The Professional

AvalonReeseFanFics

A/N: And hello my wonderful readers! So here's the next update, as you can see there's a trigger warning. It's not horribly graphic, but i do describe in detail what's done to her, so if that's going to trigger you skip to the next part. We're almost done with this wild ride, are you ready?! I'm ready! Let me know what you think will happen next! See you guys next week!

Chapter 19

*Trigger Warning – somewhat graphic description of physical assault*

Rowan wasn't sure what she thought her execution would be like, but she had figured it would be quick.

This had not been quick.

No, Victor was clear that he wanted this to be long, and painful. He wanted her to suffer.

Which wasn't fair, because his kids didn't suffer.

And the whole family had been making her suffer for years.

Wasn't that enough?

No.

No it wasn't.

The only thing that kind of made it better was the look on Malcolm's face when he realized he had been double crossed. She almost wanted to shout I told you so at him except it wouldn't have done any good. She wasn't sure she could even hear her now.

He hadn't gotten Trevor back. He shoved Rowan into Victor's henchmen's arms, demanded Trevor and had gotten shot for his troubles.

Rowan had tried to tell him that there was no way he'd just let the other witness go, even if Malcolm promised to disappear with him so he couldn't testify. But he hadn't listened.

He hadn't listened and he had gotten shot.

Actually the fact that he had gotten shot was the only reason she wasn't feeling more smug about being right. That and the fact that she was in a lot of pain.

After Malcolm was down, Rowan was taken into another room. A room he had designed just for this moment.

Victor had gotten started right away.

He started by breaking her leg.

Then all the bones in one arm.

Starting with the fingers and moving up.

Then it was the electric shocks.

Then it was the water boarding.

Then it was the hitting.

Over and over and over.

She could barely see now.

She could barely move, everything in her hurt. There wasn't a single spot on her body that hadn't been in pain.

Her eyes were almost swollen shut, she could barely see out of her right, she couldn't see out of her left at all. Somehow her leg was both numb and throbbing, her arm was nothing but one big pressure point of pain. She couldn't really breathe well which meant something was wrong with her ribs, she'd guess that some of them were broken, or she had internal bleeding.

Not that it really mattered.

Sooner or later Victor Stepanov was going to put her out of this misery. Just at that moment Victor was still enjoying hearing her scream in pain.

She had tried to be stoic. She had tried to keep the cries at bay, but it hurt. All of it hurt.

A lot.

Rowan had blacked out a few times from the pain, but he kept waking her up. At first by throwing ice cold water on her, then it was shoving her head in it again so that the burn slid down her throat and climbed up her nose.

It also made it harder for her to breathe.

And that was how he woke her up that time. She ripped her head out of that bucked, coughed and sputtered, barely aware that he was cutting her hands and feet free.

When the ropes were gone, he grabbed her by her hair and then dragged her out of the room she had been in and threw her to the ground in front of her brother.

Trevor had been alone in the main room, crying.

He couldn't help it.

He had been forced to sit there and listen to his sister scream, knowing that they were hurting her over and over and it was his fault. He had tried to get them to stop but once that door had shut no one had come out, so he just sat there, tied to his chair, crying and screaming for his sister and her screams got louder and worse and just… god it was awful.

He wanted to be upset, he wanted to try and blame everyone else. Malcolm for bringing her here, Victor for not realizing that his sister shouldn't be at fault for killing his kids… who were trying to kill them first. It was self defence, but he didn't care about that and Trevor couldn't blame him for wanting vengeance for his only children who died way too young.

No, this was Trevor's fault.

He was the one that created that new YouTube channel after Steve shut down the last one. He was the one who posted another video of Rowan jumping from one balcony to another in their hotel in Toronto. He was the one who wanted date night with Malcolm, and had his sister cover for them to sneak out.

He was the one who got caught.

Again.

He had hoped, when they told him what the plan was, that Malcolm wouldn't, under any circumstances, turn his sister over for him, but he had.

He had been so angry when they had shown up in the warehouse. How had Malcolm not known that Victor Stepanov had no intention of following through on the promise of letting him and Malcolm go. Honestly at this point it was clear that Malcolm just wanted to kill his sister.

And now all of them were going to die.

He kept watching Malcolm, he had been lying in a pool of his own blood for a couple hours now. At first he was breathing normally, or normally for someone who had gotten shot in the chest. His chest had heaved, he had groaned, he had coughed, but that had slowly all stopped. Trevor wasn't even certain if the man was still breathing or if he had succumbed to the gunshot.

