Chapter 2: Unlikely Pairing
It was too early for this shit.
Not only that, but, the last time Hank checked, he was supposed to be on leave for the next three weeks. He busted his ass for six months on his last case, nearly got his head blown off and for what? So they could call him again right in the middle of his would-be vacation?
He didn’t fucking think so. Someone was about to get a piece of his mind.
He slammed into the office with all the force of a hurricane, striding forward with single-minded purpose. No one who laid eyes on him tried to stop him. They knew better than that. Instead, they merely leapt out of the way as fast as humanly possible. It they hadn’t, Hank might very well have tossed someone across the room - and that never ended well.
His stride across the floor went unimpeded until he reached his supervisor’s office. Hank banged on the door with force just shy of what might have caved it. At the harsh sounds of his anger, everyone within a twenty foot radius winced.
But no one intervened.
He was made to wait a good minute or so before the door finally opened and Hank was faced with a man of similar height to himself - slender, with a pale face, piercing blue eyes and graying hair swept back from a wide brow. Unlike everyone else in the office, he didn’t seem cowed by Hank’s presence. “Ah, Compton.” His tone was mild - almost pleased, “Good of you to come in.”
Hank could have choked the life out of his pencil neck. “‘Good of me to come in?’” He sneered, incensed, “I’m supposed to have three weeks leave, Simmons. Why the hell is the department contacting me?”
The pale man sighed, opening the door wider to invite the hulk of a man before him inside. “If you’re going to be insubordinate, do it inside, please.”
Insubordinate his ass. Hank felt capable of murder at this exact moment, and pencil necks snapped easily. With extreme reluctance, he stepped into his superior’s office. He barely waited until the door was closed before he rounded on the man who had called him there, his expression thunderous. “Look, Simmons, I know that the politics around here is a joke, but this is fucking abuse. How am I supposed to be of any fucking use to anyone if I can’t function? I need some downtime and-”
“We might have an in with the Aguilers.”
Hank’s mouth snapped shut so fast he almost bit off his tongue. For a long, protracted moment, he stared at Simmons, who met his gaze calmly. The man had been his superior for the past five years, and, if anyone was used to dealing with his brusqueness and outbursts, it would have to be him. He could be annoying as hell, but he was far from the worst supervisor you could get working in this business.
For all of Hank’s blustering and demands, Simmon’s could have had his balls several times over - but he was a tough man to rile, and even tougher to intimidate. Hank supposed he could respect that. “...The Aguilers.” Hank crossed immense arms over his chest as he stared Simmons down with calculating gray eyes. “So you called me back from my leave?”
But playing coy wouldn’t help him now. He was already here, and it was clear that Simmons saw very clearly where his weakness lie. Probably had for years.
His history, Hank knew, was one of the reasons Simmons had so actively sought him for the department in the first place. He was unique in that he hadn’t been primped and polished especially for work like this. He hadn’t been raised with some fucked up goal of wanting to work for the government. In fact, he hadn’t even undergone any of the special training for his position until he signed on - and that had been a pain in the ass.
“If you don’t want in on this,” Simmons looked him dead in the eye. “You’re free to go. I just thought you’d be the man to call first.”
It was probably the closest Hank would ever get to a compliment - but that was only the tip of the iceberg. “If you’re trying to sweet talk me, it won’t work.” Hank growled, sinking down into a chair before the older man’s desk. “Tell me what I need to know and then I’ll make my decision.”
Who was he kidding?
The moment Simmons mentioned the Aguilers the decision was all but made, but the old man didn’t have to know that. It was better if Hank at least tried to keep him on edge.
But Simmons was too wily for his own damned good. As he leaned against the edge of his desk, a small smile played about the edges of his mouth. “How is that vacation going, Hank?”
Hank glared at him. He didn’t talk about his personal life at work - why would he? He didn’t have a wife and kids to chat about around a water cooler and he wasn’t the type to gossip about the latest episode of whatever TV show was on. Added to that equation was the fact that he didn’t even have a real office - he was the black sheep of the department. Even if he wanted to talk to people, they’d still avoid him like the plague. “It’s not going at all, currently, and I’d like to get back to it; so let’s cut to the chase here.”
“Alright then.” Simmons reached back to pluck a folder from his desk. Extending it to Hank, he finally began divulging the goods. “Take a look at this. All the images were taken about a week ago.”
Frowning, Hank flipped the folder open. The very first image was enough to make every muscle in his body go painfully taut.
It was the Aguiler Manor.
