Chapter 8: Debt

"Are you busy?"

Joss smiled at her phone even as she got up from her couch, heading into her bedroom to change out of her sweats and into something more appropriate for what she knew was coming. "Not at the moment, John."

"I was wondering if you're up to a little…excitement."

She laughed aloud as she shrugged into a black sweater and put on her sneakers. "If I wanted a boring life I wouldn't be a cop, John," she said. "What's up this time?"

"Someone with a gambling habit got in a little over his head. His wife found out, but instead of ditching him, which is what I would have done, she got a bank loan to pay off the loan sharks harassing her and her husband. He's promised her he'll never do it again."

"Yeah, we all know how that story ends," Joss scoffed.

She could hear the grim smile in John's voice. "I'm planning on breaking up that little payout party. I'm not trying to save the guy—as far as I'm concerned he deserves what he's getting—but she's innocent and I don't want to see her hurt."

"Yeah, that sounds like you," Joss said. "How long do you think this is gonna take?"

"Not long. Couple of hours." Then, as if he guessed why she was asking, he said, "Taylor's a big boy, Joss. You raised him well. Don't worry, the house will still be standing by the time you get back."

"Smart-ass," Joss said affectionately, but she tapped on Taylor's room door before she opened it. "Taylor? I'm going out for a couple of hours, you gonna be okay here by yourself?"

He looked up. "Where are you going?"

She shrugged. "Out." Then, firmly reminding herself that he was sixteen and didn't have to be sheltered anymore, she relented. "Gotta go break up a little illegal gambling party."

He put his game controller down. "With John?"

"Does that worry you?" She cupped her hand over the speaker on her phone so John wouldn't hear this conversation—not that she had any hope that this would be private.

"Not really. He's cool, he'll keep an eye on you." He came over to her, hugged her. "Be careful, okay?"

"Of course. I'm always careful." She hugged him back.

"No, you're not," he stepped back and looked at her intently, and she felt a flash of surprise as she realized just how much he'd grown—and how serious he was. "You forget about yourself sometimes, Mom. Remember, a few years back, we were having breakfast and I asked you who had you back, and you said you could take care of yourself? And you said that as long as we had each other, we'd be okay? I want to continue having you, and if you're not careful, I won't." she looked at him and saw real worry for her in his eyes. "But if John's got your back, then I know he'll make sure you're okay."

"Gee, thanks for not having confidence in me," she said, but her smile was warm as she put her phone down on his dresser and wrapped her arms around him tightly. "Thanks," she whispered as they hugged, too soft for John, listening on the other end of the line, to hear, and then stepped back. "Now, I want you to behave yourself, no wild parties, no girls, okay?"

"Okay, Mom," Taylor groaned "Geez, Mom, I've heard this lecture for sixteen years. I'm going to be fine."

"If something comes up you go up to Mrs. Hartnett upstairs, okay? And if she's not home call Grandmom." Taylor nodded with an expression of long-suffering patience but a grin, and she carried that grin with her as she grabbed her phone off her dresser. "All right. Are you driving or am I driving myself?"

"I'll pick you up," John said. "I'm already outside."

"Now how did you know that I was going to say yes?" But it was a rhetorical question, not one that she expected an answer to. John knew her like few other people did. She shook her head as she disconnected the phone, and turned for one last look behind her as she headed down the front steps. Taylor was standing in the window, gave her a small wave, then gave John, waiting in the big purple GTO on the street, a bigger wave. John waved back as she got into the front passenger seat.

"He's a good kid, Joss," he said quietly as they drove through the streets. "Not really the type for wild parties and girls."

"He's a boy, John. And a kid. A good kid, but a kid nonetheless. And kids do stupid stuff sometimes." She shrugged. "I just remind him of his responsibilities and he knows he has to answer to me if he doesn't."

"And what about your responsibility to him? Do you answer to him when you do something stupid?"

She mumbled something and didn't meet his eyes.

He grinned and decided to change the subject. "Little dive off Canal Street in Lower Manhattan. The bar's a front, there's gambling tables in the back, some really high-stakes games. Loan sharks hover around, looking for an easy score. Unfortunately for this number, her husband got in trouble with one of the loan sharks." He looked at her. "Stupid question, I know, but…are you carrying?"

"Come on, John. I know better than to go anywhere with you not armed." She scoffed as she pulled open her jacket, and he saw the holster with her gun tucked into it. "And I've even got the new one you gave me." A holster on the other side, with her new Nano tucked in it. "Are you packing?" He just grinned at her, a wolfish smile with an anticipatory gleam in his eye, and she shook her head as she answered her own question. "Of course you are."

