potentially belonged to a Colin’s intern wasn’t bad enough, said now the damned man had just lost his mind. Declan and Karsten were between Colin and Serena, but that didn’t seem to mean much to the man.  It was about to get ugly and quickly.  “Colin, hey man.  This isn’t going to help anything, and if you don’t stop then Dec and I are gonna stop you.  Rena is just doing her job, man.  Calm the fuck down, don’t make us calm you down.”  Karsten knew COlin better than Declan did, so he was the first to speak.  Hopefully just being blunt about it would get the damn man to think straight.  Otherwise, Karsten was quite sure that Declan’s elbow was going to meet Colin’s nose in quite forceful way.

If it had been anyone other than Declan and Karsten to step into his path, Colin might have taken them out due to the white hot rage that was coursing through his veins at the situation that he had found himself in.  He respected the Detectives too much for that though. He stopped before there was a physical confrontation and held his hands up. 

 No matter how disturbed and upset he was with the current situation, he knew that the cop was right.  Serena was doing her job.  How many times had he told her not to guess when giving answers to the police and him?  Now he was the one that was asking to do the opposite.  This case was getting to him far too much, but how could anyone expect it not to?  It was HIS intern that was being sent back in pieces for fuck’s sake.

“Whatever.  I need answers.  Do whatever you have to do to get me the answers I need, but I’d appreciate it if you’d hurry the fuck up.”  His hand scrubbed over his face as Colin left his office.  He needed to step out or there was going to be a confrontation again.  His nerves were shot, his patience gone, and his tact obliterated.  Destroying friendships wasn’t going to help anything.

Serena stood next to Spencer, almost behind him, watching the other three men as the situation finally deescalated..  It wasn’t till Colin had left the room she relaxed and let out a breath that she’d been holding due to the tension in the room.  Still on edge, she was at least assured enough to return to evidence collection without fear of being interrupted in a way that would disturb what she and Spencer would need.  There would be other evidence techs who would come in after they were done for all trace evidence, but all the visible biologicals were hers. 

“Thanks guys,” she gave the two detectives a tight smile before returning to work.  Serena had known Colin for years and never once seen him behave like that.  Even in the courtroom when he and Colt would spar, he would keep his composure.  It was just further evidence of the toll this case was taking on him.  If something didn’t happen soon, it could be all of them like that.

“Hey, no problem, doc. You do what you have to do, doll.  He’s just stressed but that’s no excuse.” Karsten glanced over towards the door Colin had gone through.  He wasn’t sure that the other man wasn’t going to come back in and raise hell again.  The pressure and stress Colin was under had to be immense, and a man could only take that for so long before there had to be an outlet.  That outlet could not be a member of the team though, that would bring no good.  “ He’ll come around when his head clears.  Finding this gem this morning can’t have helped him.  I just want to keep this from getting worse.”  Karsten blew out a breath as he watched Serena and Spencer doing there thing.  He was always fascinated how they worked in tandem, not having to actually say anything to one another at times.  They had their own language from working together for years.  Looks and small motions indicating what they needed..  

Declan stood off to the side observing as well, and keeping an eye on the door to make sure that everything stayed calm.  Karsten saying it would have gotten worse was an understatement.  If Colin went after Serena, worse was going to be a mild description of what happened.  Neither he nor Karsten would have let the prosecutor actually touch her, which meant it was going to get physical, and physical meant ugly and possibly bloody.  He’d prefer to leave the blood to the goons that had the intern.

“How much more do you have to get?”  Karsten wasn’t trying to rush them, but he had a feeling if they were too much longer he and Declan were going to have to keep running interference with Colin.  The first time wasn’t fun, repeats were going to just get worse.  This was one of the few times he was regretting leaving the Taser down in the car.

“She’s got it all.  Once we get it all in the evidence bags and in the cooler, we will be ready to get out of here.”  Spencer answered for Rena as she was slipping a swab of the blood from one corner of the box into a collection bag that he was holding.  The syringe that had been lying on the desk since she withdrew the vitreous fluid was next into a bag.  Two more pieces of evidence and they’d be done.  He could not wait to be out of the fucking office.  It was like standing in the middle of a pressure cooker.  He’d rather be dissecting a corpse found after a week than this shit. “Kase, why don’t you go with Rena back to the crime lab?  That way we have the chain of evidence well documented by the ME and the Lead Detective on the case.  Should help us avoid any further challenges to the case.”  Spencer suggested.  “I’ll finish up with Dec while you do.”  He needed to get his boss the fuck out of there before Colin lost his shit, but there were a few details that actually did need to be wrapped up.  

