Within minutes they had arrived at the warehouse, closely followed by Ryan in another Hummer. All three men jumped out of their vehicles and made their way to the front of the building with guns drawn.
"You take the back, Mr Wolfe. Eric and I will cover the front."
Ryan nodded silently as he crept towards the rear of the building.
Horatio turned to his colleague, his gun and glasses held between both of his hands.
"Ready, brother?"
The younger man gave a quick nod of his head as he checked the ammunition in his weapon and followed his colleague into the building.
They made their way quickly and quietly through the seemingly abandoned building as they checked room by room for any signs of disturbance. The warehouse seemed eerily quiet and Eric began to wonder if the assailant had already fled before they had arrived.
He kept an eye on Horatio, fully aware that this was the first time that he had attended a crime in progress since his abduction. He felt more at ease as he watched him sight his gun as he checked and cleared each room in turn.
With so few areas left to check it was becoming more increasingly likely that the building was empty. Eric could hear Ryan an approaching from the rear and it appeared that he'd had no luck locating their suspect either.
A noise from across the open expanse of the main storage room caught the attention of the two men as they stood still to listen for signs of movement.
Slowly, a figure dragging something emerged from the semi-darkness as both men squinted in order to get a better view.
Horatio raised his weapon higher and took aim at the young man who had a woman held by the throat with one hand and a semi-automatic pistol in the other.
"Let her go, son," he said calmly as he gripped his gun tighter.
The assailant couldn't have been more than twenty years old, a gangly, skinny boy dressed in a rumpled suit and shirt. His short black hair flopped limply over his forehead as the sweat poured from it and dripped down his face. A quick glance down at his clothes showed that the boy had been in a fight of some sort.
The young man waved his weapon in front of him in a panicked daze.
"Don't come any further or I'll shoot her, I swear!"
"You're not going to do that, son. What's your name?"
The question seemed to catch the boy off-guard.
"Tom...Thomas."
"Well, Thomas. Here's what I want you to do. I want you to let the girl go so that we can sort this out, ok?"
He seemed to think about it before finally letting the shaken young woman go and pushing her forwards towards Eric.
"Good man, Thomas."
The boy continued to hold the gun in his hand, pointed straight at Horatio and Eric, the hand shook noticeably as fear and shock set in.
"You need to put the gun down so that we can talk about this, ok?"
Thomas nodded as he began to lower the gun torturously slowly as the fight gradually drained away from his body. He had almost lowered it to the floor when a noise from behind startled him, time seemed to slow as he raised the weapon again, directly at the Horatio and Eric.
He stood in the office of the Leather and Lace nightclub, the so-called legal enterprise for the Malucci organisation. It had been a night just like any other, his presence often requested in order to dissuade any undercover officers from the NYPD trying to infiltrate the establishment. He'd also been used as a deterrent for any patrons who got out of hand and it was a part if his job that he hated more than most.
At first, Frankie and Benny had insisted on another member of the organisation being present when he dished out the special Malucci brand of justice on those patrons who had crossed the line in some way or other. He simply had no choice but to beat those poor people with his fists and boots until they were nothing more than a bloody mess on the sidewalk outside. He hated himself for doing it and would often drink himself into a stupor as soon as he could make his excuses and leave.
He had called for an ambulance as soon as the coast was clear but it still didn't ease the heavy burden on his conscience, telling himself that he was doing the wrong things for the right reasons had long since failed to soothe his troubled soul.
As the Malucci's faith and trust in him grew he was no longer required to have an escort as he persuaded certain people to leave the club. This time he let them leave of their own free will, his reputation as a man to be feared was often enough to scare most people into not taking their chances with him. There were other times when he had to be a bit more persuasive but he made a promise to himself that he wouldn't hurt another person in the name of the Malucci's.
He'd already given Collins enough evidence to put the brothers away for years but the FBI agent kept on insisting that he needed more to make sure that the charges would stick. He'd been risking his life wearing a wire and he knew that with each day he continued with this suicide mission the closer he would be to getting caught.
He watched silently as Frankie and his brother made their way into the office and stood behind the desk.
