Alright so this is not the full chapter that I had planned, but I wanted to give you guys something to tie you over. Consider it a timely Christmas present! Hope you enjoy and have a wonderful, safe, and Merry Christmas! I promise to post the rest soon!

Carlo got off the I-276 just after 4:00 and ran a yellow on Lafayette Avenue. It had been some time since he'd last been up to Nicky's apartment and everything looks different when you're scared shitless, but Carlo had the memory of an elephant and he never got lost.

Even as a kid, Carlo always had a good sense of his surroundings. Not that he never wandered off on his own. He was just always able to tell how to get back. It was Nicky that used to get himself lost in the mall, the supermarket, taking shortcuts on his way home from school – though as Carlo thought about it and given what he now knew, Nicky likely used this excuse as a cover-up. Carlo was the one to go after him. He always had to be the one and he was good at it. though two years Nicky's junior, Carlo was trusted to bring his big brother back safe. Pop used to call him their family bloodhound.

Their father even told him privately after Nicky graduated from the Academy that he had his money on Carlo becoming the cop. But for Carlo, his keen sense for direction better suited his own career working on cars: repairing them, tracking down parts for them, driving them. He wanted no part in hunting for killers and wackjobs. He'd settle for just bringing his big brother home once again.

He pulled into a visitor's space in the parking lot, noting that Nicky's Corolla was in his designated spot. That knowledge didn't quite relieve him of his worries. There were at least ninety-nine possible reasons why it was parked there and Nicky being at home safe and sound was only one of them.

Carlo pulled himself from the car slowly, his eyes on the apartment building, staring it down. There was no way to mentally prepare himself for something like this. That was yet another reason why he wasn't a cop. It was hard enough to contain his own family's issues. There was no way of knowing what he was about to walk into or how he would react.

Plucking a cigarette from his mouth, he let it fall to the pavement and stomped it out under his boot. There was no one around, but he wasn't the kind of guy to take a chance. It was Philly, after all. He locked his Impala and folded the keys into his jacket pocket. Then he started toward the building.

Inside, he took the stairs. Fuck elevators. They made him claustrophobic. He took two steps at a time and heaving, he found himself at Nicky's door.

He wasn't surprised to find it open. Pop had warned him that Chris had had to kick it down. It was set against the frame but jammed too far out to wedge it back into place. Thanks for saving me the trouble, Rivera, he mused. But his appreciation was short-lived.

With nothing keeping him lingering impatiently outside the door, he nudged it open with his fist and called his brother's name. "Hey, Nick?" When he didn't hear a response, he took a step forward and tried again: "Bro, you home?"

He still received no reply but that would be the last time he called out. As he opened his mouth, he was assaulted by a vicious odour which sent him into a frenzy of coughing and gagging. His instincts told him to retreat back into the hall, but adrenaline soaring through his veins kept him venturing deeper into the apartment.

It was there staring him in the face. The truth. Only he couldn't for the life of him make out what it was. His psyche was far too guarded to register what his eyes were seeing.

There were pools of vomit on the floor, trails of blood running across the living room to the back of the apartment, a coffee table on its side, empty bottles of booze scattered over every surface, and so far no sign of Nicky. Carlo lifted the front of his shirt over his nose and pressed on, eyes trained on the nearest window. When he reached it, he cranked the window open as wide as it would allow. He drank in several breaths of cool, fresh air, then spun around to face the room.

It resembled more of a battleground. It still didn't make any sense. As the oxygen hit his brain, it began trying to rationalize what his eyes were seeing. Was Nicky so drunk that he made this much of a mess? There was a lot of blood. Carlo's heart was pounding in his ears. Come on, Nick. What the fuck have you gone and done now?

There was a mirror on the wall in the hallway. He couldn't see his reflection from the angle he was standing at. He glanced around the room again, but his gaze returned to the mirror and this time, he made out a figure in the glass.

It was someone standing there in the bedroom on the other side of the wall with their back to the door.

"What the fuck?!" Carlo's voice boomed. He stiffened. "Hello?"

With no further thought to the vomit on the floor, he darted for the bedroom. "Nicky? Didn't you fuckin' hear me?" But he stopped dead in the doorway, frozen, and unable to peel himself away from the horror scene he'd just intruded on. After a minute or two of staring on helplessly, his eyes told his brain what they saw. Then suddenly he was screaming, and he screamed again, paralyzed in his tracks, unwilling to believe what he'd just walked in on.

There was not a figure standing with his back to the door as he'd supposed. The man did have his back to the door, only his feet were not on the floor. His dangling toes barely grazed the stool beneath them. His body was suspended in midair. With a belt around his neck, he hung limply from the ceiling fan. He was dead.

"Carlo!" Chris yelled for the second time since spotting Carlo at the end of the hallway. "Hey!"

He jogged the rest of the way and fell into step with the other man who was frantically pacing the floor between Nicky's door and the wall parallel with it.

"Hey, man. You good?"

Carlo's head snapped toward him. "No, I'm fuckin' not!" He pushed his fingers through his short curls. "Oh, Jesus!" He doubled over with his hands on his knees.

"Easy!" Chris reached out and put a hand on his shoulder. "Is he in there? Is he?" Chris' mouth was bone dry. He didn't want an answer and Carlo couldn't give him one.

Carlo released a low groan then straightened and scrubbed a hand over his stubbled jaw. "I don't know. I couldn't look." He said quietly, meeting Chris' eye for the first time. His own eyes were wide and bloodshot. "There's someone hanging in there. Oh, Jesus Christ! It can't be! Why would he go and do that?"

If Chris wasn't already conveniently positioned between the other man and the door, he might've missed it. Carlo suddenly made an attempt for the door, knocking into Chris with considerable force.

Chris put a hand on his chest and pushed him back. "Come on, man. You can't go back in there. You don't want to go back in there."

Rather than hear him, Carlo was shaking his head disbelievingly. "It just can't be! Why would he do it? He wouldn't do that. It can't be!"

"I don't know! I-I don't know." Chris felt his own eyes burning and he wanted more than anything to not do what he knew he had to.

That was how his backup uniformed officers found them. Chris nodded as they approached and because he knew he wouldn't be able to give verbal commands, he accepted that they could ascertain what he needed from them.

As he turned and reached for the knob, Chris heard one of the officers coming through for him. "Sir, you need to stay back. You can't go in there."

Sorry about the cliffhanger... Please let me know what you think!