He could have been the one to take it back with Declan, but he had a couple reasons for suggesting Kase and Rena.  1.  Rena was the ME.  While rarely had anyone questioned his credibility, he’d prefer not to have it done now.  Rena was above reproach.  Those who had tried to question her ethics had been verbally bitch slapped into the stone age by not only the doctor herself, but a couple of judges to boot.   2.  He didn’t like the thought of Rena going back alone.  While it shouldn’t have, the eye unnerved him more than the two previous deliveries.  He wanted her protected, and to a lesser extent, it.  Kase would do that in spades.  3.  Kase was his friend; and his friend was eyeing his boss.  Might as well throw the man a solid if he could.  There was one other who had his eye on the boss, and that man needed no encouragement or opening to make himself known.  Spencer was just helping even the playing field out, as it were. 4. Transporting bodies in body bags didn’t bother him, but there was something about that eye that was getting to him.  Maybe it was that he knew that if it was taken while she was alive that it would be horrifically painful and Colin’s intern had been sweet.  Knowing the person always made the job harder.

Serena wrapped up getting all of the evidence bagged and tagged, then into the cooler specially marked for evidence transportation.  Once it was all where it should be, there was a specific order to getting off all their gear.  Each person’s things went in a separate evidence bag with their name on it.  Most likely it would never be needed, but better safe than sorry.  This case was not a headache, it was a migraine on steroids and a jackhammer.  Once all of her things were cleaned up, she took the evidence bags and gave the equipment bag to Spencer. “Okay, Karsten.  You ready?”  A weak smile was thrown the Detective’s way.  At his nod and sweeping gesture to the door, Rena once again lead the way.  Colin had drawn back from the door as they approached.  She was thankful for that.  The last thing she wanted was a confrontation with her friend due to the emotionally charged situation that they were presently in.  Death was rarely easy for those who knew the victim.  She could not imagine what torture must be like.

[bendingthelaws]

5

Everyone's all in one room, but is that a good thing??

WARNING - there is mention of blood, death, and torture. Nothing graphic and no specifics.

It was exactly 25 steps from one side of Colin’s office to the other.  How did he know?  He’d fucking walked them repeatedly waiting for Detective Kase, Detective O’Malley, ME Cavenaugh, and AME Tidwell to get their asses to his office and take care of that damn box.  Everyone had been barred from the room other than Colin, he would NOT have this case messed up by someone touching something they shouldn’t.  He wasn’t exactly comfortable being in the office, but he also didn’t want something happening to the box without eyes on it either.

Stopping mid-trip across the room, he looked over at the box, sitting right where it had been when he walked in.  It taunted him by looking so innocent sitting there closed; but he knew what was inside and it was reminding him that its contents were there because of him.  When he’d got the scent of blood in the water surrounding Constantin Rakeovich’s operation in the city of Chicago, he’d gone after him with laser-like precision.  His case was building at an epic speed and now almost airtight thanks to the four  that he was now waiting on.  

Then, everything had changed in what now seemed like an instant. Less than a week prior one of his interns had suddenly and completely disappeared.  A shy girl in her early 20’s, she was not even truly in law school yet at the University of Chicago.  Her uncle was a friend of his, so he had been doing a favor to the man by allowing her to intern in his office over the summer.  At first he thought the young woman had just flaked out on the job, but then three days later the first box had arrived.  It contained a fingernail.  No, not a fake fingernail that had fallen off or just the clipping from the end, one complete fingernail that had been torturously removed from the hand.  His stomach had turned at Serena’s description of what it would have taken for the nail to have been removed in the condition it was delivered to him in.

It had been a few days after the nail when he received an earlobe.  That had been removed by something that had cauterized the wound as it cut, making a few on the team handling the situation believe that the person doing it could be a doctor with a cauterizing scalpel.  Without anesthetic, and he doubted whoever had her was giving her any, it would have been excruciating.  The FBI had become involved at the request of the Chicago Police and the Illinois State Police Departments.  They were assisting in tracking down everything.  For the moment, Chicago PD were running the lead, but that was subject to change at any moment.

There was no doubt in anyone’s mind who was doing this, but no demands had been received regarding a ransom or what would lead to the release of the intern.  There was nothing to tie the disappearance of the intern, or the sending of her body parts, back to Rakeovich directly.  No fingerprints or DNA left within his office that did not belong there.  Whoever was doing it, was good…very good.  Until they received some communication from the kidnappers, they could only guess at things and hope that eventually they would get some kind of direction.  So far, him dropping the case was the only thing that made sense as the possible motivation.  He couldn’t do that, but having someone tortured and dissected alive wasn’t exactly a proposition he was fond of either.  So far, the Feds were unwilling to take the case over.

While the first two deliveries had been disturbing, the current one by far eclipsed them.  Just the memory of opening that box was enough to make the bile rise in his throat, and a wave of nausea hit him that had him reaching for the waste bin.  All he could do now was hope that it wasn’t hers.  Maybe this was some sick game someone was playing and they had obtained an eye from a cadaver somewhere.  He hadn’t been able to stomach looking at it long enough to know for sure, and he wasn’t looking forward to having to.  DNA had been obtained from her family, so identification was going to be done that way.  The wait for it was going to be excruciating.

