It was chaos when he walked in there that morning. Lim should have known better than to just pretend that everything was fine. He knew the department had no clue which hole Ilnyckyj was hiding in, but given the evidence in front of them, they really should have come to him first. Well, okay, not really.

He couldn't help but watch in carefully schooled nonchalance from his desk as his section of the station practically fell apart more than flames licking the ass of a local speakeasy thanks to some bum's cigarette, people in suits and ties running around the place like their heads had been cut off, screaming orders that drowned eachother out.

"Got a big hit on the weekend, don't want you involved in it." He could almost smell the heavy mix of cologne, moonshine and smoke that tracked down his side only a few days ago, his back protesting as he sat, lounging in the back of a dark lantern bar as people, faces he'd seen on the 'Wanted' wall when entering the station every day just milling around without batting an eye towards either of them. "Why not? You used to like me busting your ass wide open."

"You know damn well why." A rather cold hand, most likely having brandished a gun earlier in the day, slid its way under his shirt easily to stoke long, gunpowder stained nails around the bottom of the huge bump that he could barely squeeze into his three piece suit these days.

He honestly didn't know how he'd hidden it away for the last 7 months from his colleagues, just as he'd managed to hide away his rendezvouses with the most notorious crime boss on the fucking West Coast, Andrew 'Iceman' Ilnyckyj.

Dubbed 'Iceman' by none other than the LA newspapers, people had described Ilnyckyj as soulless, homicidal, dangerous with what could only be described as a reign of terror over everyone he encountered, an iron fist in a well of culture and opportunity that took what he and his associates pleased.

It had been rumoured that he had once killed a man for not paying him out the correct amount of money while gambling in Vegas. It was also said that he had killed a man who hadn't paid his debts to his branch of the mob and then gotten his second in command to slaughter the rest of the family and hang them from their stair rail in succession only to be discovered by the neighbour the next morning. Another said he beheaded another associate who snitched on him and others through the police and dumped him in the San Gabriel River.

It was actually that last case that he had first heard about Ilnyckyj and of course, the Polish arm of the mob. He had been hooked after the rest and had, at first, been determined to catch Ilnyckyj, just like the rest of the district.

Pretty much every detective in the state had eyes looking for him and bets on when they would handcuff him, but none so far had lived up to the bragging and thinly veiled arrogance they had portrayed so early in their investigations.

When the case had been passed down, most likely as a joke knowing his supervisors, to Steven, it had been a laughing stock. Even his reporter friends at the newspaper and radio laughed in chorus along with his colleagues at the station. There was no possible way that Steven Lim, a rookie out of all people on the force, would be able to find a man like Ilnyckyj.

Oh, how wrong they had been and Steven? Well, it wasn't like it was complicated.

Steven's parents, in their younger years before fleeing to middle America via boat and suffering in the water and sewage for weeks, had been part of a Triad. Triads, in ways, were similar to the all classy mobs of the time. Similar structures, similar killing methods.

The stories from his parents, littered in both him and his brother Alvin's mind, helped him pick up the pieces of where all the other detectives left off, revisiting crime scenes, getting tips off the reporters that had been in the area first before the evidence was cleared away.

He knew he was rustling some feathers eventually when on his morning commute to work from his downtown apartment on the bus, several black cars followed his every move.

Then, it happened. He had just left work for the night and had stopped to smoke a cigar when he was nabbed from behind, a chloroform doused rag hitting his nose and silencing him to sleep almost instantly.

When he awoke again, he was in an empty restaurant, a well known little place in the upper end of town that usually was populated on a Friday night. Only this Friday night, it was empty, completely barren except for the tall figures guarding the door and the others littering the place with jerry guns and speaking in a hushed language that was not English.

He struggled in his chair for a bit, realizing he was tied down by what seemed to be shipyard rope, before someone cleared their throat to the left of him. Turning his neck, he was greeted with the sight of a man around his own age, his dark suit and fedora contrasting with his blonde hair and holding a wine glass and swirling the bright blood shaded contents within it.

"I apologise for the informality of our meeting, Detective, but I just wanted to see who was finally brazen enough to start pulling on strings that shouldn't be cut." He spoke in English with an American accent surprisingly, but you could tell with the way he pronounced his vowels that it wasn't his first language.

"Yeah, well, people like a challenge, I just happen to be one of them. Your boss put you up to this I'm sure. I wasn't surprised to see people following me." Steven eyed the man up and down, grimacing. "If you got me here just to kill me on his dime, you might as well just do it."

"Chrystus, of course not, Detective." The man chuckled, shaking his head as he took off the fedora and placed it on the white tablecloth casually, like they were just meeting for dinner and he was removing his coat and hat to be polite. Weird. "I'm actually impressed. It takes a lot to impress me." He struck up a match, a cigar appearing from the hand of a guard whom Steven hadn't noticed next to the table, the smoke making a faintly white trail up to the ceiling as he resumed speaking.