Everyone knew where it was - about fifteen minutes outside the city in the mountains. People from out of town always wondered who lived there and the people from town stayed away as if their lives depended on it - which they did. Anyone snooping around the manor tended to go missing, and bodies were found in deplorable condition.
But Hank wasn’t looking at a body now. He was looking at the front gates of the manor - busted open as if someone had driven a tank through them - and, indeed, the next image showed what looked like an armored truck in the middle of the usually pristine lawn.
And that was just the start.
The entire manor looked like a war zone - there were fires in the back gardens, numerous windows were shot out and there were at least twenty bodies littered over the grounds. Hank went through picture after picture, torn somewhere between elation and fury that he hadn’t been the one to destroy them like this.
“What happened?” He demanded in a low tone, as he glanced over images of the interior of the compound. There were more bodies - Aguiler guards along with staff members Hank had to admit didn’t deserve such a gruesome fate.
“The Torrells were a little pissed at how the territory was recently reappropriated.” Simmons replied in a flat tone, “So they beat the door down to send a message.”
Hank scowled. “Unless they shot Caesar and Solomon Aguiler dead they didn’t do shit. And I’m guessing you didn’t call me here to tell me you found their bodies.”
Simmons ran a hand through his graying hair. “None of the Aguilers were found on site. They were apparently ramping up for some yearly event and the Torrells took the opportunity to hit them hard. They lost the manor - that’s no small thing.”
“Please,” Hank growled, glaring daggers at the man above him, “You and I both know that nothing can stop them except six feet of wet fucking soil, Simmons.” He tossed the folder back onto the desk, seething quietly. “Are you going to tell me why you really brought me here?”
It certainly wasn’t just to smile at the ruins of the Aguiler Manor. “You have to understand, Hank,” Simmons rounded his desk to tap his laptop into activity, “Considering your history, I’m conflicted about putting you on this assignment.”
Hank said nothing, merely waiting for the meat of the matter. If this was some kind of declaration, he knew it wasn’t for him. Putting Hank onto anything having to do with the Aguilers was the equivalent of setting a particularly crafty but aggressive dog loose into a den of foxes to watch the outcome. But, of course, Simmons had to say he was reluctant to let Hank do his job. In theory, no one working for the US government actually liked the violence they inflicted.
In theory.
“But we’ve stumbled upon a previously unexplored resource that might be able to yield results for us.” Simmons took a moment to click through several files on his computer before he sat down to face Hank. “The activity was dying down by the time police got there, but several people were hospitalized and, among them, we found her.”
He turned his laptop around so that Hank could see the image on the screen. Despite the common conception that he was made of stone, the state of the woman in the image made him wince slightly.
She was pretty beat up - to say the least - but at least she was alive. “Who is she?” He grunted, shoving the computer back in Simmons’ direction.
“Name is Juliet Brown. She’s an up and coming singer, twenty-seven years old, and she’s been living in the Aguiler compound for the past five years.”
Hank arched a brow. “What, she’s a maid?”
For the first time since he’d entered the office, Simmons offered him a genuine smile. “She’s Solomon Aguiler’s kept woman.”
Hank laughed. He couldn’t help it - the very idea that Solomon Aguiler could be monogamous was absolute horse shit. The man had been photographed hip-deep in whores on several occasions. “Solomon Aguiler has hundreds of women. What’s so special about this one?”
“That’s what we thought.” Simmons replied, before heading to a file cabinet in the corner of the office to extract a thick manila folder. “But then we went back through several public sightings of the Aguilers in the past decade. Almost ten years ago, this girl started showing up.”
And she was, indeed, a girl. As Hank leafed through these newest photos, he was surprised to see a mere slip of a teenager frequenting Aguiler clubs. She looked completely out of place in most images, and Hank had to wonder what that hell she had to have been thinking.
And then he saw a few images of her on stage. “What the fuck?”
“She’s apparently quite the talent - and one Solomon kept all to himself. The only pictures we have of her are these few - and a glimpse here and there. But we have reason to believe that she was privy to some of the most private inner workings of their organization.”
“And she’s agreed to be our informant?” Hank assumed somewhat wryly. Quite an interesting turn of events. The woman went from being Solomon Aguiler’s bed warmer for a decade to turning stool pigeon? He didn’t buy it.
“She isn’t awake yet, so there’s been no formal agreement made.” Simmons replied honestly. “When the authorities found her, she’d sustained two life-threatening gunshot wounds. She nearly bled out on the front lawn. Looked like she was trying to get away.”