*****

On the ride up to the floor that Colin’s office was on, those in the elevator tried to keep the conversation light.  Once they walked into the State’s Attorney’s office, all were well aware of the heaviness that would descend.  After all, this was the third delivery Colin had received and the same four of them had attended each one.  The crime lab would come in when they were done, after hours, to try to keep visibility low, but they had to do the first steps.

As they neared the door to Colin’s office, Karsten could feel himself tensing.  Working in Major Crimes meant that he’d seen the worst humanity could do to one another, but that didn’t make it any easier when they did.  In this instance, knowing that the victim was most likely alive and suffering somewhere actually made it worse.  At least when called to a homicide scene, the suffering had ended for the victim, it was only their family that paid the price.  At the moment, there were many who could not begin the grieving for the intern, yet also did not want to hold out too much hope for her to come out of this alive.  They were all being realistic, and it was far from a good situation.  The last delivery to Colin had been bad enough that several on the team had nightmares. He doubted anyone else on the small initial response team wanted to be there; but there was no getting out of it, so he squared his shoulders and opened the door for the other two to go through.

Once inside the State’s Attorney’s office, all blinds were dropped, the main door closed, and work readied to begin.  PPE was put on to make it easier for the evidence collection team who would come behind them.  The fewer fibers, hair, and dirt they left, the better.  Since so many people had already come into work, the outer office had been contaminated, but Colin’s office had only been disturbed by him.  They were wanting to keep it that was as much as they could.

As always, Serena was the first through the door into Colin’s office, and she immediately knew that it was going to be especially bad from the look on his face.  Many times he had attended autopsies in her morgue, watching her dissect and remove organs, and his face had rarely looked as grim as it did at the moment. Face ashen and countenance grim, if he were anyone else, she would have said he was defeated.  Only she knew Colin Masterson, and there was only one person more stubborn that he was, his brother Colton.  Defeat was what whoever was perpetrating this against his intern wanted though, which meant the poor girl was going to continue to suffer, because Colin was not going to hand it to them.  He couldn’t.  It was not her intern being returned to her one piece at a time, but she wondered how much more he could take…how much more any of them could.  

Giving Colin a nod, with a sympathetic smile and understanding eyes, she slowly walked around to the back of his  desk, where she was joined on one side by Spencer who had the Medical Examiner’s camera, and then on the other by Karsten and Declan.  The latter would be holding her voice recorder to get her notes that would be transcribed later.  Karsten would be her extra set of hands.  No matter how many slasher movies you have watched, having a bloodied box opened in front of you to see a human eyeball inside is not something you can every truly be prepared for.  In his head Declan was repeating the mantra - in through the nose, out through the mouth.  He’d seen plenty of murder victims, but there was something about the eye sitting in the box, on a little bed made of cotton, with what he assumed to be part of the optic nerve coming out the back end that made it just as troubling as some of the worst mutilations he’d witnessed.  He didn’t know how Rena did her job.  If he had to look at this shit daily, he’d never be able to sleep from the nightmares.  

After a few minutes of Serena looking over the eye in silence, Karsten couldn’t take it anymore.  “Is it human?  Is it hers?  Is she alive?”   He didn’t fire the questions at her the way he would at a suspect  HIs words were slow and his voice calm.  Those were the three things they needed to know, so might as well spit them out at once but not make her feel rushed or attacked in the process.  The last thing they needed was a war amongst them.  Waiting for her to answer seemed to take an eternity.

There is only so much that can be told from a tiny part of a body, she wanted to snap back at him instantly.  The stress getting to her, but she bit her tongue for a moment.  While she could answer one of those questions, she’d have to get the eye back to the morgue to be able to answer the other two.  She just didn’t have the equipment with her to be able to make determinations.  That wasn’t going to make Karsten, Declan, or probably Colin, all that happy; but she couldn’t just give them an answer to placate them.  She had to get them the truth.  If they hoped in any way to figure out where the intern was being held and who was holding her specifically, it had to be done right.

“It’s human.  Eyes are hazel with a slight astigmatism.  From the direction of the cut and other markers, I would say this is a left eye.  From the size, I would say female or teenage male.”  She looked up at Karsten, Declan, then over to Colin.  “Spencer, I need a syringe.  I want to take a vitreous fluid sample before it deteriorates any more within the eye.”  Her attention turned back to the eye as she held her hand out for what she’d asked for.  The clicking of the camera stopped and she heard it being set on the table as he retrieved what she asked for. Preparing the syringe, he took off the outer protective sleeve from the needle which left only the one that flipped into place remaining.  Years of working together meant that he knew just how to put it in her hand for her to be able to use.  “There ya go boss.”  He sighed and met Karsten’s eyes over top of her head, neither of them were enjoying this.  As his boss drew out the fluid, the eyeball deflated and he heard a gagging noise from Colin.  “If you need to vomit, not in this direction please.” He looked up at the ADA who was looking pale.  “Maybe you should sit down.  You’re not looking so good.”  Spencer again looked at Declan and jerked his head.  If Colin passed out, he was the closest one.  Declan got the message and set the recorder on the desk with the mic facing up and moved closer to Colin.