"Glad you could make it, Kelly," the older Malucci drawled.
"You have a job for me?"
"Not tonight, I thought we'd have a little chat instead."
John Kelly was no fool, the words sounded ominous and he began panicking that his cover had been blown. It would be just like Collins to sandbag him once he'd outlived his usefulness, the FBI agent would cover his tracks and tie up any loose ends and he was well aware that he was nothing more than that to the wily Collins.
He tried to keep the rising sense of panic from his voice as he spoke.
"What about?"
"I think it's best if we show you," Benny said as he motioned for him to follow out the rear door of the office.
He walked slowly behind the two men, looking cautiously around as he sensed that he was heading straight into a trap. He flinched as the door at the back of the club slammed shut loudly behind him.
"What do you think, Kelly?" Frankie asked as he waved a hand to the people standing bound and gagged outside the building.
His heart rate rocketed as he looked at each one of them. Andy, Lori and Robin all stood before him, bound by ropes. It was clear to see that whoever had abducted them had been less than gentle with them.
He screwed his eyes shut and willed their images away, hoping that when he opened his eyes he would realise that it was nothing more than a bad dream. He found that it was not to be as he opened them again and saw his loved ones still standing before him.
Benny pulled a revolver from his jacket pocket and raised it, taking aim at Lori as she stood staring at him, pleading through the gag in her mouth for him to do something.
"We warned you what would happen if you crossed us," the mobster growled as he cocked the hammer of the gun.
"Please, don't hurt her," he begged as he saw the tears streaming down his ex-wife's face.
"Maybe you should have thought about that before you crossed us, Kelly. Their deaths are on your head."
He watched helplessly as Benny pulled the trigger, the bullet hitting Lori in the centre of her forehead, a look of shock and betrayal written all over her face. He stood by and did nothing as her limp body fell to the ground, her vacant eyes staring up at him accusingly.
He screwed his eyes shut and let out a howl of despair, wishing more than anything that this was not real. He opened his eyes and gasped in shock as the form lying prone on the ground shifted into another person entirely. He watched in a daze, the images in front of him changed before his eyes as he saw the people he had known throughout his life. Andy, Marisol, Speed, Jesse, Eric, Alexx, Calleigh. All of them shifted and changed their appearance as they looked at him with that accusing stare.
It sounded as if their voices were being amplified as they all asked him one question.
Why?
He raised his hands to cover his ears and slammed his eyes shut. Their voices grew louder until he thought he would be able to take no more. He was about to scream when a shot rang out.
He stared blankly ahead for a number of moments until finally his gaze dropped to the ground. He saw the young man he had tried to talk down lying on the ground holding his shoulder as he tried to staunch the flow of blood from the gunshot wound that had been inflicted on him.
Catching Ryan's swift movement from the corner of his eye he turned his attention to his colleague, watching as the whisps of smoke rose into the air from the heated barrel of his gun.
Eric had already bent down to cuff the injured man and gave his superior a worried look as he called for an ambulance, the frightened girl sat shivering by a stack of cardboard boxes as she wiped furiously at the tears streaming down her face.
He could feel their eyes boring into him as it became painfully obvious what had happened. He had been staring down the barrel of a gun and yet did nothing to protect himself, the girl or his colleagues. He had plainly and simply choked.
Hesitating was the least of his problems now as he felt the pounding of his heart reverberating in his ears. Holstering his weapon he left the building through the nearest exit he could find, ignoring the calls from Eric to come back.
He had to get away, the walls were closing in on him again as he realised that he had frozen like a first-year rookie. He had endangered the lives of his colleagues and of the innocent young girl who had the misfortune to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
In all his years as a police officer he had never hesitated to take the shot when it was necessary. He had hesitated and become what he feared most. He was a liability who had no place on his own team.
Feeling the heat of the midday sun beating down on him as he shakily exited the building, he only made it a few steps before he vomited the paltry contents of his stomach on the bare and arid ground outside.
After spitting out the rancid taste of bile from his mouth he made his way quickly to the Hummer and shoved the key in the ignition the tyres of the vehicle squealing loudly as he sped away.