Warnings: This story deals with child molestation, sexual harassment and assault but no graphic descriptions. It also deals with homophobic behaviour.
A/N Just a quick thank-you again to everyone for their reviews, favs and everyone who is following Betrayals. Thanks to all the faithfuls who leave reviews for every chapter. You guys are the best and starting to feel like family lol. I was thrilled to bits to see some newbies leaving reviews too, so welcome and thank-you for taking the time to comment :) Thanks to Arress for her help and Beta with this chapter and of course any mistakes are my bad, especially with the changes I made.
Well, this is the last chapter and it's quite a long one, so apologies in advance. I know that some people were upset by my killing off of McGee but realistically, with him opening the trunk of the car there is no way he could have survived the bomb blast when Tony wasn't there. Cate would also have been killed as well but I thought killing off three main characters was a wee bit heavy handed and because McGee drew the short straw by being the one to open the trunk and activate the bomb, he won the plot six foot under. I'm sure he'll turn up in my next story and be perfectly fine :)
Betrayals
Chapter 25
Six weeks later
"Tony, have you got a minute to discuss this report?" He looked up at his boss and grinned. "Sure." Standing and making his way into the office he took the offered chair and sank down and waited.
"This is great work, and the second cold case you closed in as many weeks. It almost seems a pity to let you go back out in the field but you've been cleared for active duty once you've passed your firearm qualifications. Think you can book it for today?"
Tony nodded, "Sure, Fornell, it shouldn't be a problem."
He stared around the office and knew that he'd made the right decision. He'd been tempted by the offer to belong to the tight knit team at Quantico and he was comfortable around Derek Morgan, who'd become a close friend. In the end though, he'd decided that the multiple hits he taken to his psyche over the last six months had left him barely holding it together, even if he'd managed to sail through the psychological evaluation that Fornell had just revealed had cleared him to take up full duties as a fully-fledged FBI agent. After lots of soul searching and sleepless nights, he decided that he didn't need to put himself under extra stress right now. Part of it was the doubt that he could handle the relentless onslaught of mass murderers and serial killers on a daily basis, especially since so many of them were sexual predators or sexually dysfunctional.
The second factor that had given him pause was a disquieting sense that the team lead of the BAU had some qualities that were disturbingly reminiscent of Gibbs in some ways. Jason Gideon seemed to be larger than life and had become something of a legendary figure for his colleagues and peers and seemed to inspire the same infallible air of mystique as Tony's mentor, and he recognised all too well that with his pathetic need for approval, Gideon would probably evoke the same sort of blind obedience in him, too. Then, of course, there was the young wunderkind, Dr. Spenser Reid, who with his adulation of Gideon was just a little too close to home because it reminded him of how he used to be with Gibbs. It was painful to see the rather awkward young man so desperate to please his mentor and not face some uncomfortable personal truths. But Reid also reminded him just a little too much of poor McGee, and that memory was just too fresh and raw for him to deal with right now.
With Fornell's team, he would still have a chance to do undercover work, and he had a variety of cases so he was never bored, and there was a massive backlog of cold cases to play with when there were no active cases, and he enjoyed the challenge of solving puzzles, too. Then there was the issue that while Tobias had suspicions about what had triggered his PTSD symptoms, he didn't know for sure. Tony reckoned it was good to have a little mystery in any relationship with his team mates. Although, there was also such a thing as too much mystery, as he'd come to discover with Gibbs.
And Gibbs and Gideon, while both charismatic, brilliant investigators, who also seemed to inspire unswerving loyalty in subordinates, Gibbs definitely, and he had a suspicion that Gideon, too, would be bastards if you didn't dance to their tune. Fornell was no Gibbs or Gideon, but he was a good solid investigator, an experienced agent and a loyal team leader you could trust to back you up when the going got tough, even if he didn't make intuitive leaps in logic, but Tony was kind of relieved to have an average Joe as his boss. Tobias was like a comfortable old ugg boot that you slipped on when you got home at night, but wasn't sexy enough to wear when you went out clubbing. And when all was said and done, he had been incredibly loyal and dependable ever since the bottom had dropped out of Tony's life. Tony trusted him, and in the end, that was all that really mattered.