And Trevor cared. Of course he cared, he had loved Malcolm more than anyone else he ever had before. If it were for Rowan's agonizing screams, he might have cared a little more that the man who held his heart had likely died beside him.

But he loved his sister more. The girl who understood him, stood by him, had cleaned up all his messes, and rode to his rescue multiple times since this had started the way he should have done for her as the big brother. Now she had clearly come here, knowing Malcolm was going to hand her over to die, and had come anyway. Like she owed it to him to die in his place.

He had never showed her even a speck of loyalty close to this in all his life and that was just… pathetic.

She was now in a pile at his feet, her arm in an awkward position, her leg in an even worse one. She was wet, she was covered in these small burns, and the start of what would be bruises if they lived long enough, at that moment it was just red angry puffy swelling that had taken over her face and was darkening down until he couldn't see past her shirt.

"You're an asshole!" Trevor spat out. "And you're going to hell! You know that? Straight to hell… just like your kids!"

It was a low blow. Of course it was a low blow. But Trevor didn't care. Even if it got him hit. Which it did. He got a half-hearted cuff across his head but Victor hadn't really been paying attention to him.

It was Rowan he really wanted.

Rowan who ran Roman off the road. Rowan who stabbed Irina. Rowan who had collected all the evidence to hand over to the cops to fracture his empire.

Trevor had just been the one who owed them the money.

He did brand him though.

Yeah, hot cattle prod branded, on his forearm. He'd have to wear sleeves for the rest of his life.

The first day he got there, to remind him, he had told Trevor. To remind him that no matter where he went, if he managed to get away, he would always belong to the Stepanovs.

Victor walked away, Trevor didn't know where he was going or what he was doing just that it couldn't mean good things.

"Ro, Ro," he whispered trying to scoot his chair closer. "Ro…"

There was no point asking if she was okay, because she clearly wasn't. Ro was always the one with the plan, but it was pretty clear that she was in no position come up with any sort of plan, let alone execute it.

Also, he didn't have that double jointed thing, so he couldn't slip ropes like Rowan could.

She didn't say anything to him, but she did manage to roll herself off of her front and onto her back so Trevor could see that she really had been beaten badly.

Oh god.

They really were going to die here.

Victor came back, a gun in his hand.

"No, wait… don't…"

"Don't?" he echoed standing over Rowan, the gun in his hand not aimed at anything in particular. "And what do you think I should do instead? To the people who ruined my life, who stole my family…"

"I mean… you guys could have just let us go," Trevor said. "None of this would have happened if you had just let her break the engagement…"

"When you make a commitment…"

"He cheated on her. He beat her. He killed a guard in front of her because she talked back," Trevor cried. "She had no intention of giving you guys up until you tried to force her to marry him!"

It was true.

It was the thing that the siblings had never told anyone.

That they hadn't collected the information to give to the cops. Rowan had gathered all of that evidence as insurance. So she and Trevor could walk away.

She only went through with her bluff when the two male Stepanovs refused to accept that she was breaking things off with Roman.

"The past changes nothing," Victor snapped. "It's time you two paid for all the destruction you caused."

He stooped down, grabbed Rowan by the hair and dragged her up. He had the gun flush to her temple and he realized that Victor was going to make him watch as he killed his sister.

A soft noise came out of Rowan, a painful utterance: "Wait."

Victor paused. "What? Want to beg little suka?"

"I want a last request," she said carefully. "I want to call home. I want to say good-bye."

Victor didn't have to give them that, but he shrugged, let her go and handed her the phone.

If he was trying to be spiteful, he'd shoot her while she was on the phone with their parents. And Victor was that kind of spiteful.

Rowan took the phone from him, she had to really focus but she ended up dialing the number and then she put the phone to her ear.

And somewhere in the silence of the warehouse, a phone started to ring.

H5O-H5O-H5O-H5O

Rowan was going to die and her last dying wish had been to call him?

Oh be still his wildly breaking heart.

Steve hadn't been there very long. The place was surrounded, he had Toronto SWAT with him, they were all ready to move in.

Steve wanted eyes on Rowan. He wanted to make sure she was alright, but when he got into that building, when he finally got eyes on her, he was not okay with what he found.

It looked like they had beaten her within an inch of her life.

They were waiting for the right time to move. Good thing he had Danny and Catherine with him, because he also burst out of his hiding place in the shadows of the boxes that filled up that warehouse, to get to her.

He watched as Victor grabbed her, he hissed to the team to be ready, because if Victor tried to shoot Rowan he was going to shoot him where he stood. But then she spoke.

To be honest, he was surprised she was even conscious, surprised she could talk through the swelling around her face, but he paused, paused to let her make a phone call.

