CHAPTER FOURTEEN,
pulpo
FROM THE MOMENT THEY got to the hospital, Ariella felt like she couldn't breathe. It felt like an elephant was sitting on her chest, constricting her breathing. She had been holding Luca the entire time too, trying to calm him down and soothe him.
A newscast about Pulpo played on the TV, but no one could even think about paying attention to it, "Hey." Erin grabbed Ariella's shoulders, stopping her, "He's gonna be alright." She reassured her.
"He has to be." She stated. From behind her, Erin saw the doctor walk out.
"Hey." Erin nodded, and Ariella turned her head, and Erin took Luca from her as she turned to face the doctor.
"Mrs. Dawson." The doctor walked over to her as everyone else gathered around.
"Is he gonna be all right?" She asked.
"We're gonna monitor him closely, but he may need a second surgery. He's not out of the woods yet." He told her.
"Can I see him?" Ariella asked.
"Of course." He nodded, "Right here." He led them to the room.
Ariella stood in the doorway for a second, taking in his appearance. How pale he looked, "Antonio." She walked over to his bedside.
"Hey, baby." He rasped, slowly looking up at her.
"Hi." She smiled, leaning down, kissing his head.
"Hey, big guy." Jay greeted.
"Hey," Erin added, bouncing Luca on her hip. Antonio smiled slowly, seeing his son.
"Belden?" He asked, looking over to Voight as Ariella ran a hand through his hair.
"Gone." He shook his head.
"Those guards?" Antonio asked.
"Both dead." Jay shook his head again.
"Find him," Antonio told him.
"We will." Voight nodded. They all walked out, but not before Erin handed Luca back to his mother, who smiled, pulling up a chair and sitting next to Antonio. Luca reached his little hand up and squeezed his father's finger.
"You scared the crap outta me." She told him.
"You did too." He responded, referring to the time only a few months prior to when she was shot.
"I didn't intentionally get shot." She said.
"I didn't either." He smiled. Ariella watched as Luca played with Antonio, unaware of what was going on, wishing things could be that simple, "What?" He asked, causing her to break from her thoughts.
"Nothing." She shook her head, "I just love you." She smiled.
"I love you, too." He smiled even brighter, and she leaned up, kissing him, "You have to find him."
"I know, they will."
"No, you need to be there, too." He told her.
"I'm not leaving you." She shook her head.
"Ari, you know how bad this guy is. We've both seen it. We can't just let him go."
"We aren't just letting him go, Antonio. I..." She took a deep breath, "You just got shot, Antonio. This isn't something I can just put on the back burner and forget about and go back to do my job."
"Well, do it. For me." He begged, "I'm asking you to please do this for me." She looked at him dead in the eyes and saw how serious he was about this.
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Ariella walked back into Intelligence, and they all turned to her, "You should be at the hospital." Voight told her.
"I know." She nodded, swallowing the lump in her throat, "But he wants me to be here, so I'm here. I can't let Pulpo just walk after what he did to my family. Not this time."
"All right." Voight nodded, "Hey, anything at Lina's house?" He asked as Erin walked back in.
"Marshals stormed it. Came up empty." Adam replied.
"What about Lina's family?" Voight asked.
"Her moms got a place on the south side, came up clean, and so did her cell phone records, but I think it's worth a drive-by," Erin responded.
"Good. Take Ariella and go do it." Voight nodded, and Erin grabbed her jacket and they headed out.
"So, Charlie." Erin started.
"What about him?" Ariella asked.
"Annie wants to meet him, with both of us," Erin told her.
"I'll see. I don't know. With Antonio in the hospital. I'll try my best." Ariella told her.
"Alright, thanks." Erin nodded. Ariella smiled and wrapped an arm around Erin's shoulders.
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"Alright, thanks, Trudy." Ariella hung up. Trudy was at the hospital with Diego, Eva, Luca, and Kevin.
"Anything on Lina's mom's house?" Jay asked Erin and Ariella.
"No, zip, but I've got a couple of undercovers parked down the street," Erin said.
"At the hospital..." Jay hesitated, "I've never heard Voight talk about his father. What's the whole story?" He asked.
"Nothing you can't find in the Sun-Times archives." Erin shrugged.
"You lived with him." He pointed out.
