Thank you for your amazing reviews on the previous chapter(!), really does mean the world to me.

I've decided that of course I will write about his recovery as well, but that is still a bit away (sorry-not-sorry).

Hope you'll enjoy the chapter, as always any and all feedback is highly appreciated!


"What've you got, Eric?" The team lead asked, as they all converged in the technical room.

The two senior field agents had, as expected, been unable to find anything of use at the scene of the abduction, and as such, had returned to OSP in order to get a team briefing.

"Not a lot," he started, sneaking a short apologetic glance at Kensi. "I managed to follow their car for a few blocks, until they drove into an underground parking lot. They must have swapped cars in there, because I haven't seen them exit since."

"When was this?" Sam asked.

"Around ten thirty last night. I'm sorry, guys."

"It's not your fault, Eric," Kensi said, surprising everyone. "But if they left in another vehicle, that must mean that the one they arrived in is still there, right?"

"Unless they sent someone to pick it up later," Callen agreed, sensing where the female agent was headed.

"Eric, have you checked the footage for the entire night?" Sam asked, continuing his partner's train of thought.

"Only the first few hours after the SUV drove in there," the technical operator explained.

"Alright. Can you go through the entirety, only searching for the exact same car? See if they had someone pick it up," the team lead agent asked.

"Sure, I'll get right on that," he turned and started working at his station.

"Meanwhile, why don't you and Kensi go to the parking garage? Just in case the SUV is still there," Callen half-asked, half-ordered his teammates. He knew that keeping the female agent cooped in the building would eventually mean that she would go crazy and perhaps even do something, she would later regret.

"What about the cases I'm going through?" Kensi asked, not wanting to leave any investigative avenue out.

"I'll keep going through our previous cases and mark any with potential, while you guys are out," he assured his agent.

"Okay, let's go then Sam." She said, already halfway out the automatic door.

...

He woke in a similar fashion as last time he was roused from unconsciousness. The icy water slowly trickled down onto his face, making him cough and gasp for air, as he accidentally swallowed some the freezing liquid.

The coldness had gotten worse through his unwilling slumber, and he was instantly covered in goosebumps, as he shivered in response to yet another intense shock of coldness.

What he assumed to be the two goons lifted him and the chair up, so he was no longer supine on the floor. The two lights were promptly turned on, blinding him momentarily, as his eyes slowly adjusted from the pitch dark. His left eye was almost completely swollen shut after he was awoken, so it took even longer than usual for his sight to recover from the bright lights.

"So…" a voice, he recognized as belonging to Scarface, started. "Are you going to be more corporative this session?"

After he swallowed deeply in anticipation, Deeks opted out of answering the question, hoping that not giving a verbal response would somehow lessen the pain to come.

Before he had time to fully regain his vision, he was surprised to feel his restraints being undone. He briefly tried striking with his freed arm in the direction of one of the men, but given his other restraints and his weakened state, he was no match for the well-built man, who firmly grabbed his wrist to keep it in place.

When both of his wrists were freed, the men pulled his hands forward and began to tie them together. Another feeble attempt to fight the restraining was stopped by a well-placed blow to his kidney, leaving the blond detective unable to resist, as he attempted to regain control over his painful breathing.

The zip-ties around his ankles were also cut open, and the goons pulled the beaten man to his feet. A wave a pain erupted, as he was forced to put pressure on his bruised and cut soles. The pain clouded his mind, and whilst he was fighting the wave of nausea the overwhelming pain brought, he was at the mercy of the men, whom promptly secured the rope around his wrists to a fixture in the ceiling.

The position left him stretched just enough to be uncomfortable, but still able to plant his whole sole on the ground, as they wanted him to be reminded of the previous pain. The stretching also served to agitate the already injured ribs, and he squeezed his eyes shut in a feeble attempt to combat yet another wave of pain.

"Comfortable?" The man chuckled at him, "Let's try this again. Which agency are you working for?"

"I thought you claimed I was LAPD?" Deeks fired back, having regained some of his composure, even though his feet and torso felt like they were on fire.

"You are." Scarface told him coolly, "And you're also working with an agency. I want to know which."

