⋆° დ ༄ RISKY BUSINESS
chapter two. wrong side of the bars.
Maxine and Erin walk up the stairs of the home of the Willhite's to inform Mr Willhite that Jules didn't make it.
"I really don't wanna do this, Erin" Maxine says, tears gathering in her bright brown eyes again. Erin grabs ahold of her friends hand and says, "Me either, but we have too"
Maxine takes a deep breath, as Erin rings the doorbell. Julie's daughter and son open the door and Emmy says, "Hi Erin, Hi Max"
"Emmy, Liam. Is your dad home?" Erin asks. Emmy turns her head and yells, "hey, Dad! Erin and Max are here"
Alec walks to the door and says, "hey guys. What's up?"
"Alec, um.."
Alec looks at his kids and says, "hey, you guys wanna go inside?"
The two kids run inside and yell, "Bye Erin, Bye Max"
"Jules, uh.." Maxine starts to say with tears in her eyes. Alec being a doctor and knowing what's happening breaks down in tears, walking outside and closing the door behind him so the kids don't hear and Erin brings him into a hug, while Maxine looks up at the sky trying so hard not to let the tears fall down her face.
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Maxine stands in the locker room crying into Adam's chest who has one arm wrapped around her petite body and his other hand patting down her hair trying to calm her down.
"It's gonna be okay, Maxie. Shh" Adam says, then kisses the top of her head.
~~~
"They took Antonio's son" Hank says to his team, who are all at their desks, "then they took my own, as far as I'm concerned. Nothing else matters till we get Diego back. Nothing"
Jay points at Maxine who nods and says, "Sarg. So, this all started with Rev and Coop getting their heads chopped off. And both did essentially the same job as Pulpo. Mid level distribution, right? So we know Pulpo's cleaning house. And what do you do when you get rid of old furniture? You gotta bring in something new." then Jay holds up a picture, showing the team, "this guy stood out. It's Ernesto Milpas. He was running 15 corners between 22nd and Kedzie when CPD pinched him in '09"
Antonio grabs the picture from Jay and says, "Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was in that bust. With Jules"
"He was released last year"
"He was a climber"
"Maybe he's looking to get promoted" Erin suggests.
"He's the best of a lot of bad options" Jay says.
"What do we have on him now?" Voight asks, taking the picture from Dawson.
"PO's got an address that's a year old"
Hank points at Jay and slams Ernesto's picture onto the whiteboard.
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"I don't know how Antonio's handling all of this. If I had a kid snatched up, I would be incoherent." Maxine says, driving down the streets of Chicago with her partner Jay in the passenger seat, "I used to think that cops under Voight were invincible. And then Jules died. I was holding her hand in the ambulance. As a soldier, how did you deal with it?"
"Generally, take it out on those who don't deserve it" Jay says.
Maxine sighs, "Yeah"
~~~
"There's our boy" Voight says, through his walkie, as the team has been waiting for Ernesto Milpas to show up at his last known address, "everybody! Go, go!"
Maxine and Jay get out of their car, with their guns drawn, and race towards the back entrance of the building. As the two detectives enter the building, Jay motions for his partner to go right as he goes left.
Maxine slowly walks through the warehouse, when out of nowhere the suspect hits her with something metal, making the detective fall to the ground in pain, and he starts running away.
Maxine groans, then sits up taking out her walkie and says, "suspect is on foot out the southwest side of the warehouse" then she holds her nose and looks up at the ceiling, feeling a nosebleed coming on.
~~~
The team is standing on the sidewalk on the bridge next to the warehouse, where Maxine has a tissue in her nose, trying to stop the bleeding, when Voight walks over to her and says, "Hey. You okay, kid?"
"Yeah. Just a nosebleed. I'm an idiot, but I'm fine" Maxine answers.
"Hey. It wasn't your fault, trust me"
"No sign of Diego, or that he was ever here" Dawson yells walking over to the team, then walks towards Ruzek, "we had him! What the hell was that?!"
"Hey, I made a move!" Ruzek yells. Voight tries to keep Antonio back, while Maxine tries to keep Adam back and says, "take it easy"
"Yeah, a stupid one!" Antonio yells.
"Take it easy!"
"And let's not forget who let herself get jumped!"
Maxine scoffs, "hey. I—" and Hank puts his hand up for her to stop talking.
"Detective Dawson, this is Burgess. You're gonna wanna see this" Kim says over the walkie.
Antonio, Hank, Jay, Maxine, Mickey and Erin run towards the warehouse and down the stairs to the basement where Sheldon is and Dawson says, "please tell me you have something"
Sheldon turns the laptop around to show them a video of Diego who is tied up to a chair with duct tape on his mouth and a man speaking in Spanish.
"Translation?" Hank says.
"Scream and we cut out your tongue" Erin says.
