Chapter Ninety-Six



Eli



The last 24 hours have been a whirlwind of emotions and events. Dani introduced me to Beth; a part of her life that she's never even mentioned before. We found the alley she started in and that will give us a starting point for a search. And we're going to look at a house. This all points to progress. I know she's on a heavy amount of drugs, but I like to think it's a little bit because of me. I know she cares about me and I'd even go as far to say she loves me. Dani doesn't need to say the words for me to know. I understand her hesitation in saying those words.

As we step onto our floor at work, Ash and the Cap are standing outside the locker room. Dani scurries to her desk as the 2 guys turn to look at me.

Ash smirks, looks at his watch and asks, “What time to do you call this?”

I smile sweetly and reply, “Time that you shut your face...”

He chuckles and the Cap rolls his eyes at the pair of us. “Seriously you two? Will you ever really grow up?”

Ash jokes, “Probably not, Cap. Your life wouldn't be the same if we did.”

“It would certainly be much quieter if you did, Ash.”

“I wouldn't count on that, sir.”

Ash chuckles and slaps my back before he wanders off to the team. The Cap tells me to follow him to his office, so I silently obey. I know he wants information and I'm obliged to give it to him. I'm not stupid enough to think I can find and take these guys out by myself. I'd get killed doing that and even if I didn't, nothing would stand up in court. Of course I'd like to kill them myself, but I know that's not a realistic outcome. I need to do my job properly and make sure they get the heaviest penalty possible.

“You want to enlighten me as to what case you were following up on this morning, Ramirez?”

“Dani's.”

He raises his eyebrows, but he doesn't look particularly shocked. More surprised that she's remembered something.

“So? Any new leads?”

“Yes sir. We found the alley where they left her.”

I don't want to say where they dumped her, but in all honesty, that's what they did.

“That's great, Eli. You want me to call it in?”

I nod. There's no way they'll let me lead this investigation, at least not at this stage. If I really push it then I'm sure they'll let me lead a raid. They can't argue with my team's statistics.

“I'll give Captain Greggson a call now. Eli?”

“Yes Cap?”

“I had ADA Flynn in here this morning.”

“Really? How come?”

“She wanted to run through the case with me. It seems that Avilov, Goraya and Zhabin aren't talking. They must be too scared of the Bratva to say anything. They're taking a plea for what she can make stick because they know they won't get out of that.”

“What can she make stick?”

“Attempted murder in the first degree and rape in the first degree.”

“Is that it? It hardly seems enough.”

“It'll be life without parole for at least 15 years. That's something at least.”

“They deserve to die, Cap.”

“I know, but that's not what we're about. We arrest and uphold the law. We don't enforce it. I'm sure ADA Flynn knows what she is doing. She'll get the maximum sentence possible. She did mention that you need to talk to your brother though. Anything I need to know about?”

“No sir. Just family issues.”

I haven't spoken to Tyler since he blew up at Dani. Maybe Nicole has spoken to him about Babkin. I guess the only way to know is to talk to him. I'll call rather than meet up. I don't know if Dani will want to risk seeing him.

The Cap dismisses me to my duties and the day passes far too quickly. Before we leave for the night, he tells me Greggson's men are looking into a location for Misha. They have to get a location before we can get a warrant to search the place. As soon as we have that, it'll be a mad rush to get him before he can be tipped off. It's just a waiting game now, something I'm not particularly good at.

Dani and I head to the hospital for her appointment with Dr. Stone. She's quiet, but I don't question her about it. I know today has been quite emotional for her, so I let her process. She's needs to get some sleep after we see Dr. Stone and Sam.

When Dr. Stone appears in the hospital room, he smiles brightly at us, but more specifically Dani.

“You're looking very well, Dani. How do you feel?”

“Better, thank you.”

“Good. Are you well Lieutenant?”

“Yes thank you. Yourself?”

“Can't complain. Busy as always, but I'm sure you know how that feels. Shall we see if we can take this cast off today?”

Both Dani and I nod before Dr. Stone calls for nurse Mandy to help him remove the cast. I can see Dani isn't comfortable, but she's not freaking out. This is a good sign. She's got a firm grasp on my hand, but I don't bring any attention to it. If she wants to seek comfort from me, then I'm not going to stop her from doing that. As they start to clean the leg up a little, I see Dani wince so I whisper in Russian, “Does it hurt, baby?”

Her voice is a little hoarse when she responds, “A little. I don't like the touching, Eli.”

“I know, sweetheart, I know. I'm sorry. Just a little bit longer and it'll be over. Just a little longer...”

