⋆° დ ༄ RISKY BUSINESS
chapter thirty one. say her real name.

Maverick walks out onto his balcony, where he sees his girlfriend standing by the railing. Maxine stared out into the city, her mind wandering like it always was. She didn't know what was going on anymore. Maybe she was slowly losing her mind.

"Maxine....baby" Maverick said, putting his hand on the detective's back.

"Yeah?"

"Are you okay?"

Maxine nods her head, "sure"

"What's going on inside that pretty head of yours?"

Maxine looks over at her boyfriend, tears staining her cheeks, "I don't know what's going on anymore. Is this really my life?"

"Other than the fact that your mom showed up out of nowhere after 32 years, I'd say it's been pretty great right? You had a great family growing up" Maverick says, placing his hand on the back of her neck, rubbing his thumb on the side of it.

"Yeah, I guess you're right" she sniffles. Maverick cups her cheeks, "baby, listen to me. you're perfect and you have such an amazing heart. Okay? Don't let anyone take that away from you, no matter what"

Maxine sighs, "I'm just gonna go to bed" then she walks away. Maverick watches his girlfriend walk away to their bedroom and his heart breaks for her. He hated seeing her like this.

She was the most energetic, most outgoing person he knew. And to see her so sad and hurt makes him angry.

~~~

"Where is she?" The voice said, as soon as Maverick opened the door.

"Still in bed. She hasn't moved in two days" Maverick said, guiding Adam to his bedroom, "Sorry, we had to meet like this"

"Yeah" Adam walks into the dark room to see his best friend covered in blankets and his heart breaks. "Oh Maxie" then he sits on the edge of the bed, resting his hand on her bare leg that was sticking out from under the blanket, "have you been taking your medicine?"

"What medicine?" Maverick asks, his arms crossed over each other. Adam sighs and looks at the taller man, "she has bipolar disorder"

Mavericks heart sank, "what? She never told me"

"Only a handful of people know. She's embarrassed of it. But she's been doing good, she hasn't been like this since we were teenagers. I wonder what caused it"

Maverick nods his head for Adam to follow him out of the room.

"I may know why this happened?"

"Did you do something to her? I swear to —"

"God, no. Her mom came by the other day"

Adam's eyes went wide, the look of shock could not be missed, "her mom...her biological mom?" And Maverick nods his head, "damn"

"So, what do we do from here?"

"I'll go fill up her prescription and you try and get her to take a shower and eat something" Adam says, walking away and leaving the apartment.

Maverick takes a deep breath and walks back into his bedroom and sits on the edge of his bed. "Baby, come on. Let's get you in the shower" and Maxine turns to her side, "Maxine, listen to me, Adam is going to get you more of your medicine and it's going to help you feel better. Okay? I promise I won't let anything happen to you"

🪩🪩🪩

One week later...

Maxine walks into the district, hands in her coat pockets when she hears, "Bishop" and she walks over to the desk sergeant, "here" she says, sliding the package of twizzlers across the counter.

"No thanks, Sarg" the detective said before walking towards the caged door and the shock couldn't be missed on the sergeants face.

"Excuse me, sergeant, this was just delivered for you" Nadia says, handing Voight a box, as Maxine walks over to her desk.

"Who's it from?" Lindsay asks.

"Olivia Benson. Special Victims unit, New York" Nadia states as hank reads the card.

"What's it say?"

"Nothing...put it in my office, will ya" Hank says, handing the box back to Nadia.

"How long you gonna milk that flesh wound?" Dawson asks, crossing his arms over his chest and everyone starts snickering.

"Yeah, you collecting disability now?" Erin asks, smiling, causing Jay to laugh as Maxine rests her head on her hand. Adam looks over at his best friend and sighs.

"Doc says it comes off in a few days...anyone else wanna try out for second city or can we get down to business?" Hank asks and the team backs off, "Good. Downtown is a mess with protestors. This world trade conference kicks off tomorrow and HQ is on my back about threat reports, so where are we?"

