The chapter largely serves to set up the case before Emily is kidnapped, which will be happening very soon.

If you're still wondering what's going on you need not worry, I have a set plan and everything will come together in the end. I already have this work outlined and know how everything is going to pan out. I will not leave you hanging.

When making predictions keep in mind that nothing is as it seems in this story.

Once the plane landed the team dispersed, leaving on their separate ways. Hotch and Morgan left in a SVU to head to the prison, JJ and Garcia were driven by a local police officer to the hotel, while Reid, Rossi, and Emily headed to the centrally located precinct.

"So buttercup what can I do for you to help expedite your recovery" Garcia asked with a sweet smile after sending JJ's statement to Emily.

"Bed" was all JJ replied as she crawled into the middle of the bed closest to the window and went to sleep.

"Well this is going to be fun" Garcia sarcastically commented as she started to set up her computers and began to sift through prison records to look for a connection. She was disappointed as there appeared to not be a single connection. There was seldom a time when the team had no idea where to begin, but for reason this case was different. Emily had said something earlier about it feeling off, but Garcia couldn't get the brunette to elaborate. It was times like this when she felt most useless, unable to help the team as she waited for them to call her and ask her to do a search. To curb her boredom she walked over to the small kitchenette area of the room to make JJ a cup of tea. At least she had something to do she mused as she started to fill up a mug with water.

"Detective Meyer?" Emily asked as she walked into the police precinct conference room with Reid.

"Eliot" a man replied back outstretching his hand. He was in his mid-fifties, a little overweight, with blue eyes and receding salt and pepper hair.

"I'm SSA Emily Prentiss and this is Dr. Reid" Emily replied professionally as she motioned over to Reid who nodded his head and went back to setting up his white board and maps. "He's preoccupied I apologize. Other than the victim's last names all being of Russian origin do you have anything that wasn't in the files you sent over?"

"Not much I'm afraid. Umm, I do know that all the mob men worked for the same boss, Vladimir Polovski but that's all I have so far."

"Is there anyway we can meet with Polovski or anyone else who might know the victims?"

Meyer sighed in frustration, "Polovski won't talk to us without a warrant. But, there's supposed to be an undercover cop on the inside. Vice told me he's trying to get in contact with an old informant who might talk to us. It's going to take time."

"Well we don't have time" Emily replied back, a little more curt than she meant to.

"Don't I know it, but the brass doesn't want to risk an undercover op for four dead mobsters and 3 dead COs. They don't find it valuable enough."

Emily nodded her head in understanding. She knew better than anyone the politics of the job. "I get it, I really do. Here's my card, call me when you get the go ahead."

Meyer took the card and smiled, "I will. I hope those case reports can help you. What are we looking at so far? I did some googling on what you all do with your profiling, do you have anything yet?"

"I wish I could tell you I did. Male in his 30s-40s, possibly was in prison, definitely had a run in with the Russian mob's pretense while on the inside if he was incarcerated. The guards either allowed the abuse or engaged in it themselves. Other than that, it's hard to say who we're looking for. But I really have to brief the press" she confessed as she gathered her things to head out of the room.

"Yeah well good luck with that" Meyer chuckled as he followed her out of the room and took a seat at his desk in the bullpen of the police station.

Morgan and Hotch walked through the prison security and processing room and to wait for the assistant warden Matthew McMurphy. A few minutes later an impeccably dressed man in his early forties who looked to be gunning for a promotion appeared before them.

"Mr. McMurphy I am SSA Aaron Hotchner and this is SSA Derek Morgan and we're here to talk to you about the deaths of officers Matskevich, Oborski, and Reznikov."

"Thank you for being here" the man said in a genuine tone as he firmly shook the agents' hands. "They were good correctional officers."

"Mr. McMurphy I don't want you to read too much into this question but did they have any run-ins with any prisoners? Maybe have any prisoners claim that they got a bit rough?" Morgan asked in the most respectful manner he could come up with.

McMurphy shook his head before speaking up, "No. Listen I'll admit that sometimes we need to get firm with the prisoners but these guys, Ryan and Jackson especially, they just didn't do that. They reported any instances of violence again any prisoners, they were good guys and I wouldn't say that about just everyone who works here. They were almost too good for this place if you know what I mean. They all had kids and it's a stable job that can pay the bills."

"Were there any prisoners that had disagreements with them, any complaints launched?" Hotch asked hopefully.

"Every CO has some sort of threats made against them. Comes with the job, I'll get you those files" McMurphy offered as he walked off.