"You're right," Deeks tried a smirk, but it was now hidden beneath his swellings. "I'm affiliated with the Creative Artists Agency."

The humorous reply was ill received, as he quickly felt on his own body, when another hard blow landed to his ribcage. He groaned loudly at the impact. The culprit had stood behind him, and Deeks had been unprepared for the connecting punch, not that he could've done anything to prevent it.

"I brought your friend here with me again," Scarface got the attention of the liaison officer, a feral smile spread on his ugly face. "Felt like you two had such a good time, so I couldn't bring myself to force you apart," he slowly dragged the tip of the wooden cane down the entire length of Deeks' body, causing him to recoil at the painful memories the weapon had brought, causing a bone chilling laugh from the well-dressed man.

"There is one problem though," the man expressed, pretending to be thinking, whilst tapping the wooden weapon against Deeks' chest. "It only really hurts against bare skin," his nefarious chuckle sounded, sending another chill down his spine.

Taking that as his cue, one of the two goons snipped off his drenched, white t-shirt, revealing his normally sun-kissed skin, but due to the intense cold and beatings he had been exposed to, his skin was much more pale than usual and showed an ugly array of bruising, especially around his midsection.

He took a deep, shaky breath at what was to come.

...

"It isn't here," she stated, before yelling out into the almost empty parking garage, "Dammit!"

"Maybe it's-" Sam was interrupted by his phone ringing.

Kensi looked impatiently at her colleague, while she waited for the call to be over. "So?" she asked, after the larger agent hung up.

"That was Eric," he responded, as he started to move towards his Challenger. "He found the vehicle leaving again, and Nell managed to identify the driver as Peter Calvin. She's sent the address to us."

"Let's go then," she picked up the pace, until she was running towards the black and white vehicle, leaving her coworker to catch up.

...

They arrived at the address in record time, Sam's offensive driving had definitely paid off, as they shed more than ten minutes of the commute.

"You take the front, I'll take the back," Sam said as they approached the slightly run down building.

Once she had given her temporary partner ample time to get in position, she knocked on the front door. "Mr. Calvin, federal agent, may I have a minute, please?" She yelled through the thick, wooden door, making sure to sound as non-threatening as possible.

She heard some rummaging from inside, before she quickly realized that he must have been headed out the backdoor. As such, she rushed around the building just in time to see Sam clothesline the fleeing man, knocking all wind out of the small suspect.

"Get up," the ex-Navy SEAL angrily pulled the puny form up from the ground after securing his wrists behind the man's back.

...

During their drive to the boathouse, Kensi had scared the man to a degree, where Sam had to step in before she did something, she would later regret. Because of that, they had decided that she was to sit outside the interrogation room, whilst the two senior agents would conduct the interrogation.

Callen and Sam walked into the small room and sat across from the man, who looked increasingly skittish. Peter Calvin refused to look up at the two angry agents, fiddling with his hands in a feeble attempt to combat his growing nervousness.

"Do you know this man?" Callen started the interrogation, by sliding over a photo of Detective Marty Deeks.

After looking briefly at the photo, Calvin shook his head so fast, the two agents thought it was about to fall off, "N-n-no, I h-haven't seen him b-before," he told the agents.

"What about this car?" He slid over another photo.

"I d-don' t-think so," he stammered out.

"Really?" Sam asked incredulously, "Because we have you on camera driving it away from a parking garage earlier this morning," he continued angrily, placing yet another photograph on the table between them.

Instead of answering, the man swallowed loudly.

"See, the problem is, that the SUV in that photo, which you drove, was used to kidnap one of our friends," Callen continued to put on the pressure. "Which means, that we're not too happy about the whole situation."

"Listen," Sam angrily slammed his hand into the sturdy table. "If you don't tell us where you put that car and who told you to go get it, we're going to leave and send in Kensi, and I can't promise you, what she'll do to you."

Calvin immediately lost all color in his face and started spewing all the information. "I-I-I g-got a call from my f-friend. He t-told me to p-pick up the car and d-drive it t-to a c-car crusher he knew. S-said it was r-real important." He took a deep breath, and looked almost relieved at getting the information out in the open. "I-I don't know about your f-friend, I'm s-sorry."

