The paramedics had reached Apartment 11 before he returned from checking on Beckett and Castle.
Despite the chaotic scene that had greeted him downstairs, it was an unspeakable relief to see the both them alive.
Several uniforms had swarmed a car that sat askew across the road, having slammed into a parked vehicle.
Kevin was headed that way when it was Castle who sought out his gaze, then shook his head to stop him.
"Everything is taken care of here. Danny is dead. I got her.", he'd said in chopped sentences, holding onto a bleeding Beckett before slowly walking toward a waiting ambulance.
It was enough to prompt Kevin to return to the apartment, relieved to see his partner awake and talking to the paramedics, arguing about getting on the waiting gurney.
Mister Ellis, the helpful midget was nowhere to be seen, perhaps having returned to his own apartment to overcome the sights and sounds of what had happened. That, or he was looking out the window to enjoy the show downstairs.
"What is this? They get some pain meds into you and all of a sudden you're feeling invincible again?"
He'd kept his tone even, unwilling to let the scene that had played out one room over get to him. Not when he needed to be there for his partner. His only relief was that the girl living in Apartment 11 would be Danny's final victim.
Hearing his partner's voice seemed to snap Esposito out of his agitated state and the older detective looked up from his sitting position on the floor, where he was leaning against the corner of the kitchen island while allowing the paramedics to work on his injured back.
"They get him?", he asked, trying to disguise the anxious undertone and flinched when they helped him strip out of his bullet-proof vest.
"They did get him. Danny's dead. Castle and Beckett are downstairs. It's over, Javi."
With an inaudible sigh, Kevin crouched down next to his best friend, reaching for his left hand in hopes of distracting him from the pain.
"Are you ok? You were out for minutes.", Esposito asked in return, those dark brown eyes narrowed to thin slats.
"Yeah. Yeah, I'm fine.", Kevin lied and moved over to allow a second paramedic access to his friend, "I'm not the one with a knife in my back. He nearly cut your throat."
"He tried, too.", Javi said and winced at the set of cold shears cutting a hole in his shirt to access the wound, "Never…seen…anybody this…fast. Whoever trained him was good. No wonder he was able to overpower all these women and stay one step ahead of us all the time."
"Well, it caught up with him eventually…", Kevin reassured, cringing at the bloody gauze pads that now covered the deep gash, "Anyway, you ehm… you're probably gonna need stitches for that…and then some. I can drive you to the hospital or they can. But you are going in this time, bro."
"Yeah, I know."
Letting the defeat in his voice sit out there for a moment, Javi buried his head between his knees, stoically accepting the temporary patch job being done.
When another paramedic tapped him on the shoulder to move in, Kevin reached over to squeeze the nape of his partner's neck before getting up and letting the man with the blood pressure cuff do his thing.
As he stood there, looking at the crimson stains that covered most of the hardwood floor, he felt his knees growing weak; his vivid imagination filling in the pieces of what would have happened if Danny had slipped away again. Or if Javier hadn't been able to overpower him. Or if Beckett and Castle hadn't stopped and killed him.
The sheer notion sent shivers down his back, making him break out in a new round of cold sweats.
His deep brooding was disrupted when he noticed something beneath the old iron radiators along the outer wall.
Frowning, he stepped away from the kitchen counter and bent over, surprised to find a small notebook there.
Growing curious, he opened it, wondering if it belonged to their latest victim and had gotten tossed to the ground during her struggle with Danny.
But the first few words immediately confirmed the bad feeling in his gut.
"He needed to die and I would be the one to do it."