The man on the video takes the tape off of Diego's mouth and he says, "Daddy, they say they're going to kill me, daddy" then the man puts the tape back onto Diego's mouth.
"Check out there paneled wall. That's not here" Jay says.
🪩🪩🪩
The team is now in the tech room next to the roll up, where the team is searching files, when Hank says, "Alright. Go through these one by one, see if anyone crosses with Pulpo or Ernesto." Then he goes over to Mickey and hands him a stack, "these are mine"
"Okay, look. Remember, the red tabbed files are the CIs that have been paid out, okay. And you...hey, no. No, no, no, no. Those don't go in that pile" Sheldon says, towards Ruzek, "you gotta keep it separate, or you're gonna get it confused with the other ones. And you wouldn't..."
"Jin" Hank says.
"I told you.."
"Jin?"
"Yeah"
"What you got so far on the video?"
As Mickey looks over the files he stumbles upon the CI file of Erin and he looks over at his partner and Sheldon says, "there are some other voices in the distance in the audio track. So there's reason to believe that it was in a public place. Backroom of a bar, maybe a hotel. There's really not much to go on, through"
"Thanks" Hank says, then walks towards the door, "Jacobs. Lindsay. Come here a sec." as the two walk over to the Sergeant he says, "In case we're gonna consider a trade, I want you to check out these locations. Sight lines, sniper spots, the works"
"You considering negotiating?" Mickey asks. Hank hands Erin a small piece of paper and says, "just check it out"
"Okay" Mickey says, and the three walk away. Maxine stands next to her best friend, who looks at his ringing cell phone and she says, "why aren't you answering?" And when Adam didn't answer she sighs, "you didn't tell your fiancé you got detailed up to intelligence?"
"She'll just worry"
"Adam, you're a cop. If she wants to marry you, she'll have to live with that worry for the rest of her life. You gotta tell her"
"Yeah, yeah"
"Adam Patrick Ruzek"
"Okay, I will. Geez"
✨✨✨
Mickey and Erin are at one of the locations Voight sent them to which is at a warehouse. Mickey looks at places to put snipers and points to a building close by and says, "put a sniper there and there" as Erin writes and draws it down in a notebook, "and two more snipers in the windows there"
"Yeah. Okay" Erin says, drawing it into the book. Mickey looks at his partner and says, "What is it?"
"You know what percentage of kidnappings end in a successful swap? Less than 1%"
"It's just a contingency"
"Hmm" Erin hums. Mickey hesitates for a second and says, "I gotta ask you something"
"Go ahead" Erin says, still looking at the notebook.
"I saw your file" Mickey says, making the brunette look at him, "as one of Voights CI" and Erin scoffs, "did he turn you out?"
Erin sticks the pen back into the spine of the notebook and says, "he didn't have to turn me out" slamming the notebook at his chest, "i volunteered because he saved my life" then she heads back to the car.
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Antonio, Hank, Maxine and Jay walk into the lobby of the Polke Hotel where one of Antonio's CIs says thats where Ernesto is and he puts his badge and a picture of Ernesto onto the class for the manager to see and says, "is he here?"
"408"
The four slowly walk to room 408 with their guns drawn and when Dawson kicks the door open, the room is empty. No sign of Ernesto or Diego. Just Diego's smock on the ground and the window open. Dawson kicks the chair and says, "he was here"
As Antonio walks out of the room he and Ernesto make eye contact and the detective runs after the man who starts running down the stairs with Voight, Halstead and Bishop chasing after them.
As they reach outside, Hank yells, "Run. Get out of here!" to a civilian, then he kneels next to Antonio who has Ernesto pinned on the ground and says, "he knows, Antonio" then hands him his pocket knife, "do what you gotta do"
Antonio takes the knife, holding it to the man's eye and says, "where's my son?"
"Abogado" Ernesto breathes out.
"No! Ain't no lawyers around here, ese"
"You got about three minutes until this alleys filled with uniforms" Hank says.
"I'll start with the eye" Antonio says, holding the knife closer to Ernesto's eye.
"Cut his eye out! Do it!"
"Come on!" Antonio yells, then throws the knife to the side and rolls Ernesto onto his stomach to cuff him.
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Once Antonio leaves the interrogation room, Jay and Maxine stand behind the glass watching and Jay says, "I don't know, but I'm glad I wasn't Antonio back there. You?"
"Oh, I wish I was, cause I know exactly what I would have done" Maxine answers.
~~~
Hank, Antonio, Jay and Maxine are surrounding Sheldon, who's at his laptop, playing a recording in spanish and Bishop says, "he's running. Nothing about Diego"
"I've pinged his cell to the West Adams tower" Jin says, typing on his laptop, "triangulating with the city center"
"I want men deployed to all major transportation routes out of the city. Midway, O'Hare. I'm including all expressways." Hank says.