"No one, as I alluded to before, has managed to figure out their way to my shores, or any of our areas of interest for that matter. You have. I don't know how, given our work is...well, I mostly want to know how you managed it. Call it ciekawość, if you will. Curiosity."

"Yeah, well, I ain't got nothing to say." If there was a time for his ancestors to assist him in any endeavour, given how much his mother spruced about their powers to him and his brother, this would most likely be it. Let the ancient spirits just clap Mr. Shifty Nicks over there over the head like a cop's club to the stomach of a San Quentin robber and end this so he can just wiggle out of this rope and go home. "Tell your boss to go screw himself, if he needs something from you. I'm sure he'd love to hear that."

"Oh, fiery, detektyw." The man's voice took on a condescending tone, but outside he was smiling, eyes alight. "I think you misunderstand me. I /am/ the boss."

Steven was honestly confused, but it was like a spring shower had suddenly cleared out his system for his stomach twisted like the knots holding him at the realization. "Ilnyckyj."

"Oh please." Ilnyckyj waved the now fading cigar in his direction. "Call me Andrew, we don't need to be so formal, detektyw. You are in our territory after all."

"Not by choice you 波蘭蛇 !" He couldn't help but protest, Chinese coming out in an argumentative rush like when he bickered with his brother over the phone, teeth bared. He almost swore he saw Ilnyckyj's lips curl, eyes wide and expression surprised.

"Ouch, detektyw. I didn't even have to know that was an insult to feel it. You have a lot of power and fire behind that small frame of yours."

"Yeah, well, screw you asshole." That was just their first meeting.

Ilnyckyj, well, Andrew, had made one of his many men, a brute called Adam, untie him and take him home (after a few more insults were traded, mostly on Steven's part) afterwards, but that didn't mean he stopped seeing the guy. In fact, the guy pestered him more than he'd ever been in his whole freaking life and that's saying a lot given his heritage.

It got to the point that he'd heard through the criminal grapevine some of Ilnyckyj's men were getting quite pissed off that their boss was following after some shoehorn cop that wasn't either on his payroll or owed him a favour or worse, money.

So, naturally, when Ilnyckyj turned up again just as Steven left a westside LA bar, he rolled his eyes, his half tipsy brain just making him stare wildly at the tall shadow in the alleyway that smelled all too familiar to Steven's nose. "Ilnyckyj, are you serious right now?"

"Detektyw, you know how I'm going to answer that."

"Well, I'm pretty sure your men want me hanged. Heard through the chain of command that they think you're going soft. They think you might just turn yourself in."

"I already took care of that." Ilnyckyj wore a shirt strained in blood and it made Steven pale a little, but not entirely. "They were questioning my leadership. Painting me out to another part of our operation like a lovesick fool. Their boss was not wanting to compromise, so I had to."

"Well that's just fucking-" Wait. "...a lovesick fool? You?" Steven had to laugh. "Why in hell would any gangsta, mob boss or not, think you of all people in California as "in love"?"

When Andrew didn't comment, just watched him with suddenly panicked eyes, he knew. He didn't really remember much after that. Too much noise and colour for his liking.

Now, here they were.

10 months after that initial first meeting and only 7 months since that night in the alleyway that ended in Ilnyckyj's penthouse (he owned a fucking /nice/ penthouse too, unsurprisingly) and also ended with him sitting quite uncomfortably at his desk with an arm cradling his hidden away cargo, watching as the black and white TV in the office flickered with noise.

He paid little attention to people like Kelsey and Eric whizzing past him while someone most likely from their place, Brent or Shane or something, was reporting on a bank that had been robbed in the last hour and blown sky-high, several guards having been killed in the process.

Despite the mood in the office, in the middle of it all, Steven just smirked.

He knew what had happened and he knew where it was going. Only so much of that money was needed for Andrew's operation. The rest? Well, let's just say some Asian orphanages were going to get some rather large donations funnelling out over the next few weeks. Endorsed of course. What's a little stirring the pot?

Speaking of stirring the pot, he saw the station's call manager waving him over and he struggled from his seat (or tried not to look like it) to take the call, grabbing the handed out phone she offered him and put it to his ear. "Hey, did you get the score for me?"

"Of course, moja miłość, we got a lot more than we thought we would. Was a good tip."

"Yes!" Steven pretended to be jubilant, mouthing 'football' to the woman who looked slightly distressed in front of him. "That's great. Look, a bank just got robbed, so I have to go."

"Sounds serious." He could almost hear the laughter in Andrew's tone, could picture him holding a cigarette in his other hand, legs crossed in turn. "I'll see you at home, Detektyw."

"See you at home, you 蛇." He grinned back, shaking his head before hanging up.

Maybe he might just sneak off while they were sorting out this mess.

Home sounded really good right now.