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A/N: Hey there my wonderful readers. Are you ready to see the kind of Drama Rowan's getting up to this chapter? Because we got some fun things going on with this chapter, including a fun little run in with our favourite assassin. I'm still working on the motivation, but hopefully I'll have more time to write this weekend. As always don't forget to leave a review, or a fav or a follow and I'll see you on Friday.

Chapter 349

"So uh… why are we doing this again?" Danny asked and Steve tried not to scowl.

"What do you mean why? I told you why."

"Yes, but Rowan also told you it's not about the conspiracy. So why are we chasing down empty leads just to make Jerry feel better?"

Steve shook his head. "That's not the only reason," he reminded him. "Rowan said if we follow these leads the real killer won't try to run, he'll think we're distracted…"

"We are distracted," Danny snapped. "Are you seriously telling me that you're fine with Rowan finding this guy first?"

"She said that Con was going to hand him over to us unharmed."

"Really? The aggressive, trigger happy, assassin is going to hand this guy over unharmed?" Danny asked him. "Rowan promised that, Rowan got him to promise that?"

Steve actually thought it over for a minute. Actually… no she hadn't. Fucking hell he should have gotten her to promise.

He was going to fish out his phone to call her when Danny got a call instead. It was his nephew Eric saying that the FBI had shown up and was taking their evidence. Yeah Steve wasn't about to let that go down. Jerry would never forgive him if the FBI shut down Susie Freeling's investigation before they could figure it out.

Jerry still thought it was about the cover-up, would no doubt think that this was about the cover-up as well.

So they raced to the Palace, specifically to the wing of the building closest to the lab, where they then squealed to a stop in front of an unmarked SUV keeping them from getting away with all the hard work Five-0 had put in on this case.

All four of the FBI agents got out of the car and slammed their doors shut to approach Steve who had gotten out of the Camaro to come at them.

"Get back in your car, Commander."

Great so they knew who he was, that would make this easier.

"No, I don't think so," he snapped as he and the leader squared off. "Why don't you tell me why the FBI is taking over this case? It's a local matter."

They were both in blue. Steve in his dark Navy blue because he had been angling to impress Rowan that morning and she loved him in blue. A little bit because she had cut him again when they were having shower sex once Nahele had gone to school. He loved her nails in his back but she needed to stop lacerating him. She was always very apologetic though.

The leader was in a blue suit of a similar color to Steve's shirt. He held himself in the typical smug fashion but Steve could see a sort of shifty nervousness around his eyes. It was the way they were darting around, like he was waiting for someone to pop up. Like Rowan, or one of her brothers.

"Actually, it's a federal one."

Oh really? How?

Steve was getting angry so it was a good thing that Danny, who was leaning against the hood of his car, took over from there.

"Well, the victim was, uh, not a federal employee, so this is a straight-up murder case."

"I'm not sure why you think I'm obliged to share any information with you," he said to Danny and that was all together the wrong thing to say.

Steve caught a bit of movement, normally movement caught his attention anyway because he was in tuned to catch small movements. But this one was extra special, because it was his wife.

She walked calmly and quietly out of the building and moved towards the car. He did his best not to pay attention to her but he didn't miss her opening that car door and disappearing inside it.

When he saw her again she was walking back to the building and handing off the box of evidence to Eric who was standing with Jerry half hidden by the door. Then she went back to the car. This time going for the passenger side with the glove box.

They went to turn back and Steve got back in the man's face

"Hey, listen, plan, one of our people watched his friend get shot and killed this morning, so you're gonna have to do better than that," he said very loudly to cover up and sound that Rowan might have been making.

The man stepped a beat closer to Steve, and by god it was a good thing that Rowan was in that SUV of their otherwise Steve might have decked him.

"Actually, I don't." They were now standing face to face, only a foot between them. This guy was taller than him, which pissed Steve off even more. "Unless you want to face federal charges for obstruction of justice, you'll stand down right now."