"He's at union station"
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The team heads down the stairs to the main floor at the union station where Antonio has a tracker that's pinging the suspect, Mateo's phone to a garbage can. Antonio takes out a latex glove and takes the phone from the trash can and takes out his walkie and says, "everybody, fan out. He's gotta be here somewhere"
As everyone is searching top and bottom for Mateo and Diego, Maxine walks outside to see them boarding a bus and she puts in her ear wig that has a walkie in it and says, "I see them. Boarding a bus for Indianapolis"
"Wait for us" Hank says over the walkie. Maxine hesitates for a second waiting for the team but the bus is about to take off so she makes a split second decision to get onto the bus.
Maxine gets onto the bus and slowly lifts her shirt up to show the driver her badge, whose eyes widen a bit. Then the detective nods her head towards the back and walks down the aisle, looking at Mateo and Diego and she sits a couple seats back from them as the bus takes off.
Maxine then takes out her phone to text Voight to tell him about what's going on. A couple minutes later, she gets a text from Voight saying, '10 minutes'.
After 10 minutes, the bus driver starts working her magic, pretending the bus is having some engine trouble and takes out the bus walkie and annonces, "looks like we're having engine trouble, folks. I'm gonna pull the bus over and take a look" then she pulls the bus over.
Maxine looks out the window to see Hank and Antonio driving beside them.
"I've already called another bus to take you on your way. So it should be here in a minute or two. Don't worry" Talia says, then looks out the window to see the other bus coming which is being driven by Adam and Al, and she stands up, "the other bus is almost here folks. Apologies for any inconvenience."
Al walks onto the bus with a driver uniform on and says, "Alright. Sorry for the delay folks. But we got a tried and true new rig out here that'll get you where you're going right away. Now, what I need from all of you, is to disembark, grab your luggage and head on over to the next bus in an orderly fashion. Can you do that for me?" Then he looks at Maxine, "thank you" then leaves the bus.
As all the passengers make their way off the bus, Maxine slowly gets up from her seat and walks past Mateo up to the front where the driver is and says, "hey. So, uh, what happened with the engine?" Trying to pretend to be interested in it to stay on the bus longer.
As the two make conversation, Mateo says, "Policia" pointing his gun to Diego's head. Maxine takes out her gun, pointing it at the man and says, "drop it!"
"I swear I'll kill him"
"Put it down!"
"I don't think so!"
"Drop the gun!"
"Shoot! Come on, shoot! You gonna shoot? Nah, I don't think so."
"Maxie, hold onto something" Adam says through his walkie. Maxine hangs onto a seat, as the back of the bus gets railed into, making Mateo lose balance. Maxine grabs onto Diego and says, "Come here. I got you. Get down" pushing them into the nearest seat.
As Mateo fires his gun, Antonio runs onto the bus firing his gun as well, hitting the offender, instantly killing him.
"Antonio, I got him. I got Diego" Bishop says, "he's okay"
Maxine gets off the bus where she's met with Voight and they walk towards the SUVs and Hank says, "It was the right call, kid"
Maxine takes out her earpiece and her hands are shaking uncontrollably.
"Put your hands in your pockets. It gets easier" Hank says, as the brunette places her hands into her coat pockets.
"Yeah"
"What did I teach you in the gang unit?"
"If you never show fear, they'll never know"
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Later that night, Mickey opens his apartment door to find someone he didn't expect to be there at 10 at night after their long few days.
"Max? What are you doing here?"
"Can I come in?"
"Uh, yeah, yeah" he says, stepping aside to let her in, "what's up?"
"It's been a long few days, huh?" Maxine asks, looking around the unfamiliar place.
"Uh yeah. It has" he says closing his door, "Max, seriously. What's going on?"
"Well, tonight was rough. And I need to blow off some steam. So, take your clothes off"
Mickey looks at his ex girlfriend in shock, "I'm sorry, what?"
"I said . . . take. off. your. clothes"
"Seriously?"
"Okay, I can leave then" she says, going for the door. Mickey stops her and says, "No. stay, please"
The ex couple stare into each other's eyes, Mickey leans in for a kiss, cupping her cheeks. Maxine runs her hands through his longish brown hair, then runs her hands down his chest and goes to lift the shirt off from the bottom.
"I miss this" Mickey moans in between kisses. Maxine smirks and says, "I know"
🪩🪩🪩
Before the team heads out to Jules funeral, Hank gathers them at the roll up and says, "I've been given the go ahead to run Intelligence the way I want to run it. No interference. This is our unit now. You do things my way. Our way. You will un clip your badge at night, knowing you did right. The police standing next to you, are your family." Jay and Maxine look at each other, then when Adam grabs a hold of his best friend's hand, Max looks at him and smiles, then looks at Mickey who she felt staring at her the whole time, "and to me, there's nothing more important. If you're in, stay here with me."
And the team stays in place, knowing that the intelligence unit is where they want to be.
authors note;
I love them all 🥲❤️