Bobby POV


As soon as I watched Hassan grab onto Alex's hand and whisper into her ear, I knew that we were in trouble.

And of course, I could hear what he was saying.

She was wearing her wire for our benefit even though we had the whole place miked up.

He was suspicious of her.

This was exactly what we didn't want.

With every fiber of my being, I wanted to shout, "Run!"

But I didn't.

I didn't want a repeat of the Banta bust where the whole thing went to hell because of an overreaction.

I watched as Alex handed over her gun and then Hassan added, "And the knife. I wouldn't want you to try to cut off any of my appendages."

Appendage.

That was the precise word that Alex used as a threat to Gino yesterday in the alley.

Hassan had been listening?

This was even worse than I thought.

"Shit," Maas said gruffly as I struggled to rein in my panic. "We need to get her out of there. We need to…"

But while he was talking, Hassan gave the order to open fire.

We all had our weapons drawn already so we immediately returned fire, but even as I pulled the trigger for the first time, Maas went down next to me.

My shot took out Dorsey and then I heard Logan curse violently as he went down to his knees.

"Logan!" I called out as Semere also dropped to the floor. I wasn't sure if it was my shot or Logan's that had hit him. I'm pretty sure that at this point it didn't matter.

I squeezed off a few more rounds and then I stopped firing. So did Gino.

"Give it up, Goren!" Hassan called out to me.

"I don't think so, Hassan," I replied, although I kept my position behind the cracked motor of an old yacht.

"What do you think you're going to do?"

He kept talking, but I mostly tuned him out so that I could assess the damage.

"Maas," I said in a harsh whisper, looking over at him to see where he'd been hit.

And of course we were all wearing vests.

Well, all except for Alex.

I hadn't wanted to wear one. In my mind, it wouldn't be fair to leave her unprotected while I was cloaked in Kevlar, but she'd insisted that it would be inconsiderate of me to argue.

"Inconsiderate?" I'd questioned.

"If I'm going to go through all the trouble of getting up close and personal with Hassan, the least you can do is make sure that you come out of this thing alive, okay?"

Her tone was light despite the serious nature of our topic. Neither of us wanted to think about that kind of possibility and yet it would be careless of us not to.

"But what about you?"

"I'm not protected, so you don't want to be protected? Bobby…" she'd trailed off in frustration. "I'll be with them. If they want to shoot me, a vest isn't going to make any difference. You could be taking fire from a distance. A vest will make a difference."

"But…"

"I don't like playing dirty with you, but I will to get what I want," she said to me. "This is too important."

"Play dirty?" I asked.

"Uh huh," she answered with a sharp nod. Then she held my gaze, looking at me with those damn gorgeous eyes of hers that are my undoing, and she said carefully, "If you love me, you'll wear the vest."

Needless to say, I was wearing the vest.

And maybe it hadn't helped me at this point, but it had definitely helped Maas.

He had a hole in his jacket the size of a ping pong ball.

The fabric covering the armor inside of the vest had split open so that I could see the silver guts of the Kevlar.

A shot like that would've meant instant death.

Instead, it probably spelled cracked ribs.

Because the thing about Kevlar is that even though it protects you from the bullet, it still hurts like hell to get shot.

It's like being hit with a baseball bat.

One swung by Derek Jeter.

The wind was knocked out of him and as I looked at him, he continued to inhale in short gasps, but he couldn't seem to exhale.

"Relax," I said urgently, and then because I realized that Hassan had stopped talking, I called out, "I'm not walking away. Now let her go."

Hassan laughed and yelled back, "Why would I let her go? I've got you outgunned and outmanned. I think I'll keep her as my reward."

"Reward for what?"

Although I knew the answer. He thought he'd won.

As far as I was concerned, the game wasn't over.

I ignored him again and checked Maas' pulse while he continued to struggle to breathe normally. I saw then that he'd taken a shot to the arm, too, but it didn't look horrible. I pulled out my handkerchief and pressed hard against the blood flow.

"Hold this here," I instructed. "And don't try to talk."

I was encouraged by his strong pulse and even though he was wheezing a little, he wasn't bleeding from the mouth yet and his color was decent.