"What's your friend's name?" Callen pressured.

"P-please, he'll h-hurt me," Peter Calvin was almost shaking.

"If you don't tell us, I'll hurt you," Sam assured him fiercely.

He swallowed deeply again. "His n-name is R-Ryan P-Powell," he deflated.

The two agents promptly left the room, the team lead already in the process of calling Eric with the newly acquired name.

...

"I must admit, I'm impressed," he said, shaking his head slightly. A crooked grin spread on his otherwise scarred face.

In front of him stood the sagging man, the only thing keeping him upright was the fixture in the ceiling, which he was securely tied to. His naked torso was bright red from the continuous assault at the hands of Scarface. Nasty welts covered the large parts of his back and stomach, and small drops of blood painted the floor as it had dripped down his body, from where the sickening impacts had broken the skin.

"Let's make it a bit more interesting, shall we?" He followed the rhetorical question with a vile chuckle.

Deeks didn't get to respond, before a blackened hood was pulled over his head, disallowing him any vision. His breathing became more erratic, as panic started to settle within the man, the fabric almost felt like it choked him as fresh air became harder to come by.

He felt the humiliation of having his drenched jeans removed, as the sounds of the otherwise sturdy fabric getting ripped apart filled the room, leaving the injured man on display, as he was unable to cover his now almost naked body.

The first strike was completely unexpected, when it connected with his left calf, causing a loud and pained roar from the man struck.

The only sign he had for the next few hits were the distinct sounds of the thin wood travelling through the air, giving him less than a fraction of a second to brace for each painful impact.

"Who. Do. You. Work. For?" Scarface asked, punctuating every word with another strike against his calves, creating more angry welts.

The uncharacteristic whimpering from underneath the black hood was the only response the suit-wearing man got, angering him further, as he was yet unable to break the shaggy detective.

After a few minutes of having the bottom part of his body continuously hit, his legs were shaking from the combination of the new pain in his calves and the prolonged suffering the weight of his body had put on his cut and bruised soles.

"You know," he started his sentence, as he hit Deeks' thigh for the umpteenth time, breaking the skin. "Even though I love the cane, I've always had a guilty pleasure for this thing," he purposely didn't mention what the thing was.

Given his lack of vision, he was already incredibly jumpy and on edge, which he logically knew was exactly what the culprit was aiming for. He could hear the shuffling around him, but unable to see anything, he was forced to wait for whatever the 'thing' was.

The pain erupted from his sensitive armpit, as the jolt of electricity soared through the point of impact. Scarface pressed the cattle prod against several different spots on his thighs, lower abdomen, and arms before he asked the question, which had been repeated more times than he was able to count.

"Which agency are you working for?" He questioned.

When he didn't get an immediate reply, he continued the mental terror. "You know… what I love about cattle prods is that I get to control the amount of time the pain lasts. It could be a second," he pressed the device against Deeks' inner thigh. "It could be several," he pressed it against the flesh once more, but held it for longer, causing a scream from the injured man, followed by a weak sob.

He stalked around the restrained man, taking extra care as to not follow a pattern, as he continuously electrocuted him, making sure to choose different parts of his body, leaving no place untouched.

"Please, no more," he moaned through his erratic breathing. His entire body sagged and his chin rested against his chest, his legs barely able to support his weight.

"That's your choice," the man laughed. "All you have to do is tell me which agency you're working with."

"I'm not," he mumbled. "I'm not working with an agency. You got it wrong."

"I doubt that," the vile laugh continued. "See, I have a man inside the LAPD, that's how I got your name… but you see, the problem is, that every report he saw, which you'd worked on has had the name of the agency redacted from it."

If he had been more lucid, Deeks would have been enraged by the fact that a brother in blue had sold him out, but at the moment all he felt was defeat. Defeat over the fact that he was helpless, that he didn't. No. He couldn't allow himself to think like that. He had a team, a great team who he knew would stop at nothing before they had found and rescued him.

