AN: So sorry, but I realized as I was getting this chapter edited, that I left out the last 3 lines in Chapter 5! I've updated it and added the lines in bold so you can just catch up quick if you would like to.

Chapter 6

Kat stuck her tongue out at the closed door, realizing how immature she must have looked at that moment, but she felt like she was being treated like a child. She tamped down the unbidden thought that snuck its way into her head; that maybe John had her best interests at heart. 'Whatever'! She thought. 'He's just being overprotective because of my being attacked.' Again, she pushed back the thought that John had a point...she hadn't even told him yet about what Liam had said regarding someone hiring him to take care of her. Damn, John would have been impossible if he'd known that little tidbit of information!

She'd tell him eventually...she had to…she needed to. Maybe after he got back from whatever dangerous job his work had called him away to do today. She went to make herself a cup of coffee to take on the road with her out to the site then she walked back to her room to get dressed. She pulled out a pair of jeans and a black tee shirt. Typically she'd throw on some older, torn up jeans with an old white tee and then throw an over-sized button up shirt over that. She'd put on her steel toed boots once she got there just in case she was needed out on the site. Today though, without even realizing it, she'd dressed just a little bit nicer. She didn't know if John would show up unexpectedly, but she didn't want to look like a complete slob just on the off chance that he would. She walked back into the kitchen, prepared her coffee, grabbed her things and opened the door. She was surprised by a man poised to knock on her door. He was a middle-aged man, not much taller than her, a bit round around the middle, with a slightly pinched look on his face until he looked up and saw her. He smiled and started speaking to her.

"Uh hello, Ms. Greyson?"

"Yes...?" Kat answered hesitantly. The man reached down towards his waistband and Kat flinched back slightly away from the door; ready to slam the door and grab her gun from her purse to defend herself. Thankfully that was unnecessary because the object the man pulled out was a detective's badge.

"I'm Detective Lionel Fusco. I'm sorry to bother you but I'm going to be...uh...making sure you get to your job site safely and back home again today."

One of Kat's hips dropped as one of her eyebrows cocked up. Both hands flew to her hips as she gave the man her best 'excuse me' look. The Detective clipped his badge back onto his belt and held both palms up towards her in supplication.

"Hey, listen...I'm sorry but you're not leaving without me because, well… ya know, I'd like to still be breathing tomorrow and honestly there's no way I'll be doing that if Captain Happy..err, John... found out that I hadn't done just that." His gruff voice coupled with his thick New York accent made what he said about John all the more amusing to her. "So please, don't tell me that you don't need my services or anything like that 'cause I'm just gonna follow ya anyway. It'll be easier on both of us if you just let me take you to work and then drive ya home when you're done. I promise not to get in your way, OK?"

The look on the man's face when he mentioned John was almost comical. Kat could tell that the man had a deep respect, if not an outright fear of John. She wondered, not for the first time, how John could force two New York City detectives to take time away from their job to be her own personal freaking body guard. Yet another thought she filed away to ask John about later.

"OK Detective..." Kat started. "...on one condition.

The man looked taken aback. "And what would that be honey?"

She leveled a stare at him that she used when she was being serious with her crew. "Make that two conditions. One, you call me Kat. Two...don't call me honey."

The detective let out a hearty chuckle at that. "OK then, Kat it is. I'm Lionel." He held out a hand to Kat and she took it.

"Well Lionel, I've got to get going, so..."

"Sure! Let's go then." He stepped back into the hallway as Kat stepped out from her apartment. They walked down to the street and Lionel directed her over to his vehicle. The conversation on the way to the site was light. He told her about his son and how he enjoyed playing hockey. They never did broach the topic of John but the ride wasn't that long either. Kat could usually walk to the site in twenty minutes.

When they pulled onto the site, she had Lionel take her over to her office. She invited him in and asked if he wanted some coffee. He accepted so she started a pot. Kat sat down at her desk and went over how she was going to broach the topic with her crew about Liam. Kat didn't want them knowing exactly what had happened, but she also didn't want them to think that Liam had been fired and then try to go contact him and find out that way. Lionel sat down in the chair across from her desk and she decided to ask him his opinion on the subject.

John smirked as he listened to the conversation between Kat and Fusco. He had a feeling that she would put the man in his place when he'd heard the man call her 'honey'. He was glad that he'd decided to go ahead and have Lionel go over to Kat's place when he did. John hadn't been sure what time she would want to go out to the site but he really didn't want to take the chance that she'd head out there early and Lionel would miss her.

