Justified – Story 1 in the Unbreakable series

Disclaimer: Characters belong to the writers & producers of Hawaii Five-0. My own characters belong to me :-)

Rating: T (for romance)

Pairing: Steve/OC, Steve/Danny (friendship - no slash)

Author's Note: Please leave feedback – it helps me know what you like & don't like! Thanks for the awesome notes, especially from regular readers! I have more chapters written but need to see if there's an interest for the continuation. I just wrote the ending but am tweaking it - I think you'll love it. If I get enough feedback I will post the upcoming chapters more frequently. Thanks so much - you guys are great! Updated chapter!

Steve was grateful when his phone began to ring, the caller ID showing Catherine Rollins. Ironic timing, he thought. Truth be told, he had no idea why he couldn't get Julia out of his mind. He'd also lain awake last night, replaying every minute with her, trying to figure out exactly how he'd gotten in this mess. After all, he was happy with his arrangement with Catherine. Cath was beautiful, smart, sexy, and didn't expect much from Steve. And she was phenomenal in bed. She understood him, and never pushed him for anything more than the time they spent together. They never talked about feelings, or relationships, or being exclusive. In fact, they rarely spent much time together outside of bed, unless it was work-related. He didn't want a relationship - if he did, he'd be in one. But still, there was something about Julia that had him thinking, just for a minute, what it might be like to really be with someone that he cared deeply about. Someone who, just maybe, cared deeply for him. For a moment, Steve felt almost… vulnerable. It was a foreign feeling, one he certainly didn't care for.

He turned away from Danny to take the call. He didn't blame Danny for wanting him to hook up with Julia – his partner had long been pushing him to be more 'sensitive,' and he supposed that wasn't all a bad thing. But being sensitive and vulnerable was not who he was. He had lived his whole life on his own terms, relying only on himself, and he'd gotten damned good at it. Although he had to admit, he'd gotten to rely on his team quite a bit during the past year and a half, and it wasn't all bad. His team was his ohana now, and he couldn't imagine not having them in his life.

"Hey Steve, sorry it took awhile to get the background check. You were right – Dr. Abbott was a Fed. From 2004 to 2008, she was a Special Agent with the Secret Service. I couldn't find out any other details; her service record was classified. Before that, she was in the private sector, working at Bain Capital in Boston. After leaving the Service, she joined the Brookings Institute before leaving in 2009 to teach at University of Hawaii. So are you going to tell me why you had me run an intelligence search on an accounting professor?"

"She's helping us with a high-profile case. I wanted to be sure she was clear. Thanks for helping with this, and with the victim search yesterday. We ID'd the girl and we're close to solving the case."

"Well, sailor, you can make it up to me when I see you in a few weeks. I've got a 48-hour leave coming up at the end of the month, maybe we can meet somewhere in between the Gulf and Hawaii for a little R&R? There's that great resort outside of Singapore with 24-hour room service..." Cath asked, suggestively.

"Yeah, okay. Depending on work, I might be able to get some time off. Thanks again, Cath." Steve said, a little distracted. It would be good to see her, maybe head out to Southeast Asia for a weekend getaway, he thought. But for some reason, the prospect of a weekend of non-stop sex with Cath didn't sound as attractive as it usually did.

He looked out over the hills outside of Toast's place and thought about what Cath had found out about Julia's background. Secret Service. She probably worked in their fraud enforcement division, but as a special agent, she'd still have had gone through the Service's full training. That explained her cop-like behavior, and the professionalism he'd picked up on when they first met. Why hadn't she told him? Didn't she trust him? Steve admonished himself briefly. They'd just met yesterday. How could she even begin to trust someone she barely knew? It was also odd that her service record was classified. Since he and Cath both had Top Secret or better clearance, they should have been able to find out more details. He couldn't help but think that even though he had uncovered Julia's Secret Service background, there was a still a great deal about her that he did not know.

Steve walked back in to Toast's place to see Julia chatting with the hacker as she typed rapidly on his computer. The screens were filled with text and numbers streaming by. Danny leaned against the wall, his face scrunched up as he tried to make out the details. He raised an eyebrow at Steve as he walked by, but Steve just caught his eye briefly before glancing at the screens. Julia turned around as she sensed Steve behind her and smiled.

"We've got him. Doug Chase has been embezzling from the company. He set himself up as a vendor in their financial system, and paid himself over ten mill over the past two years. We have regular, bi-weekly file transfers from Metadyne to his account in Bali. It's all here. Jennifer must have figured it out, threatened to report him, and was killed for it," Julia said, excitedly. She paused for a moment, and a troubled look came over her face. "There's only one problem."

"What's that?" asked Steve.

"I didn't find any unusual payments that would indicate a hit man, and we know he didn't do the job himself."

"Maybe he had another secret account?" Danny offered. "Or an accomplice?"

"No, I don't think there could be other accounts. We didn't see any transfers other than the bill payments going out of his account in Bali, and I don't see any other vendors or employees in Metadyne's records that may be fraudulent. Of course, to know for sure, we'd have to do a full audit, but that would take weeks. An accomplice, that's a possibility."

"As for the company's ownership, we couldn't find the records electronically. Unfortunately, we'll have to try something else." Julia tried not to feel defeated. Thieves like Doug Chase were often very clever in their efforts to hide their tracks, but sooner or later they made a mistake, and she would find it. She had to find it.