A/N1: Thank you to MariaLisa for the beta and thoughtful and insightful comments! Big Hugs!

A/N2: Thank you to all the readers and reviewers. The feedback is truly wonderful. If I didn't respond to everyone who reviewed I apologize and I continue to curse the dysfunction of the alert system!!!

Rated: M for language again. Those bad guys just love to talk dirty!

DISCLAIMERS: The CSI:NY characters belong to Jerry Bruckheimer and the wonderful writers for CSI: NY. However everything else is mine.

Nothing Unites Like A Common Enemy

The often evil parodist, Fate

Intertwines the lives of

Enemies continuing to threaten

Lovers yearning to fulfill destiny

Life bearers shouldering the grief

Heroes valiantly waging war

This is footprint of life

Yesterday, today and tomorrow.

- Sally Jetson

Messer

Just hearing that voice inside his head made his stomach clench as tightly as the fists crammed into his pockets. He hunched his shoulders in defense against the barrage of thoughts.

How could he have let her go?

What if he couldn't deliver what had been demanded?

What if something happened to her?

The whiff of cigarette smoke curling toward his nose and the labored breathing just inches from his face not only interrupted his thoughts but disgusted him as well. The source was a slovenly, dim witted excuse for a man that he could have been easily disarmed… if only her life wasn't hanging in the balance. He closed his eyes and cocked his head from side to side to try to clear his thoughts. Think Messer! But lucidity failed him as frustration and anger set in again.

This can't be happening. Not again!

He expelled a puff of air through his lips as a welcomed figure approached from the inadequately lit walkway. From deeper within the shadowed recesses of the building, the taxi driver emerged and impatiently hissed, "Hail your old man!"

"Dad," Danny croaked, stepping forward with a beckoning wave then dropping back into the shadows as Joe joined him.

"Danny, mio figlio, what is the trouble?"

"Shut the fuck up, old man, and do exactly as I say," the taxi driver interrupted. He waved his slovenly cohort over to Joe. "Pat him down."

Joe raised his arms in compliance and Danny felt revulsion wash over him as he recalled Lindsay in the same position, the slovenly lech leering at her as he had run his pudgy hands over her. He and Lindsay had both surrendered their pieces without protest but he knew that patting down Lindsay had been a threatening show of power and a silent promise to him if he did not deliver. Lindsay had kept her eyes trained on him as he had sat helpless, gun to temple, inside the taxi. The defiant thrust of her chin and her front teeth wedged against her bottom lip had signified her resolve to weather the incident with as little emotion and as much dignity as possible. He knew she was tough and she could handle herself, but if anybody else laid a finger on her, he had vowed to hunt down the bastard and put him through a slow, torturous death befitting the devil himself.

"If you touch her in any way, I swear, I'll make you wish you had died in that alley years ago!"

"Now there's an idea, Messer," the menacing voice had mocked as he had let his eyes roam over Lindsay's trim figure. "I have to admit, for such a fuckin' loser you got a fine piece of ass here. I wouldn't mind having a taste."

He had lunged toward the door of the taxi at that, but the taxi driver had anticipated his rash move and had clocked him solidly with the butt of the gun as the slovenly man had moved surprisingly fast and slammed the door in his face. His vision had blacked momentarily and when it had cleared; Lindsay had been nowhere in sight. He had thrown himself back against the cushions swearing at the rate and volume of ten sailors as he had pressed his hand to the back of his head to block the flow of blood.

Now, Danny flinched in pain as he gingerly fingered the gash at the base of his crown while the taxi driver continued his instructions.

"Give me your coat and keys."

Joe shrugged out of his coat as he evenly replied, "What does my son have to do with this? Let him go. He is of no service to us." Joe confidently turned to Danny. "Go home, mio figlio. I will handle this."

"Dad, you aren't the only one involved anymore." Danny snapped out.

"Danny, do not argue with me. Get Lindsay and go home." Joe commanded coolly.

Danny felt the heat of irritation and rage surge throughout his body at the way Joe was dismissing him.

"Dammit, why can't you just listen to me for once? I'm not a fuckin' kid anymore."

"Then don't act like one, Danny. Your hot-headedness is not doing us any favors."

"He- has- Lindsay." Danny let the words drop between them, swiftly purging the air of any animosity between father and son.

Joe vehemently swore in Italian and Danny pinched the bridge of his nose. His dad rarely swore in English much less in Italian but at least now he understood the gravity of the situation.

"Okay old man now you know the score, let's go," the taxi driver snarled impatiently

"Who has Lindsay?" Joe deliberately ignored the taxi driver.

"Nicky Roselli."

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Caitlin sat curled up on the couch cradling a long-since cold cup of tea in her hands. The shadows, cast across her face by the dim light, mirrored the ones now plaguing her mind. She had discerned from the set of Joe's face, when he had taken the call from Danny, that something had been seriously wrong. Even with her hands desperately gripping Joe's arm, panic seizing her heart and contorting her face, he had refused to say anything more than he'd take care of it and she needn't worry.

"Cara, it will be okay, I promise," he had murmured as he stroked her cheek and then flipped off the outside lights. He had looked cautiously through the window before slipping through the back door of the kitchen.

She squeezed the cup wondering if she had enough worry, pain and anger in her to actually shatter the delicate teacup; because that is how she felt at this moment, shattered. She had already lost one son to the senseless crime of the streets; the son who was now just a shell lying in a hospital bed being maintained by machines. Could she bear to lose another one? The one who had so nearly been destroyed by the greed that fueled the crimes of the streets; the son who had fought his way back and was now on the verge of finding harmony and completeness in his life?

