Summary: Two years after being kicked out of the 12th Precinct, a young woman's apparent suicide draws Castle back into his old life.

Disclaimer: I own an Arby's sandwich. That's the same thing as the TV show Castle, right? If not, then no, I do not own the show.

Even though I was puking in my private bathroom, not The Old Haunt's communal one, they found me. What can I say? I have a discerning clientele.

I was recounting my lunch with Johnny Walker to my porcelain friend when two men, whom I'll call Buick and Cadillac due to their size, pushed through my bathroom door.

"Our boss would like to speak with you."

"Can we do it some other time? I'm having a private conversation already."

The henchman on the left, who I decided was Buick because to the pinstripes on his suit, stepped into the bathroom. The place wasn't large enough for all three of us. I mean, it was normally large enough for three people and a small pony, but not for two of these guys and me. Buick reached down and grabbed me under the armpits, lifting me to my feet as easily as I used to lift my infant daughter. I'm 6'2" and 220lbs. Buick came to play.

"Fine," I said. "Who are we meeting?"

"Our boss," said Cadillac. He turned and left, and Buick fell in behind me, effectively ending the conversation. Either out of fear or boredom, I decided to follow. Actually, it was the presence of Buick behind me, pushing me along, that did it.

A full-length Maybach was waiting for us on the street outside The Old Haunt. Cadillac got in first and Buick, with his porterhouse steak of a hand still wrapped around my upper arm, pushed me in next, so that I was sandwiched in between the two. A third henchman sat behind the wheel. He was smaller than the other two, in the sense that Saturn is smaller than Jupiter, and so obviously the leader. He said nothing, just pulled into traffic once the door was closed.

Between the car and the bespoke tents on the giant henchmen, I was starting to get why they felt no need to explain themselves. There were only a few people in the city who could combine obscene wealth with severe menace. Well, less than a few. Two. Two men really. And I couldn't see why either one of them would need my services.

A few minutes of utter silence later, we pulled up outside a highrise in Central Park West. No one blinked as they led me through the foyer to a private elevator. Cadillac put his finger on a thumb scanner next to the door and we rose to our destination.

I was rather proud of myself for keeping down the remainder of my whiskey and my jokes as the floor lurched under us.

I'd been placing bets in my head about which of the two men I was heading to meet, but it turned out I was wrong. I was meeting the other one. They led me from the elevator to an office that was about the same size as my loft, with one wall of windows looking out over Central Park. The office was spartanly furnished, save for a desk of about the same size as the Maybach and just as black and intimidating.

Standing at the desk, looking at some papers, stood Vasily Chapayev.

Chapayev was rumored to be ex-KGB. Rumored only in the sense that it was something completely true that no one was dumb enough to say out loud. He'd come up as part of the Putin oligarchy that had turned a bunch of mobsters and KGB into billionaires. I couldn't remember exactly what he owned and controlled. As best as I remembered, it was everything east of Moscow.

He was shorter than me, but built in that russian bear-fighting way, and scarred enough that I suspected he still occasionally took a hands on approach to his business.

Buick and Cadillac forced me to sit in one of the guest chairs in front of Vasily, and then left. I guess they didn't see me as much of a threat. They were probably right.

Chapayev took his time finishing his paper and dropped it on his desk. "Mr. Castle," he said, looking at me for the first time.

I decided to say nothing.

"I must say, I've seen you look better."

"Ah, so you were watching when your guys picked me up."

He ignored the comment and walked around his desk to stand in front of me. He was scarier closer up. "I find myself in a position where I need your services."

"I'm afraid I'm not taking on new clients right now," I said. For four years, I'd moonlighted as an observer with Manhattan's 12th Precinct homicide division. My side-job had fueled my main one - writing a series of novels about a detective named Nikki Heat. After I'd been exiled from the 12th, I'd found myself unable to write Nikki Heat anymore. I'd put the character on the shelf, much like I'd done before with another of my serial characters, and decided to start writing about a private investigator instead.

Private Investigators, as a lot, don't like writers following them around. So instead I'd hung out my own shingle, just to gather a few stories. So far, it hadn't really gone well. I hadn't gotten much work, my novels had just been recycled from cases at the 12th, and my publisher was threatening to drop me due to a lack of sales for my Joe Hammerstein novels. The only part I'd taken to with any aplomb was the hard drinking. Even that was starting to wear on me.

Not that a Russian Billionaire mobster needed to know any of that.

"I think, for me, you might make an exception," he said. His voice was precise and lacked any sort of accent.

"And why is that?"

"I have something you want."

"I already have everything I want. What could you offer me?"

"A tiger."

The confusion must have shown on my face, because he shook his head in disgust. He walked back around to his side of the desk.

"A literary man … I'm disappointed, Mr. Castle." He paused, shook his head, and started again. "In Chinese legend, there was no animal as strong as the dragon. There was only one animal that was considered strong enough to take it on and defeat it. The tiger."

"Are we talking about what I think we're talking about?"

"The Dragon, Mr. Castle. I know who he is, and I can give him to you."

The Dragon was the unofficial name for, well, I hated to use the word nemesis, but there wasn't a better one. He'd ordered the execution of my ex-partner's mother, and later, my partner. That she'd survived had been complete luck. I'd eventually lost her by trying to protect her from the man. The last time I'd seen my partner, she'd declared war on The Dragon. But it had been two years, and I'd seen neither her nor any sign that she'd gotten The Dragon since. Vasily said he was offering me a tiger. What he was really offering was my former partner's life.

I sat back in the chair and thought. It was a tempting offer. I was surprised to hear myself speak. "What do you need from me?"

He sighed, but it was one of slight satisfaction. "You know, of course, of my daughter."

I nodded. Everyone did. Yulia Chapeyev had been found dead of an apparent suicide three days earlier at the age of twenty-one. Beautiful, brilliant, and a celebrity in her own right, the case would have been a huge deal anyway. But last night, it had been leaked that someone else had been found in Yulia's apartment - Roman Morozov. Given the Chapayev and Morozov feud, Yulia's reality TV celebrity, and the sensational nature of the event, the media had understandably exploded.

"The police are saying it is a suicide. But my daughter would not commit suicide. And the discovery of Roman is unsettling."

"I don't think the police will have finished their investigation this quickly." Despite what he was offering, I didn't see anything good coming of getting in-between the Morozovs and the Chapeyevs. Their feud was legendary, and worse, quite bloody.

"No," Vasiliy said with a shake, "they haven't. But I want someone on the inside. Someone who can give me the full story."

"Um, why do you think I could be that person?"

"It is the 12th Precinct that is handling the case."

"Um, I no longer have a relationship with the 12th. I'm not entirely sure they wouldn't just shoot me on sight."

"It's a shame to hear that. You see, your friend, The Dragon? I still have considerable sway over the man. I would hate to tell him to resume his pressure on your Ms. Beckett."

She's not mine - I went to say, but stopped myself. It wouldn't matter either way. Billionaires don't get to be billionaires through stupidity or magnanimity. He had the carrot and the stick and I was stuck.

"What, exactly," I asked, "do you need?"