Not even a minute later, Dr. Stone says, “Let's get you to x-ray and we can see what the pictures say, huh?”

I wheel Dani up to x-ray and while I'm waiting for her to come back out, I dial Tyler's number.

When he picks up, I say, “Ty, it's me.”

“Hey Eli. You at home?”

“No. The hospital.”

Wow, this feels awkward. It's amazing how falling in love can change the dynamics of a relationship. Ty nd I have had our fair share of fights, but it's never been awkward after. The way he treated Dani was completely unacceptable and that's what has made me feel so angry.

“Nothing's happened, has it? You guys are ok, right?”

“Nothing has happened. It's Dani's appointment.”

“Oh, right.”

He pauses for a little while and then he quietly says, “Eli, about Dani. I'm sorry I acted the way I did. I shouldn't have treated her like that.”

“You're right, you shouldn't have.”

“No going easy on me, huh? I'm trying to apologize here.”

“You know me well enough to know that I won't go easy on you if you're wrong. And you were so very wrong.”

“I know that now. I didn't believe those things about Artur...”

“Doesn't matter if you didn't believe it. That was no way to treat another human being, especially one who you could see was scared out of her mind.”

I pinch the bridge of my nose. I can feel myself getting irritated at him and that was not my intention by calling.

“I know you didn't want to believe that Artur was a bad person, but those are the facts. Despite you not wanting to believe it, you should have read the situation better and seen she was scared. I know you didn't deliberately scare her, but you should have seen what you were doing.”

“I know. I realize that now. I am sorry though, Eli. I assume she doesn't want to see me, so can you apologize to Dani for me, please?”

“Sure.”

“Are we good now?”

“As long as you know never to speak to Dani like that ever again...”

“I promise. So, it's serious then?”

“Yep. We're looking at a house in the next few days.”

“Really? Wow. Ma kept that quiet. She must like Dani a heck of a lot to sit on that piece of information.”

“Yeah, she does... Have you spoken to Nicole?”

“Yeah, she's the one who made me see sense... Did they really try to kill Dani?”

I frown and ask, “How much do you know?”

“That Avilov, Goraya and Zhabin are facing attempted murder and rape charges. Nicole is pushing for life without parole, but she needs some other case to tie in and prove these guys will offend again if allowed parole. I think that case is being run by Organized Crime though.”

“Yeah.”

“They really did all that to her, didn't they?”

“I can't really talk about that, Ty. Don't ever mention it to her or the family, you hear me?”

“Of course not. Obviously, I'm not on the case because I'm related to you, but I can keep an eye on it.”

“Thanks. Hey, I have to go. You wanna meet at mine tomorrow night with Ash and the guys?”

“Sure thing. 8pm?”

“Sounds good. I'll let the team know. See you tomorrow Ty.”

Dani is just being wheeled back to me as I hang up.

She asks, “Everything ok? You're frowning.”

“Oh, yeah. My brother. A strange conversation, is all. He asked me to apologize in his behalf for the way he treated you...”

She nods and whispers, “It's not his fault.”

“He's responsible for his own actions. Even if he doesn't want to believe anything he's told, he still shouldn't treat you that way. Anyway, enough talk about my brother. What did Dr. Stone say?”

“He's looking at the films. He said he'll get us when he's ready.”

It's about 10 minutes before Dr. Stone calls us to his office. He has a smile on his face, so that must be a good sign.

“I'll just get straight to it. Your x-rays look good, Dani. I'm happy to keep the cast off, but I would like you wear a boot for a little while, just until you're a bit more mobile and you've had some PT. The boot can be taken off to shower and sleep though. You'll mostly need to wear it if you're walking around and while you're at work. I would like you to keep the crutches for now, just to ease the weight load on your leg. You'll need a few weeks of PT, but Sarah is going to contact you directly for that. I'm very pleased with your recovery so far and I'll probably only need to see you once more in a few weeks just to sign you off.”

He fits the boot on Dani's leg and we head out for our visit with Sam.

On the short journey to Sam's office, Dani looks a bit shell shocked, so I reach for her hand and ask, “Hey, you ok?”

“I think so. I can actually take a shower, Eli...”

“Yes, you can. You ready for this session?”

She shrugs and whispers, “I don't know how I feel right now.”

“It has been a bit of a weird day, hasn't it? Let's get this session finished and we can go home to relax. Sound good to you?”

“Sounds good. What am I supposed to talk about here, Eli?”

“Whatever you want to. Even if it's just what you had for breakfast, just talking is better than keeping it all bottled up. Ready?”

“I guess so.”



So we head into Sam's office for our last stop of the day.