Derek had been disappointed when he had broken the news that he'd decided to accept Fornell's offer, but he seemed to understand his motivations. He said that although his superiors were also disappointed, too, they told him to warn Tony that they wouldn't give up and would make him an offer again after he had found his feet at the agency, and Tony nodded. The timing just hadn't been right, but maybe later, who knew?
Even though he didn't end up working on the same team as Derek, they had continued to hang out together and their friendship was flourishing and was providing him with something important that had been missing from his life in DC. They had so much in common, had a cop mentality, enjoyed playing a game of basketball to let off steam, not to mention the fact Morgan knew his secret and didn't treat him like a freak or someone who needed kid gloves, either. In fact, he and Derek had signed up together to a program that matched a child or youth who had been a victim of abuse or sexual assault with a big brother or sister for mentoring. He'd made a rather surprising discovery that although he and Derek were there to support kids whose world had shattered, Tony was more than a little shocked to find that the kids had helped them both, too.
He'd also learnt another valuable lesson, even if it had been an incredibly difficult one, that accepting help from the survivors' group was healing not just for him, but also for the people that helped him, too. But it was a battle, not so much intellectually, but actually being emotionally vulnerable enough to open himself up to receive help. He was so used to thinking that accepting help was a sign of weakness, even though he was always quick to help everyone else and it was another matter entirely to accept assistance with anything approaching graciousness and then grow from it. Although he had only ever shared his life-threatening experiences outside his apartment building with the group, he was now a bit more open to the possibility that one day he might be able to talk about what had happened to him as a kid, or perhaps more realistically, about the attacks and harassment that had occurred at work and all the hostility he'd encountered.
Ducky had been sad when he told him he couldn't return, but being Ducky, he also understood his need to leave NCIS. He didn't seem all that surprised, though. Tony had explained to him that he had been so very close to coming back again after he'd seen all the effort that Gibbs had been making to fix things and then when Ari had cut a swathe through the team throwing them into chaos, he felt obligated to repay Gibbs for his help and support after initially acting like an ass. That had been until Tony had found out about Pedro Hernandez, and that knowledge shattered any hope that Tony had that they could still work together.
As much as he was trying not to be judgmental, since he had never faced Gibbs' loss or had been faced with his choices, his oath as a cop and later as an agent combined with Gibbs' insistence that Marines especially, but the armed forces in general, must be held to a higher standard than a civilian, was making it a monumental challenge. He remembered how insistent Gibbs would be when a Marine would claim to be innocent and Gibbs would defend their honour without question and how furious, how devastated he would be when he found that a Marine had disgraced the Corps and their oath.
Tony knew that Gibbs was courageous and had served his country with honour – his innumerable awards and medals were testament to that. He also knew that he had saved the lives of many of his fellow service men and women while serving his country, so he had to wonder just how he lived with what he had done. He wouldn't, no, he couldn't believe someone who took such pride in the honour code of the Corps would be able to brush off what he had done, and wondered how much of a cost it had extracted?
He wanted to find Franks and hurt him, and had made it his business to discover what rock the louse had crawled under so he could warn him off if he thought he could come back and call out any more 'favours' from his former Probie. If he tried to compromise Gibbs again, he would drop him in it so damned fast he would end up wearing prison orange for the rest of his life. The only positive thing to have come from finding all that crap that Jonathon Gold had been collecting, was that he now had enough info to make sure that Franks would rue the day he let Gibbs have access to a confidential NIS case file.
So, Ducky had seemed to understand his reasons, but he had warned that Madam Director seems determined to poach him back for the agency. He'd been puzzled by Ducky's observations because he didn't know the woman at all and he couldn't understand why she was so determined for him to return. Fornell and Ducky, conjecturing over bourbon or single malt scotch in Ducky's case, decided that she was likely feeling the pressure of her recent appointment as director without her top investigators to make her look good, and losing a whole MCRT was a devastating loss for a new director.
Of course, what none of them knew was that Jenny Sheppard had been chosen as director because of her close relationship to the David family and Leroy Jethro Gibbs, and neither of those factors applied any more. She'd also been brought in to clean up the Agency, and since DiNozzo was the poster child for the Gay and Lesbian workplace restructuring (ironic, since he was neither), and losing him was a serious blow to her credibility in carrying out her mission, and hence to justify her appointment as director. Having read DiNozzo's personnel file and knowing that Gibbs had handpicked him as his senior field agent and protégé, she was certain that when Gibbs was done licking his emotional wounds, he would be back to claim what he saw as his.
