Revenge is a Dish Best Served Cold

Chapter Ten

When Ryan got home, he found that Jenny wasn't there, which he realized he was grateful for so that he wouldn't have to explain to her what happened earlier, at least not right away. He just wanted to relax and grab a beer, so after he had placed his gun and badge in the drawer Jenny had set aside for his things inside the kitchen, he changed into more comfortable clothes, pulled a beer from the fridge, then took a seat on the couch, and turned on their TV.

Kevin figured Jenny must be out, either going shopping or maybe even out with some of her friends, so he chose not to call her, not wanting to worry her for nothing. After sitting down for a few minutes, he decided it would be nice if he made her dinner for a change for when she came home, so he walked into the kitchen and began to cook, hoping that by doing so he would be able to keep his mind off of today's events, as watching television wasn't helping him much.

It wasn't long into his preparations that he heard a noise coming from outside. At first he thought it was his wife coming home, but then the lights throughout his house suddenly went out, alerting him that something was wrong. He quickly made a grab for his gun and then slowly crept to the window in order to check out the neighbors' houses, hoping that his electricity going out wasn't what he was expecting, but when he found that everyone else's lights were still on, he knew he was in trouble.

As he scouted his house, Ryan was suddenly attacked from behind as someone jumped him, expecting to strike the back of head using the butt of his gun. Luckily, Ryan managed to surprise his attacker as the two began to fight, causing his and Jenny's home to become trashed. During the struggle, Kevin tried to focus on the intruder's face, but the darkness and the fact that he or she was wearing gloves and a mask over his head made it impossible.

Despite the attacker's efforts, Kevin eventually managed to overpower him and pick up his gun, which had been knocked from his hands during their fight, then aimed it straight at his assailant's head and used his free hand to pull the mask off from over his head, using the street lights from outside to see. Unfortunately, before Ryan could finish, he was once again attacked from behind as his second assailant grabbed him by the back of his neck and then turned him around while he shoved him hard up against one of the walls with surprising strength.

Before Ryan could do anything to defend himself against the man, a knife was suddenly thrust deep into his abdomen and then twisted just before it was swiftly pulled back out. Ryan gasped in pain as the attack was made and when the knife came out, the detective collapsed to the floor as he struggled through the pain. His blood began to pool out around him, despite his efforts to hold his hands over the wound, but Kevin ignored the loss as he rolled over onto his back in order to look up at his assailants above him.

The second man wasn't wearing a mask or gloves, but the detective didn't recognize him. All he could tell was that he was White and not any older than himself. Ryan turned his head to look over at the other attacker and saw that he was Black and a few years younger than the man who had stabbed him.

After he had gotten over the shock of what had just happened, the younger one finally spoke up as he asked, "What on earth did you just do? This wasn't what was supposed to go down!"

The other one answered, "It's nothing less than he deserves. It's what you wanted, so why does it matter how it's done?"

"I didn't want... I mean… what if we leave something behind that the other cops can track back to us, Mickey?" the first attacker asked again.

"That won't happen as long as we do what we came here to do in the first place," the one called Mickey responded as he pulled out a lighter from his pocket and then handed it over to the younger man. "Burn it down."

As the kid took the lighter and then walked back into the living room across from the entryway in the opposite side of the house and stood over the fallen Christmas tree, Ryan watched him light the tree on fire, while he struggled to remain conscious. The leader of the two knelt beside him and stared down at the struggling detective with a smug look on his face. Ryan kept his eyes focused on the now burning tree, which was quickly beginning to catch the rest of the living room on fire as well, and spreading.

Mickey quietly spoke to Ryan saying, "You made a mistake tonight, detective; a big one. You should pray that you die before that fire spreads over to here. I know how it feels to get burned and can only imagine how it feels to burn alive. Good bye."

The other attacker moved out of the living room and waited in the entryway for his partner and shouted, "Come on, man! We've got to get out of here, now!"

"I'm coming," Mickey replied as he stood and then together, the two of them ran out the door, leaving Kevin to die.

A few minutes later, Jenny finally drove down the street to find hers and her husband's home was on fire and after stopping her car in the middle of the street, she got out and began to run toward the house in shock, but then stopped running as the fire suddenly blew out the windows within the living room.

The fire continued to spread into the dining area as another car pulled up beside hers and saw that it was Javier, who came running over toward her as he quickly shouted out, "Where's Kevin? Have you seen him?"

"What do you mean?" she asked fearfully. "He's supposed to be with you. Did he… Are you saying he's still inside?"

"Ryan!" Esposito called out as he swiftly ran toward the house and then kicked in the door.

Jenny collapsed down into the snow below her in shock as tears poured down her cheeks, while she watched her husband's partner run into their house to try to find him and save him, if he was actually inside, before the fire could finish destroying everything that she and Kevin had together. It was then that both Detective Beckett and Castle pulled up and quickly ran over to her. Kate wrapped her arms around the devastated woman, while they all stared toward the house, waiting for news on the youngest detective, Beckett and Castle knowing that Esposito had gone in to find his partner.

Meanwhile…

As soon as Javier broke into the house, he quickly shouted out his partner's name a couple more times until he finally found him laying on his side and unconscious on the floor of the dining room, the fire almost on top of him. Esposito cut through the smaller flames that blocked his path of getting to Ryan and as he finally reached him, he quickly felt for a pulse as he noticed blood pooling beneath him from what he saw was a deep wound in his stomach. Javier breathed out a small sigh of relief when he found that his partner was still alive, but he knew that he wouldn't be for long, for neither one of them, if he didn't get him out of there.

Esposito quickly, but as gently as he could, lifted the younger man into his arms in a fireman's carry and then swiftly moved back toward the doorway, but when he saw that his path was blocked by the fire, the flames being much taller now, he turned toward the large windows within the room they were in and finally crashed through them in order to get out.

Once doing so, Jenny screamed out her husband's name and ran over to them, followed closely by Kate and Rick. The first thing Castle saw the blood covering Ryan's and now Esposito's clothes. Beckett and Jenny saw it too when Javier gently lay his partner down on the ground and his wife pulled him into her arms as tears continued pouring down her face, as tears slowly began to fall from Kate's eyes as well.

Esposito pulled aside the cut through cloth of Ryan's shirt above his wound in order to get a better look at it and then quickly placed his hands over it in order to apply pressure until the paramedics arrived. Off in the distance, they could all hear the sirens wailing from both the ambulance as well as fire trucks. Castle had called 911 once he had seen the fire. Now, he couldn't help but stare down at his friend in shock, thinking that he never expected something like this to happen, even after working with the NYPD for over four years now.

Before the ambulance pulled up, Kate knelt down beside Jenny and Esposito and was the first to notice, as she was holding onto his hand, that despite Javier's effort to help his partner, she could no longer feel his pulse and then Kevin's heart suddenly stopped. She swiftly pushed in between them and began to do CPR until the paramedics finally moved in to help them. Javier pulled Jenny up and held her in his arms in comfort, while he angrily watched his partner fight to stay alive, vowing silently that he was going to do whatever it took to make the people responsible for hurting him pay.