Rowan finally and carefully shut that door and disappeared into the building with Jerry and Eric, the evidence and case information all back in their custody. With Rowan safe, Steve put a patronizing smile onto his face.

"Come on, Danny, let's move the car," he said.

Danny was shocked, of course, shocked that Steve backed down, shocked that Steve was letting this happen. Shocked that Steve not only moved the Camaro out of the way but let the FBI agents get back in their car and drive away.

He leant against the back of the Camaro watching as they drove away and Danny grabbed his shoulder and gave him a bit of a shake as if he were excited.

"Buddy, you handled that with the utmost maturity and professionalism," he said sounding almost proud. "I was very, very surprised."

But Steve hadn't backed down because he was mature or trying to be professional, and now, now he was just waiting for the reason he backed down to come back out of that building.

"He backed down cause he saw me going into the car to steal the evidence back."

"Jesus," Danny cried and then turned to where Rowan was rounding the Camaro to go to Steve.

"Where the hell did you come from, did you jump?"

"Nope, went around back figured it would give them enough time for them to drive away," she said smiling up to Steve who immediately had her in his arms. "Look at my baby is blue," she purred. "I just love my baby in blue."

And he loved his baby in everything. She literally could not look bad in his eyes.

Danny snapped his fingers in between them so that they'd focus on him. "Did you just say that you stole the evidence back?"

"I did."

Danny whistled at her. "When they find out they're going to be pissed. They might even arrest you."

Yeah like Steve was going to let that happen. He'd call Sin Nombre and pull in his first favour before he let that happen.

"That guy's not going to arrest me," Rowan said with a scoff.

"Why?"

"Why, what?"

"Why isn't he going to arrest you?"

"Don't you worry about that," she had said. And then showed them what she had brought with her. It was a camera. She put it into his hands and then smiled up at him.

"This is everything you're going to need to nail your guy. The FBI knows who he is. So I would suggested arresting that asshole to get more info from him."

"Do you?" Steve asked.

"No not yet."

"Does your brother?"

"Rowan! Chin got a hold of the next person on Susie's list, you coming?"

"Yeah give me a minute!" she called back and then she was kissing Steve again thoroughly. "I gotta go baby, I'll call you if I get anything. I promise."

Steve was slightly distracted by that kiss though, so he hadn't managed to keep a hold of Rowan. She had managed to get away from him, but this was far from over. She wouldn't be able to avoid the question forever, he'd get an answer out of her.

But first he was going to look at what was on that Camera. Then he'd deal with Rowan and her evasiveness that probably meant that Sin Nombre had found their guy and was doing unspeakable things to him.

She was right again. The Camera proved that the FBI had been watching Susie, they even had photos of when she got shot. So Steve did as Rowan suggested.

He arrested FBI Agent Ward.

H5O-H5O-H5O-H5O

It had taken awhile to find Ward, as Rowan hadn't given him his location. But once he had him, and Danny had taken him and put him down in the questioning cells, he called Rowan.

She had been off with Jerry at the time, but he had wanted her help. He knew that she had an ace over either the FBI or this guy in particular and he had a feeling he'd need it when the interrogation started. But when he called Rowan, she told him that it wasn't her who had anything on this guy, it was Con. She he had her call Con, pull him off the search he was on and have him come to the palace.

He specifically asked Rowan to do it because he didn't want to waste one of his favours.

Once he had everyone available and on the premises, he went down and confronted Agent Ward.

Steve hated how smug the guy was right now, like he had gotten away with it, like Steve had nothing.

"Why were you following Susie Freeling?" he asked him.

Ward just crossed his legs and smiled like he wasn't in any trouble at all. Like this was a social call and he was just staying there to be polite.

"Play this out, Commander. You've detained a federal agent without cause. In what universe does that end well for you?"