"What do you think?" Morgan questioned Hotch, who took a deep breath and rubbed his eyes.

"I think that we have nothing, and until we have a name there is no point in approaching the Russian mob connections in here." Morgan simply nodded in response as McMurphy returned with three file folders full of complaints and threats. "Thank you" Hotch responded as the two men left. "Let's go ahead and check out the first crime scene and then head back."

"Okay but Hotch I don't think we're going to see anything new. It just looked a normal breaking and entering followed by an execution style shooting. He was precise, he didn't make any mistakes."

"We should confirm it anyway" Hotch instructed as they entered into the black SVU and headed to the home of Aleksei Dmitriev, the first murder victim. Dmitriev had been killed while his mother was away, shot in the back of the head while watching TV. ME reports had said that it had at least been a painless death. But Hotch kept thinking about the manner in which he was killed, how clean it was, how perfect it was. Would this unsub ever get messy?

After arriving at the crime scene it appeared that Morgan was right. It appeared to be a normal breaking and entering where the unsub entered through a back door. Dmitriev's time of death was about 7:45pm so it was approximately ten to fifteen minutes before then when the unsub would have broken in, breaking the glass panel in the back door to unlock it from the inside. It had been 10 days since Dmitriev was killed and most of the crime scene had been tamped with, much to the annoyance of Hotch and Morgan.

"If there was anything here it's gone now" Morgan huffed after walking through the property.

"It wouldn't matter, the unsub didn't stay. It was all about getting in and killing Dmitriev for whatever reason. I don't get what the connection could be outside of Russian last names."

"I don't know Hotch but this case, it's a fucking mess and I don't say that lightly. This unsub is motivated to kill these men, he must have stalked them to know their sleeping patterns or when their family was out, but they just don't connect and I don't think it's a hate crime. Why kill them? Why bother?"

"It's not a hate crime, it's too reserved. This unsub isn't trying to make a point, for now anyway."

"I also want to thank the San Francisco Police Department for allowing us to assist on this case. We will be looking forward to helping them to find whoever committed these crimes" Emily said as she concluded her statement and walked away from the podium, ignoring the multitude of questions that were being thrown her way. "Fucking vultures" she mumbled as she sank down into the chair next to Reid.

"That bad?"

"That bad."

"I'm sure you did good" he said sweetly with a smile.

"I didn't pull my gun on them so I consider that a success."

"Meyer have anything for you?" Reid asked finally looking up from the map he had been working on.

"Nope. You have anything yet?" She asked hopefully.

"Considering all the victims were found in their homes I'm not finding any help geologically. And Hotch called earlier to say that they couldn't find any connection between the guards and abusing prisoners. They might have to go back after we get a name but right now San Quentin isn't helping us on this case."

Emily sighed as she pinched the bridge of her nose, "Something about this case is just bothering me. It's like our unsub doesn't care about the victims unless they're Russian or fit into whatever past he had. He's almost indiscriminate. It's almost as if these people are just surrogates for him. Which is bad because…"

"Because he may not be from here and it'll be impossible to narrow down unless we have a location parameter for Garcia to search with" Reid interjected, finishing Emily's thoughts.

"Any chance he could be Russian?"

"What do you mean?"

Emily ran her hands through her head as she shot up in her chair, "Okay so our mobsters weren't into anything bad, for the mob anyway. Our COs weren't abusive and they probably weren't connected to the mob or Garcia would have found something in their financials, right?"

"Right."

"So all our unsub cares about is the fact that they are Russian prison guards and mobsters. What if they are surrogates but it matters that they are Russian not because of a hate crime but because he himself is Russian?"

"So he would have interacted with them back in his home country…"

"And it would be impossible to exact revenge on them there unless he went back…"

"So he finds surrogates for them here!" Reid exclaimed excitedly. Just as he was about to call Hotch to let him know about their newest lead Emily interrupted him.

"Fuck!"

"What?'

"How much do you want to bet that a Russian criminal is not going to get through immigration?" Emily asked rhetorically.

"He's not" Reid sighed in disappointment. "Shit, it made so much sense."

"Didn't it? Unsub spent time looking for Russian prison guards and gangsters to punish the men who fucked him over in the home country. This case is, something is just off about it."

"Yeah."

An exhausted Emily took a sip of coffee and looked at her watch, "I'm on DC time."

"Me too" he groaned as they looked over to the clock that only read 5pm. They had just come off a case and in theory were supposed to be taken off rotation. In reality though they had been the first team that Strauss called in. They shouldn't have been that tired, but they were running on empty before the case even started, and it was turning out to be a difficult case. "How did he know about the prison guards?"

