He kisses Kate as he hands over her coffee; she takes the time to clutch at his tie and bring him closer.

"I'm fine, Castle. I promise."

He can't tell anymore if she's lying, but he thinks maybe she believes it.

"I'll be at the publisher," he murmurs into her mouth, giving her another soft kiss before untangling her fingers from his clothes. "Go."

She ducks down and kisses both kids, even Dashiell, and then she slips out the door with her travel mug in one hand and her bag over her shoulder. Her hair is scraped back into a wet bun, tendrils on her neck, and she looks both so very vulnerable and so strong at the same time. He's not sure how she does that.

The kids are gathering their backpacks, scrambling for last minute items, and Castle finally comes back to the moment, grabs his keys from the entry table. "You guys ready?"

"Ready, Daddy."

Little Ellery with her adorably eager face upraised to him, her smile. Castle leans over and scoops her up, kissing her cheek. "Hey there, cricket. Let's go then. Dash?"

"Coming."

The door is still open, and Dashiell darts out ahead of him with his bag thumping against his back. Castle turns to shut the door and sees the dog sitting in the foyer, a little sad, as if say, I'll just be waiting here.

"Sorry, Rex. Tomorrow. We'll go to the park, buddy."

He shuts the door on the dog and Ellery squirms in his arms, impatient to be gone.


After he drops the kids off at preschool with assurances to Ellery's substitute teacher that her show and tell item will arrive on schedule, Castle makes it to the Black Pawn offices just in time.

He has a meeting with the ad execs on the new YA series that BP has picked up - most of it in the final stages. A new author named Barrett Browning - he wonders if the guy gets a lot of jokes about it. Castle finds himself rubbing his eyes every few minutes, the grit and sand behind his lids irritating him. His hand still throbs and more than a few people comment on his kung fu moves.

He's not in the mood.

Of course, it's Gina who corners him in his office after the meeting. She takes his hand in hers and flicks her thumbs over the inexpertly wrapped bandage. It falls apart, and Rick catches the edge before it can drop to the floor. He had to unwrap it for his shower last night, never rewrapped it, and then he did it this morning himself in the hopes that it would remind him not to use it.

"You can't go damaging your hands, Rick," Gina sighs at him, looking like she's going to help wrap it.

"Yeah, yeah," he mutters, pulling his hand out of her grip as he heads around to his desk. He drops the ace bandage on top, sinks down into his chair. He has email to catch up on and then he's got to go over the uncorrected proof for the Felix book. Okay, he doesn't have to, but he always feels like he ought to. Just one last look.

It'll stay in his inbox all day, most likely.

"What happened?" Gina asks, moving to the chair across from his desk.

"Beat up a guy."

She snorts a laugh and then goes still at his quick look.

"Are you kidding me? You beat up a guy? Richard."

He shakes his head. "Line of duty. Not a photographer."

She sighs heavily, and he sees her press her hand to her forehead before brushing her hair over her shoulder. "Richard. This - this cop stuff. I think-"

"Not listening, Gina," he warns, calling up his email on his laptop and shuffling through the rest of the papers in his inbox. Three bills he's got to send to receiving to pay - the cardboard stand-ups for the YA series by Browning, the check to Browning for the advance, and finally the-

Oh. Actually this is his. From the jeweler. Castle lifts his hip and pockets the receipt and contract from the independent jeweler where he had Kate's ring made. He needs to remember to send it to the accountant. She wore it this morning; he saw it on her hand as she kissed him, clutching his tie. He smiles.

"Rick."

He startles and looks up to Gina; he forgot she was there.

"How long do you think you can keep this up?"

He sighs and rubs the bridge of his nose, peeking at his email over his fingers as he does. Oh damn. Fifty-five new messages. "It was only for this case."

"And your hand-"

"A guy was aiming for Kate."

She's silent and he knows how she feels about it - Gina has never been quiet about his relationship with the NYPD - but he suddenly wishes everyone else got it. Would understand why this works the way it does, why it's important to him to make it work. Why he needs to be there.

"Gina. Kate is-"

"I know."

He glances up from his email and sees her calm face, the tilt of her nose that always made her look so condescending when they were married. She does know. She knows him even if he doesn't want her to, even if they're not in the same place in life anymore. She might not like it, might not enjoy it, but she gets it.

She was the one who gave them the first information on Dashiell's issues, the one who called him and made him listen, got through to him. She deserves more than his quick dismissal.

