Esposito:
Ready For Round Two
Javier Esposito spent the majority of his suspension from the force in a state of angry unrest.
His partner, Kevin Ryan, the man who had sworn to be with him "till the wheels fell off" had betrayed his trust.
Gone to Gates behind his back.
Ratted both him and Beckett out.
Gotten them both suspended.
Saved their lives.
Though the rest of it bothered him less and less every day, it was that last part that stuck in his craw.
He had been taken unawares, like a rookie. He was trained better than that. Maddox had taken him out of the game without so much as breaking a sweat. As formidable as Kate might be against regular criminals, she was in no way trained to take on a guy like that. A living weapon.
Himself however, he WAS trained to take on guys like him. Trained to eat them for breakfast. Yet that shifty little bastard had gotten the drop on him, and nearly killed Beckett. Boss Chica was badass, make no mistake, but against a guy like Maddox, she was simply out of her league.
If Ryan hadn't done what he did, he knew they would probably both be lying on morgue slabs now. A guy like that was trained to neutralize enemy combatants. Period.
Perlmutter would likely be doing the autopsy, Lanie was one tough chica herself, but there was no way she was up for cutting into him and her best friend in her morgue.
He was gonna have to step up his game. Next time he and that bandejo crossed paths...things would be different.
He hit the gym the very next day. Mixed martial arts training began shortly after that. 'Back to basics, esse.' he thought to himself.
He would become the living weapon he once was in Special Forces. Next time he saw that piece of shit, he would be ready. From the depths of his memory a revision of the 23rd Psalm that was popular in his unit surfaced as he practiced his hand to hand:
Yea though I walk
in the valley of
the shadow of death
I shall fear no evil...
Because I am
the biggest, baddest
motherfucker
in the valley!
He taped a picture of Maddox up in on his bedroom mirror. It would be the first thing he saw when he got up in the morning, and the last thing he saw when he went to bed at night.
Oh yes, the next time he and Maddox met, there would be a reckoning.
Count on it.