"They were killed after the mobsters, maybe they were his means to finding them" Emily guessed as she re-read the case reports.

"I have nothing" Rossi declared as he walked into the conference room.

"M.E.?" Emily grumbled.

"Shot execution style, all but one of the mafia men, the younger cousin, looked to be asleep when shot. Younger cousin was watching TV. All the correctional guards were also seated and probably awake. No signs of torture, not signs of drugs in the system. Nothing, this guy is clean" Rossi complained as he took a seat.

"So he knows what he's doing? Maybe he's done it before" Reid cut in.

"Maybe that's how our unsub got his invitation into prison."

Rossi nodded at Emily's wager and looked over to Reid, "How far out are Hotch and Morgan?"

"They were going to check out one of the victim's home, but they said we should just finish up here about 6 and head to the hotel. Check out the crime scenes and conduct victim interviews in the morning."

"Where were the families?" Emily asked she rose up from her chair and began to pace.

"What?" Reid asked as Rossi smiled.

"The men aren't connected, the families are" She answered back firmly. She was hoping that she might have just found a connection.

Rossi cut in, "We need to talk to Garcia. Emily run this over with her when you get back to the room. Let's head out for the night."

"Hey Garcia" an exhausted Emily greeted as she entered into the hotel room to find Garcia typing on her computers and JJ fast asleep in bed. "How is she" She asked motioning over to JJ.

"Fine, she didn't do much all day. She did have some tea and soup. How about you gumdrop? You look exhausted, have you eaten all day?"

"I don't even remember" Emily confessed as she sat on Garcia's bed and took some files of out her bag. "We need you to find any connections between the families of our victims and…"

"I'm going to have to do it tomorrow, my poor babies are working on overtime to try to filter through a mess of criminal threats made against our correctional officers" Garcia admitted apologetically.

Emily just smiled at her friend, "That's fine. Tomorrow you'll have to work with Reid though because Meyer told me that he has some contacts from the Russian underworld that are willing to talk to us. Hopefully that won't turn to shit too. You should step away for the night, you're obviously not finding anything."

"No, nothing Russian related at all. I don't know but this case…"

"Is an absolute clusterfuck" Emily completed with a laugh.

"What do you think is going on?"

"I honestly have no idea. The only thing that makes sense to me is that our unsub was in a Russian prison but there is no way immigration would allow someone with that history into the country. It's the only thing that makes sense but it makes no sense" Emily complained as she rubbed her tired eyes.

"You need to relax gumdrop. Take a shower and I'll order us some dinner" Garcia kindly offered. She could see the stress about the case and JJ wearing on the brunette. "Whatever you feel like eating, but I get to pick the TV."

"Thanks PG, whatever you want is fine. Just order me whatever you're having" Emily requested as she dragged herself off of the bed and into the bathroom. Something about this case wasn't sitting right with her. She had a bad feeling about it, and she didn't know why. That was the worst part, wondering why. Was it a premonition? She hoped not as she shook the thoughts from her head and entered into the hot shower.

After watching TV with Garcia and having dinner, Emily crawled into bed with JJ, who radiated heat like a furnace.

"Hey baby" JJ mumbled into the pillow as she felt Emily enter the bed and curl up next to her.

"How are you?"

"Shitty."

"I'm sorry" Emily offered as she kissed JJ's left temple.

"How was your day? How was the media?"

"A fucking nightmare" Emily admitted much to the amusement of JJ.

"Welcome to my world. It'll get better."

"Just make sure you get better so I don't have to do it anymore" Emily chuckled.

"Anything new on the case?"

"Nothing. Not a fucking thing."

"What are you thinking?"

"That this case doesn't make any sense" Emily said as she took a deep breath. "You need to sleep."

"So do you" JJ said as she drifted back to sleep after exchanging 'I love you's with Emily. Garcia took the hint and turned off the TV that was beginning to air the evening news. The evening news that a certain dark-haired man was watching. The evening news that featured Emily giving a press conference as the lead story.

"Elizabeta" he muttered as an evil grin spread across his face. "I have been looking for you. I see that you've switched teams again. Fool me once shame on you, and you've already fooled me once" he said as he cracked his knuckles in anticipation.

Emily giving the press conference is part of what puts her in danger, but what else is going on? Any predictions on who Elizabeta is? Throughout the story I welcome predictions.

A lot happens in the next chapter.