“I’m fine.” Colin waved a hand dismissively and cleared his throat, but his voice had cracked and was thin, also holding a slight tremor.  It wasn’t just the current situation, he hadn’t been anywhere close to fine since the intern disappeared.  Watching Serena draw the fluid from the eye just wasn’t helping anything.  Attending autopsies was his least favorite part of the job, it was even less so when it was someone he knew, and having this done in his office would unnerve him for some time to come. 

“She had hazel eyes. I don’t know about astigmatism.  You’ll have to look at her medical records that we sent over to you.”  Colin resumed his pacing to keep from staring at what Serena was doing with the eye.  If he kept watching, he would vomit.  “Can you tell if she was alive when it was removed?”  It was a repeat of Kase’s question, but he needed to know.  It was eating at his soul, and the guilt was weighing him down like a loadstone.

“Colin, we’re not in my lab and I don’t have the equipment to know.  I can tell you that it was removed with a very sharp blade, most likely a scalpel.  Which direction and if there was blood flowing at the time, I will have to wait till we examine it back at the morgue.  The vitreous fluid should tell me at least how long ago it was removed.  There’s not much more I can tell you here.  I’m going to have to get it back to the lab.”   She looked up at him, then placed the eye in the plastic biohazard box that Spencer was holding out to her.  While he activated an instant ice pack and pulled out the soft side small cooler from the pack, Rena prepared to remove her gloves to replace them for further evidence collection without cross contamination.  “I know you are far from a patient man, but this is not something that can be rushed.  Not if you want it right.”

Something in Colin snapped when Serena couldn’t give him answers.  The last visage of his self control vaporized in an instant and he advanced towards the desk.  “What do you mean you can’t tell me?  That’s what I brought you here for!  You’re supposed to have the answer I need, Dr. Cavenaugh.  I didn’t bring you here for nothing!”

Declan stepped in front of Colin instantly and brought him to a halt.  Karsten also had started to move from behind the desk.  A human can only take so much physical and emotional strain before they snap, and Colin Masterson just had.

[bendingthelaws]

4

Everyone meets up before heading into the courthouse...

Hitting the button on his key fob to lock his truck, Kase headed towards the building the DA’s office was in.  He had a knot building in his stomach and a tick in his jaw.  Calls that had his Captain already steaming on a Monday morning were nothing he wanted anything to do with.  The fact that he’d been asked for by name made him nervous.  He’d talked to Colin on Friday and all had been Kosher.  What could have happened to cause the DA to have ready the Captain the riot act already?

At the end of the row he stopped as Declan jogged up from where he’d parked his SUV.  They’d driven separately.  Who knew what the day was going to hold and sometimes it was better to have more than one vehicle.  Kept from having to backtrack too much.  Something told Karsten that this might be a day where playing it safe was going to keep him from losing his damn mind.

“Ready, bro?” Declan asked as he pocketed his own set of keys and jerked his head in the direction they needed to go.

“Is anyone EVER ready to face Masterson first thing in the morning when he’s on the warpath?” Karsten’s brows rose and he gave his partner a pointed look, with just a tinge of amusement at the edges.  They both knew the answer to that question, and neither one had to say it.

They had just stepped out into the sunlight from the parking garage when Karsten’s phone dinged a text.  Great!  He was almost afraid to look; the way the morning started, it was most likely more bad news.  The name that was on his lock screen almost confirmed it and he sighed, showing it to Declan.  Fuck him sideways, nothing about this day was going right.

Kase and Spencer were good friends, but the AME (Assistant Medical Examiner) texting him before 9am on a Monday was about as welcome as his boss screaming at him first thing.  Since one had already happened to him, this new development being tied to it was almost assured to it.  That meant that his day was going to rate right up there with being shot, again. 

“You going to open it and see how fucked we are?” Declan asked, chuckling.  He felt the same way Karsten did.

Karsten chuckled and had them change direction after he read the text though. Spencer and his boss were on their way.  Couldn’t meet the hot doc first thing in the morning and not have coffee for her.  He’d like to think he was now her favorite cop, and he intended to keep it that way. *****

-Back on the Dan Ryan-

Spencer had given Karsten a heads up that they were on the way, knowing the guy wanted to impress the boss.  Her last guy had been a cop as well, but a total douche bag.  While the explanation had been that he’d gone undercover on a case for another department, Spencer had heard otherwise and he decided to keep that information to himself.  None of the other cops in the department talked about it either, but they also didn’t talk about him in the friendliest of terms, which said a lot.  Kase was a good guy though, so if he could give him a way to earn a couple extra brownie points, he would.   Happy Serena meant a happy morgue, if a morgue can ever really be considered happy.  He’d also filled him in on what Rena had told him about what was going on at Colin’s office.  Seemed like it was news to both Karsten and Declan, since he’d ended up on speaker phone talking to them.  

