I do not own Hawaii Five-0 or any characters. No copyright infringement intended.

Notes: as guesses come in about who the baddie might be ... I will only admit that this started with one bad guy in mind. But shortly in the drafting stage, the saber-toothed bunny redefined the character and it is now someone else.

Chapter Two

H5O* H5O* H5O* H5O* H5O*

The raid went down like clock-work. Five-0 co-mingled with HPD early on a Wednesday morning well before the Italian restaurant opened for its usual lunch time crowd. After researching and confirming leads for weeks, the illegal gambling ring was efficiently terminated. Behind the kitchen and the false exit door, was a secondary fire door. And behind that, in full swing was an underground high stakes poker game. A key player was Mathew Danzby, the paunchy and balding son of CEO Mark Danzby.

The elder Danzby was the formerly well-respected head of Danzby Financial Partners, who had already been sentenced to 10 years in jail in February for operating a wire and investment advisory fraud scheme that lost his ignorant investors $22 million.

Danzby also had a habit of routinely participating in illegal, underground high stakes poker games and reportedly losing money just as regularly. In order to pay off his debts and continue his gambling obsession, the elder Danzby devised a Ponzi scheme - hence the wire fraud and related illegal investment activities.

Evidently, his son Matthew had the same unfortunate gaming affliction as he laid his hands palms facing down on the small table. Wearing the brightest, loudest Hawaiian aloha tourist shirt in the world, the toupee'd man looked ridiculous and Danny had to bite his tongue as he cuffed him. Because as his father's associates, contacts and cards came tumbling down, more arrests were now being made for others involved in the gaming ring.

"Lunch?" Danny asked as the last of the illegal high-stakes gamblers was handed off to a waiting HPD cruiser. "Because .. all of this excitement has made me hungry. But for some reason, I'm not exactly in the mood for Italian."

Steve snorted without looking up from what he was doing. "Bailey's Diner is easy enough. And they serve breakfast all day."

The friendly slap of agreement as Danny passed him by confirmed it an excellent choice as the two wandered out past the remaining officers who were trying to explain to the head chef that the restaurant would not be open for business that day. Or any time in the near future.

"Chin. Kono. We're grabbing a table at the diner." The two waved at Steve from the opposite side of the large dining room. They needed to wrap up a few more loose ends and would meet them there.

Tossing his keys once in the air, his fingers connected with nothing as Steve snared them easily. "Enough with my car!" Danny said in disgust as he tried once to get them back and failed.

"Rainman ring a bell?"

"It's just one block over, Danny!" Dodging his partner's grasp, Steve's eyes were laughing as he jogged quickly to the driver's side of the Camaro. "One block!"

"Exactly. My point!" Danny's smart remark didn't prove the point though as Steve revved the car's engine to drown him out. "Animal."

H5O* H5O* H5O* H5O* H5O*

Less than five minutes later, Steve was leaning over him or maybe he was actually on his knees. Danny's brain simply wouldn't cooperate and his hearing completely refused to kick in. In fact, the fuzzy disconnect between his two senses was startling.

For all he was worth, the only thing Danny was capable of doing was to look up at Steve and stare. Backlit by the sun at high noon, Steve was fussing with his bulletproof vest; unbuckling it, ripping at the velcro, and then gently taking it off Danny's torso. But whenever Steve's movements didn't block the sun's hot glare, Danny had to briefly close his eyes to avoid the sharper pains that blazed into his skull.

When he could, Danny continued to stare up at Steve focusing on the mouth that had yet to stop moving and seemed to be shouting either at him or to someone off to the side. Steve leaned closer and placed both his hands firmly on Danny's left side just below his last rib and off-center of his stomach. It pushed the small amount of air out of him and his eyes closed in a spontaneous reaction but it was also then that the first tendrils of pain began.

His left hand came up to weakly grip Steve's wrist but a sudden white hot slashing pain made Danny choke out a stunned whimper. The white noise of blood rushing through his ears made it impossible to hear and as his vision faded, his hand dropped away. The last thing Danny saw was Steve's darkening silhouette against the blue sky.

"Danny! Open your eyes!" Steve was virtually shouting down at his partner who had just seemingly stopped breathing as he vainly tried to stem the flow of blood from the bullet that had gone completely through Danny's vest. "God, Danny! Don't you dare do this. Open your eyes!"

The simple drive one block over for lunch had ended the minute Danny had slammed the passenger door to the Camaro and started his walk towards the rear of his car. Still geared up from the raid at the fancy Italian restaurant, he intended to drop his vest in the trunk. The low key diner was a perfect choice for a quick bite to eat before returning to the Palace.

But Danny had partly turned around to glance towards the park where a happy child was laughing. It was then that one shot had rung out. Just one and Danny had faltered noticeably.

"Steve?" The questioning tone from his partner was completely off. Turning back in surprise and with gun automatically in hand, Steve's eyes had first gone up to the high rise apartment building.

But then, they had fallen back down where he'd met Danny's confused expression. He was already near the rear of the Camaro with one hand poised on the trunk. Steve had barely caught him in time as he fell forward off the sidewalk and almost into the gutter. And then Steve had dragged him around the Camaro to the driver's side; sitting him up against the door and using his own body as a shield. Readying his own gun as people on the street screamed and ran for cover. The playground emptied in seconds with happy laughter ending in frightened cries.

And still, Steve hadn't yet realized the bullet had gone through the vest.

Not until he had really looked and seen Danny's ashen face and soundlessly moving lips. The blood on his fingers and then the amazed expression as he mouthed Steve's name before he'd simply slid bonelessly to the hot pavement.

The bullet had gone clean through the vest and Steve found himself awkwardly fumbling for the velcro straps. "No, this is impossible. Danny?"

Yet in the recesses of his mind, Steve was coming to terms with that terrible fact. Someone, somewhere high, had just methodically taken aim at Danny with a high-powered military style weapon. The bullet was of an armor-piercing quality; not exactly legal for the streets of Hawaii. And yet it had been used to do its lethal job as it penetrated Danny's Kevlar vest with ease.

~ to be continued ~