Tony, meanwhile decided that Ducky and Fornell were probably right in their assessment, right about the time that Director Shepard's flirting and coquettish act escalated to accidental brushing up against him as she attempted to convince him he was making a mistake in resigning. No doubt she had heard the rumours of his skirt chasing and figured he'd be easy, but when he'd turned down her offer, she seemed shocked. Tony couldn't help smirking knowing that his rejection made it two from two for her, since she'd used the same technique with Gibbs before he took off to the wilds of Wyoming.
He'd had to wonder about her people skills in putting the moves on Gibbs when he was dealing with such fresh grief in the loss his wife and daughter, not to mention the feelings of failure he would be experiencing for losing a member of his team. Even if he didn't remember McGee, he would still blame himself; that was inevitable. Gibbs was the consummate professional after several decades as a Marine and federal agent, and he would still feel the loss of one of his team, Tony knew. But even when Tony had refused to withdraw his resignation, Shepard had smirked infuriatingly and shaken her head. She'd told him that when Gibbs came back to work, he'd make sure that Tony came back, too.
Curious as Hell to know what would give her that idea, he'd asked in spite of himself, "Why?"
She smiled confidently, smugly. "Because I know Gibbs; he was my mentor, too, you know, Tony. I was his Probie, and one thing I know about him is that he is possessive about what he sees as his property, and let me assure you that I've seen your work evaluations. Your ass belongs to Gibbs and he'll come and collect what belongs to him, and he won't take no for an answer."
Tony didn't think much of Jenny Shepard's analysis. His annual work appraisals were hardly effusive, generally consisting of single words, chiefly adequate or competent, and likewise, Gibbs didn't usually toss out verbal praise at him, not like the 'good jobs' and 'attaboys' that he sometimes offered the juniors, and the Caff-Pows and kisses that he gave out regularly to Abby. Tony knew that if Gibbs had been dissatisfied with his work he would have gotten rid of him, just like he did with Vivian Blackadder, but Gibbs didn't see him as indispensable or, God forbid, as irreplaceable, despite what he said the night he got back from ending up in the sewers with a homicidal maniac after his butt. He'd only said it to yank his chain before telling McGee that he couldn't have his job or his desk as he was still alive.
But even if in some alternate reality where there was a Gibbs who was touchy feely and believed in giving him the occasional piece of positive reinforcement cuz it wouldn't give him a big head, it was a moot point. Tony couldn't work with Gibbs knowing what he did, nor could he explain it to Shepard. He knew that Fornell was half expecting him to go crawling back to working for Gibbs, too, and without explaining the reason why, Tony couldn't hope to convince him otherwise. It was interesting that Shepard and Tobias both believed that Gibbs would come back to work when he regained his memory. Tony had only been able to really talk to Ducky about it, since he didn't want to put Garcia or Morgan in anymore of an impossible situation than they were already in, since they also knew about Gibbs' actions, and were staying silent because of him.
So, Ducky was the only one that he could talk to, really, and he was still very aware that Gibbs and Ducky both went back a lot of years together, and Tony was careful that he didn't make Ducky feel like he had to choose between them. Ducky had speculated that Gibbs was seeking to atone for his sins, and also to try to prevent other fathers and husbands or family members from having to deal with what he went through. Thinking back to the way he was when kids or women involved, Tony reasoned that Ducky might be right about his remorse/regrets/guilt, take your pick, and if you carried it all through to its logical conclusion with Ari, maybe it explained why Gibbs had become so utterly obsessed with him to the exclusion of everything else around him. If he was feeling guilty about his wife and daughter and not being able to protect them, Ari getting into NCIS and Autopsy then shooting Gerald and threatening Ducky and Cate, was probably perceived as an attack on his turf and people. One that he would have been determined to stop occurring a second time.
Wondering if Gibbs would regain his memories and if he did, would he decide reclaim his position as the pre-eminent NCIS investigator as everyone thought? If he came back, even if he had no desire to entice Tony to rejoin his team, he was still going to have to make some tough decisions. Could he still be friends with Gibbs? He wasn't sure. And if Shepard was right and Gibbs thought he owned Tony's ass since he'd recruited him, he was going to have one exceptionally difficult conversation with the man that might well shatter any vestiges of what he'd thought had been a great partnership. Not that Tony wished him any harm or hoped that Gibbs didn't recover fully, he didn't, but it was still much less complicated with him gone.