In the universe where Steve had an ace up his sleeve, but he didn't say that. "Without cause? How about you sitting on your ass snapping photos while an innocent woman gets shot to death in broad daylight? How 'bout that for cause?"

Oh now the man was quiet.

"I asked you a question, I'm gonna ask you again. Why were you following Susie Freeling?"

Still silence and that smug fucking smile.

"Had she does something wrong? Was she in some kind of danger?"

"Oh, okay. Alright. How about this, then. I don't care who you work for. Right now you're in a bunker, four stories underground. Nobody knows you're here and you're not getting out until you tell me what I wanna know."

Now he looked slightly uncomfortable but he still wasn't talking.

"Fine, nothing? You sure, you sure you wanna do it this way?" Steve asked. "I didn't wanna do it the hard way, but sure let's do it the hard way."

Steve walked away from him and back to the door. He knocked on it three times and it buzzed before he opened it.

Ward laughed. "That's it? That's the hard way?"

Rowan and Steve exchanged glances. "Yep I'm the hard way. Do you know how this works?"

"Of course I do. I'm not stupid. You're going to call one of your brothers."

"Mhmm, did you know one of them is already on the island? He was only 24 hours behind you."

Steve glanced to Rowan, that was a lie, he could tell that time. There wasn't a single change in her face, in fact the lie came out of her seamlessly, like it was truth. Only sociopaths could lie as good as that, and he knew exactly where she had learned that from, from the man who had lied to her for a whole year so well that not even she guessed that he was lying to her. But he knew it was a lie, mainly because he knew for a fact that Con had been pulled that morning. But Rowan had to let these guys believe that he had gotten here the hard way.

For a second Ward paused, clearly worried about the implications of this, but he put that brave front back on and laughed at her again.

"You think that scares me? Your brothers are rapidly approaching a time where we will be able to arrest and then exploit them. Not only do you pose as a very tempting lure, I now have you on federal obstruction of justice."

"Oh yeah?" Rowan asked, her head cocked to the side.

"You think we didn't figure out that it was you who stole the camera and the evidence…"

"Still drove away though," Rowan said with a patronizing wince. "Got all the way back to your little stake-house before you realized it was all gone. That's kind of embarrassing…"

"Listen here you little psycho. Your reign of terror is going to come to an end. We're all aware that if we take you down, your brothers will follow, if you don't want me to level this little empire you have here, starting with your husband, you're going to get him to let me go, right now. Do you understand?"

Rowan turned a little pout to Steve who immediately whispered: "You're not a psycho," to her in the most assuring way he could muster.

Rowan practically melted. "Aw thanks babe!" she cried then she angled her head back to the door that was still partially open. "Did you get that?"

Door banged all the way open at that point as a figure darkened the doorway radiating an angry aura into the room.

"Yes I fucking did," Sin Nombre cried.

Now Ward looked properly afraid as Sin Nombre stalked into the room and towards him, with that Rabbit mask affixed clearly on his face. Ward's mouth had fallen open, gone was the smug look, he now stared at Sin Nombre who was now standing above him with his hands on his hips.

"How about we tell everyone how I know you, huh Ward?"

Danny came in after him being sure to shut the door behind him. "I'd love to know how you to know each other…"

"2012 Libya. That US Ambassador that got killed…"

Steve blinked his eyes, he had heard about that. The FBI security detail had been obliterated, only one person had survived out of a team of five, and it hadn't been the client either.

"Stevens?" Steve asked.

"That's him. This little fucker was on his security detail. It was one of his first assignments with the Bureau wasn't it?" Sin Nombre asked with a crooked cruel grin. "I got sent in to off the guy."

Well he clearly succeeded. "So the guy failed a mission, you're a skilled assassin…"

"I had only been working for two years, I wasn't that skilled yet," Sin Nombre snapped. "And that's not what I got on him, is it Ward?"

Ward had gone an ashen color and Steve was officially curious. "No, this guy, when he realize I had the upper hand, gave up his team, and his security detail and in return I had to let him go free."