"Look, all I know is that every time a cop gets shot in this city, Voight gets that same look in his eye." Erin's phone chimed, signifying a text, "I need some air." She walked out.
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"Hey." Jin walked up, knocking on Voight's door, "Okay. We've got a hit. Lina's fake I.D., Maria Esposito, was just used along with her fake credit card to rent a vehicle from midway 20 minutes ago." He explained.
"You got eyes on 'em?" Voight asked.
"Even better. It's got a GPS tracker on it. Got its exact location. Heading north on Pulaski." Jin said.
"Beautiful." Voight walked out, putting his jacket on, "Sumner, you're out." He spoke abruptly.
"Oh, okay, I'll stay back and watch the..." She looked around confused.
"No, you're out of my unit." Voight corrected, and everyone stopped where they were doing, "You're transferred. As of tomorrow, you work in narcotics."
"You can't transfer me," Sumner stated.
"I already made the call," Voight tld her.
"You're making a mistake." She tried to explain.
"My mistake was letting you stay around this long. You got the day to pack your desk and pass off your files." Voight told her and walked away.
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Adam and Ariella sat in the back, while Erin and Jay sat in the front, trying to navigate where they were going. They were all driving erratically, trying to follow the SUV.
"Where is he?" Erin asked as she swerved through different lanes of traffic to avoid hitting anybody.
"Five blocks up ahead. Still going northbound." Jay told her.
"I don't see an SUV." Erin snapped.
"Hold up. They just pulled off." Jay said, and they pulled up into a crowded gas station, "We got a visual," Jay announced.
"No sirens," Voight told them.
"A lot of people here." Adam pointed out. Once the brakes were set, they all got out, guns raised and they started using people back into their cars.
"Get in your car. Get in your car. Get down! Get down!" Erin told someone.
"Hey, hey, hey."
"Stay in your car!"
"Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa."
"Go. Go. Go." They ushered people back into their cars.
"No driver!" Erin shouted as she looked inside the SUV they had been following.
"Can't see in. I can't clear this." Jay said.
"Ready?" Voight asked, breaking the windshield and Jay opened the door, seeing Pulpo's son sitting there, scared. Jay picked him up and carried him to safety.
Lina walked out of the store, a bag and a bottle of water in hand, "Put your hands up." Adam shouted.
"Get 'em up! Up!" Ariella shouted, both of them aiming their guns at her. She raised her hands in surrender, dropping the stuff in her hands.
"Put your hands up!" Adam shouted.
"Get away from the door," Erin shouted. Once she was away from the door, Erin walked into the store.
"Put 'em on your head. Come over." Adam instructed.
"He's not in there," Erin told them after clearing the store.
"Where's Pulpo?" Voight asked as she avoided eye contact. Adam put the cuffs on her, "Where's Pulpo?" He repeated.
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"So how did you think this was gonna work out, Lina? You guys were gonna leave and just be a big happy family in South America?" Ariella asked Lina. Adam was sitting across from her while Ariella stood against the window.
"I want to see my son." She demanded.
"You tell us where Pulpo's headed, you can see him," Ariella responded.
"Adres told me to rent a truck and then pick him up at a Taqueria at Fifth and Pulaski off the highway at 5:00." She told them.
"Anything else?" Adam asked.
"He said if anything changed, he'd call me," Lina told them.
"Hey, just hand her over to major crimes, and notify child services on her kid. Let's go." Voight told them, storming in.
"Everyone go back and check every scrap of paper we have on Pulpo," Voight instructed as they walked back into the bullpen. "I don't care if it's a jailhouse lunch wrapper he left in the cage. Every known associate, rival, anything you can find." He slammed his office door.
"I'm sorry things didn't work out." Ariella smiled sadly at Sumner. She sighed, looking down at her box, before pulling out a file and handing it to her.
"I didn't get a chance to look at them, considering." She shrugged. Ariella took the file, "Catch this guy. For Antonio." She added.
Ariella smiled and nodded, "Thank you for this. Really." Sumner nodded.
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"Hey, guys, check this out." Ariella got all their attention, "It's a motion for assets petition filed on behalf of Adres Dias. Someone tried to bond Pulpo out."
"His bond was set at $1 million. He never made bail." Adam walked over to read the file.
"Yeah, but somebody tried. Stepan Nesterov put his nightclub up as an asset, but it wasn't worth enough." Ariella continued.
