That broke her heart.
Love was never a burden.
Love was a blessing and a gift. Chris had made a difference in her life, and she would do what it took to help him. She couldn’t cure his illness, but she could heal his heart.
Elizabeth gave him kisses all over his face.
“You were never a burden. I was. You carried me for years, patiently loving me, nurturing me, and teaching me. Let me take care of you, Christopher. Let me help you through this. Give yourself to me. I won’t let you fall.”
“I don’t want to make you take care of me. One day, I’ll wither. I’ll be sick, bedridden, and a walking corpse. You don’t deserve that.”
She began crying.
Her heart hurt, and she knew she was losing him. Elizabeth had one chance to get through to him. Then, if she didn’t, she’d have Ethan get him locked away for a psych evaluation.
At this point, she’d do anything to save him.
“And I will stay with you to help you. I’ll read to you, I’ll watch movies with you. I won’t let you suffer alone, Christopher. Don’t take my choices from me by ending your life. I will ALWAYS fight for you. You’re mine. Let me keep the man I love. Let me help him.”
He wept in her arms.
They both cried a torrent of tears.
He held onto her, his fingers buried in the material of her blazer—his face was pressed against her neck, and he could feel her heart thumping there.
“Fight for me,” she whispered. “Don’t make me bury you and then tell your daughter you left us.”
He tried to focus.
He was less dizzy.
“Elizabeth.”
She held him tighter through the storm.
“I have you.”
As time passed, she didn’t move. She couldn’t. Everything was on the line.
Chris’s life was hanging in the balance.
When the tears slowed, she sat him up so she could check and make sure he was okay. She stared into his baby blue eyes, and they were mired in such pain.
Yet, he was alive.
That was her biggest win, and she’d take it.
As for his physical self, most of the booze was up, and now it was about helping him get some dignity to face what was to come.
This was going to be a long road for him.
Still, she was in for the long haul.
If she was in his situation, there was no doubt in her mind that he would have her back.
“I’m going to get you into some dry clothes, and then into bed. I’m going to get you fed, help you rest, and then we’ll talk about this.”
He closed his eyes.
Chris was defeated.
“I can’t do this alone.”
She lifted his chin, forcing him to stare into her icy blue eyes. Elizabeth needed him to see that she was dead serious about this.
She’d never been more serious about anything in her life. You didn’t leave the ones you love behind. You fought for them.
This would be her battle.
It would define them, and she wouldn’t lose.
“You are not alone. You have me. You will always have me. Stop thinking that I’ll ever bail on you!”
Then she gave him a kiss.
He recoiled from her touch, trying to pull away from her to keep her safe. Already, he’d risked her more than he could stomach.
“Don’t! Are you insane?”
Elizabeth pulled him toward her and pressed her mouth to his. She kissed him. She kissed him like she once did to show him there was still love.
When she pulled away, his eyes were filled with hopelessness and pain.
“I’m defiled.”
She didn’t care.
Elizabeth was thinking straight, and he wasn’t. This was about helping him through this fog. She’d lead the way for him when Chris was lost.
“You can’t get me sick, Christopher,” she stated. “You can’t make me sick with a kiss. I will kiss you better. I will kiss you every day. I will give you that bond to prove that we have something there, Christopher, and that you are never going to be alone.”
He stared into her eyes and he was struggling with her words. He’d missed her in his life. Chris had screwed up so badly that he couldn’t believe she would offer him that compassion. He’d broken her when he’d promised to keep her safe. In his mind, he knew she had every right to abandon him.
He deserved it.
“Elizabeth, I’m not worthy of that love.”
She fought on.
“Would you let me go?” she asked. “If I’d been the one who got sick, would you walk away from me and leave me when I needed you most, Christopher?” she asked.
He didn’t hesitate.
“Never.”
“Then why do you think so little of me and assume that I wouldn’t want to be by your side?”
She had a point.
Tears filled his eyes.
“What?” she asked. “Just say it. No secrets and no hiding. If you need something from me, ask.”
It was familiar.
He’d said the same to her once when she had been having a shitty day. Chris had told her he couldn’t help her if she bailed on them emotionally. She was handing it right back to him.
It was time to reach out to the only person who could help him and keep him whole.
“Christopher?”
He struggled to find the words.
“Please fight for me. I have no one. I’m so alone. I don’t want to die alone. Please don’t leave me. I need you.”
There.
He spilled it all.
Gently, Elizabeth picked up his hand, and she wrapped her pinkie around his.
“I swear I will never leave you. Nothing can make me walk away. We are one.”
He rested his head on her shoulder as she held him.
“I have never needed you more than I do now. I’m sorry I ran from you. I’m so afraid of what’s coming,” he admitted.
She was aware.
And Elizabeth would hold him up.
For the rest of his life.
* * * B l a c k h a w k - W h i t e f o x * * *
Hoover Building
Morgue
Thursday Afternoon
Ethan and Gabe stood there, as did the rest of Elizabeth’s team. They’d gotten the call, and they’d arrived as soon as they could get there.