"You can't prove that…"

"I have you on tape begging for your life. You can practically hear the snot bubbles you were blowing," Sin Nombre snapped and Ward went quiet.

Wow, that was pretty heavy shit. No wonder Rowan was confident that the man wouldn't arrest her.

Ward turned to Steve and then back to Sin Nombre and then had the absolute nerve to scoff. "You think this scare tactic is going to work? I know he's not going to hurt you. You can't let him," he said to Steve and then turned back to Sin Nombre again. "And you. You think you're going to scare me? You know what's going to happen if I tell my people you're working with Five-0?Five-0's going to get investigated, probably shut down, your reputation is going to get shot to shit, and your little sister will be put in jail. So go ahead, hit me with all you got, cause we're going to hit you with…"

"You fucking piece of shit!" erupted out of Sin Nombre so fast that Steve jumped. Danny moved forward to stop him, Rowan, who had been giving Ward the hand single to shut the fuck up, turned and put herself in between them. Still he was reaching behind his back for something, probably a weapon, which was ridiculous because they had taken all the weapons off of him before he came into the building.

"You think you can come here and threaten my mami, are you fucking loco? You should have stayed out of Hawaii, ese! Fuck playing nice, I'mma put a bullet in you!"

"Stop it! You're scaring him."

"That is the fucking point!"

Rowan kept both her hands on his chest as she looked up to him with those wide blue eyes that always melted Steve, he was interested in seeing how the big and scary Sin Nombre dealt with it.

"You're scaring me too," she said in a cute little wavering voice. Oh she was laying it on thick.

Sin Nombre instantly deflated. "Aw, I'm sorry mami."

Oh. My. God. He wondered if Rowan used that look on Wo Fat too… he wondered if it work. It must have.

"Can you wait outside?"

"Sure," he said and then shot a narrowed look at Ward. "I will see you later!"

Rowan followed him to the door, made sure that he went through it before shutting the door behind her. Once it was shut she whirled around and pressed her back to the door, a look of pure panic on her face.

"Right so… he's a lot angrier then I thought he'd be I… I don't think I'll be able to save you. Oh but… he owes you a favour… he has to do everything you say," Rowan said pointing at Steve. Ward turned to him hope alight in his eyes.

"Oh… I don't have to do anything," Steve said. "I mean… he's not going to give me anything, why should I do anything for him?"

"You're going to let that maniac kill me? That's still second degree…"

"Oh he won't kill you here, but he'll get you at some point. Once you leave here you're not in my care anymore… I can't control him anyway… well unless I ask for that favour. But I have a limited about of favours and I unno if I wanna waste it on this."

"Fine, you wanna know what this is all about? I'll tell you…"

"I mean do we really need to know? Cause like, Con already knows where the guy is."

Steve turned to her. "Wait what?"

"Yeah that's where I pulled him from. Where the guy is staying, I mean…"

"Why didn't you tell me that, Rowan?"

"You didn't ask. You said you needed help I assumed it was big. Guy's not going anywhere anyway," she then nodded to Ward. "And he knows who he is too."

Steve turned back to Ward and then back to Rowan and then back to Ward. "Right. Tell us what this is all about. Then you're going to confirm that my two psychos have the right guy."

Ward opened his mouth to talk just as Steve put out a hand, took Rowan's in his, pulled her to his side and whispered: "I don't think you're a psycho so don't worry."

And as Ward spilled all, both McGarrett's smiled.

H5O-H5O-H5O-H5O

Rowan, Jerry and Chin had been chasing down all of the leads that Susie had followed as well. They had even met with a real-life spy, or a guy who was paid to spy anyway, who had been following them.

He was going to leave a matchbook with a note for them to meet him in Chin's car, but he hadn't accounted for how fast Rowan was. And how willing she was to tackle a senior citizen. She was completely willing.