~ Betrayals ~
One Week Later
Tony was pulling a late nighter at the office, going over the case file because something about the current case they were working on was bugging him. It was the kidnapping case of a high court judge's 11-year-old son, and Tony knew that there was something that they, well he, was missing, and it was bothering him. Hoping to be able to spot it in the solitude of the squad room when everyone else had gone home, he heard his cell phone beep to alert him of an incoming text message. Checking to see who it was from, and hoping it wasn't Steve Adler, his frat brother again, he sighed, wishing that Adler would take the hint and leave him the Hell alone. He didn't know what Cate had told him, but he was constantly bombarding him with texts, emails and phone calls, all wanting to talk, to meet, to make excuses and it was getting old.
He'd made it perfectly clear that he wanted nothing further to do with the guy. He'd finally resorted to threatening to take out a restraining order on the bastard if he didn't leave him alone, and Tony decided if he still didn't get the message, he'd let the Brothers know that he'd betrayed his oath to Tony and his fraternity just to get laid. He didn't want to go all Crime and Retribution, but honestly, how stupid could he be to not get that Tony was not interested in having any contact with his former friend?
Looking at the message, he smiled in relief to see it was Derek Morgan. Reading the text which was suitably cryptic he moved to the television plasma and switched it on, his curiosity piqued.
R u watching ZNN? DM
Switching to the 24-hour all-news channel, he wondered what had caught Derek's eye.
Just repeating, in breaking news The Secretary of Defence has announced that he will be stepping down from his position due to family issues. My sources though say that after many years in public office, Jonathon Gold has decided to he spend more time with his wife and his five children and two grandchildren. His resignation will take effect at the end of this month. The President's office has praised the Secretary of Defence for his work in the administration and for his exemplary service to his country. No word yet on his replacement…
Tony switched the TV off, reeling. Well…wow, that wasn't…expected. Oh, Tony had had revenge fantasies where Gold would get his just desserts, and how juvenile was that honestly, but none of the co-conspirators thought that Gold would just go away like that. Sure, they wanted to disconcert him and convince him that they weren't going to back down, but they didn't expect him to resign. It was surreal and almost too easy. Not that it had been easy…really.
Garcia had come up with this nasty computer virus that had totally destroyed his personal computer and records and had been completely untraceable. Tony realised then that Penelope might not have gone to any fancy schools, but she was as much a genius in her own way as McGee had been, and lethally relentless as she had meticulously made Gold's cyber life miserable. Frankly, Tony was still having trouble accepting that Secretary Gold wouldn't have a lot more security and backups than they suspected, but Derek had profiled him as someone who had extreme control issues, didn't trust anyone, not even his spouse, and was incredibly invested in his position and reputation. So not trusting Tony's file to the care and expertise of an aide or minion wasn't so out of character with so much, to his mind, riding on keeping their earlier connection under wraps. And as Garcia pointed out rather scornfully, he wasn't exactly the most cyber savvy individual, which altogether made him vulnerable.
Still, Tony couldn't reconcile the fact that while Jonathon Gold was a scumbag of the first order, he felt somewhat hypocritical going after him in the way they had. Hacking and cyber- attacks of his files was illegal, and didn't that make him just as bad in seeking retribution as Gibbs in taking out the drug lord that killed his family? And wasn't the death of his mentor's family a more noble cause than his petty reasons for having a grudge against Gold? He was so conflicted, and when he tried to explain his thoughts and feelings to Duck, Derek and Garcia, it came out all garbled.
They'd argued with him that Gold in holding such a high office, had abused his office. That he had failed to act within the law when he had taken an oath to uphold the laws of the state and as an officer of the courts and had broken the law. That he was gathering information on Tony and his friends that could be used extort or control him, and that the statutes for pursuing him for his failure to protect Tony as a minor through legal channels had expired.
Ducky also pointed out that they weren't necessarily trying to extract vengeance, rather they were only trying to neutralise a threat. That Tony was defending himself, and also watching Gibbs' six, too. Ducky had talked to him about ethics, moral ambiguity, and acknowledged that perhaps they were walking a questionable path when it came to right and wrong, but there was a huge difference between infecting Gold's personal computer records and killing him or physically harming him.