"Nesterov... a Russian. Come here." Al waved Voight over.
"Nesterov's part of the Elston Ave crew. Fresh-off-the-boat Russians shipped over to do dirty work for the old-timers, but they decided to break off on their own." Jay nodded.
"Yeah, and the Russians hate the Colombians," Erin added.
"Then why'd they try to bond Pulpo out?" Adam asked.
"Just get the address of that club," Voight demanded.
Al banged the bar door open, "Police! Hands up!" Adam rushed in first.
"Everybody, hands in the air! Hands in the air!" Jay shouted.
"Put your hands behind your head!" Al shouted. A guy tried to run with a bag of drugs, but before he could run far, Voight shot him.
"Back up! Don't look at me." Ariella shouted.
"Get down! Get down on the ground! Get down! Turn around!" Adam yelled as he and Ariella pushed 3 guys to the ground.
"Get on the ground! Get down, you too!" Ariella aimed her gun at them as they got on the ground.
"Down on the ground! Spread your legs open!" Adam shouted.
"5021 emergency. Shots fired at the police. Suspect's gonna need an ambulance." Jay spoke into the walkie.
"Back's clear. I see a lot more cocaine. No Pulpo." Erin annoucned.
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"Get your arms out. Spread 'em out. Spread 'em out. Spread your legs." Jay frisked one of the guys. The two others sat in the cage, "So why would you put up your nightclub to bond out a Colombian drug lord who's wanted for murder, huh? Somebody dating somebody's sister?" He asked, and the guy said something in Russian, "What was that?" He asked.
"Hey, you guys, this laptop you confiscated from his club, I cracked the password, but I can't read any of the emails. They're all in Cyrillic. It's gonna take me forever to translate this." Jin said.
"Great." Erin sighed.
"I don't suppose we have a cop on shift that reads Russian too," Adam commented.
"I know a guy," Voight said, looking over to Ariella, who nodded, pulling out her phone.
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"So looks like most of these are back and forth to his girlfriend in Moscow. Uh, wait. Here's one about a shipment on Aeroflot." Otis read the emails.
"What's that?" Adam asked.
"It's a Russian airline." He answered.
"You think it's about shipping coke?" Ariella asked.
"I don't know. There's an attachment, though. Um, it's for a transport trailer." He said.
"You don't need a transport trailer to move a couple of gym bags of coke," Al said.
"Yeah, but you do need one for SUV's. This is a bill of lading listing two vehicles being shipped on an Aeroflot cargo plane from O'Hare to Moscow." Otis read.
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All of them watched as the truck pulled down the street. Al and Voight parked their car in front of the truck so it stopped. The other car stopped behind them so he couldn't back up. Al and Voight got out of the car, raising their hands in surrender as Voight flashed him his badge.
"What's the problem?" The driver asked.
"Just follow us. Be cool." Voight told him. They pulled into an empty parking garage, "Come on down. Take him outside, and stay there." He told Adam, who led him outside.
Jay cut off the lock on the back of the truck. Al threw a stun grenade, and they all stepped back to coverage. Once the bang went off, they heard a car alarm go off, signaling that there was a car inside. They also heard coughing and Voight walked in, Hey, Pulpo. Remember me?" He asked, before punching him in the face.
They shoved Pulpo into their trunk, "You can take off." Voight told the there 4, "Now." He nodded, before getting in the car and driving off.
"Well, that's that, then." Jay nodded.
"Go get the driver," Erin told Adam.
"Yeah." Adam nodded.
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Ariella stepped into Antonio's room, lingering in the doorway. She continued to watch him, until Luca, who was laying comfortably in her arms, woke up from his nap and started to make noise, causing Antonio to look up at her.
"Hey." He smiled.
"Hey." She walked over to his bedside, "How do you feel?" She asked, running a hand through his hair.
"I'll get there." He said.
"You know..." She started, "If I have to handcuff you to you're desk, I will." She smiled, using his own words against him. He chuckled, looking up at her.
"I get it, I get it." He nodded.
"You're gonna be okay." She told him but was really saying it more for herself than for him.
"I'm gonna be fine." He reassured her, reaching for her hand, and giving it a reassuring squeeze.
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note.
hey! here's another chapter. thank you for reading and I will see you soon my loves 💕💕
SHOW: chicago pd:
season one, episode fourteen
"the docks"
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