They were ready to go.
Only, their boss lady was nowhere to be found. Apparently, she’d left the building, and Rory, the man responsible for keeping tabs on her, had lost her.
AGAIN.
And he wasn’t happy about it.
For the last ninety minutes, Rory was searching for her in all the normal places she hid out.
He wasn’t alone.
Ivan had shown up for work, expecting an easy day of watching her, and he’d been given the bad news.
The raven had left the building.
Now, even he was in a tizzy.
They couldn’t figure out where she was, and that didn’t bode well for either man. While it had been Rory’s job, it was now in Ivan’s lap. He was using all their technology to track her, but nothing was working. The woman knew how to evade with the best of them. Her cell was off, her tracker was off, and they were ready to freak out.
They needed to microchip her, like a dog.
Seriously.
Ethan and Callen found it amusing in a way. Two Marines, who had seen battle—and likely never lost their cool—were now pacing like caged tigers. They were ready to blow.
Only, they didn’t rat their wife out. She was handling a private matter, and Ethan knew exactly where she was and that she was safe. While she wouldn’t check in with her security, she would check in with them.
The raven was in another nest, and she was trying to save Christopher Leonard.
The men let her have this one. They kept her secret.
This came first.
Since she wasn’t there, both brothers we
re going to help her out until she could be ready to go. They were going to brief the team, let Gabe do his thing, and then get to her side.
They’d do anything for her.
When Gabe glanced at his watch, Ethan knew the man was getting antsy.
“Why don’t you start? Elizabeth is handling the ME situation,” Ethan offered, cluing him into what was holding her up.
Gabe had to get going.
This was a priority, but he had other things on his plate—like a suspicious president.
“We gathered you here for a reason,” Gabe said. “Here’s our situation. A killer, who we think to be this man,” he said, sending the information to the screen beside them, “is causing a shit mess. Here is Carl ‘The Knife’ Fitzpatrick.”
They all took notes.
It was Chrissy, her husband, Quinton Gaines, and the two agents who’d worked this case years ago with Elizabeth. Max Chase was there, and he was looking a little too excited.
“So, this is definitely who we are looking for?” Max asked after raising his hand.
Gabe continued, playing Elizabeth’s role for her.
“We believe so. Long story short, Carl was sent to prison for being the hired gun for Michael O’Banion. His boss let him swing for a myriad of things that he’d likely been involved in during his reign of terror.”
They took more notes.
“We received our confirmation through a suspect. On Elizabeth’s last case, she dealt with his other hired gun, Joey ‘The Thug’ O’Malley. From his own admission of guilt, both men had a bone to pick with O’Banion, and they’d planned to hunt him down to do it.”
“Uh, they’re gunning for a man who is dead?” Max asked. “Isn’t that odd?”
Alex Bartlett agreed. He’d worked that case, and he recalled shortly after that it went south for the man.
“O’Banion went up in a ball of flames, and no one’s missed him since,” he offered. “How can he be part of this? He’s nothing but crispy mobster.”
Yeah, well, here came the slippery slope and Gabe knew it.
“You were brought in because O’Banion is alive.”
All of their eyes went huge.
Gabe continued, “The FBI, in conjunction with the Justice Department, had the US Marshals fake his death and put him under. He’s alive, well, and working in DC.”
No one spoke.
There was absolute silence.
Yeah, he already knew what they were thinking. Gabe was thinking to too.
This was going to go bad.
And now they were all involved.
“What the hell?” Alex asked. “That’s…what?”
No one believed that was possible.
“Yes, you heard me right. Someone found out he was alive and likely leaked it. Now that it’s out, Carl is on the hunt. His signature killing method was a blade to the back of the skull. The detectives had a victim today and that was how she died. Then they had this.”
He sent the picture of the note to the wall.
“Oh boy,” Chrissy stated. “We’re about to play with a crazy. People who sign their victim are already halfway to cuckoo.”
She was so right.
They’d encountered that with Joey ‘The Thug’. He was making marionettes and etching the ‘art’ he made.
That said it all.
They were going to be going head to head with another of Michael O’Banion’s crazies. He’d taught them to be ruthless, and they had no choice but to try and stop him from killing his old boss.
Oh, the irony.
Gabe moved around the room, checking out the team that had been assembled. Ethan vouched for each of them, and he honestly hoped the man was right.
This could get ugly if they made one misstep.
For him.
For the FBI.
For Elizabeth.
Gabe was no fool. He knew who the scapegoats were going to be, and that was horrifying.
“Elizabeth is handling a situation, and she’s going to be running this, but for now, we need all-hands-on-deck. You were all chosen, with the exception of Agent Garrick, Christina, and Doctor Armstrong-Magnus because you worked this before. We need this to be kept hush-hush.”
They all got it.
Loose lips would sink the FBI’s ship.
“If the public finds out that he’s alive, and that we covered it up…there will be a million conspiracy theories all over again. I’m personally sick of hearing about J. Edgar Hoover wearing women’s panties, and how we’re watching everyone. I’m too damn busy to deal with a crossdresser who liked peeking on people.”