"Swear, I spent the last week making banners with a bunch of wannabe anarchists" Al says, "The biggest threat they pose is depleting Chicago's marijuana supply"

"Al, let me see your eyes" Dawson asks. The older man looks over at the detective, his eyes squinting and says, "I'm just getting over some hay fever"

"Uh-huh" Dawson says, not believing his story and Adam sniffs his partner.

"I've spent the last few nights with the natural earth brotherhood hippies, from Oregon. We spent our waking hours collecting human waste in buckets to throw them from the rooftops of Michigan avenue" Jay says.

"That's disgusting" Erin says, as her nose scrunchies up in disgust.

"Yeah, alright, what about your group, Ruzek? The Black Grid?" Voight asks.

"Yeah, environmental extremists, at least that's what they claim. Big plan is to throw oil on capitalists pigs. Embarrass them on the news or something"

"Alright, we're already late for this threat assessment meeting. Just grab your files and lets go"

Jay goes to lean his hands on his partners desk, "Hey, I missed you partner"

"Yeah...you too"

"Um, you wanna go grab some pizza?"

"Maybe next time. Got a lot of paperwork to do"

"Yeah...next time" Jay says before walking away.

🪩🪩🪩

Maxine and Hank walk onto the crime scene that Al and Adam fell upon, who says, "Sarg"

"Found your guy off the reservation trying to question a foreign dignitary" the FBI agent tells Hank, "Fabian Sosa is here on behalf of the South American delegation"

"I don't care who that guy is, man"

"Sosa's traveling with diplomatic immunity. You wanna speak with him, you have to request an interview through his consul"

"We're talking about a dead girl that clearly fell from that guys floor"

"Could be suicide"

"It's not suicide. I got a mess—"

"Ruzek. Ruzek. Go get some air"

Maxine grabs her best friends arm, "A, come on"

"I'm fine, I'm fine"

"Yeah, you seem it. Just chill out and take a deep breather"

"Alright, I'm sorry" he takes a deep breath, "how are you doing? You taking your medicine?"

Maxine nods her head, "yeah. Sorry to scare you. I ran out then my mom came to see me out of nowhere, it all happened so quick"

Adam brings his best friend into a hug, "it's gonna be okay, Maxie"

Hank turns towards the agent and says, "you know, this badge says our city. It's our victim, our investigation"

"Absolutely. But the hotel is under federal jurisdiction. We'll question Sosa and keep you in the loop"

"Appreciate it"

🪩🪩🪩

"Name is Felicia Hughes. She was a straight A liberal arts student at DePaul. A few priors for disturbing political rallies but that's it" Adam says, addressing the team at the whiteboard about their new case.

"What was she doing at the Wexford?" Lindsay questions.

"I don't know"

"More specifically, what's she doing at the Wexford in six inch heels and a mini skirt?" Voight questions.

"Well, these big trade conferences, they attract high priced escorts who come in from all over the country. Maybe she was trying to earn some tuition money" Dawson suggests.

"There is no way. This girl wasn't the type"

"How can you be sure?" Maxine asks, "You didn't even know her real name until an hour ago"

"What about the black grid group? You think they had anything to do with this?" Al questions Ruzek. "They're not killers, ya know. They're college kids with oil jugs"

"Well, either way, have patrol sit on their meeting place" Hank says, "What about people in Felicia's life? Maybe they know something"

"Boss, I'm telling you this guy Sosa, he knows something" Adam insists.

"Damian Sosa's from a big politically connected family" Max says, reading from her computer screen, "Apparently, he's in town to negotiate some natural gas deal"

"Well, too bad cause we can't get anywhere near him. The feds are afraid we're gonna set off some sex scandal with a foreign cronie" Hank says.

"I got a CI escort who works the Wexford. I can reach out" Antonio suggests.

"Do it" Hank says, then looks at Ruzek, "Alright you start with the body. Max go with him"

🪩🪩🪩

"Was she a party girl?" Maxine asks, as she and Adam look at Felicia's lifeless body.

