All during the flight back to DC all Bracken can think of is how he was going to deal with Castle. He needs to get his hands on that brief that he read over two years ago. But what really bothers him is the fact that Montogomery kept this small fact to himself. That was a big mistake.

He knew that Castle was connected in some way with a three-letter agency, he just didn't know how or which one it was. But this poses another problem. He's going to need to rely on the intel he receives from his informants in whatever agency he has ties with. His moles in the NYPD can only get him so far and if he needed more information he would just go to his next source. But there is one puzzling thing that he does remember. It had something to do with a man named Jack or Jackson. That's the only thing that stuck in his head when he was reading the report. Could it be that Jack/Jackson is his handler? He doesn't know but what he does know is that he needs to find out the information to see who Castle really is and quickly.

The city of New York was ripe for the picking. If Simmons had his way, he would take over the entire city, except Staten Island. Nobody likes that boro anyway. He has the better half of Manhattan from 79th Street up to 209th Street and from the Eastside to the Westside. This was his new domain and he would not give it up. He would die first.

He was one of the first pack of tough kids from the South Bronx back when he was growing up. His mother who had tried to instill in him values that would lead him in a product life had died in a drive-by shooting between one drug dealer and another. It was ironic in a way because she was returning from the neighborhood bodega with some cough medicine and other assorted over-the-counter medications to cure the high fever he had at the time.

When he had risen to power he in turn had dealt with both parties who were involved in the drive-by shooting to avenge the death of his mother. His father, sadly, was never present in his life. Sure he would try to make an attempt to connect with him and his mother but in the end, it usually played out as a way to try and extort cash from his mother. She was wise to his ways and sent him on his way.

He was very proud of the way that he took out the mob boss in the Bronx. He actually had the balls to take over the now deceased mob boss's headquarters and use it as his own. But now his needs have changed some. Actually a lot. His headquarters serves two purposes. The warehouse stored the majority of drugs and it was where he conducted most of his business when he wasn't in Manhattan.

He decided that guns would no longer be run out of the Bronx. In fact, he was going to stop dealing them all together as soon as possible. The heat was too much to deal NYPD was stepping up its efforts to take down illegal gun sales and he knew when it was time to get off of a sinking ship. The only things he would keep there were the girls and drugs.

His recent visit to the warehouse had him thinking about two issues. First, he needed to decide if he would want to keep Bracken in the loop about his next endeavor. His street drug dealers had informed him that while heroin and cocaine were lucrative and made him a lot of money, more and more loyal customers have been asking them for meth and other synthetic drugs. He was reluctant to invest the time and cash to get a lab up and running. The cost for just one lab with the proper chemist, equipment, security, packaging, and transportation would cost well towards fifty to seventy-five thousand dollars to be done right. The cost to income ratio would take close to six months to become profitable. Still, it might be worth the investment.

But he would need to do this on the side. This was the second issue he had. Bracken could not know what he was going to do and if he did pull the trigger on an operation like this he would also lose the protection that Bracken provided for him. If he were to find out about his operation he would lose any protection from Bracken for all of his operations Bracken's and his own. He essentially would be hung out to dry.

Simmons was no idiot. He knew that Bracken had many operations across the country each bringing in an estimated 10 to upwards of 25 million annually and the operation in New York could be disbanded entirely if need be. It would hurt him financially but to prove his point Bracken would do just that to screw him over. His fixer, Jack Coonan would make sure that he was eliminated without any question.

He turns off the light on his desk and walks over to the wall safe. From it he retrieved his Sig Sauer P226 .40 caliber handgun. He checks to ensure that it's loaded and has a spare magazine. He is happy that he has his sidearm loaded and ready to go, he secures the safe and heads out to where his Cadillac Escalade is parked in the warehouse. He checks in with all of the perimeter guards he has in the warehouse and they report that all is quiet.

His ride is sitting less than twenty feet away from him and in that split second he looks at it he gets a feeling of uneasiness. He doesn't know what to make of it and so he shrugs it off. He walks to the car, opens the door cautiously, and waits for something to happen. When it's apparent that he is being paranoid he slips behind the wheel and starts the car. He thinks to himself that no one could tamper with his ride because it's under close watch by his men in the warehouse. His guards would definitely have seen or heard someone tampering with it. He fastens his seat belt and puts the car in drive slowly moving towards the overhead door. As he gets closer, one of the guards sees the car approaching and raises the door.

He exits the warehouse, crosses the wide sidewalk stops, and looks both left and right for oncoming traffic. He sees nothing but a roll-off container truck so he lets it pass. With no traffic coming in either direction he pulls out onto Randall Avenue and accelerates slightly. His rearview mirror is clear so he relaxes and settles in for the ride home. He comes to a traffic light at the intersection of Leggett Avenue and Barry street and sees the city when it's alive the most. All contract services are done during the overnight hours and collecting the garbage is no exception.