All she had wanted for her sons was for them to have happy and peaceful lives. But she had already lost one and felt the other one slipping through her fingers. And she felt utterly powerless to stop it.

A mother's pain knows no end when her children suffer.

She sighed bitterly as tears began to roll down her cheeks.

When she heard the whoosh of the kitchen door cut through the silence of the house, she scrubbed away the tears ready to confront Joe head on, to take him to the mat if necessary to get some answers. The bright light from the kitchen blinded her momentarily as the swinging door opened to outline a figure that couldn't be Joe even though it wore his coat. She stood quickly but the ample figure held a gun in a pudgy hand and directed her to sit back down on the couch.

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Lindsay leaned stiffly against the cushions in the back seat of the luxurious town car staring defiantly at the leering man next to her.

"Comfortable?" he nonchalantly mocked.

The long scar snaking from the corner of one eye down across his cheek and halting at the chin bone only heightened her awareness of his cunning and ruthlessness. But she would not allow that to intimidate her. She lifted her chin slightly but did not answer.

"What? Is it beneath you to speak to me?" he jeered.

Her mind twisted in loathing at his attempts to goad her. She had faced many of his kind in the interrogation room and on the crime-ridden streets of the city.

"I must say you got the better end of the deal," he tried once more.

"Deal?" her eyes narrowed.

"Yeah, you know, warm, comfortable car, engaging company." He swept his arm around the interior of the car, resting his hand on his chest in feigned sincerity at his last words.

"I don't call this a deal." She swept her hand through the air dramatically. "I call this kidnapping."

"Kidnapping?" He shrugged his shoulders. "Nah, we're merely taking a little ride, getting to know each other."

"I already know you," she said pointedly.

"Oh really?"

He made pretence of stretching his arms and adjusting his coat sleeves before turning to her, laying one arm along the back of the seat his face inches from hers.

"Well then we can dispense with the formalities 'cause I know you too….. Lindsay."

He trailed a finger along her collar bone stopping at the medallion around her neck.

Even though shivers of revulsion threatened to overtake her body, she willed herself to stay calm. What little advantage she had against this lecherous piece of scum would be lost if she allowed herself to cave into her fears.

He casually flipped the medallion over. "I see you have a Caitlin Messer original."

As much as Lindsay had been reviled by his touch upon her skin, it sickened her more to have him touching her only link to Danny. Her eyes flashed and she pulled back causing the medallion to drop from his hand.

"Don't be so high and mighty. I have one too."

He tugged on a chain lying beneath his shirt revealing a medallion similar to the one that had been found on Geno Licciardello. Even though she couldn't discern all the details, she assumed it was the Roselli family coat of arms.

"I have to admit that Irish bitch has a way with gold," he said admiringly as he stared at her medallion.

Lindsay's investigative instincts kicked in as she felt him loosening up a bit. "So do you know a lot of families who have these types of medallions?"

He didn't seem to hear her as he continued on his own train of thought. "We all thought old man Messer fucked up when he married her instead of one of his own." He paused but Lindsay's brain did a mental high five at his next statement. "But it got him into all the loaded families up and down the Eastern Seaboard."

He looked straight into her eyes, his gleaming in cavernous greed. "Do you know what kind of deals a businessman like myself can make with contacts and revenue like that at my disposal?"

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"Hold the light a little lower," Joe grunted as he squatted in front of a built in credenza in the storage room that once was the office of the drycleaners. "I think… I got it." Joe grunted once more as he removed the back paneling of the credenza revealing a small safe built into the brick wall.

Danny squatted, squinting into the credenza. "Has that always been there?"

"Since the day I had this building built. Back then banks weren't open the late hours they are now and people tended to pay in cash so I needed some place safe for each day's receipts."

Joe stretched his fingers and let out a slow breath, "Now if I can recall the combination."

"What do you mean recall the combination?" Danny muttered nervously running a hand over his forehead.

Joe looked Danny squarely in the eyes. "I haven't used this safe in over ten years. Give me a minute."

"Well who else knows the combination besides you?" Danny demanded in barely restrained alarm, training the flashlight on Joe's face.

Joe grimaced as he pushed the flashlight back to shine on the safe. "Geno… and Tony."

Fuck, Geno's dead and Tony… "You mean Tony Biondi, your manager?" Danny's mind started working furiously. "Well, if you can't remember the combination, then we can call him."

"Doubt he'd give it up." Joe muttered as he started turning the dial.

"What do mean you doubt he'd give it up?" Danny asked suspiciously, as his mind struggled to put the pieces together.

Click!

There couldn't have been a sweeter sound to Danny's ears at that moment as he dropped to his knees to get a closer look at the contents of the safe.

"That doesn't look like something that someone would risk a lifetime behind bars for." Danny said dubiously, as Joe withdrew a black folder.

"Mio figlio, you have no idea," Joe sighed sadly as he wearily sat back against a stack of boxes, his forearms resting on his knees, examining the contents of the book.

Suddenly Danny realized how the years were catching up to 'his old man'; the sag under the chin, the drooping eyelids thickened with age and the ever-deepening creases in his face.

"Come on Dad, let's get outta here." Danny curled a hand around Joe's upper arm ready to help him to his feet.

"Wait, check the safe. There's probably more."

Danny shone the flashlight into the safe and pulled out a canvas bag. He let out a slow whistle as he peered into it. "Now that's what would make a man risk life behind bars."

They heard a shuffle of feet from the other side of the boxes and Danny quickly shouldered the bag and helped his dad up.

"Cut the chit-chat, this ain't a fuckin' tea party," the taxi driver interrupted as he came around the stack of boxes.

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A/N3: Whew! I really hope you like this one because these chapters are draining me! LOL!