There were snickers.
Had Elizabeth been there, she would have said something wildly inappropriate.
“We ask you to keep it to yourself,” Ethan stated before they could get started. He knew her team, and it was only a matter of time. “As you work this case for Elizabeth, confidentiality is of the utmost concern. She was a target for O’Banion, and once he sees her, we all know it’s going to happen again.”
That pissed Callen off.
BIG TIME.
“Doctor Magnus—Tony—you’re going to be working on the bodies. There’s a mass grave and that’s right up your alley. We need to figure out if the remains are something we can tie to O’Banion. We know from a transcript he had with the FBI at Guantanamo that he said he didn’t know about it. Joey ‘The Thug’ said otherwise before he died.”
Tony was in.
He was all about mass graves that were old. It was more of a challenge, but at least he didn’t have to waste time with excarnating the bodies. He could dive right in and do his thing.
Oh, this was going to be fun.
“I can do it. How many are we talking?” he asked. “I need to prep the lab and get set up.”
That was a good question.
“We think around six-ish. The reports are a little vague. We had a team watching O’Banion’s people all those years ago. They were moving bodies over a week. As to a count, they couldn’t get close enough to pin it down. They think a body a day.”
Again, he was good with that.
The more the merrier.
Literally.
This was his jam.
“I can handle whatever the count is. We can utilize Autopsy Two if Director Rothschild approves it and bumps the staff.”
“I’ll approve it, but I want it locked down,” he reiterated. “Am I clear?”
“Yes, sir.”
Ethan continued, “I’m going to have a team start excavation tonight. Under the shroud of darkness is better. It’s in a park, and we don’t want nosey people or reporters digging around. That would be…unfortunate.”
They all agreed.
“I can be there,” Tony stated.
“You need to supervise it, and keep it low-key.”
He got it.
“On it. I’ll begin the prep for a body retrieval.”
Ethan knew they could trust him. This wasn’t his first day at the bone rodeo. Tony was an expert at this kind of thing. He may screw around but on the job, but he was the epitome of professionalism while at a dig.
The man ran it like he stole it.
“While you’re doing your bone thing back in the lab, Jaxon and Blue are going to be doing their artist thing.”
Jaxon was sick to her stomach over everything she was hearing. No one knew that her father was Michael O’Banion.
Ethan saw the look on her face, and he doubted it had anything to do with pregnancy.
“I’m sorry we had to drop this on you,” Ethan stated. “Are you feeling up to it?” he offered, giving her an out.
It had to suck to find out her father was alive after all this time. He wished he could have kept her out of it. Only, if he was in DC, he didn’t doubt the man might try to contact her.
That would be even more horrifying.
O’Banion’s resurrection was a nightmare for her too.
“I’ll be okay,” she offered.
Everyone was
looking at her, wondering why Ethan was going easy on her. It wasn’t pregnancy related, so she figured she should own it.
“He’s my father,” she stated.
There was a gasp from everyone who didn’t know that she wasn’t really Jaxon Armstrong but Jaxon O’Banion.
“After I graduated from college,” she began, sharing with people she loved and trusted, “I changed my name to my mother’s maiden name. I wanted nothing to do with him. My father…he’s a monster, and I’d like to avoid him as much as possible.”
Tony moved toward her, and she leaned against him as she sat on her stool. Their hands went to her belly, and everyone knew what they were thinking.
Jaxon needed to be kept safe from a man who gave her life.
“If you can’t do this…” Gabe began.
She stopped him.
“He’s dead to me. When he didn’t give a shit about my mother and her death, he died here,” she said, touching her heart. “I will work to find them justice, and I understand what Elizabeth is doing. She wants to put him where he belongs—in a cage. He’s had too much time living free. I can’t condone what he’s done, and I can’t let him near my child. My baby will never meet him.”
Ethan imagined this was hard.
“I’m sorry.”
She reassured him. “It’s okay. I’m fine. I don’t want to see him, talk to him, or be near him. I want to lock him away for good. Let me help get those victims justice.”
Ethan was good with that.
Tony gave her a kiss on the lips.
“He’s not going to be near our baby. I promise. Our daughter is safe.”
She was blessed to have a man like this as her partner in life. Her mother had chosen poorly, but she’d found a man who would always be there for her.
She was a lucky woman.
Tony put his arm around her waist. “I need to ask this, and I want the truth. While I’ll risk myself, I won’t risk Jaxon.”
He was thinking back to the conversation that he and Elizabeth had a while ago when she told him her father was alive. He’d kept that to himself, even when he wanted to warn his wife.
“Is Jaxon in danger?” he asked.
Ethan understood. He wanted to protect his wife, too, but she attracted the crazies. That, in itself, was a full-time job.
“I don’t think so. O’Banion, or Howard Flint as he’s now known, doesn’t know she works for us. We don’t think he has a clue, and we’d like to keep it that way,” Ethan admitted.
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