 Now all he had to do was get out of his blasted traffic so he could make it to the DA’s office before noon. This was an all hands on deck situation and he was one of those hands.  If they had to wait on him, nothing would start. Then he was sure that Colin was going to have a stroke.  He wondered if Kase could get him one of those nifty lights to go on the top of his car for these kinds of situations, or if he’d get a ticket for driving on the shoulder.  

***

-Between the Morgue & the Courthouse-

Spencer wasn’t the only one having problems navigating traffic.  Of course things had to happen during rush hour.  It wasn’t like they could wait and happen after everyone else was already at work.  That would be too easy.  After she had talked to Spencer, she called Colin and spoke with him again regarding her current traffic situation.  She also updated him on where Spencer was.  He let her know Karsten and Declan would be joining them, so they were probably having similar issues.

As luck would have it, Serena ended up parking directly behind Karsten’s truck once she had made it to the courthouse parking garage.  She’d known he was going to be there, but seeing the truck made her smile as she headed to the stairs down to the ground level with her evidence collection kit slung over her shoulder.  She’d been told to make it not obvious why she was there, so she’d driven her personal vehicle, but she had a job to do.  They were just going to have to deal with it being a little obvious.  She could have driven the Medical Examiner’s van up to the front doors, so there was that.

As she headed towards the main door of the building, she caught sight of a familiar and friendly face: Karsten. Just over his shoulder was Declan, so she raised one hand and waived at both of them. Both men were carrying two coffees and she could make a bet she knew which one was for her.  Smart men, those at the morgue were always open for bribery with coffee

“Trying to get on my good side Kase?” She teased as he handed over a nice large to-go cup to her, confirming her suspicion. “Now, Doc, do you think that either of us would do a thing like that?”  Karsten teased back, he and Declan leaning their heads towards one another and giving her their best innocent school boy smiles.

“We just figured that we could all use some liquid sanity before we headed up to the dragon’s lair.” Declan added in, calling Colin’s office by its nickname.

“I think we all need extra sanity if what he’s saying is true.” Serena let out a deep sigh and then took her first tentative sip from her cup.  It was hot, it was strong, and it spoke to her soul.  She needed something to prepare her for what was to come.  Almost a decade in the Medical Examiner’s office and she still wasn’t truly accustomed to the gruesome one’s still.  What humans could do to one another never stopped bothering her.  Her mentor had said when it did was when she needed to retire, and she did believe that was true in many respects.

The three of them were still standing there when Spencer pulled into the parking garage and lightly jogged out to join them.  He had been afraid he was going to miss them and they’d already be up in Colin’s office.  He was thankful they weren’t.  With what he’d heard, he was sure that would mean the dragon would be breathing fire.

“Trying to get started without me, boss?”  He teased her and looked over at Karsten  with a knowing expression and a wink.  The cop was wearing a Cheshire Cat grin on his face, hardly appropriate for the setting.  Spencer had a feeling that it had more to do with him standing next to Serena than anything else.  At least they were going in with smiles, he doubted that they’d be coming out with them.

“Here kid, might as well drink up too, none of us are going to get much sleep tonight I have a feeling.” Declan handed over the extra cup he was holding with a raise of his chin.  Spencer nodded a thanks as the four of them looked towards the front door of the building.  All of them felt the same sense of dread now.  It was time to go inside and face what had been left.  They’d much rather have the intern back than keep getting these damn gifts.

[bendingthelaws]

Constantin Nikolaj Vladimir Rakeovich III

No one is quite sure where, or exactly when Constantin Nikolaj Vladimir Rakeovich was born.  There are no records in the state of Illinois for his birth and some say there are none in the entirety of the United States.  His grandfather came to this country at the end of World War II as part of a Top Secret program, the details of which are still sealed.  No one is quite sure that the name that Constantin bears is even the real name of his grandfather.  No records exist of a man with such a name in the Ukraine or in Russia, the two places that the family was supposedly from.  In fact, the first mention of the name at all was in the employment records of the Argonne National Laboratory in 1948.

Secrets seem to surround every aspect of the Rakeovich family.  Property records for them often have different names on them, all tracing back to one of the two surviving Constantin Rakeovichs.  Out of deference to his father, the younger is referred to as Nikolaj by his family, however anyone not related to him that were to call him that would find themselves dispatched quickly.  Few even know his middle names, more layers of secrecy on a family that officially seems not to exist.

While his grandfather appears to have been in some kind of research at Argonne, there are few records on what exactly his father did, but it was clear he was amassing great wealth.  There are no less than five homes in the greater Chicago area that can be traced to the elder Constantin.  There are rumors that he is the sole founder and owner of NVR Enterprises, a secretive company that is steeped in government contracts and foreign relations.  Records on the company are hard to come by and those that look into its business dealings find themselves quickly warned off.