"Logan?"

"How's Maas?" he ground out.

"One to the chest and one to the arm. Probably cracked ribs. You?"

"I feel like I got kicked in the gut by a mule, but thank God for Kevlar," he answered. "And that bastard Semere clipped my hand, but I'm pretty sure I got him. Did I get him?"

"Yeah," I answered quickly. "Dorsey and Semere are both down."

I listened to Hassan bark out orders to Gino while I tried to let the other half of my brain run free to determine the best way out of this situation.

First off, Maas needed medical attention. And Logan, too. His hand was bleeding profusely and he was extremely pale. I was worried about internal damage. The bullet that had caught him in the abdomen had done similar damage to his vest as that of Maas. They were both going to be purple for weeks.

And then suddenly I heard footsteps entering the building, and the pitch of Hassan's voice changed.

"What is the meaning of this?"

I did a quick check and saw that five unknowns had joined the party.

"We know what you did," Gino said. "Now let the agent go. This isn't her fight."

"Gino's on our side?" Logan asked in surprise.

"Looks like it, but I'm not taking any chances," I said as I reloaded my gun. "Okay, I'm going to move to the right. You take Maas and get out the door to the left. Call a bus and get us some back-up."

I didn't wait for Logan's response, but instead shifted several yards to the right, and then I stood up and began circling around the group in the center of the room.

"We don't kill feds," Gino was saying.

Good to know, Gino. I'd hate to have to kill you since it looks like you might have saved the day.

"You might not, but I do," Hassan yelled. He jerked Alex, dragging her backwards with him and yet keeping her in front of him as a human shield. "If you want me, you're going to have to shoot through her."

I saw movement amidst the boats where Logan was trying to get Maas out. I didn't want any of the newcomers to see them and think they were a threat, so I yelled out to Hassan to get everyone's attention shifted to me.

"Hassan, let her go!"

"I'll blow us all up," he asserted. "What do I care?"

"Nobody's going to kill anybody. Just let her go and then we can talk about this," I lied.

There wasn't going to be any talking.

The Toscano boys who had shown up to help Gino would never let Hassan leave this building alive.

Maybe that should bother me more than it did, but all I wanted to do was get Alex out of the line of fire.

"We don't want to kill you, Hassan," Gino said with a grin. "We just want to let the feds take you in. We want to see you punished for what you did. You killed Bruto."

Gino was a lot smarter than we'd given him credit for. He had to know the building was wired. He was going to get a confession from Hassan as well as establish that he had no intention of killing him.

Of course, he still would kill him. Of that I had no doubt. But now he'd be on tape stating that he didn't want to.

I continued to ease to the side, looking for the perfect angle to take the shot.

But the thing about bullet trajectory…it's tricky.

If I shot Hassan in the side of the head, that bullet might rattle around in his skull and then come out the front.

There was no way I could risk that.

My best chance would be to go for soft mass. I had to aim at the mid-section, just below the ribcage.

The bomb was an unknown factor, though, and I had to consider that as well. I couldn't let him get to the detonator.

Assuming there was one.

Or had he put it on a timer and any minute now the whole place would go up?

I wished I could see Alex. I needed to look her in the eyes to see what she was going to do next because I had no doubt that she was formulating something.

Gino and Hassan shouted back and forth for a minute and then Gino got what he'd been looking for.

Hassan admitted to killing Bruto.

"It was three years ago," he said. "Get over it."

"Get over it?" Gino yelled back, and I watched as he moved closer to Hassan and Alex.

I shifted my aim to Gino.

I couldn't let him shoot Hassan. Not right now.

Not while Alex was still in the way.

But he didn't raise his gun. Instead he moved so close to Hassan that he was nearly sandwiching Alex between the two of them.

It was like he'd forgotten about her altogether.

What is he doing?

And then I saw Alex's movement and the glint of silver.

She had my knife.

And considering how quickly Gino moved away once she had it, that had been the intent for his rant.

I was going to owe Gino for the rest of my life.

I swung my aim back to Hassan while Gino raised his Tec-9 and pointed it at Hassan's head.

