Junior's face looked like a young boy whose best friend had just moved away when he met Chin and Steve in the basement corridor. Chin was behind Steve with his hand hooked over Steve's shoulder as if ushering him out of the room. Junior looked past the pair into the interrogation room to see one of Gabriel's men sitting in the lone chair with a sneer on his face and blood running from his nose. Steve shook his right hand in the air twice before beginning the process of rubbing the ache out of it with the other hand. The door slammed closed behind them as they stopped to speak with Junior.

"What happened in there?" Junior questioned even though he knew full well what had transpired.

"Nothing," Chin answered. "The man clammed up. We just needed to come out here for a little break. Right, Steve?"

"Yeah, right," he quickly dismissed. "So, did you have any luck?"

Junior pursed his lips and gave a quick shake of his head. "My guy's scared. He says he has a family, a wife and twin toddler boys. He's willing to go away for a long time in lieu of putting them in danger. I… I couldn't push him anymore."

Steve breathed in and then exhaled slowly as he considered the stark contrast of behavior from the two detained henchmen. "Okay. Okay. Let me try."

"Steve, I don't know if that's a good idea right now. You should probably take some time…" Chin tried to reason with Steve but was interrupted.

"We don't have time, Chin! Danny and Tani… " The comeback was snapped in irritation, but Chin still heard the worried catch in his voice. Steve looked away and released a long, shaky breath. The day, and now evening, had been long. It seemed like days since he and Danny had been watching the baseball game. He yearned for the casual, laid-back afternoon with his best friend.

If he were given the opportunity, he would have handled everything differently. He wouldn't have let Danny and Tani go off on their own. He would have insisted they wait for support from the rest of the team and knowing what he knew now, he would have gone with them, physical infirmities be damned. Damn you, Gabriel Waincroft. He turned back and sought out Chin's eyes and continued. "I'm okay. I'm good. I can do this. What's his name?"

"James Okala," Junior answered.

Chin's lips narrowed in a forced smile and he nodded his unrequired consent. "We'll go with you."

"Okay."

Junior was curious how his boss intended to get information from the man, that he had failed to do, without his fallback to brute force. He followed Chin who entered after Steve. He and Chin stood against the wall as Steve approached the man in the chair.

"Look, I already told the other one. I don't have any information to share." The man seemed tired and annoyed that he was going to have to go through this rigamarole again.

Steve stood before the man a few seconds before he spoke. "My name is Steve." He purposefully omitted his title and last name to diminish the ostentation they may carry with them. "I'm in charge here." He then removed his phone from his back pocket and gingerly squatted down in front of him to be closer to eye level.

The man noticed the faint wince from the change in position. Steve had aggravated his injuries in the last room, which he now regretted. If the punch to the uncooperative man had delivered any substance, it would have been well worth it.

"James. That's your name, right? James, we need information on a location for Gabriel Waincroft and we think you can supply that."

"Again," he huffed out his frustration, "I can't help you. Are you people obtuse? It's like I told your other guy. You're on your own."

"Officer Reigns has apprised me of your conversation. He told me about your family."

James didn't speak. He just bored a hole into Junior with his eyes as he admonished himself for his lack of restraint. Steve continued, "Look, I respect you for wanting to protect your family. I do. Who I don't respect, though, is your boss." James's head fell, but Steve kept speaking. "I know first-hand what he's capable of…"

"You're the one." James lifted his eyes to meet Steve's for an instant and then looked back down. "You're the one he shot."

"That's right and he's done a hell of a lot worse and you're right to be worried about what he may do, but let me tell you this. We can keep you and your family safe. We have the backing of the state of Hawaii and the governor herself. The whole Honolulu police department is at our disposal. Whatever we need. Gabriel Waincroft may be strong, but we're stronger."

James continued to stare at the floor as he started to shake his head, still not believing or not willing to accept what he was being told. "Not from what I can see."