There are no school records readily available for the younger Constantin until he is found at the Houghton Academy in New York as a Freshman.  He graduated with a straight A average and those who attended with him found him to be cold, aloof, and intimidating.  While he was never physically violent, his classmates said that few were ever brave enough to outright challenge him. From Houghton, he moved on to Harvard where he got his Bachelor’s and then Master’s Degrees in Business and Finance.  When he moved back to Chicago after graduation, he was brought in as CEO of NVR.  To those around the Rakeovich family, this solidified the belief that the family owned the company.  What exactly they do still remains shrouded in mystery.

Constantin proved himself to be shrewd and cutthroat in business, negotiating hostile takeovers of small, independent labs and then bringing them under NVR’s umbrella and tying them to Argonne.   As soon as this would happen, all public releases of information became significantly more vague and the dealings of the company more clandestine.  There are those who believe that the businesses and the family are in black ops, while others believe that they are all a front for a powerful Eastern European Crime family.  With the secretive nature of the entire Rakeovich family and their associates, the odds seem evenly split between the two.

While Constantin continues to run NVR, he is known to deal in underworld matters as well.  He first came onto the DEA and US Marshals radar a decade ago when it was found that at least one of his subsidiaries was being used to traffic in cocaine and other high end, designer drugs.  Later ties to very high end escorts, extortion, loan sharking, and a protection racket would be uncovered, but Constantin has managed to stay one step ahead of law enforcement at every turn.  Some say he is just that cunning, others say it is that he has bought off the Chicago offices of the DEA, FBI, and the US Marshals, then there are those who believe it is a combination of both.

Those who have crossed Constantin through the years have paid a high price, normally their lives.  Anyone that he feels has betrayed him in any way has been eliminated.  Many of these were very elaborately staged assassinations that were made to look like accidents.  He has paid top dollar for the best in the business, including Sasha Vasiliev, to ensure that none of the deaths can ever be traced back to him.  In recent years he has become a bit more hesitant to use Sasha, fearing that crossing the assassin would prove more fatal that if someone were to cross he himself.  He has seen the assassin put a bullet through the skull of a man completely undetected to anyone around the target till he fell dead at their feet.  Had he not been the one that hired Sasha, he never would have known who or how.  That he does means that the assassin is one of the very few that Constantin would never double cross.  

When the Federal, State, and Chicago law enforcement agencies began to close in on him, Constantin blamed one man:  Colin Masterson.  They have become bitter adversaries and while Colin would do whatever it took legally to bring down Constantin’s empire; Constantin does not relegate himself to legal means to try and take down Colin.  The feud is escalating, each man pushing the other closer and closer to an explosive confrontation.  

In kidnapping Colin’s intern, Constantin had hoped to force the man’s hand into dropping all investigations into his dealings.  However the intern proved more stubborn and resistant to cooperation than Constantin had anticipated, bringing forth his anger in explosive bursts that even his longest known associates find hard to believe.  Has Colin pushed him finally into the pit of madness from which there is no redemption, or is there still some vestige of humanity left in Constantin’s dark and murky soul?  The man isn’t even sure himself.

[bendingthelaws]

3

It seems the Courthouse is under surveillance...

Across the street from Colin's Office

"Boss, I told ya, it got delivered." The male with finely chiseled features and dark hair said as he leaned back in the fine leather seats of the expensive car said, a slight New York accent edging around his words.  

"Then why is there no reaction over there?" His companion growled, dark eyes turning towards him.  It was clear the Russian was not pleased; and when Constantin Rakeovich wasn’t pleased it normally turned out to not be a good day for you. If Dominic had fucked up the delivery, it would possibly be the last delivery he made.  No matter how good of an asset the man was, this was too important of a thing to fuck up.

"They're not going to just bring in SWAT boss, they are going to finesse this.  Do you think they want to announce to all of Chicago that the intern of one of the most powerful people in the city has been kidnapped and he can’t do shit about it?." Dominic looked over at Rakeovich. His boss scared the fuck out of him when he was short on patience, people had been known to die for stupid reasons.  The man had a hairpin trigger and anger issues, to put it mildly. Something had better happen soon or he thought the chick back at the compound was going to have it easy compared to him.

"We'll see." Constantin's voice was flat and his unhappiness was etched on all of his handsome features. If Masterson thought he was just fucking around, this latest delivery should do the trick to convince him that he wasn't. The DA could either back off, or the girl would pay the price.

"They ya go boss." Anton pointed. "That damned cop he likes so much, Detective Kase and his partner…whatever, just showed up." He grinned, at least his ass was safe for the moment. "And there's that lady doctor driving into the underground parking. They're being sneaky." He chuckled as he pointed to the Medical Examiner’s van that was pulling down underground as the female doctor had been let out at street level and was going to meet the two detectives.

Constantin didn't respond verbally, just a curt nod. His attention was keenly focused on the trio meeting just outside the front doors of the building. So, his gift for Masterson had been found after all. Lovely.