He sits forward, elbows on his desk, and regards her.

Gina nods slowly, seeing she has his attention, and then she laces her fingers together and lays them in her lap. "You have two options. Hire at least three more people - one in advertising and one in acquisitions, as well as a personal assistant-"

"I don't need-"

"Richard."

He stops, gritting his teeth, gestures for her to continue. Ouch. Wrong hand to use. He cradles his hand against his chest and sits back, waiting for Gina to take up her carefully worded intervention.

"Hire more people. Or. Restrict yourself to one day with the NYPD. One day, Richard, not three days. Not a week when it gets interesting. One day."

He picks at the edge of the desk with his thumbnail, lets her words sink in.

"I need to talk about it with Kate."

"You really don't," Gina says. "Kate is the one who told you that it was too much. Kate is the one who said you needed to be here. You were the one, Rick, you were the one who said you could make it work."

He swallows and watches the way his computer screen dims, trying to save power. "Gina. If you'd sat me down for this conversation a week ago. . .I'd have agreed with you. I'd have cut back on the 12th and-" He shrugs. He can't get it out of his head how Lockwood had Kate in his scope, how it was that close. Esposito and Ryan. "After yesterday. I can't not be there."

"Then hire us people, Rick. We need this to work or Black Pawn will go under."

Gina stands and exits his office, leaving him staring after her.

Black Pawn will go under?


Kate Beckett wraps her coat a little closer, hands in her pockets as she saunters the length of the prison yard, following the chain link fence to the front door. Esposito is at her back; Ryan stayed home today to rest his lungs.

She hadn't realized it was that bad.

She and Espo give over their weapons, badges, and phones, dumping them in the plastic dish at security. She gets wanded and Esposito is patted down, and then they're waved through the metal detector.

She already texted Castle and told him where she was, that she'd be unreachable for the next couple hours, but it still gives her pause, her phone disappearing from her view. Out of touch. Last time - well, last time they made Ellery.

Kate sighs and feels Esposito at her back.

"I'll go in alone," she says to him. He nods; he knows the reasons. Lockwood might talk to her alone. She'll have to quickly figure out how to play him, but she's confident she can.

Eventually, he'll talk to her.

She keeps her coat on as they move down the interior corridor of the prison, Esposito with his swagger behind her. The guard ahead of them unlocks the first door, metal, and they step into the airlock, wait for the second door to be unlocked.

On cell block D, Lockwood waits.

Kate gets her head into the game on the long walk down to the visitors room. They've cleared it out for this meeting, no one but her and Lockwood, and she leaves Esposito in the warden's observation room.

She takes her time getting to Lockwood; the man is shackled hands and feet, sitting cooly at the laminate table. Like they're both in the school cafeteria, a couple of 8th graders meeting up for lunch.

Kate pauses before him, takes her seat before he can look like he's inviting her.

"Name's not Hal Lockwood," she starts off. "We booked you as John Doe."

Lockwood, or whatever the hell his name is, only looks at her. Not quite a stare, but there is so much unconcerned confidence in his eyes that it puts her off. Makes her lose her place a moment.

No. Damn it, no. She is not letting this bastard set the tone.

"You wanna tell me your name?" She doesn't expect an answer to that one, but she also doesn't expect the quirk of familiar humor in his mouth, as if they are sharing a private joke.

But she'll go with that. "Yeah, thought so." Anything to build rapport, establish a connection. "You know you're not getting out of here. We've got you dead to rights on kidnapping, assault of an officer, illegal gun possession-"

He's not biting. Not a word. He has a wall of silence around him so thick that Kate is getting nowhere.

She switches tactics.

"Who hired you?" She hardens her eyes, stares back at him, using his own face against him.

He doesn't move, doesn't blink.

She'll have to try something else. The only thing this guys know is the battle field, the kill. The mission. She needs to interject some snafu to his plan, some sense that he's not in control any longer.

Softly, quietly, she lowers her voice and lets him know what he's in for.

"You know, I've put a lot of people in this place." A flicker in his eyes, surprise maybe. He didn't see this coming, doesn't know where it's going. "Some of them," she continues, a little smirk. "-want to kill me. Some never been treated so fairly in their lives. They form this attachment to me. It's like I'm their favorite school teacher."

The cold detachment in his eyes is cracking; she can tell that he doesn't know what she's getting at yet, and that it bothers him, the not knowing. She can use that.