They parked outside a seedy dive and sat for long moments, scanning traffic. Joss had no idea what John's target looked like, but in the end it wasn't too hard to spot—a black Lincoln, very out-of-place for this neighborhood, pulling up in front of the bar. A well-dressed blond woman stepped out—and if Carter had any doubts that this was their target, it was erased by the sight of the designer heels the woman wore. Definitely out of place for this neighborhood.

The man who got out of the car's passenger side seemed a little more at home in this neighborhood. The quality of his clothing was still a few steps above what the denizens of this street could afford, but they were nondescript, dark, and you could miss the good quality if you didn't look too hard. His eyes shifted around, watching the street; definitely someone who knew what lurked in the darkness of this neighborhood. Not like the woman, who walked as if she were taking a Sunday stroll at a country club, confident in herself and sure that no one was going to dare touch her. Carter shook her head. "How'd he score a woman like that?" she sighed. "Love really is blind." She looked at John, only to find him looking back at her with an unreadable expression. "What?" she said.

"Nothing. Let's go. There's an employee entrance in back that we can use to get in."

She rolled her eyes as she got out of the car. Men. But she couldn't help but watch as, in an instant, he changed from the caring, quiet man she knew as 'John' into the ruthless, calculated killer she knew as 'Reese'.

They circled around the back of the bar to the back alley. Carter wrinkled her nose at the smell of rotting garbage and other nameless substances normally found in a New York alley, but tuned it out and focused on the job at hand. Reese moved with catlike stealth that belied his size; you'd never think someone that tall could move that quietly.

The back door was propped open and the smells of cooking food came from the door. A kitchen, then; but there was no way in hell Carter would have ever eaten anything that came out of that kitchen. She made a mental note to officially check the bar out on some pretense or other, fairly soon; the health department would have a field day with the violations she was seeing. It was a miracle no one had died yet from what was coming out of the kitchen.

The workers in the kitchen didn't seem alarmed to see two strangers walking in the back door with guns in hand. Obviously, they were used to it, which made Carter take another mental note. Loansharking was a small but lucrative side business for organized crime; and in this city, organized crime also meant HR was involved. Just another small step toward bringing them down for what they'd done to her—and to Cal.

Reese stopped dead just as they approached the small viewing window in the doors leading from the kitchen into the room beyond; he held his hand raised, fingers curled in a fist, knuckles facing her, in military sign language for 'halt'. She stopped before she'd even consciously processed the hand signal, something else that made a very distant part of her shake her head at how ingrained her military training had been, but the rest of her attention was focused on the scene in front of her.

A small room, maybe about fifteen feet square, with a couple of card tables. Each table had four men sitting around it, and Carter's quick eyes found four darker-than-black solid shadows in the rear of the room, leaning against the wall, relaxed and alert. Two of them had what looked like large automatic rifles, Russian by the looks of them. Yet another possible tie to HR, and the Russian mob. There had been a game in progress, which had come to an abrupt halt as the well-dressed woman walked into the room, striding in as if she owned the place. "I've come to pay off my husband's debt," she said, putting an attaché case down on the floor beside her heel. Behind her, her husband slunk into the room, staying well behind her and close to the door, as if ready to bolt at the slightest provocation.

"He owes us nearly twenty thousand dollars," said one of the men in the room, short, pale skin and dark hair. Despite his seated position in a small metal folding chair, the rest of the armed thugs in the room obviously deferred to him, making him the leader—a fat that was not lost on the brainless woman standing in the middle of the room. "You got that kinda money?"

"It's all there," the woman said briskly, taking off her gloves and sliding the attaché case across the floor toward the man. "Now, as I understand it, the terms are simple. You get your money, my husband and I get our lives back. He will never darken you door again."

She moved toward the door, and the sitting man raised a hand, at which sign two of the armed goons along the far wall, sill mostly in shadow, also moved toward the door to block off the exit. In front of her, Carter saw Reese tense. "You can't leave yet."

"Why not? It's all there, I give you my word!" she looked contemptuously around her "If I have to wait for you Neanderthals to count all of it, I'll be here all night."

"If that's what it takes, then that's what it takes." The boss signaled, and one of the unarmed goons crossed the room, picked up the case, put it on the table, and opened it. The boss picked up a wad of bills, opened the rubber band, and thumbed through it.

"See? It's all there. Now we're going."

The armed goons moved then, to block the door. The husband, interestingly enough, hadn't moved; he remained slouched by the door, ignored by everyone else in the room.

He's in on it, Carter realized at the same time Reese looked at her. He didn't have to say anything; they both understood what was going to happen in that room. The husband had promised the crime boss his own wife to get out of debt, and the wife had no idea what was going to happen to her. It was a high price to pay for being so stupid as to pick that man as her husband; Carter shook her head. Love really was blind. And deaf. And dumb.

