Thank you all for your continued support. Even though I don't have time to respond to each review like I did in the past, it still means a lot. :)

Annnnnd BIG revile coming up. Hold on to your hats!

Enjoy.

Chapter 11

"Just slow down for a minute, Danny. Let's come at this from all angles." Chin scans the better photo into the smart table, then clear and blows it up to get a better view. After typing in a few commands, the woman's picture was run through the computer were they got a positive match.

Taylor Cardoza's information was shown across the screens.

"Okay, we've got a positive match for Taylor. But that's doesn't mean that it was Steve who robbed that back of ten thousand dollars."

Danny scoffed. "Doesn't it?"

"I don't want to jump to conclusions, so, no. There could be a hundred reasons to why she was driving and a hundred more to how it could be someone other than Steve."

"We don't have time to go through all of them, Chin! Something is wrong, don't you two see?" Danny began to pace back and forth along the length of the room, alternating between shaking his head and gesturing about.

"First, we find bugs in their hotel room. Followed by Steve randomly turning in his badge saying that he quits. Then, a bank is robbed with Taylor as an accomplice. And now we don't know where either of them are!" Williams leans heavily against the wall. "None of this makes sense."

"Don't forget the first bank robbery. The fact that they happened about the same time can't be a coincidence." interjects Kono. "So, maybe... maybe we're looking at this all wrong."

"How do you mean, Cuz?"

Kono pursed her lips in a fine line, thinking of a way that the events tied together. "Well, what if it all is connected? I know it's a long shot, but hear me out."

Danny joins Chin as Kono worked her idea out for the others to see. She brought up all the information they had on starting with The Serpent and ending with Steve and Taylor missing. Then she began to break it down.

"We learned from the file Duke gave to Steve that three months ago these five men escaped a transport vehicle. All are heavy hitters and we know Jesse Thomas to be Taylor's violent ex-boyfriend. I noticed the time timeline for when Venom was first distributed was only days after the escape was reported."

"You think one of these men is The Serpent?" asks Danny as he begins to catch on.

"I think all of them are involved but it makes sense that it would be Thomas who is The Serpent. He might be the smartest out of them all and he has someone keeping him here, whereas, as far as we know, the others don't." says Kono. "If this is the case, why rob the bank? Taylor is rich, so, why not just kidnap her and demand a ransom? Why all the trouble?"

"If, and this is a big if, Thomas is The Serpent, then it was all an act from the beginning. He never intended a bigger target and maybe never wanted the money; he just wanted Taylor."

"And if all of this is true, then things just went from bad to worse."

"What did you do?"

Rhodes grunted. "Not what I would've liked. The chick just keeled over."

"Set her down gently. Gently, I said." Doctor Marcie Jones cupped Taylor's head as Rhodes, reluctantly, carefully set her down. Doing a quick once over under the small porch light, the young doctor discovered a small cut above the unconscious woman's eyebrow. "What did you do?" she repeated.

"Like I said, nothing. She must've hit her head on something when she fell. You know that jungle isn't short on rocks or trees."

Shaking her head, Doctor Jones removed a syringe from a wooden box and carefully injected the drug into Taylor's arm. "I'm going to need to clean that inside. Take her to the room."

For the first time she notices Steve. "What happened to him?"

Rhodes smiles a toothy grin. "He ran into my knife."

"I'll need to check him out, too."

"We'll see what Boss wants first." he pulls Steve forward, away from two guards who were lifting Taylor up from the ground. "Move it."

Steve was pressed through a series of doorways, down a twist of turns until the man in from of him came to a wooden door. On the door was three dead bolt locks that were shiny and new. "I hope you find your accommodations well to your liking, Commander." The locks were opened, then the door, and Steve was shoved inside.

It was dark and his momentum worked against him; McGarrett pitched forward and fell down a flight of stairs, before slowly coming to a rest at the bottom. He coughed as the wind was knocked from his lungs. Winced and groaned as pain rolled over his body.

He shivered on the cold concrete floor, gagged from the strong smell of mold and sawdust and standing water. Steve shook his head, slowed his breathing, and waited his eyes to adjust to the darkness.

He thought about how he failed Taylor, how he didn't think of a way to tell his team that he and the woman he loved were in trouble. How he screwed up.

The pain in his leg was numb but he was so damn tired. Blood loss...not good.

No matter how hard her tried, he couldn't keep his eyes open any longer.

His last thought before he gave into unconsciousness was of how he would find a way to get Taylor someplace safe.

She felt something stroke the side of her face, heard the slow breathing of someone nearby. She felt better than she had in who knows how long but refused to open her eyes.

Taylor just wanted to sleep.

Her head lulled to the side and she sighed. Breathing in, she could smell the thick jungle as if it were soaked in rain. Steve's house doesn't smell like the jungle, she thinks to herself.

"Time to wake up, Taylor." says a voice she doesn't recognize. She shivers, at the sound and from the sudden cold. "I know you can hear me."

"Steve," she finally says. Opening her eyes, the first thing she sees it a dark figure standing over her. The sight is blurry at first and it takes a moment to let the image adjust itself. "Steve-" she starts to says when a hand grabs her neck. She is pressed against the rough couch, her hands claw at anything she can reach.

"Don't scream, or your husband will pay the price. Understood?" commands the person holding her. Taylor manages the smallest of nods and the hand releases.

Coughs shake her body as she wills oxygen to enter her lungs. Sitting up fast a small blanket falls to the floor and around her feet. Taylor sees that she is in a small bedroom. The only window is boarded up and the couch she sat on was dirty and covered in holes.

"How are you feeling, Mrs. McGarrett? Tired? Thirsty? I've heard that multiple doses of the drug will do that to a person, if they live long enough." says the voice, a man by the look of his build. He wore dark clothes and had a hood and scarf covering his head. She couldn't see his face but Taylor was positive that the man was The Serpent.

"Where's Steve?"

"Probably bleeding to death somewhere by now." The Serpent glances at the watch around his wrist as he walked across the room.

"N-no, you're lying! I want to see him! Where is he?"

The Serpent laughed and turned around. "Am I now?"

"You still need him, don't you?" she coughs again and runs her cold hands up and down her bare arms. "Or was stealing ten thousand dollars your master plan?"

The Serpent tilts his head to the side, as if thinking about something. Finally he sighs and laughs. "Man, being with McGarrett has really done a number on your head. I though you were smarter than that, Taylor."

Taken aback by the comment, she asks slowly, "What are you talking about?"

"This was never about him, you sorry bitch!" he yells. "It was about you. Always you. I spent so long thinking about how you got away from me, again. How I wasn't going to let that happen.

"I met some guys while I was behind bars, you know. Though it was my plan, they helped me escape and get Venom out in Hawaii. I knew it would only be a matter of time before Five-0 was sent to rid the streets of it, meaning I'd have a chance to kill McGarrett since he took you from me. Since you love him so much." he spit the words out like poison as he enjoyed the look on Taylor's confused face.

"When McGarrett told me that he was planning on marrying you, I had to laugh. It was too good to be true, I thought, that the woman I wanted to see dead for so long, was going to marry the man who put a wrench in my plans. As things fell into place, I began to think of it as killing two lovebirds with one poison coated bullet."

As he said those last few words, The Serpent pulled the scarf away from his face and the hood off of his head. A smile that resembled a snake about to feast was what Taylor saw.

A face that she hoped she'd never see again.

"No," she gasps.

"Did you miss me, Taylor?" Jesse Thomas doesn't let the smile fall. He wants to relish on how much he was going to enjoy this.

I've had this planned from the beginning of this story so major props to anyone who saw that coming.

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