"No. No, she was, like, full of life. Out of that whole group that I was under with, this girl, she actually stood out. She was different"

"Was she a flirt?"

"Yeah, a little. I mean, you know, she's a young, pretty girl, of course she was. Nothing happened between her and me. Nothing at all, alright?"

"Alright"

"The tox report won't be in until at least next week" The medical examiner says, walking into the room and reading off her clipboard, "And the blood test shows alcohol and benzodiazepine"

"Xanax" Max says, writing it down in her mini notepad.

"That or something like it and she has bruising behind her left triceps, which might indicate someone right handed grabbed her forcibly"

"Okay, so a homicide" Adam says.

"That's your job...but if she was thrown over with all that booze and pills in her. I doubt she could've put up much of a fight"

"Thank you" Adam says and the doctor walks away, "Oh no"

Maxine turns around and sees an older gentleman walk in.

"That's her. That's Felicia" The man sniffles, then looks over at the two police officers, "You guys police?"

"Yes, sir" Maxine says.

"Mr. Hughes, we're so very sorry for your loss" Adam says.

"I'm sorry to do this, sir. Do you mind if we ask you a few questions?" Max asks and Mr. Hughes nods his head, "Was Felicia living at home?"

"Yes, she was"

"Do you know if, she was supposed to meet with anyone tonight?" Maxine asks.

"I wouldn't know"

"Was she having problems with anyone? Boyfriends?"

"No. No, everybody loved her. If you knew her, you loved her"

"I knew her" Adam says.

🪩🪩🪩

"So, why would she be hooking at the wexford?" Voight questions, as the team gathers around the board.

"Alright, maybe it's a honey trap, set up by the black grid" Adam suggests, "Get picked up by someone at the conference, someone like this prick, Sosa, alright. Incriminate him. Now, how they knew that he would bee line for her, instead of all the other girls in the bar that night, I don't know, but..."

"Because she was 18" Nadia states.

"Well, I put a call into interpol. One of the few perks of working on a task force" Lindsay says, then points to the white board, where Sosa's picture is, "And it turns out, Sosa has quite a reputation with the ladies. They've linked him to escort services in half a dozen cities. He was even charged with soliciting down in Australia, but his consulate got it squashed"

"And I got his, uh, his itinerary" Mouse says, looking at a file, "He's supposed to go to a global currency meeting at McCormick Place in an hour"

"Let's grab him up" Adam says, snapping his fingers.

"You know we can't legally detain Sosa without the feds' cooperation right?" Jay questions, sitting on the edge of his desk, "Agent Rosa hasn't returned any of my calls, so read into that however you want"

"Are you kidding me?" Adam says, frustrated, "This girl's from Lincoln Park. She's from Chicago. We're gonna let this guy come in and kill her and throw her out a window like a bag of trash and then he just gets away with it? Is that how we're gonna play this?"

"You ever heard of a rendition?" Voight asks.

"We have" Jay says, looking at his friend Mouse.

"Alright, everybody vest up. We're gonna show 'em the Chicago version" Voight says, walking into his office.

🪩🪩🪩

The team heads out and follows after Sosa, then blocking him in the middle of the street with their vehicles. And once Sosa and his men are blocked in, the intelligence team gets out of their cars, guns drawn and vice versa with Sosa's men.

"Chicago PD! Put the weapons down!" Maxine shouts, "Guns down!"

"Put them down now!" Jay and Erin shout out in unison.

"Do you know where you are?" Voight questions, walking closer to Sosa's men, "This is Chicago. Our soil and believe me, one way or another, we're gonna talk to your boss...what about you, do you think I'm bluffing?" Hank asks, walking closer to one of Sosa's men and smacks his gun out of his hand, "Put the gun down!"

Then soon after, Sosa's men put their guns down and they put their hands on the car, while Max grabs Sosa's phone, before he could contact anyone and Al and Hank drag him out from the car.

"When I get to your station, I'm calling the Argentine consulate"

"Well, we ain't going to no station"

🪩🪩🪩