"Let's go, now we wait." His head didn't turn as he gave the command to Dominic. It would be followed. A fourth person had joined the detective and ME, one of her people if he remembered right. They were all on his list to be dealt with as well, but Masterson was at the top.  Framing him for something someone else did wasn’t a smart move.  If the slick State’s Attorney knew what was good for him, he'd call off the dogs on his witch hunt before Constantin had to make another move he'd like a lot less than the message he'd just sent with his most recent one.

[bendingthelaws]

Colin Masterson

Who is the Cook County State's Attorney?

Colin David Masterson

The oldest of the two Masterson brothers, Colin had always looked out for his younger brother.  Even though they have rarely seen eye to eye, Colin felt it was his responsibility to make sure that Colt was taken care of.  Rarely was Colt receptive to his older brother’s attempts to watch over him or keep him away from something.  It was the classic case of sibling rivalry.  

In many ways, the two Masterson men have always been much the same. Handsome looks and charming personalities, there were few who truly disliked the boys during their youth.  Their mother doted on them equally and their father was equally hard, believing that to coddle a boy was to make him lazy for life.   Four years apart, they both were the Valedictorian of their senior class in high school.  Both went to Northwestern Law School where they both graduated Summa Cum Laude with their Juris Doctor.  They both believe strongly in justice, they just see it from two different viewpoints.  It those viewpoints that have pitted them against each other from an early age.  

Colin had a strong sense of justice from an early age.  He wanted to see wrongs righted and those who were guilty punished.  This led him to get into physical altercations as a boy.  He wanted to defend the victim and get them the vengeance he felt they were due.  Colton often said this was him being self righteous and accused him of doing it for glory. He thought his brother was a bleeding heart who would believe any excuse.  This argument and these beliefs go on to the current day.  They may have aged, but some things never change.

He excelled at sports and social engagements, making him extremely popular. This continued through most of his life; meaning even though he was single, he was rarely alone.  None of his relationships were serious, his dedication was to his job as the Assistant District Attorney for the City of Chicago.  Since he reports directly to the Attorney General of Cook County, his position is one of high prestige and even higher pressure.  A social life was the thing he was willing to sacrifice to excel as his job and rarely lose a case.  The only attorney he has come up against that he does not confidently enter the courtroom against is his own brother, something his boss rarely lets him forget.

A year ago, his entire outlook on social entanglements began to change.  At the time there was a joint task force that involved the FBI, DEA, Federal Marshals, Illinois State Police, New York State Police, Chicago Police, and New York Police Department.  During most of the task force, Colin was more in the background.  His job was to analyze the evidence that the police agencies were gathering and advise what more would be needed for it to hold up in court.  He worked with a team of State, Local, and Federal prosecutors.  Each was building their own case to bring down all levels of a multi-state drug trafficking ring that had split their headquarters between New York and Chicago.  

As the case began to come to its conclusion, more time was spent with one New York Detective, Aoife Flanagan.  Long days of going over evidence, nights of sharing dinner and drinks as they unwound, led to a kiss that changed everything.  For the first time ever, Colin crossed the hard line that he had drawn the day he stepped foot into the Prosecutor’s office.  Business and pleasure melded one night and Colin’s world got a lot more complicated.  

The lower level operatives that Colin was prosecuted all plead down in exchange for testimony, which alleviated the pressure to keep things only business with Aoife.  By the time she returned to New York, things had begun to get significantly more serious between the two of them.  Promises were made and both began investigating the possibility of transferring to the other city.  There were long nights of phone calls and Skype, but Colin never made his promised visit to New York.

The reason for his broken promise was one name: Constantin Rakeovich.  Colin got handed the case against Constantin for conspiracy that a Junior ADA had been working on before his disappearance.  There was no evidence found as to what happened to that ADA and the investigation is still ongoing.  

When Colin started working on the case, it consumed him.  Everything around him started to slide.  It totally consumed him, and the one person who had started to mean something to him started to slip away.  Promises were broken, calls and texts ignored, and regular Skype sessions forgotten.   Trying to get enough evidence and organize it in such a way that he could make a solid case against Constantin became everything to Colin.  Constantin’s lawyer was Colt, and that mean before he could file charges, Colin’s case had to be air tight.

Then Colin’s world tilted on its axis when his intern was kidnapped.  Life snapped back into focus and he realized what he’d done.  He’s responsible for the death of someone who did nothing more than volunteer to be his assistant for a semester of their senior year.  Having the poor intern being returned in pieces put things in perspective of how short life can really be and how he had pushed everyone close to him away.  Now he wants to heal two relationships, his brother and Aoife.  Aoife may end up being the easier of the two.

