The phone rang twice before Nat did anything. Knowing that Brendan wouldn't wake up unless he did something, Brendan gently shook his friend.

"Brendan," he whispered. "Brendan wake up."

Brendan, who was sitting on a recliner next to Nat's hospital bed, stirred.

"What is it?" he asked sleepily.

"Your phone is ringing."

Brendan sat up from his recliner and grabbed his phone out of his jacket, which Alex had been using as a blanket, since he was sleeping on Nat's bed.

"Hello?" answered Brendan "Detective Lewis, what is it?" A few seconds later, Brendan gasped and stood up quickly from the recliner.

12 Hours Earlier

Jack walked into Nat's hospital room, where Brendan and Alex were standing next to Nat's bed. Brendan turned when he saw his friend.

"Jack, thank you for coming."

"Of course. As soon as I heard, I got on the next plane back to New York. I had all of my stuff packed, anyway, so I was ready to go. What happened?"

"Nat was attacked by some of Calvert's men last night at my house. I guess they found out about the trial and weren't happy with the outcome. They also seemed to know they'd have a hard time getting after you, so they decided to come after me instead. Nat went to the bathroom while the rest of us were in my living room talking. Alex went to go check on Nat when he had been gone about five minutes. He couldn't find Nat in the bathroom, and started looking around. He saw Nat being held in a chokehold by one of the three men, outside in my garden. Alex ran back into the living room and told me what he saw, so I went out there to confront them. I managed to take down two of the men quickly and had subdued the third. I went back to Nat, who had been thrown at me and who I had lay on the ground, when the leader snuck up behind me and grabbed me."

"Is it true he had a gun?" Jack asked.

"Yes. That was the only reason I wasn't able to stop him. He grabbed me and held the gun to my head. Right when he got a hold of me, Detective Lewis arrived and had his own gun on the guy. I kept him distracted long enough for his partner to arrive and subdue the guy. We came straight here afterward in order for Nat to heal from his injuries."

Jack sighed. "I'm so sorry this happened to you, Nat."

"It's okay, Jack. I'm just fine."

"What about you?" Jack asked, facing Brendan again.

"I'm okay. I'm just glad that nobody else got hurt."

Jack nodded before turning to leave the room. "I'm gonna make sure that nobody else gets hurt."

Brendan hung his phone up and looked at Nat with a look of shock etched onto his face.

"What is it?" Nat asked.

"Something's happened at the police station. They said that Jack had a gun and was shooting at the men who attacked you last night."

"WHAT?"

"Yeah. They've got a taxi coming to collect me now. They need me to come down there for some reason. I'm sorry, guys. I'd stay if I could, but it sounds like they really need me down there."

Nat nodded. "Go. Find out what happened. Make sure Jack is okay."

"What about you?"

"He's fine," Alex said, sitting up on Nat's bed. "I'll be here with him until you get back."

"Just go, Brendan. It'll be okay here."

Brendan nodded and dashed out of the room.

2 p.m. that day — Six Hours Earlier

The door to the interrogation room opened and Calvert walked in, dressed in a prison outfit with his arms and legs shackled. His attorney was nowhere to be found.

"What the hell do you want?" he asked when he saw Jack.

"You have some explaining to do," Jack replied, a look of malice etched onto his face.

"For what? Why I shot you?" Calvert laughed as the officer escorting him helped him into the chair across the table from Jack. "Obviously, because I was paid to!"

"I know that, you moron," snarled Jack. "I need you to tell me why your men would attack one of my friends and not go after me."

"Probably because my friends are smart enough to know that attacking you wouldn't mean anything. No, to really get underneath your skin, they would go after one of your friends to send a message."

"What about those idiots you had come after me a few months ago that my friend took care of?"

"They were merely following orders from three years ago. I told them if you had survived, they were tasked with sending you a message to remind you who you were dealing with."

"And yet, they still tried to kill me." Jack pointed out.

Calvert chuckled. "It would've been one less person to testify against me. Or maybe they thought I wanted you dead. That couldn't be further from the truth: I wanted you to suffer, not be dead. This way you'd be too afraid to testify against me. Obviously that failed."

"It would have failed anyway, Calvert. The police could have forced me to testify against you."

Calvert nodded.

"And what about the three men who attacked my friend last night? The last ones of your group?"

"Them?" Calvert said, an air of thoughtfulness evident in his tone. "They would have merely wanted to seek revenge against you for what you did to put me away."

"Then why not attack me directly?"

"They did it to punish you. Let you taste some of what they were feeling about me. Feel helpless about a situation you couldn't change. Yet, they underestimated you friend, even after they pulled the gun, I hear."

"And they will be the last," Jack said, abruptly standing up and leaving the room.

Brendan walked into the squadroom, escorted by a uniformed officer. All around him were signs of something occurring in the squadroom recently. Papers were scattered on the floor, officers were running around trying to find something to fix, three people were being wheeled away on stretchers.

Once in the center of the squadroom, he spotted Chase standing alone, with a grave expression on his face. Brendan walked over to him and noticed a window was shattered a little to the right of Chase. When he reached him, Chase merely looked at the ground, as if waiting for it to do something spectacular. He didn't seem to notice Brendan.

"What the hell happened here?" Brendan asked, looking around.

Chase looked up at him. "I have no idea," he replied.