AN: Thanks to all who are continuing to read this story. Everyone's encouragement has been very nice.

Fair warning, there is some adult language in this chapter, but only a few words and only where needed.

Continued thanks to my betas who keep me going. :)

Dominic walked through JFK International Airport looking for his soon to be brother-in-law. He couldn't quite believe he was in New York, but here he was anyway. He hadn't been able to sleep much after his disastrous conversation with Kaile and somewhere in the middle of the night he had decided to do what his dad had taught him, to go with his instincts. That advice had served him pretty well in the past and now his instincts were telling him to come to New York and talk to Kaile where she couldn't hang up on him or walk away.

Fortunately he'd had the day off or this wouldn't have been half as easy. His coach wasn't thrilled with him traveling to New York on their off day when he would have to be in Texas the next day, but he knew Dominic wouldn't do it if he didn't feel that it was absolutely necessary. And as far as Dominic was concerned, this was absolutely necessary. If he didn't get this thing with Kaile resolved at least a little bit, he wouldn't be able to concentrate on his job and that wasn't good for anyone.

So, he had gotten a morning flight and while he was in the air he called Jack to ask him to pick him up at the airport. Calling a family member (or almost-family member in this case) seemed like the easiest way to get in without too much attention from fans. He'd already gotten looks on the plane, but it was amazing what wearing a suit and putting on a pair of sunglasses could do for you. He was a veritable Clark Kent.

Finally spotting Jack, he headed over to the taller man. "Thanks for coming."

Jack shook Dom's hand. "You do know the only reason I'm here and that Ana doesn't know yet is because she's out on a case, right?"

Dominic grimaced. "I did try to call her first." And he had. He and Ana were close and she would have helped him for the day before telling the family he had come to town, but she would have questioned him the entire ride into the city. Ella wouldn't have pried, but her silences tended to make people talk anyway. His sisters managed to achieve the same goal in completely different ways.

The two men started heading towards the exit. "I'm honestly not trying to keep my visit a secret, I know that's pretty much impossible, but I would like to not be hassled and just do what I came here to do."

"And what exactly would that be?" Jack asked casually.

"Talk to Kaile," Dominic said simply as they strolled towards temporary parking. "And she's not getting away until we've talked, even if I have to handcuff her to a chair."

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Kaile twisted her wrists around inside the handcuffs binding her to the floor-to-ceiling pipe behind her. "Why didn't you shoot her?" she muttered to the only other person in the room.

"Because the chances of me hitting her and not shooting you in the head were infinitesimal at best," Scagnetti replied, not even trying to mess with the handcuffs that similarly bound him. "You should really stop messing with the cuffs, Kaile. The drugs she put in you are probably keeping you from feeling the pain, but you've likely already broken skin and started bleeding and if you do too much more of that you'll bleed to death before anyone can figure out something is wrong and find us here."

Kaile blew out a frustrated sigh but stopped wiggling for the moment since he had a point. It was just that fiddling with the handcuffs gave her something to do which kept her focused and less likely to fall back into the drug-induced haze she had been in. "You still should have taken the shot. Now we're here, defenseless without any hope of backup, and Jim could be anywhere."

There was an acronym Devon had picked up in the military that fit their current situation perfectly: FUBAR. All they had been planning on doing was talking to Jim Munson, but everything had gone to hell in a hand basket pretty quickly. Kaile and Scagnetti had only been in Jim's apartment for ten or fifteen minutes when there was a knock at the door. They hadn't even gotten very far in their interview since Jim had to take the time to type everything out onto his PDA so that they could read it since Sinclair wasn't around, Kaile's signing skills were not up to what was required of the situation, and Jim didn't want to use his own voice and risk any misunderstandings.

Surprising them all, Jim's visitor was the receptionist from the deaf community center, Charity Connors. Jim had tried to tell her it wasn't a good time, but she had managed to slip inside while they signed to one another. Kaile had come over to insist that she leave and that was when the world turned upside down. This unassuming woman had pulled out a knife and was holding Kaile hostage before anyone could blink. She held it so close Kaile had had to try not to swallow to keep it from breaking skin, not an easy thing to do when adrenaline starts pumping through your system.