So she had abandoned her lover in his time of need. Smart, if disloyal, choice - she sounded just as slippery as the Aguilers. “So what’s the plan then? She wakes up and you offer her a lighter sentence if she sings like a bird?”
Simmons arched a brow. “Sentence? We haven’t decided to charge her with anything yet.”
Hank was immediately on his feet, incensed. “What the hell do you mean you haven’t decided to charge her with anything!? If she has been with the Aguilers for ten years, that means she stood by and let murder and kidnapping happen right under her fucking nose. She’s a goddamned accomplice!”
“Calm down, Hank.” Simmons’ voice was calm, but firm. “I know how you feel about the Aguilers, but that’s no reason to jump to conclusions. We don’t know anything about this girl or the life she led.”
“By Solomon Aguiler’s side,” Hank emphasized, seething, “In the midst of one of the bloodiest and meanest fucking drug families in the entire country. I think it’s safe to say she wasn’t throwing bake sales and donating to fucking charities.”
“We won’t know until we question her.” Simmons repeated, looking him in the eye. “Regardless of what she says, she might be our only way in. The Aguilers have gone completely underground. No movement since the assault - but their trades are alive and well.”
“They’re holed up like rats somewhere.” The words escaped Hank on a low growl. “They’ll pop up eventually.” And when they did, he would be there to wring their necks.
“We’ll find them quicker with her help,” Simmons replied brusquely, “And finding them quicker means their drugs get into fewer hands. I think that’s worth aligning ourselves with this woman, no matter what her motivation. Don’t you?”
Hank merely glared at him. He didn’t like this - he had never been one for thinking tactically. He had a hot temper that came from a rough upbringing, and he didn’t belong here - hobnobbing with people and their fancy fucking degrees. He tended to act on impulse, and that had never served him very well.
And yet, somehow, here he was.
“Fine.” He reluctantly agreed, still eying Simmons warily. The man didn’t look at all done with him, and Hank had a sneaking suspicion that there was more to this. “We work with her. Is that it?”
The elder man rounded his desk to perch on the edge, mere inches from Hank. “Not quite. You see, if this woman really is high value to Solomon, we have to put her in witness protection. Which means she’ll need a handler.” When his gaze became pointed on Hank’s, the younger man leapt to his feet.
“No. Fuck no. You can’t be serious.”
“Dead serious,” Simmons returned, his expression backing him up. “You want to be on this case, it’ll help to have you as close to her as humanly possible.”
“Not a babysitter, Simmons,” Hank growled irately. “Not even qualified. Why don’t you put one of your suits on it?”
“And give them the case as well? Is that what you’re suggesting?”
And there it was. Just like that, Simmons had trapped him. It was far from the first time such a thing had happened, and, in hindsight, Hank should have seen it coming. He took a long minute to glare at Simmons, reminding himself just how much of a pain in the ass the man could be. Since day one, he and Simmons had a love-hate relationship, and Hank had to say that the man was one of the only people he found himself able to tolerate on a continual basis.
Though he was a suit, he and Hank were very similar - which meant he had the younger man’s respect. At least, most of the time.
Raking a hand through his buzzed hair, Hank gave in. “Fine. Fine.”
And there was that smug little smile again. Simmons knew him much too well for his own good. “I was hoping you’d say that.”
Just because Hank had agreed didn’t mean he was happy about it. He wasn’t and never had been a people person. Call it a consequence of being transplanted from a rough neighborhood to a pristine one. Downtown DC might have been another world to him. He knew he didn’t belong here, and if it hadn’t been for Simmons, he might never have gotten wrapped up with the government. He helped them when it suited him...and when he needed dinner on the table.
Elsewise, Hank was a loner. Things were easier that way. People who got too close to him tended to get burned.
“She’s still in the hospital.” Simmons leaned over his desk to open the top drawer and extract two more folders. “But she’s stable. Scheduled for discharge in two days. You’re going to escort her to the safehouse upstate, where you’ll be stationed for the remainder of the assignment.”
Great. Living with Aguiler’s leftovers. Hank could only begin to imagine how this was going to go. “The info in those folders should answer any questions you have. In the meantime, we’ll be commuting your vacation to the end of this assignment. I feel we’ll both rest easier that way.”
Hank didn’t return his smile. He was in this assignment for one thing and one thing alone. Until he figured out whether or not it was obtainable, he was bound to be in a foul mood.
The Aguilers had that effect on people.