[bendingthelaws]

2

TW - Mention of dismemberment, mention of removed body part, mention of violence. No description of the gore

*****

Chicago Police Department Headquarters - Major Case Squadroom

"Kase!” Karsten’s head popped up from where he’d been reading over reports back from the lab on the threats that had been coming in against Colin Masterson, and leads on his missing intern.  Some were saying she wasn’t missing, that this was a coverup for an abortion of Colin’s child that went wrong.  He and Declan needed to quash that shit before it got out of hand, that was the last thing that they needed getting splashed all over the front page of some paper. 

“Yo!” He called out, starting to stand up.  Best not to say too much till he had some kind of clue what was going on.  The Captain sounded pissed, and he was pretty sure he hadn’t done anything.

“Get your damn ass over to DA Masterson's, YESTERDAY!  They are calling for you personally and grab Declan wherever his lazy ass is at." Captain Foster screamed from the door to his office as soon as Karsten had come to full standing.

"What the fuck did I do?" God fucking damn it! It was first thing Monday morning and he couldn't have fucked up anything for Colin over the weekend. He’d been going over everything he’d received on Friday and the previous lab reports all weekend.  

"I don't know, but I just got my ass handed to me by his boss AND mine. Something's going on over there and you've been asked for specifically by name. Whatever it is, fucking fix it!  And if your partner caused it, kick his ass when you’re done fixing it." That was an order, no doubt about it to anyone in the room, all of whom were now looking at each other warily.  There was not one officer in the room who didn’t know what had been going on with the prosecutor, and if things were starting to go higher up then it was never a good sign.  The case was already high profile as it was, since someone in the department was leaking to the press.

"Got it! I'll call when I know what's going down boss!" Karsten gave a fake salute and turned around heading out. Nothing good could come from a call to the DA's office before you'd had your second cup of coffee. Nothing. Just don't let it be another dead witness in their case against Constantin Rakeovich. They were all supposed to be in protective custody.

*****

Cook County Medical Examiner's Office

Dr Serena Cavenaugh, the Chief Medical Examiner for Cook County,  had just sat down at her desk after getting coffee when her phone went off. It was the State's Attorney’s Emergency number. Nothing like a call from that number to start her Monday off in a bad place.  If he was wanting more lab reports than what she’d emailed over to both he and Detective Kase, then he was just going to have to wait.  She could not rush the State Police Crime Lab.  It didn’t work that way.

"Cavenaugh." She answered after hitting the speakerphone button on her desk phone so she could keep working on her laptop during what she hoped would be a quick call.  There was a kidnapped intern that she needed to try to find any kind of evidence she could from what they had pulled off of the body, or from out of the bod.

Colin’s voice was calm, too calm as he relayed to her whathe had discovered within the “gift” left on his desk that morning; as well as ltting her know that someone else in his office was passing along the same information toDetective Kase as well. Listening to what Colin had to say, her heart stopped and her fingers hovered over the keys.  Forgotten instantly was getting any work done that morning. She'd thought the first two boxes were just some threat that would go no further, but that did not seem to be the case. Just the sound of Colin's voice told her this one was no joke and that her friend was rattled.  Very little rattled Colin Masterson, she had learned that over the years of working with him. Her stomach turned the longer he spoke; if this was how Monday was going to go, the rest of the week was going to be total and complete hell.

"I’m on my way Colin. Don't let anyone touch anything, even Karsten. I'll have Spencer meet me there." She nodded a few more times as Colin let her know he had just received verification that Karsten was on his way as well. Well, there was a bright spot, she'd be working with her favorite cop.

After she hung up, she grabbed her coat and coffee before heading out. On the way to her car she called Spencer; might as well head him off before he made it all the way into the office.  Might as well add one more person to the list of having their day ruined.

*****

Dan Ryan Expressway

Yes! Traffic was flowing, Godsmack was echoing in his car, and they'd gotten his coffee order right for once. Not too bad for a Monday. Now to hope that the weekend wasn't too grisly  for the city.  Putting pieces back together was not his favorite thing to do. Something light and easy for the first day of the week was always preferable.

Those hopes were dashed when Rena's number came up on the display screen in his car. If she couldn’t even wait till he got to the office, it was never good.  Hitting the button on his steering wheel to answer the call he took a deep breath and aimed his voice to where he knew the mic was in the car, "yeah boss, what's up?"

Rena's voice came through the speakers, replacing the musc. First came the apology, which meant whatever was coming next was going to suck balls. The redirect to Colin’s office..again…meant only one thing. FUCK!

"You've got to be kidding me. The sicko sent another box? What this time, a fingertip?" Whoever it was sending these boxes was seriously disturbed. They all had a feeling they knew why they were being sent, but just couldn't tie it back to the who.  How twisted did the bastard have to be to be doing this?  Did he really think that his case could just be dropped like it never happened?  He knew better.

What Rena told him next just about had him wrecking; he was in no way prepared for what Colin had been sent. This was an interesting development, and not at all in a good way. An eyeball. Someone sent Colin Masterson a motherfucking eyeball. All he could do now was hope it was fake or not human, although he knew in his gut that it was going to end up belonging to the intern.