A/N: The stress of it all may be getting to Horatio just a tiny bit in this chapter. Hope you like it. As always, please read and review!
The concerted effort of almost every officer on the force soon brought its reward. The Fuentes brothers were tracked down and arrested, and were soon on their way back to CSI. Luckily for Jorge and Jose Fuentes, Horatio had not been in the arresting party, but had stayed at the lab to run a few more tests. SWAT had been called in, and Jose had been foolish enough to fight back, and so would be booked and then taken to hospital for treating his dislocated shoulder.
As Jorge watched his brother being taken away, he refused to allow any nervousness in. No cop had ever scared him, and no cop ever would, of that he was sure. He was walked through to an interview room by Tripp and Eric, and Jorge fought the urge to laugh at the grim expressions on their faces. They were trying to scare him, but it wouldn't work. They paused for a moment outside the interview room as a redheaded cop came up to them. Jorge curled his lip in contempt for the whole process, although he was perplexed by Tripp's response to the newest arrival. The big detective tightened his grip on Jorge's arm, while the other man went to stand in front of the criminal, as though Jorge needed protection. From a cop? It nearly made him laugh.
"Is this the shooter?" The redhead had a soft, quiet voice, but the authority in it got through to Jorge and he looked at the redhead with renewed interest.
Tripp shrugged his shoulders. "We're not sure. It could be him or his brother."
"It was me." Jorge didn't care about jail, but he did care about getting the credit for being a cop-killer.
The redhead stepped in very close, but his voice was still deadly calm. "I suggest that the next time you want to hurt Francesca Nelson, you go through me first. Is that clear?"
Jorge looked the redhead up and down contemptuously. He was a little taller than Jorge, but not as broad and about fifteen years older. Nothing to worry about there then. "She had it coming," he sneered.
Before he could blink, he was torn from the grip of the big detective, and thrust up against the wall by the redhead, his hands gripping the jacket Jorge was wearing. It was only when the Latino tried to move that he realised he was being held about six inches off the ground without any apparent effort. Jorge took one look into the blue eyes that were so near his own, and was struck dumb with sudden terror. The redhead had the coldest eyes he had ever seen: not the heated anger of the bar-room brawler, but the deadly cold of the hardened killer. Jorge stared into his captor's eyes, and it was like looking into an open grave.
"H." Eric spoke softly, not wanting to alert any more people about this. Enough heads were already sticking out of doors, watching the tableau.
"Is that clear?" The redhead, H, never took his eyes from Jorge's.
"Come on, man, let him go." The big detective who had arrested him sounded almost as scared as Jorge felt.
"I said, is that clear?"
Jorge found his voice. "Yes, sir, very clear sir!" The redhead let him go so suddenly that Jorge fell to the ground.
"Get him out of my sight, Frank." Jorge very willingly went wherever they wanted to take him, just as long as that man was nowhere near him ever again. He had never been so frightened in his life.
Horatio walked off, anger and adrenaline still bubbling within him. Eric looked around, at the lab techs that had watched the scene with trepidation and exhaled deeply. He had thought H was about to kill the man. "This didn't happen," he said clearly and everyone suddenly remembered that they had work to do, disappearing back into their labs. Eric hoped they had got the message.