But it was a price that, thanks to Reese and Carter, she wouldn't have to pay.

They saw it, saw the moment when she realized what was supposed to happen to her; she stared at the boss, then at her husband, then at the two guys flanking her with weapons. "Trevor?" she stammered. "Trevor, what's going on? You said all we had to do was pay the debt, and they'd let you go."

"Of course. We aren't barbarians, we keep our word. As soon as his debt's paid, he's free to go." He leaned in, a cold leer darkening his features. "And you were part of the payment. As soon as we get our payment, he's free to go. Pretty white woman like you, fetch a pretty price on the international market."

Carter revised her opinion of these thugs sharply. Those weren't the words of a petty local crime gang; this was a gang with international connections, and loansharking would be only one small piece of a very large pie. Human trafficking and arms smuggling were two of the most lucrative international crime franchises, and apparently this gang was eyeballs-deep in both. Reese's target was destined for some filthy-rich billionaire's household somewhere, a high-priced sex slave.

Not on Carter's watch.

"I'll go first. You follow. I'll draw their fire, you get that woman out of here." Reese's whispered instructions were terse, clipped; Carter simply nodded and steeled herself, feeling adrenaline racing through her.

She saw the twitch in Reese's shoulder muscle a moment before he moved, and she already had her gun out—the Nano, not her service piece; unless she absolutely had to, she didn't want to leave official NYPD bullets at a crime scene that she couldn't explain later. Reese stepped through the swinging doors from the kitchen first, and took advantage of the element of surprise to open fire.

The first burst of fire from him took out the two goons closest to the door. The husband just froze, looking petrified; it took barely half a second for Reese to adjust his aim and fire a fraction of an inch lower; the husband screamed and went down, his right knee destroyed. Carter didn't feel a bit sorry for him.

Not that she had time to; she'd only waited long enough for the thugs to give Reese their undivided attention, and she ran into the room, grabbed the arm of the stunned woman, and drag her out of the way of the two remaining goons. She shoved the woman behind her, against the wall, and planted herself in front; they would have to kill her to get past her. And as she looked around, she saw the other gamblers at the other tables racing out of the room; good, there were less people. Not that they were exactly innocents, but they weren't involved in the issue that had brought Carter and Reese there.

Two of the remaining thugs attacked Reese at the same time; one got a cracked skull for his pains as Reese heaved the man bodily into the wall, headfirst. He didn't pause, but turned to deal with the second man who'd grabbed him, a big man who had to weigh half again what Reese did but didn't have anywhere near the speed, quickness and agility of the ex-CIA assassin.

"On your six…!" Carter saw the movement behind Reese, just a moment too late. The boss had risen from his chair with a hunting knife in his hand and lunged for Reese; hampered by the heavy thug who still had his arms wrapped around Reese's upper shoulders, he only just managed to get his forearms up in time to take the blade meant for his heart on the underside of his forearms. Carter made a quick decision, took aim, and fired with her Nano—the Nano she would now not be able to carry openly because she'd just put heat on it.

The boss dropped, and Reese quickly, efficiently, dispatched the gorilla hanging off his back by the simple expedient of running backwards into the wall and knocking the guy cold. The man hit the wall, his arms loosened from around Reese's torso, sagged, didn't move.

Reese still fired a single shot into the guy, finishing him off.

The woman was standing behind Carter, paralyzed, as Carter flew across the intervening space to Reese. His forearms were deeply gashed, and bleeding heavily; she yanked off her light jacket, tying it around his left arm, which was bleeding the most; he grabbed his other arm, which had only gotten a glancing graze, from the boss's knife, and addressed the woman. "If I were you I'd find a good divorce lawyer."

She just nodded, looking dazed. Her pupils were dilated in shock, and Carter had to reach into her pocket, extract her cell phone, and shove it into her hand. "Call the police."

The woman blinked twice, hard, and then her shaking hands started tapping the keys on her phone. Carter took that as a sign that she and Reese had better hit the road—it was a pretty sure bet that the gunshots had sparked a few calls to dispatch, even in this seedy neighborhood, and she couldn't be here when they got here. And neither could Reese.

She didn't know how badly he was hurt; the knife obviously hadn't hit an artery but he was still bleeding pretty badly, and of course, a hospital was out of the question. She made a quick decision; his apartment was too far away, her place was closer; if she could get him home she could check him out. If it needed stitches she could call Sam Shaw from her apartment.

John wasn't a big man, but for all his slim, muscular build, that muscle weighed a ton. If he hadn't still been conscious she would never have been able to get him into the passenger side of the GTO, and then she folded herself behind the wheel and floored the pedal.