And then his phone rang.

It gave away his position, but you know what? He didn't fucking care.

The second his phone rang, Victor turned to the sound and Steve shouted for the team to move.

"Victor Stepanov, TPD! Hands up!"

But Victor didn't want to surrender, so he started shooting, first at Steve and then he turned back to Rowan.

Rowan, who's one leg seemed to be broken, had been ready for this though. She kicked him with her good leg, right in the shin knocking him down. She then kicked him right in the face.

Steve was already moving, despite the few men Stepanov had in that building shooting in his direction, he was going to get to Rowan before she got any more hurt if it was the last thing he did.

He got to Victor, just as he was getting ready to aim the gun at her again. Steve kicked it right out of his hand.

When Victor turned to face him, he punched him, right in his stupid smug face.

Victor lashed out catching Steve's leg, Steve went down too, and Victor practically jumped on top of him, trying to wrestle him for the gun.

The two grappled, he heard Danny and Catherine shouting for him, but he didn't know where they were or if they were available to help him. Not that he should need help, close quarter combat was his specialty.

He managed to shove Victor off and away from him but the act of shoving Victor away put him in prime position to arm himself again.

Victor picked up the gun that Steve had lost in the scuffle, the two of them both had managed to get to their feet, Steve had been trying to surge forward. Hoping to get the upper hand but Victor had a gun.

"So you're the Hawaiian cop she took up with," he snarled. "What did you think? That you'd come in and save her at the end? Like a white knight?"

Yes that was exactly what he thought.

But the fact that Victor had his attention on him and not Rowan meant that his plan was mostly working.

"Working so far," he said.

Victor just laughed at him.

"If I'm going down I'm taking someone with me," he growled.

Steve set himself, readying himself for what was going to be a lot of pain depending on where that bullet hit him. If Victor was aiming for his head, which would be the smart option seeing as he was wearing Kevlar, he might not feel a thing.

There was a bang. Loud, like it was right before him, but a bullet didn't hit him. Instead Victor dropped to the ground.

There, behind Victor, half in Trevor's lap was Rowan, Victor's lost gun in her hand. She had rested her one good arm on Trevor's leg, no doubt as a level and just fired. He wasn't sure how she could see, and it wasn't until Trevor said: "You got him!" did he realize that she couldn't really see, that Trevor had directed her.

She really had single handedly taken down the whole Stepanov family.

How she was conscious was beyond him, but just thinking that seemed to be her downfall. The gun clattered out of her hand, and she collapsed back against Trevor's legs before sliding down and hitting the floor.

Steve was rushing to her side.

"Ro, Ro!" he cried rushing to her side. He pulled her up into his lap, hating how bad this all looked, how much pain she seemed to be in. The act of picking her up made her groan, like she was caging a cry between her teeth. Like his touch was agony. "Oh god, Ro, it's okay, it's okay now, I've got you."

She was shaking in his grip, her eyes couldn't stay open but he didn't know if that was because they were swelling shut as the bruises came in.

"I… I'm sorry…"

"It's okay, it is…"

"He gave me… he made… I needed to…"

He understood, Malcolm must have slipped her something to slip him. She had done it so she could leave and not have things be suspicious in Steve's eyes. He wished she had told him what was going on, he wished she had asked him for help, because he would have. They would have figured out something other then this.

"Its okay, I get it," he whispered, cradling her close to him. "It's gonna be okay, you're gonna be okay…"

"Everything hurts," she groaned, a tear escaping that bloodied eye of hers and he almost cried with her. God how he wished he could take this pain away from her. "I think I'm…"

"You're not, you're going to be okay…"

But she was fading fast, and honestly he had no idea what sort of internal damage had been done to her. The outside looked horrible, he wouldn't be surprised if there was internal damage too.

"I really did… I wanted to be the one to stay, I did," she told him. And he believe her.

"You still can be."

She nestled into his shoulder, and he instinctively held her a bit tighter. "I want you… to be happy…"

"I am happy…"

"With Catherine."

Steve froze. "What?"

"She's your forever girl…. I can tell… she always comes back… no matter where life takes you two… you find your way back to… to… each other."

Yes. But…. That was Rowan too. No matter where life had taken them since they had met he found a way back to her, or her to him.

And, probably the most important part here, he didn't want Catherine. He wanted Rowan. He didn't do all of this because he had feelings for Catherine, didn't she know that?

"No, no, I'm going to be happy with you, do you hear me, you!"

"I wish… I wish I could stay…"

"You're going to be fine," he said again, but he didn't know how true that was, especially when she went limp in his arms seconds later.