He had to fight it, had to remain resistant of the terrors the man brought upon him, but his will was weakening at an alarming rate. He knew he would never willingly give up NCIS or OSP, but he feared what was to come and whether or not he would be able to withstand it.

The tormenting shocks from the cattle prod interrupted the dark thoughts and instead replaced them with involuntary screams, as his painful expressions echoed in the tiny room.

...

"Clear!" The yell sounded throughout the property.

The agents worked fast, but meticulously, through the average looking estate. Kensi was getting increasingly frustrated by their inability to find any leads, until Sam yelled from the adjacent room.

"You guys need to take a look at this."

"What is it?" The words rushed out of the female agents' mouth, as she entered the room just behind Callen.

"Looks like cases for disposable cellphones," Callen answered before Sam had a chance.

"Yeah, and he's kept the receipt, they're all purchased in the same store, so the Wonder Twins should be able to track down the numbers," the ex-Navy SEAL pushed through.

"I'll make the call," Callen said, grabbing the receipt before he walked out the room, the phone already at his ear.

Kensi and Sam continued looking through the room until the team lead returned, but unfortunately there weren't any other things that gave them an idea of, where the suspect had gone.

"Eric found a potential lead from the phones," Callen started explaining. "They've all called one specific number numerous times over the last few weeks. He's narrowed the location to a radius of about a block in a warehouse district."

"Let's go then," Kensi said, already halfway out the door.

"Wait a minute, Kens," Callen stopped her with a calm palm to her shoulder.

"What?" She spat at the man, before she was able to reel in her emotions.

"If we go and search building to building, and they see us coming…" Callen started.

"Then they'll kill him before we get a chance to save him," Sam regretfully concluded the sentence.

Kensi took a deep breath, just because she knew they were right, didn't mean she had to like it. "We need to get back to OPS, see who owns all those buildings, it might connect it to one of the cases we have marked as potential," she said after a moment of thought.

...

The three agents quickly ascended the stairs in the Spanish Mission and walked into the technical room in hopes that the technical operator and analyst had been able to find new information regarding the warehouse district.

They were cautiously optimistic, as Nell started his briefing, "So, we tried running the owners of all the warehouses in the area, but we weren't able to match any of the owners or companies with any names from the cases you flagged."

Eric continued the briefing, "We were, however, able to hack into the security cams surrounding the area." He pressed a button and a photo popped up on the screen, "This is a picture from earlier today."

"Is that?" Sam asked.

"Ryan Powell, yes." Nell jumped in again, "There aren't enough cameras in the district to see which warehouse he went to, but we were able to follow him to a separate address owned by Jonah Troyger."

"Troyger," Sam mumbled the name. "Why does that name sound familiar?"

"Because you've arrested his brother, Jacobus Troyger. He was later killed in prison."

"He was the one who tried to sell the botulinum toxin at an auction, right?" Sam asked.

"That's the one, yeah." Eric confirmed.

"But Deeks wasn't even working with us back then," Kensi exclaimed loudly.

The automatic doors opened. "Perhaps they are using Mr. Deeks as a means to an end," their operations manager offered, stepping deeper into the room.

"And what would that be, Hetty?" The team lead questioned.

"Vengeance, it seems, Mr. Callen." She said without showing emotion, before adding, "It would seem that Mr. Troyger does not know, that NCIS was the agency behind taking down his brother."

"But he somehow knows that Deeks works for the agency that did," Callen concluded.

Sam chimed in as well, "And he's trying to get that information from him right now."

"Would Jonah Troyger be capable of that?" Kensi questioned, not liking the feeling of what her boss had just said one bit.

It was the tiny redhead who answered the question, "According to his file, Jonah Troyger has been working as a freelance mercenary, specializing in enhanced interrogation techniques."

The chilling news that the man, whom they suspected was holding their dear friend, was specialized in torture silenced the room, as thoughts of the liaison detective's previous encounter with gruesome interrogation came to their minds.

Callen spoke up, "We need to go to that house, see if Powell is there, or if there's anything pointing to where they might be holding Deeks." He looked at the technical team, "Eric, Nell, can you check up on Troyger, see if he has any off-shore accounts, shell corporations, anything that might link him to any of the warehouses."