A split second later Scagnetti had his weapon out and pointing at the woman who was doing a good job of using Kaile as a shield. Believing that her hostage taker was deaf, Kaile had started talking to Scagnetti, telling him they could coordinate an attack where Kaile would drop out of his way so he could take the woman out. That was when they got their next surprise. Apparently the woman wasn't actually deaf, she had just been pretending to be all these years to get closer to Jim. So, needless to say, she didn't take kindly to Kaile's plans. Eventually Scagnetti had given up his weapon and then out of nowhere the Connors woman produced a syringe of some kind of drug that knocked Kaile out almost immediately. Upon waking Scagnetti had informed her that at gunpoint (using Kaile's weapon in addition to Scagnetti's) the woman had forced him to carry Kaile out of the apartment with Jim following and now here they were, the detectives restrained with their own handcuffs and the innocent baseball player off being forced to do who knew what and nobody else knowing that anything was wrong. Scagnetti didn't even have a clue where they were because Connors had ordered Munson to blindfold the detective during the car ride.

Kaile put her head back against the pole and closed her eyes. With a sardonic twist of her lips she spoke to her fellow prisoner. "You know, if I had to be handcuffed in a room with a guy, I have to say, you're not my first choice, Scags."

He snorted derisively. "You're not exactly my favorite person in the world either."

She opened her eyes. She wasn't surprised at his statement, but the comment made her bristle just the same. Maybe it was because she couldn't do anything about her current predicament. Or maybe she just wanted to spar with him to keep herself awake. "I think I've got a bit more reason to dislike you than you do me."

"You came close to denying me the ability to ever have children," he reminded her.

"And you don't think you deserved that?" she asked incredulously. This was probably the worst place to have this particular discussion, but what the hell, maybe they needed to have it out. "You fucking arrested my dad, you bastard, and you thought I would be okay with that?"

Scagnetti's eyes flashed and he sat up a little straighter. "I didn't arrest your father, Kaile Flack, and you know that."

"He was in handcuffs!" she yelled. "What in the hell do you call that?"

"Saving him from himself!" Scagnetti yelled back. "Or would you rather he have gone to prison for the rest of his life?"

"No jury would have convicted him," Kaile shot back angrily. "And that was if he even got to that point."

"And what would that have done to your family?" he reasoned. "Your Uncle Mac is as straight-laced as they come. What would it have done to him to have to choose between the law and your dad? And what would it have done to your aunt and uncles? Having to choose between betraying the integrity of the lab and the Medical Examiner's office and their friend so he could exact some vigilante justice?"

"They deserved to die!" she yelled back, tears springing to her eyes. She cursed the weakness and her inability to wipe them away.

Scagnetti's face softened just a touch, but his tone was still harsh. "I've never denied that. The guys that killed your mother deserve to rot in hell for all eternity. But if I had let your dad do what he was going to do that night, it not only would have destroyed your family, it would have destroyed him. As much as Don Flack has wanted to mete out street justice on scum over the years like any sane, human cop would have the urge to do once in awhile, he wouldn't be able to live with himself if he killed in cold blood." He paused as Kaile turned away, unable to look at him any longer and vainly trying to hide her tears. "You already didn't have a mom, Kaile. I couldn't let you become an orphan."

Kaile drew up her knees and laid her cheek on them. She felt like she was fifteen again, pacing the apartment wondering where her dad was, staring out the window and finally seeing a police cruiser pull up. Seeing Scagnetti get out, she had initially been scared to death that he was coming to tell her horrible news, though a part of her brain knew that if that were true then someone from the family would have come. But then Scagnetti walked to the back of his squad car, opened the door, and helped out her father who had his wrists in handcuffs behind him. She had raced downstairs faster than anyone would have thought possible and upon coming outside had launched herself at Scagnetti, not even caring that he had just finished letting her father out of the restraints. At that point all she knew was that he had handcuffed and possibly arrested her father, but that was enough for her. He had grabbed her arms to keep her from punching him any further and her father had begun to pull her away when Kaile had given Scagnetti a swift kick that he still remembered.