Finally, he pointed out that the murky cyber-world was not as simple or cut and dried as real life, and Garcia was most definitely an avenging angel and would probably ignore him if he told her not to proceed with their plan. Tony conceded ruefully that he was probably correct in his assessment of the FBI techie. There was a sort of non-conformist outlaw vibe about her coupled with a strong mother lioness maternal streak that was kinda scary. Finally, there was the fact he owed her and Morgan a huge debt for staying mum about Gibbs' execution of Hernandez. He really couldn't repay such a debt by being precious about a computer virus and unauthorised hacking, although it didn't quiet his conscience.
Once they had procured the back-up hard copy held by the investigator, they had felt ready to move against Jonathon Gold. Using some subtle persuasion to convince the PI guy that he might not want the IRS to look too closely into his business transactions had been ethically questionable, Tony had argued, but Garcia had argued right back. She'd said it was only unethical if they turned a blind eye to his tax evasion and they had done their duty and expressed their concerns to the IRS about the P.I. *after* they had got hold of the backup file. Tony had expressed his concern that Gold, as a lawyer, would have spare copies probably squirreled away in safety deposit boxes, since it's what he do if it was him, and they'd agreed it was a possibility, but one they couldn't do anything about. All they could do was to hope for the best.
So, once they had Secretary Gold's attention, and the loss of the file and his computer being destroyed was pretty damned unsubtle way of getting his attention he would have thought, Tony had made contact and warned him off. Told him that blackmail only worked if Gold was ready to use it, and that Tony had also been busy collecting evidence about his time as legal counsel for Pennington Grammar.
Gold had laughed at him after his initial shock. Denying that he would ever let anyone know about his molestation, and Tony had laughed right back at him, sardonically. He was in all his glory undercover as a man who had decided to reveal everything he had been ashamed to tell everyone for so long and was pretty convincing. He'd confessed that in the last few weeks he had already confided in three people and found it such a liberating experience, he was seriously thinking of writing a tell-all book. He hinted that perhaps some of The Secretary's 'admirers' might be interested in his story, also pointed out that Gibbs was an amnesiac who had left NCIS and gone to ground so he was no longer a source of leverage anymore, and finished up by warning that he had left copies of all his research with several trusted sources inside and out of the country, just in case anything unexpected should happen to him. After which, Gold had seemed to deflate, just like the school-yard bully when you finally stand up to them.
Of course, it had always been risky calling him out, but they had shaken him up pretty badly beforehand, and with Gibbs safely out of the way, he'd felt like they'd taken all precautions and then gone for broke. Tony had to hand it to Ducky, though, in taking care of the Gibbs problem. Oh, sure, he's been downright sceptical when Ducky had sent Gibbs off to the wilds of Wyoming with his Marine buddy and the guy's wife, who was currently shrinking Gibbs' head right now. When Ducky had pulled his sneaky switcheroo, Tony thought that he was crazy and Gibbs would come gunning for the medical examiner with his sniper's rifle.
Now, though, Tony was willing to concede that it was a brilliant master stroke and that Ducky was far more Machiavellian than he'd ever given him credit for, and that he had been watching Gibbs' six most effectively. If the worst came to pass and there was an investigation or charges laid, Gibbs was under the constant supervision of a well-respected therapist who was treating him for dissociative retrograde amnesia. Ducky hadn't betrayed any confidences, and Tony hadn't asked him to either, but he figured that the shrink would testify about unresolved grief issues and acting under emotional duress or not being of sound mind, or whatever psycho babble psychotherapists used to communicate instead of speaking plain English. While it was still a risk if Gold called his bluff, if he didn't stand up to him, Tony would be forever looking over his shoulder, wondering when his nemesis was going to disrupt his life.
So, despite the high risk game they'd played, it had been worth the risk, it had been exhilarating and empowering to stand up for himself for a change. But tonight, the announcement that The Secretary of Defence had decided to resign, that was so much more than he'd ever expected, and he felt giddy and a little disorientated. It really was the ultimate win-win situation, and Tony thought about these past months. Such a lot of changes, he mused both BFP (before the fake photo) and AFP (after the fake photo.)