Steve opened the display on his phone and thumbed through a few screens. "Lemme show you something," he said as he continued to look through the phone. When he found what he was looking for, he forced his phone into James's line of vision. "See this. This is Charlie. He's seven. Cute kid, huh? His daddy works for Five-0. He's my partner, Detective Danny Williams. And see here, this is Danny's daughter." He had thumbed over to a smiling, worry-free picture of Grace. "Those kids are his world and you know what? He's not with us now. You want to know why? Oh, wait. You already know why. He and another one of my team were taken today."

Steve glanced back at Chin and held out his hand while wiggling his fingers. He kept his arm outstretched behind him as he turned back to James. Chin laid another phone in Steve's hand and he opened the text message they had received right before his other interrogation.

He held up the snapshot of Danny and Tani so James could see. James instinctively turned away. "Look." When he didn't obey, Steve lost the cool he had intended to maintain. "Look! Grace and Charlie's daddy is not coming home tonight because of your boss." James tentatively looked at the picture. Steve glanced at it again before he put it up. The image broke his heart all over again to see his ohana restrained and the damage that had been unleashed on Danny. "You have information we need. I know you do." Steve's tone softened again. "And I know you can help us."

"Just give him what he wants… whatever he's asking for," James pleaded. "He'll let your people go."

"First off, you know good and well he's not going to let them go. And secondly, it's impossible to give him what he wants. He wants a little girl, a little girl he remembers as his daughter."

Chin clinched his jaw at Steve's mention of Sara.

"She's not even on the island," Steve continued. "She's got a new family now and is safe and happy. It's just not an option. So, you see our quandary? Can you help us, James? Can you help us bring Detective Williams and Officer Rey home?"

"I feel for them, but his kids are safe. Mine are not. The governor and state of Hawaii can't protect my family."

Steve pushed himself up to standing and handed the phone back to Chin. He couldn't dispute the man's reasoning, but he could try to make him understand the lengths they would go to just to get their family members back safely. "Maybe not, but we're ohana." He gestured his arm in a circle pattern inclusively to Chin and Junior. "…and we're pissed off. Nobody messes with our family and gets away with it. I can personally assure you that we will use all of our resources to protect your family. I give you my solemn promise."

James looked behind Steve and saw the consensus, followed by cold determination, on the faces of Junior and Chin. Then he locked eyes with Steve. He saw something in his opponent's eyes, an unwavering tenacity, an uncompromising resolve. He knew that what this man was speaking was the purest form of truth. "Okay," he murmured quietly, still feeling uneasy about his decision.

"What?" Steve asked.

"Okay," James repeated more resolutely. "I'll tell you what you want."

Steve let out some of his restlessness in a long, exhaled breath.

"You know, I didn't like this from the get-go. I just couldn't let my family go hungry. I felt like I didn't have a choice."

"You, giving us what we need is the right choice, right now." Steve poked the air downward toward the ground to emphasize his point. "I'll get one of my guys to personally accompany a police detail to take your family into protective custody. Your family will remain protected until this is seen through to the end. You have my word. Now… you need to tell me where my people are."

"Steve," Chin spoke up. Steve looked back to see Chin holding the phone out to him again. "It's a text from Gabriel. He wants to set up a trade."

"A trade?" Junior jumped in. "We… we don't have anything to trade."

"Hold on." Steve raised a hand up to Junior to calm him down. "He thinks we do. He thinks Sara was here and never left. We have to use that. Chin, if we accept too readily, he'll get suspicious and we may lose our opportunity. Do you think you can make him believe you'd be willing to give her up?"

"After the little talk we had at the school, I think I can. He's not in his right mind. I think I can appeal to his own contrived, distorted reasoning. I'll make him think I've thought long and hard about what he had to say about Malia's wishes and that a child should be with their parent."

"He won't believe the rest of us feel the same," Steve reasoned.

"I'll tell him I'm going behind your back, that you're totally against this. If he believes it, he may not expect the reception."

Steve handed the phone back to Chin. "Here you go. Sell it."

"Hey!" Okala shouted. "What about our deal?"

"You haven't given us anything yet." Steve let him sit a few seconds and sweat it out. "We'll follow through. I still want your intel, just in case. Your family will have our protection."

~to be continued~

\,,,/BronsonL