She can also tell that the schoolteacher image does it for him. Well, damn. Look at that. She might be able to have him by the balls if she plays it right. A little steel, a little sick seduction.

"Good or bad, all I have to do is say a word." She lets her mouth move slowly, sees him watching. "Some of these people might visit you in here, see where in my fan club you fall. And after some time with them. . ."

She lets her voice trail off, hinting at all kinds of horrors, deviant and terrible.

"You just might find yourself a more talkative man."

He doesn't break her gaze, but she can tell she's gotten to him. She's said something that registers, that's making him think. Not uncomfortable, just. . .aware.

Good.

At the same time, she doesn't at all like the calculation she sees there. The sense that he has taken in that information and will use it to his own advantage.

She cannot underestimate him.

"I'm going to be here. Week after week. And I'll ask you - each time - who hired you. Who hired you. Until I get my answer."

She doesn't bother to wait for his answer or acknowledgement; she pushes off from the table and walks out.


It's her idea to visit the Russian mafia boss who kidnapped her last year.

Esposito is shaking his head, looking at her like she's crazy, but she has things to say, and after last night's panic attack, looking the asshole in the face and keeping her calm is like a victory in and of itself.

"Mr. Sokolov," she says, sitting down at the table with Esposito at her side.

Sokolov puts both hands on the table, palms flat. He hates her - it's all over him. His body is tense, his eyes like fire as he glares. He has good reason to hate her; she shot and killed his son in self-defense. More than that, she's the reason he's behind bars now. That whole kidnapping thing.

"How are they treating you in here?" she asks, acting like this is a friendly chat.

He curses her in Russian, and she responds in kind, her language flavored with the salty swearing she learned as a college student in Moscow - a little pretentious, her accent indicating that she's somehow better than him, the lowly dock worker with questionable parentage.

It's like pouring kerosene straight onto a fire; Sokolov flares brightly, his body lunging against the wrist shackles which are chained to his feet. He stumbles and pitches into the table, landing hard on his face.

Neither she nor Esposito get up to help him. He struggles back on his own, sits down heavily. He refuses to speak English, but Kate switches back.

"I have a friend in here. You might see him. Name is John Doe - clever, right?"

Sokolov - if looks could kill. He turns his face from her, makes a rude gesture that only warms her heart.

This is exactly what she needed.

"John Doe is very important to me. I need him alive. I figured - since you're in charge of your own little bratva in here-"

His eyes flicker to hers, a quick tell. She knew it. She'll have to talk with the warden later, make sure that he knows it as well. Sokolov might be foolish in his hatred of her, but he's not to be taken lightly. If the mafia brotherhood gets out of control behind bars, the guards are at risk, the other prisoners. It's so easy to extend a Russian mafia man's reach.

"Since you're here, and you're mine - maybe the Junior Red Mafia can be his friends, keep him out of trouble."

Sokolov looks like he's going to throttle her for her impertinence. Junior Red Mafia. He really doesn't like that.

So she digs a little more. "I heard you had your finger in something going on in South Florida. I made some calls. Gonna screw you over, Sokolov."

She hasn't made any calls; it was a fishing expedition, but the look on his face - she will be now. Cocaine, probably, smuggled in on the water. She's always been able to read Sokolov; he's an open book when it comes to her. He may have taken her unaware last April, left her trussed in one of his abandoned warehouses with only the sounds of a little girl screaming, but she's the one with the upper hand.

When they finally arrested his sorry ass last May, she was the one who pulled the names of his associates out of him, one by one, using his son's death against him, brow-beating him into submission. She has him. He's her bitch.

Esposito grunts and shifts forward, drawing the man's attention.

"You wanna spill, Soko? Give us names of your South Florida crew. Make it easier to do our jobs. You're so good at that."

The curse is filfthy and said with enough rancor that Esposito counters with some choice Spanish of his own. Kate smiles slowly and lets Sokolov see it, every pleased and dominating nuance to her happiness.

He shoves back from the table, but he can't go anywhere.

"Just make sure our friend stays alive, Mr. Sokolov. He's new. He'll need help."

The best part about this? When Sokolov's buddies move in to slit Lockwood's throat, it'll force Sokolov's hand, make him show his cards. They'll have an idea of how far Sokolov's bratva extends inside, and they'll be able to shut it down. Lockwood can more than handle himself, and maybe it really will rattle the sniper to know that she can get to him.

All she has to do is be patient. Wait.

She's waited over a decade to get her mother's killer. A few more months is nothing.