"We're on it," they echoed.

"Good. Let's go," he told his fellow agents.

...

The low whimpers, only interrupted by a loud gasp whenever the cane or cattle prod connected with his skin, were the only sounds in the room. Scarface slowly prowled around the injured form, always altering his route to throw off the beaten man's senses, sometimes even leaving several minutes between the next caning or shock, just in order to make the next one even more unexpected and painful.

The blond detective was sagged in the middle of the room. His shoulders were in agonizing pain as the joints carried most of his body's weight, since he was forced to keep himself on his feet, due to his arms being fixated in the ceiling.

His body was covered in a plethora of bruises, which had already started changing from red to dark purple. The markings from the cane were scattered along his entire body, littering his body with angry welts, many of them having broken the skin, causing blood to slowly dribble down his body, leaving dried lines of the crimson liquid along its' paths.

The cattle prod, too, had left its' share of marks on his body as well, dozens of red spots marked random parts of his body. Some of the places light burn marks were left, where the torturer had held the electric torture device for longer.

The combination of the all the damage had left the man whimpering, sacrificing his overall appearance of toughness for momentary strength, which he could draw on whenever he needed it to resist the continuous questioning.

"Is your team really worth all this pain?" Scarface asked incredulously, as he prowled around the beaten man.

"Go to hell," he croaked at the man.

The weak outrage caused another one of the suit-wearing man's vile chuckles, which by that moment was enough to make Deeks' stomach churn.

"You know," he started one of his taunting sentences. "I really would like to continue our little… play session." He took slow, meticulous steps towards the sagging form, "I really, really like new toys, but I've found that if you play too much with them, they… break." He simulated a twig snapping with his hands, even though the beaten man couldn't see it.

"So as much as it hurts me to say, I think you and I might need to take a small break… after all, we're not really in a hurry, are we?" He chuckled. "But with that said, we can't have you getting too comfortable here, that's why," he clapped twice, as his two henchmen came into the room, carrying a small, wooden box. "We have this great accommodation for you," he gestured to the box.

The hood that had covered his eyes was pulled off and the box in question stood in front of him. He was barely able to see it as his bloodshot eye slowly adjusted to the bright lights in the room, his left eye had swollen completely shut disallowing any vision, so the process of adjusting took even longer than it usually would.

The wooden structure was barely half his height in length and seemed to be just wide enough for his muscular stature. Even through his hazy mind, courtesy of the beatings, he quickly realized, what was about to happen.

"Although it doesn't have an exact name," he started his taunt. "The box is mostly known as 'The Syrian Torture Box.' Its' cramped space is used on enemies of the Syrian state, and I've found the method to be particularly effective," he chuckled nefariously.

"Please don't," he begged the men, not caring anymore that it made him seem weak.

The three men merely laughed in his face, as the two goons tied his legs together at both his ankles and knees, before they cut the rope from his wrists, causing the injured detective to slump to the floor, as neither of the culprits bothered to break his fall, instead choosing to laugh louder at his misfortune.

The momentary relief of not having his shoulders fixated upwards was quickly taken from him, as they roughly pulled his arms behind his back, before tying his hands tightly behind his back.

The two goons lifted the man in preparation to place him in the tight box, but he somehow managed to draw strength enough to fight them, managing to kick one of them weakly. In response, they both released him, making him slam hard into the concrete floor, knocking the wind out of him.

After several well placed kicks to the defenseless man's ribcage, he was wheezing for air, as the impacts had cracked yet another rib.

They squeezed him into the incredibly cramped space, immediately making all his different joints ache at the uncomfortable position he was forced into in order to fit.

Just before the lid closed, Scarface leaned down so close that Deeks was able to feel his sickening warm breath on his face. With the same sickening sweet voice he had originally awoken the unconscious man with, he told him, "I really enjoyed our time together, Marty Deeks. Can't wait for us to continue."

And with that parting comment, they put the lid on the box, leaving him without any possibility of movement or sight, as the feeling of claustrophobia quickly engulfed his every sense.


Thanks for reading(!). I don't want to ask if it was 'too much,' but I will ask for your thoughts on the whole thing.