The movement caused Hassan to pull Alex up higher in an effort to protect himself, but now she was up on her toes.

The change in position made her arch her back, creating space between his midsection and her body.

It was perfect.

I knew that she was going to stab him to get herself free, but in order to save us from the potential explosion, we'd have to shoot Hassan at nearly the same moment.

Timing was critical.

Hassan knew that his days were numbered so surely he felt as though he had nothing to lose.

He wouldn't hesitate to kill us all.

I couldn't see Alex's face, so instead I watched Gino's because I know my Alex.

She'd find a way to get him to understand what she planned to do.

So I stared at Gino's eyes and I knew the precise moment when she had his attention, which was followed almost immediately by recognition.

And that was when I started a silent three-second countdown in my head.

Logan appeared in the far doorway as I reached the count of one, but there wasn't time to bring him up to speed.

I watched as Alex drew back the hand with the knife and then quickly and efficiently jammed it into Hassan's thigh.

He let out a scream as he relaxed his grip on her and she immediately dropped to the floor.

Gino and I fired at the same time.

Hassan, who had been reaching down to grab the knife from his thigh, fell forward as the bullets hit his body.

He sprawled out over top of Alex, pinning her against the floor.

"Alex!"

"I'm okay!"

"Don't move!" I yelled to her as I sprinted towards Hassan. "We need to check the bomb!"

It wasn't protocol for me to ignore the six armed mafia men in the room, but I had to trust that they would remain firmly on our side.

At least for tonight. I mean, they could've opened fire on Hassan at any time, but they hadn't, which told me that they truly didn't want to hurt Alex.

They only wanted payback on Hassan.

As I dropped to my knees next to Alex and Hassan, Logan came running from the opposite direction, his gun in his left hand.

He called out to Gino and the others, "Do me a favor, boys, and toss down your weapons."

"They're okay, Logan. Help me roll him over!"

Despite my words, I still heard the clatter of guns hitting the concrete and the next thing I knew, Gino and Logan both came to help me get Hassan onto his back.

Once we had him off of Alex, she got to her knees next to us. Logan had pulled Hassan's jacket aside and he was looking at the explosives.

Hassan himself was barely breathing.

None of us made any move to do first aid. The bomb had to be our first priority. Besides, from the look of the hole in his chest, it wouldn't do any good anyway.

I'd been aiming for his midsection, but since he'd hunched over to grab the knife, I'd caught him in the side of the chest, right under his arm.

And the exit wound was in the front.

See what I mean about bullet trajectories?

"Enzo!" Gino called out. "Come look at this."

"Enzo knows explosives?" I asked him.

"He has some experience in the field," he replied vaguely.

The guy named Enzo cautiously knelt down next to me and took a look at the device. He tugged at one section and exposed the face of a digital watch which was in countdown mode.

It read 1:09.

"What you got here is your basic C-4," Enzo said casually. "He wired in the det cord and connected it with the watch so that when the timer reaches zero…well, you know. Boom."

"Hey, Enzo," Logan said uneasily. "Can you make it not go boom?"

"Yeah, sure," he replied as he began fiddling with the wires. Then he patted down his pockets as though he was searching for something but he came up empty. "I just need…oh. This works."

He reached over to the knife that was still sticking in Hassan's thigh and grabbed onto the handle, jerking the blade free.

"All's I gotta do is cut this wire here and then disconnect this wire here…" he muttered as he fingered through the myriad of colored wires. "Of course, it'd be nice to know that I'm not going to jail after this."

"You're going to bargain with us now?" Alex asked him.

The timer clicked down below forty-five seconds.

"Well, you know," he said with a shrug.

"Cut the wires, Enzo," Gino told him. "The feds will do the right thing."

Enzo stared at him for a few seconds longer and then shrugged again and went to work defusing the bomb.

I caught Alex's eye over top of Hassan's body.

She was bloody, but I was pretty sure that none of it was hers.

She'd come out of this mostly unscathed and that was thanks to Gino.

If it was just this latest thing with Hassan, I'd let all of them walk away.

But Gino had killed Banta.

"There ya go," Enzo said, leaning back and holding out the knife, handle first. "Bing, bang…no boom."