His latest number had turned out to be quite uneventful so far. He'd been sitting in Harold's Lincoln for a couple of hours now; in full stakeout mode but there had been absolutely nothing to watch, other than a couple of kids making out on a park bench in front of the pawn shop that he was watching. He'd decided to listen in on Kat to find out where she was and if Lionel had presented himself to her yet. When she asked him about what his opinion was on how to approach her workers about Liam he actually sat up straighter, anticipating Lionel's answer. It had better be a good one, if the man knew what was good for him...

"Hey Lionel, I don't know how much John, or Joss has told you about what happened here a couple of nights ago..."

""Yeah, I know. I'm sorry to hear you were hurt."

"Well, about that... Liam was one of my foremen and really, the only reason I came in today was because I wanted to tell my crew something... I need to. I didn't want them finding out about what happened through the grapevine or whatever... I just. I have no idea how to tell them. How much, how little... you know?"

"Yeah..." He leaned back in the chair, his belly straining against his shirt a little more and he stretched his legs out. His eyes turned up to the ceiling; she could tell he was thinking about it so she didn't interrupt. She did get up to go fix a cup of coffee for him though. When she'd finished pouring she handed him the cup.

"Cream and sugar's over there if you need any."

"Nope, black is fine. Thanks."

She went back and sat down and started back in on her own coffee.

"Ya know... Kat, these guys, on your crew... they're pretty good guys, right?"

"The best, in my opinion...or I wouldn't have hired them. But then on the other hand, it's obvious that my hiring decisions are in question right now because I hired Liam...and we all know what happened with him..."

"You can't beat yourself up though hon...Kat..."

He caught himself quickly enough so she didn't correct him. The sheepish look he gave her almost had her giggling.

"Nobody's perfect. So you hired a douche bag. Shit happens... you move on. If your crew's as good as you think they are, they're not gonna think any less of you. In fact, I have a feeling that they might wanna bring him back and kill him again... but that's just what I'd wanna do."

Kat smiled warmly at him. "Thanks Lionel. I appreciate that."

"Yeah no problem darlin'..." He sighed. "I'm sorry..Kat."

This time she did allow herself to giggle. 'Typical', she thought. Little nicknames for women, that was just his personality and she wasn't going to fault him for it. She actually thought he was a pretty good guy from what she could tell. She was glad that John had sent the two detectives that he had and she wondered to herself how many others he had at his disposal. She stood up and walked over to Lionel and set her hand on his shoulder. "It's OK. I don't mind." She smiled. "I'm going to head out. I had one of my assistant foremen call the guys together for a meeting at eleven."

"You want me to go out there with ya?"

"No...I'll be fine. Thanks though."

"Hey..." He called out as she was headed out the trailer's door. "Just come back in here when you're done, OK?"

"Will do."

Kat walked out and headed down to where she could see the men gathered over at the West end of the site. She saw Mario, one of her crew that had been with her for years, notice her and wave. Her stomach was churning in nervous waves. She was not looking forward to this at all but she did feel a little better after what Lionel said to her. Yeah, Liam was a douche bag. She hadn't done anything wrong. She tilted her chin up, threw her shoulders back and walked confidently towards the group of men.

When she got close enough to the guys she heard the gasps from several of them. She didn't hear the whispers that she would have if the group had been women. No, the men were much more vocal. She heard the chorus of: 'what the hell happened', 'are you OK', and her favorite; 'who the fuck do we need to kill'.

Mario yelled for the men to quiet down so Kat could speak. She looked over at him in appreciation.

"Hey guys, I called everyone together to make an announcement. As you can tell, Liam's not here today." She heard a couple of voices that didn't sound too saddened at the news. "He won't be returning either."

Jeff, one of the guys that had been involved with 'talking' to Liam after his first run-in with Kat, shouted out; "Does him not bein' here have anything to do with what happened to your face?" She sighed as she closed her eyes and then opened them slowly before responding.

"Liam made the decision that he didn't want to work here anymore when he called me out to the site Saturday night. He told me that it had been robbed and that the police wouldn't take a statement from him and that I had to come down here. When I got here, he attacked me. I shot him. He won't be back." She kept her eyes locked on Mario rather than looking around at the crew as she continued. "I'm replacing him with Mario. You all know how hard he works." When she was done she was met with complete silence. It kind of unnerved her but then one of the men in the back whooped and soon it seemed like the entire crowd of men were cheering. Mario walked over and laid his hand on her shoulder as the men calmed and started talking amongst themselves. "Miss Kat, you OK? I never did like that guy... He was the kind of guy that would say nice things to your face and then turn around and talk bad about you."

"Yeah, I will be...thanks Mario."

"Hey, why don't you take a few days off, huh? I can take care of things around here. The job's comin' along nicely and really, there isn't anything that you need to do that I can't handle for you right now."