His name was Drake and from '61-'72 he was working for the FBI. Not officially of course, officially he was the manager of the Duke Kahanamoku's nightclub. He was recruited because everyone worth spying on passed through Duke's when they were in town.

From him they had gotten another name, and the item that Susie was hunting down, her last piece of evidence.

It was a cigarette case that was rigged to take recordings.

Kamele Hale was the one who had done it, taken the recording. She had taken that tape recording, was supposed to hand it off, but instead she vanished with it. Drake never got a chance to listen to it, it wasn't his job. After that she changed her name, moved around and then, eight months ago. She died.

She had clearly had something on that recording tape that had made her vanish. Jerry was certain it was the proof that they needed. And they were going to go to the charity shop that had taken her belongings to sell to see if they could find anything.

But then Rowan got called in by Steve they had given up the chase to go and give him the help he needed to find Susie's killer.

Jerry had been sitting up in Chin's office waiting to see what would happen when they came back up. Rowan had called in a friend of hers, a Hispanic looking man with black leather jacket. He had an easy and warm smile but cold and calculated eyes. He wasn't all muscles like Steve either, he had a sort of boniness about him, but Jerry could tell, without talking to him, that this guy could take someone apart with or without a weapon with minimal effort. It was in the way he carried himself.

He was still kind of really attractive, the kind of guy who could smile at a woman and get her number without asking.

He had been taken down to the holding cells and now they were waiting for them to come back up. Apparently Steve needed Rowan's back up, and Jerry had to guess that the man in the leather was the backup. He wondered if this was one of her brothers or just a piece of muscle she had rustled up with her app.

By the time that they came back up, everyone was sent to suit up, but Steve, Rowan and the man in leather were heading towards him. No doubt to give him information on what they had found out.

As they were walking, the man in leather was fiddling with something, stashing something behind his back. He was pretty sure it wasn't a gun because how would this civilian have gotten a gun into the palace. But it did look like plastic, white plastic.

"So… it turns out she was targeted for something else she was looking into," Steve said. "And apparently Con here, already IDed the shooter."

Oh so this was her brother. Her brother Con.

"Would'a done more if you hadn't called me for back up," he said.

"You should have told me you were sitting on him Con, I would have told you to bring him in."

"I don't bring people in, McGarrett, if I was bringing him it would'a been in the trunk of my car and he wouldn't have a pulse."

Steve shook his head clearly gearing up to argue with Con so it was up to Rowan to continue. "It's a chemical company that she was looking into. The CEO of the company… he wanted Susie silenced before she went public with what she had found out. She went to the FBI instead of the public. She should have gone to the public. Maybe she'd be alive."

"Right, I'm heading out to get the guy, he's staying here," Steve said shooting a glare at Con. "I want you to stay here too, okay?"

Rowan nodded pulling him in for a kiss before sending him off. "Be safe, love you!" she called to his retreating back and he half turned to her with a surprised sort of smile on his face like he hadn't expected her to say it.

He shot both Con and Jerry a bit of a glance like he was embarrassed to say it in front of them, but still cleared his throat and said: "Love you too. I'll be back soon though."

Rowan seemingly watched him go while Con turned back to Jerry more intrested in him than Steve.

"Oh and uh… I got this for you," the man in the leather jacket said. He pulled something out of his pocket and dropped it into Jerry's hands. "You were looking for this, right?"

It was the cigarette case.

He got up in a flash and wrapped the man in a hug that he clearly didn't want.

"Rowan," came out of his mouth in a low warning growl and Jerry realized that he could feel something hard hidden under the man's jacket.

He had a concealed weapon.

Jerry dropped his hold on him immediately. "Sorry man," he said. "I was just excited."

"No problem," he said, "Just uh… warn me next time. Sudden movements sometimes end in stabbings."

Jerry turned surprised eyes to Rowan who just shook her head. "Sorry about him," she whispered. "Shouldn't you introduce yourself?"