I took the knife from him and put it into my pocket before shifting my focus to Hassan.

He was out cold, but he was still dragging in slow, raspy breaths and I decided that maybe I should do something for him.

I mean, now that the bomb threat was over. I couldn't just sit here and watch him die.

I tore off a section of Hassan's shirt and used it as a bandage to cover the exit wound on his chest.

"I can put another bullet in him," Gino offered to me. "You know, save you the trouble."

It was tempting, but that wasn't the way we did things.

"How's Maas?" Alex asked Logan.

"He'll be alright. The bus should be here any minute. And back up," he added pointedly, looking at the others.

"Go out and wait for the EMT's," I told Logan. "Send one of them in here, but Maas gets the first ambulance."

"Of course," he agreed quickly as he got to his feet.

"You go with Maas," Alex said. "Get that hand looked at."

"And your stomach," I added.

"I'm fine," he said. "The hand's a through and through."

"Logan," Alex warned. "I'm not asking."

"Got it, Captain," he conceded. "I'm going with Maas."

"We'll meet you there," she called out as Logan walked away.

He left a trail of blood from his injured hand and he was moving slowly. I was really glad that she'd insisted he get checked out.

"Captain?" Gino questioned once Logan was gone. "I thought you guys were feds."

"We're NYPD," I told him, and then I nodded towards Alex. "She's the boss."

"The boss, huh?" Gino said with a grin. "Okay, boss. How do you want to play this? Can my boys hit the bricks?"

Alex glanced at me briefly before nodding at Gino.

"Vattene!" Gino called out to the others.

"Grazie mille," I added.

Enzo got up and slapped me on the shoulder.

"Di niente," he replied. "It's good be owed by 5-0, right?"

"Right," I agreed, unable to keep from smiling.

My relief at the outcome of this situation was overwhelming, and I had the sudden urge to laugh out loud.

Instead, I told Enzo, "I'm Detective Goren. You ask for me if you get into any trouble."

"Count on it."

Enzo and the others picked up their weapons and left the building through the back exit.

I could hear sirens wailing and I was relieved to know that Maas was going to be getting help.

Hassan, on the other hand, wasn't going to be needing any assistance from the paramedics. He sucked in his last breath as the back doors closed on the exiting mafia men.

"Good riddance," Gino muttered as he got to his feet.

Alex and I got up, too, and for a moment, I shifted my focus just to her.

"You're sure you're okay?" I asked.

"I'll have a few new bruises, but all things considered…"

"Yeah. It could've been a lot worse," I finished. I turned to Gino and held out my hand. He immediately shook it. "Thank you. For everything."

"I didn't do what I did for you guys," he admitted.

"No, but you made sure that I didn't get shot in the process," Alex reminded him. "And you gave me back the knife."

"We've been looking for Bruto's killer. We suspected Hassan, but we didn't know for sure. When you questioned my loyalty and told me that I was betraying Alfredo…I knew you must have evidence of some kind."

The side door flew open and a paramedic along with three uniformed officers rushed over to us.

"No hurry," Alex called out to the paramedic. "They're all DOA."

Gino turned his back to us and held his hands behind him.

I looked at Alex and then slowly pulled my cuffs from my belt.

"If we didn't have to…" Alex began.

"I know. I killed a federal agent."

"And we know that you didn't intend for him to die. The ME will attest to that. We'll do what we can, Gino," I told him.

"These officers are going to take you in for processing," Alex added. "We'll be by to talk to you in the morning. In the mean time, don't say anything to anyone, okay?"

I turned him around and read him his rights before handing him off to the waiting uniformed officers.

"Take him to the lock-up at 1PP," Alex instructed.

"On who's orders? And what the hell happened here?" an officer asked.

"Oh, I'm sorry," Alex said smartly. "We haven't met. I'm Captain Eames, Major Case. In case you didn't notice, the EMT's outside just loaded Deputy Chief Maas into an ambulance, so you can consider that order either mine or his, whichever one makes you move faster. And I'm pretty sure that whatever happened here is none of your damn business."

"I like her," Gino said as he gave me a wink.

"Yeah, me too."

TBC...