Kat shook her head. She didn't want to sit around at home alone thinking about what had happened to her. "That's sweet of you Mario, and I know that you could handle everything. I just... I don't need to be home right now." His deep brown eyes searched hers before he responded.

"OK but just remember the offer's there if you want to."

Kat placed her hand over his and squeezed the older man's hand. "I'll be in the office if you need me."

"Thanks guys." She called out as she walked back to the office. She heard the 'good job', and 'he deserved it' follow her as she walked across the site's lot and back up to the trailer. The men also congratulated Mario on his new promotion. Lionel was on the phone as she walked back in, obviously finishing up a conversation quickly. "Yeah, I'll let you know. Uh huh. OK yeah, you're welcome." And then he disconnected the call.

"Hey, Kat. How'd it go?"

"It was a little easier than I had expected. They took the news of Liam's departure and his replacement really well, actually."

"See, I told ya. Douche bags aren't well liked around good guys ya know?"

She chuckled. "Yeah."

"So... what's the plan? Are you gonna stay the rest of the day or are you wantin' to head out...We could go grab some lunch, if you're hungry or somethin'"

"You know Lionel, that doesn't sound like a bad idea at all. I didn't have any breakfast, so I am kinda hungry. Where do you want to go?"

"There's a nice little Italian restaurant, V's, a couple blocks away. You like Italian?"

"Heck yeah...I love that place."

"Let's go then!" Now that was something that Lionel could get excited about, Kat thought. Food!

John listened in when Lionel gave Kat his advice on talking to her crew about what had happened and how she should present it to them. He would have to call and thank him for that. John had actually been quite pleased with what Lionel had said to her. Then when she'd made the announcement, he hadn't been able to keep the smile from his face. 'Good girl, short and sweet', he said to himself. When he'd heard the men around her cheering and some of the things that they were saying to her; he felt much better about her being around them. He still didn't like being away from her but it made him feel a little less uncomfortable.

His thoughts were interrupted by an unsavory looking character walking into the pawn shop that he had been parked outside of since earlier this morning. The owner, a Mr. George Garcia's belonged to the number that had come up that morning and pulled him away from Kat. He clicked over to Mr. Garcia's phone, which he'd blue jacked earlier and listened in as the man who had grabbed his attention, started speaking.

The rest of Kat's day was uneventful. As they were driving back to her apartment, Kat said to Lionel, "I TOLD you that I didn't need any 'help' and I'm sorry you wasted your day babysitting me. You might want to tell John 'No' next time he asks you for a similar favor."

"Yeah, right. Mr. Sunshine wouldn't take that from me any more than he obviously took it from you, considering the fact that he called me in. But you go ahead and try it sometime, lemme know how that works out for ya." Lionel replied.

Kat invited Lionel in for a beer when they'd arrived back at her apartment but he'd declined. It was his day off and he was picking up his son and taking him to a ballgame and then a movie. She smiled and thanked him again for today and wished him a good time with his son. A few minutes later she was heating up the leftovers of last night's dinner that she'd made for her and Joss when she heard pounding on her front door. It startled her enough that she didn't move right away. When it continued, she walked over and grabbed her gun out of the drawer in the little table by the door. She stepped in front of the peep hole and looked through it. She frowned.

She unlocked the door and opened it to an anxious looking Joss.

"Hey Joss. What's..."

"Kat, I need you to pack a bag as quick as you can. You need to come with me, now."

"What? What are you talking about?"

"Look Kat, I'm sorry but I really don't have time to explain. You're in danger, that's all I know and you have to leave your apartment." Joss walked into the apartment and down towards the bathroom. "If you want to get some clothes together I can grab anything you need in here." She looked over her shoulder at Kat who was still standing by the open front door. "Kat!" She called.

Kat flinched. "Huh?"

"Please, get movin'. Get some clothes. What do you need from the bathroom?"

"I...uh...toothbrush..." She started down the hall and turned into her bedroom. She grabbed an overnight bag and threw in some underwear, bras, shirts, and jeans along with a couple dresses. She had no idea where Joss was taking her or how long she'd be gone. Kat stood there staring down at her bag when Joss walked into the room.

"Are you ready?"

"Where are we going?"

"I'm sorry, I don't know yet. What I do know is that I've got to get you outta here now. Come on."

Joss put Kat's toothbrush and some other items into the pocket in the side of her bag, zipped it up and pulled it onto her shoulder. She grabbed Kat's arm and pulled her along with her. "Grab your purse, and keep that gun on you too."

"OK." Kat grabbed her keys, purse, phone and her Sig and followed Joss out of the apartment.