The man in the leather jacket shook his head. "Don't see why. He don't gotta know my name."

"Seriously? Jerry this is my brother Con, you will most likely have to call him Sin Nombre until you…"

"WHOA! Really? You're the Sin Nombre?"

The man shot Rowan a glare and then said: "Yes. But I don't know nothing about any conspiracy theories…"

"Are you sure cause your name is connected to a like twenty political assassinations…"

"Uh… it's more like ten and no one can prove anything…"

"But…"

"Listen man," Sin Nombre said clapping a hand to Jerry's shoulder. "I don't mind helping you out. So I'm going to give you a little tip. The less you know, the less likely you die. You get what I'm saying?"

Yep. It meant stop asking questions. Rowan shook her head at him and hit Jerry with a Sorry for him, but Jerry wasn't all that phased. He was just glad that the man was on his side.

"Yes. I get it. Thank you for the… this…"

"No problem," he said, he then turned to Rowan. "So Steve's off to bag the bad guy for us, did you wanna do Rainbows before I head out? Seeing as he won't let me tag along on the retrieval."

Normally Rowan was always down for breakfast food, no matter the time. But this time she seemed thoughtful. "Is the guy even alive?"

"Uh… yeah… sure…"

Jerry wasn't so sure that Sin Nombre was telling the truth, Rowan didn't seem to believe him either but she also didn't seem to care. She just smiled at him before turning that same smile onto Jerry.

"Kay Jerry are you good now or do you want me to stay?"

"Naw it's gonna take me a while to get this rigged up to play, I'll call you when it's ready!"

"Kay great!" she then turned to Sin Nombre. "He'll be safe in here right… I mean… maybe we should stay to make sure no one breaks in to kill him?'

Jerry went straight in his chair, he hadn't thought about that. With the whole Five-0 team gone, he was basically a sitting duck.

"He'll be fine. I put his profile on high alert on Sanctuary. So, we'll get alerted if something's going down, not to mention he's in the Palace, so I'm fairly confident that it'll be fine. Besides, Rainbows isn't that far, worst comes to worse I come back."

Aww that was kind of nice of him to do that for him.

"Okay, well, do you want anything from Rainbows?" she asked Jerry. He shook his head and Rowan moved in to hug him. "Right, well call me if you change your mind."

And then Rowan left. With a very dangerous assassin as a lunch date.

After that, Jerry was left alone to work on the cassette tape in the cigarette case. When the Five-0 team came back he was ready to show them what he had found.

And he had found out a few things.

One. Rowan had known about this, had dreamed it. She just couldn't piece together why it mattered before hand, which explained the guilt she felt over this and why she had blown off everything that day to help him. Jerry was sure to tell her that it didn't matter, cause if she had known she would have tried to stop it. And she was super helpful with everything else that day.

Two. The recording was about Operation Mongoose. That was the Cabinet and the Joint Chief's campaign to remove Fidel Castro from power. They hadn't been planning Kennedy's assassination it was Castro's. Susie had died thinking she had solved it, but she hadn't. She might have proven it wrong actually.

Jerry was just going to have be content with being able to solve her murder.

Three. The man that had killed her, Ronan Scuderi, was not alive when Five-0 went to pick him up. The man had had his fingers cut off, his tongue cut out, his eyes burned out and then shot three times. Chest, neck and head. Steve was angry at Rowan, saying that she should have told him that Sin Nombre had gotten to the guy before they did. She kept saying that she didn't know, but not even Jerry believed her.

The only reason Steven wasn't completely angry was because, sitting open on his phone was all the command requests for the assassination, sent by the CEO of the company Susie had been investigating. Proof that they had hired her hit.

And four, which was probably the most important thing he had learned that day. Sin Nombre was a terrifying individual and that warm suave smile he had idolized was nothing but a mask hiding the terrible, violent capability for evil underneath.