It was only the next day when he had sobered up that Don Flack had told his daughter the basics of what had happened. He might not have except that he had promised his daughter the day that she was born that he would never hold back anything from her when it came to her mother. So, he told her that he had found out about a guy who knew where to find the men who had shot and killed Kaile Maka fifteen years before. A completely inebriated Don had just finished shaking down the punk and had gotten the desired information when Scagnetti happened upon him on his usual route as a street cop. He got the gist of the situation and tried to reason with Don telling him they should call it in and let it be handled the right way. But by that time Don Flack was past the point of caring about the right way. When he tried to head down the street anyway, Scagnetti had reached to stop him, Flack had forcibly reacted, and a scuffle ensued with the end result being Flack in handcuffs.

When she was being brutally honest with herself Kaile knew that Scagnetti had been right that night. But in the absence of being able to personally exact justice on the murderers and ease her father's pain, she had instead taken her anger and pain out on Scagnetti for nearly two decades. "You don't know that he would have killed them," she said softly, brokenly.

"If he hadn't, they would have claimed police brutality and gotten a lesser sentence or maybe even gotten off. That would have been worse." By this time Scagnetti's voice had lost all of its anger and was more resigned than anything. "Look, I don't want you to think that I'm whining because the whole thing was obviously worse for you and your dad than it ever was for me, but it wasn't easy for me either, Kaile." She looked up and was mentally rocked by the pain in his eyes. "I've known your family my entire life. My dad even talked about a time your dad saved his ass during a shootout. I was only a kid, but I remember your mom's funeral. That night I wanted nothing more than to go with your dad and help him wipe that scum off the face of the earth. But I did what I thought I had to do to best help you all and I stand by my decision. I'm sorry that the justice system didn't give them the death penalty, but they should both die in prison. It sucks and your mom deserved more, but that's the way it has to be."

Kaile put her forehead against her knees. She debated about what to say next and finally decided that maybe finally letting it out would at long last allow her to move on somewhat. "You want to know something?" she asked, raising her head but looking at the wall over his head without really seeing anything. "For me, it didn't really have a lot to do with my mother." She glanced at Scagnetti and saw the surprise on his face at the admission. "Sure, I wished I had known her and I wanted justice for her death. But I never knew her, so it was always kind of hard to get too worked up about her murder." She blew out a breath. "What ticked me off then and to this day is how those punks hurt my dad. And I'm not just talking about how he was suddenly a single parent. Not catching the murderers ate at him for years, and then almost betraying the badge by killing them hit him hard even if you did stop him. Add to that the embarrassment and shame at knowing you know that about him." She locked eyes with the man who had been her nemesis for almost twenty years. "I hated you because every time my father looked at you he had to remember how you had to take him down and handcuff him to keep him on the right side of the law. You are a living reminder to him of how he failed to bring my mother's murderers to justice."

Scagnetti looked like he had been punched in the gut. "I…I don't know how to fix that."

Kaile shook her head. "I didn't say that to make you feel bad, John." He looked a little stunned that she had actually used his first name. "I just…I wanted you to know what's driven me all these years. Honestly, I think my dad has gotten past most if not all of that. And he's never actually spoken a bad word about you to me. But it's always been essentially just the two of us and just as he's overprotective of me even now, I've always been overprotective of him."

They were both quiet for a few moments and the only sound in the room was the dripping of water off in one of the corners. "Well," Scagnetti finally said, "I guess I can understand that. God knows how I would react if our situations were reversed." Slowly but surely the tension seemed to drain out of the room. "So, does this mean we've come to some kind of détente?"

Kaile rolled her eyes, but one side of her mouth curled up in a half-smile. "I suppose. But don't think this means we're going to be best buds. You're still an annoying son of a bitch, Scags."

Scagnetti grinned. "Hey, what did my mother ever do to you? And besides, I wouldn't know how to handle you being nice to me anyway. Might give me a rash."

And in the place where Kaile least expected it, she finally found a measure of peace in a place of her heart and mind that had been an open wound for her entire adult life. Leaning her head back against the pipe behind her, she tried to contemplate her life without that anger that had always resided just below the surface. Maybe now she could actually be ready to make a relationship with Dominic work because she wouldn't be such a bitter person always looking out for how someone would knock her off the proverbial ladder. But that would have to wait until later. There would be no chance whatsoever for a future with Dominic if she didn't figure a way out of her current situation.