Change was an inevitable part of life, and you couldn't go back and change the past. No matter how much you might wish you could, or simply go back and do things differently, say or not say something, choose not to open Pandora's Box, or just respond with the benefit of hindsight. But that just isn't an option…ever. Tony knew that for better or worse, he was now a different person to the one he was before. He reacted so viscerally to that stupid pledge name and everything changed, and yet the cause of his violent reaction began so very long ago, and finally now he was coming to terms with the concept that it wasn't his fault. Not only was he a different person to the one that he was before, but other people were so very different now as well…like Gibbs, or perhaps Gibbs wasn't different, just the way he saw his mentor was different. Tony didn't know.
He did know that what they once had was no more and that made him sad, but maybe if Gibbs came back to DC, they could try to forge a new relationship, not mentor and protégé or father figure and overgrown child seeking approval, but perhaps colleagues who held each other's skills and talents in high regard. Two flawed and imperfect law enforcement professionals who were human and made mistakes, picked themselves up and tried harder, but never forgot that they could and did stumble.
Tony knew he and those around him had lost much and paid a high price for all that had happened lately, but as the only option was moving on, he hoped that they would all take what life had shoved at them and grasp it with both hands. He hoped that Gibbs could try, like he was attempting, to move on from the past, and Tony had to believe that if Gibbs came home, they could forge a new friendship, letting go of the old one and finding new strengths to focus on.
Change was inevitable. Sometimes it was a good thing, and often it brought about unwanted or painful transformations. Maybe not things that you would seek out if you had a choice, yet while some change was difficult or even extremely unpalatable, it could sometimes propel you in ways that you might never have gone otherwise, even while bringing with it pain and loss. Experience had taught him that the best that you can do is to accept it and make lemonade out of the lemons. If someone had told him six months ago that his world would be turned so completely upside down, that he would have come close to losing his life and he would lose the team that he thought of as his family, he wouldn't have believed it. More to the point, if someone told him that despite such an overwhelming loss, that something good would also come out of it, he would have called for the men in white coats.
Yet out of the heartache and loss, strangers had stepped up and been there for him, and he had been forced to grow and face things that he wouldn't have done otherwise. Just like his betrayal by his old partner Danny Price and his fiancé Wendy had been the catalyst that saw him leave Baltimore PD behind and become a federal agent; this current betrayal by his team had resulted in his new life at the FBI. There was no way he would have left the warm womb of Gibbs' MCRT otherwise, and Tony concluded that there were times that he felt a bit like a tumbleweed at the mercy of the winds of change that blew him where he otherwise wouldn't go. He could only hope that he would be granted some stability for a change, and perhaps this time, the Tony DiNozzo that was a FBI agent could settle down and find some peace and happiness. He was finally beginning to believe that he deserved it.
Turning his mind back to the plight of the 11-year-old boy who was far from his loving home, Tony smiled as he finally saw the 'something' that had been nagging him all day. Reaching for the phone, he punched in his boss's cell phone number.
"Hey, Fornell... I think I know who snatched Jason…"
End Notes:
Well I hope that I have managed to answer most of the questions that you have with one notable exception of course. I can hear you all screaming in frustration, "what happens to Gibbs?"First off, I should preface this by saying that I always start any new story with a a detailed outline which means that I have a definite idea how a story will conclude before I even begin writing. As someone who is a bit of a cynic, I don't necessarily subscribe to the philosophy that just because it is fan fiction that it must have a HEA ending, but for Betrayals, I did have a happily ever after planned with Tony returning to the MCRT with Gibbs, I swear :) Towards the end I realised that the 'Tony' who found out about Pedro Hernadez in Betrayals would not react in the same way as he did when he learnt about Gibbs' retribution in canon, when Gibbs and his family was being threatened. Apart from being younger and more idealistic, he had been attacked based upon fake evidence and that would make him question how reliable the evidence had been that Franks presented to Gibbs. So at the eleventh hour, I concluded that Tony wasn't going home to NCIS.
So you can be fairly certain that Gibbs will recover his memory and return to rebuild the MCRT... well maybe lol. Actually I left it open because I wanted to leave room for writing a short follow-up at some point between Gibbs and Tony when he comes back from Wyoming. And yes I know I say the same thing at the end of many of my stories but I actually have two sequels almost ready to upload as we speak. One is the followup to my Narcissist story and the other is the sequel to my AU story Bait and Switch where people from Tony's past come back into his life again including his old partner Detective Sergeant Jessie Lawless. I also still plan on following up several other promised sequels too. Thanks for reading and feel free to leave me a comment or review.