The light turns green and he automatically depresses the gas pedal to move forward but quickly hits the brakes. The truck in front of him started too slowly for his taste and he almost rear-ended him. So he decides to go around it. Before he can make the maneuver two garbage trucks enter the intersection from the left and the right essentially riding alongside him blocking him in on both sides.

He sees the tactic playing out in front of him and knows that soon a fourth truck will fall in behind him. He tries to slow down before the fourth truck gets into position but before he can act, the side-mounted Python hydraulic arm from both trucks at each side extends and slides under his Cadillac. The rate at how the entire SUV is lifted off the ground is unbelievable. Then he tries to get out, but the door won't open because it's blocked by the truck's hydraulic arm. Then he saw that the first truck had now slowed down to receive his SUV. He knows what will happen next. The trucks will come to an intersection, once they have his SUV directly above the container and they will turn away at the last moment effectively dropping the SUV into the container. From there they will crush the entire container and SUV all at once. As he predicted the trucks pull away at the corner of Leggett and Bruckner Blvd and the SUV does exactly what he thought it would. He's not surprised but what really scares the crap out of him is that once the car comes to rest inside the container and he can focus, he looks through the front windshield and sees Jack Coonan standing not five feet from the front hood.

"Simmons this will be painless, I promise."

Coonan raises his arm and in his hand, he has a silenced Glock 29 10mm automatic. Before Simmons can even try to avoid the inevitable three rounds shatter the windshield. The first one hits Vulcan in the shoulder, the second is a direct hit to his chest but the third is right between the eyes so he never saw it coming.

Bracken's phone rings just as they're about to touch down at the private airstrip right outside of D.C. He is quick to answer because he hopes it's the news and he's been waiting for ever since he left New York.

Once the call connects Bracken hears a simple phrase.

"It's done."

"Any issues?" Bracken asks.

"None." The voice responds.

The balance of your payment will be placed in your Cayman account by close of business tomorrow."

"Aye."

Then the phone line goes dead. Bracken taps his phone on the table in front of him as the plane taxies to where a limo waits to pick him up. While he waits he needs to set his next clean-up plan into motion.

It came as no surprise to Roy that Simmons was dead. It was ironic that his body ended up in a cube of steel about the size of a mini fridge in the South Bronx. Identification was done through dental records because there was not much of his body left to identify. All that was left was broken bones and tangled limbs.

This was a sign to him that Bracken was not one to be challenged. And now he needed to move Beckett out of harm's way before he was eliminated himself. He would classify Simmons' death as suspicious and the case would go cold then shuffled away to the cold case files in the archives. No one would really care about a dead drug dealer. It would most likely be the last cover-up that he would participate in.

When he opened his eyes he instantly closed them. The intensity of the overhead light was way too harsh. The second he moved his right arm to block the light overhead, he regretted it. The pain was unbearable. Instead, he picked up his left arm and tapped the sleeping form next to him. Maybe she could get a nurse to dim the lights and then explain to him what the hell had happened.

Kate woke with a start. She had been sitting in this uncomfortable hospital chair next to Rick's bed for the past eight hours. The surgery to repair his shoulder went off without a hitch. The biggest thing the doctors were concerned with was an infection. But the nurse had changed his bandages every four hours so there was no threat of him developing any infection. She felt his hand touch her shoulder.

"Castle?"

Without opening his eyes he said the following,

"Beckett under the circumstances I think that you can call me Rick from now on. It looks like you have been there for a week. Are you alright?"

"Rick, I'm fine. The question I have is how do you feel?"

"My shoulder is killing me. What happened?"

"Well, Mr. Writer" Kate pauses knowing that she just pushed one of his buttons. At least he had the decency to look a little ashamed. "It seems that you are not such a good listener when you are given a direct order."

"Yeah about that…"

"Oh no you don't Castle. You're not going to weasel your way out of this one. You were told not to leave my car, but instead of following my order, you show up at an active crime scene with a Kevlar vest that is ten times better than what we as cops are issued. Then you go and get yourself shot. If it wasn't for your vest deflecting the bullet that hit you, you would have died right at the scene. Forensics determined that the round that hit you was deflected towards your shoulder due to the angle of the bullet's trajectory and not the other way towards your neck. You are very lucky Rick. You could have died yesterday."

Two months later…

Knowing that you would welcome a swift ending to your pain and suffering from a disease that is ravaging your body you sometimes hope that it would happen. His doctor had just given him less than three months to live. He had thought about taking his own life by eating his service weapon but self-perseverance had won out...

TBC