Max and Jay walk through the lobby of the district when Sergeant Platt catches their attention. "Hey chuckles, twizzler girl"

"Detective chuckles, if you don't mind" Jay smiles.

"And I like lady twizzler. Sorry about last night, Sarg"

Platt raises an eyebrow, sliding a package of twizzlers over to her, "I don't know what you're talking about. Um, Little donnybrook down at Kitty O'shea's. Officer on scene wanted to know if you'd stop by" Platt tells Jay, trying to take a staple out of a stack of papers.

"To do what? Show him how to do his job?"

"No, to get your brother from going to jail"

Jay sighs, "I'll be back" then he walks away.

🪩🪩🪩

"What'd he do?" Jay asks, walking over to the responding officer at the bar.

"Nothing, it's these two other knuckleheads, but he kept getting between me and them so.."

"Hey!" Jay shouts out.

"Jay" Will smiles, turning around.

"What the hell is going on?"

Then the fight breaks out again and Jay now gets involved pulling some of the guys off each other.

"I don't care who, but one of them's gotta go" The responding officer shouts.

"Tommy, nothing against you, just walk away!" Jay shouts.

"Come on"

"Walk!"

"Well, that was fun" Jay continues and Will pats him on his shoulder.

"Yeah, good time"

"Hey, I thought, uh, you were getting in next week" Jay says.

"I moved it up"

"How long you in town for?"

"Haven't decided yet"

"Don't you have a medical practice, something like that" Jay asks.

"I took a break"

"You got fired"

"Dude..." Will says.

"Just tell me"

"Will you relax and have a beer with me"

"Can't man"

"That's right" Will says then brings his brother into a hug, "good to see you"

"Stop by the district later"

"I will. I can't wait to meet this partner you keep talking about" Will says, causing his brother to roll his eyes, "go save the city!"

🪩🪩🪩

Maxine walks into the tech room, putting her coat down on the table and asks, "you crack Sosa's phone yet?"

"Yeah, like two minutes ago" Mouse answered, typing on his phone.

"Then you pick up the phone and call me"

"Yes ma'am"

"Bishop" Maxine corrects him.

"Yep" Mouse said and the two just stared at each other. "Can I see it?" She asked.

"Hmm. Of course. Yup" he said, sitting up in the chair and starts typing on the computer, "is it illegal to open unread emails?"

"We're pretty much past that, at this point"

"Okay, um.." mouse says, starting to read the email, "you till deposit 200,000 dollars into the following account within 12 hours, or this video will be released to the news outlets worldwide. You are already a philanderer, so you want to be called a murderer?" Then he looks over at Max, "that's a blackmail letter"

"You think?"

"Oh, okay. You're being sarcastic. Okay, that's cool. Uh...it's alright. I deserved it, won't happen again. And there's a video attached" Mouse then clicks in the video, "that's your girl. Our girl. Can I say that now, now that I'm part of the team?"

"Can you fast forward this?" Maxine asks and Mouse does as told to see Sosa seducing Felicia, "send it to Voight"

~~~

After Jay, Adam and Maxine come back from searching the house of Jeanette Rutowski, the team gathers around the white board, as Antonio tapes up a photo of Mad Max -leader of the black grid group-.

"This is Mason Rutowski aka Mad Max" Dawson says, "Turns out he's a part time instructor of political science at DePaul"

"We checked with the county assessor's office" Jay says, "Uh, Max's mother, Jeanette Rutowski, she passed away a few months back, left him the house. The reason the deed wasn't transferred to his name yet, he couldn't afford to pay the back taxes"

"So, if I'm a broke, part time teacher living in my moms basement, I might be looking to shake somebody down for some cash" Lindsay says.

"We got an investigative alert lodged with the state police and sheriffs" Dawson adds.

"Alright, alright" Adam says, walking onto the unit, looking at his phone, "Uh, Mad Max...Rutowski.." Adam snaps his fingers, "Was supposed to send out instructions to all the black grid members today. Just got this, '2 pm, freedom plaza. Target: Saudi Prince. Bring your helmets', they wear motorcycle helmets to conceal their identities"

"Alright, let's hit the plaza, we'll surveil the group and pick 'em up" Voight says.

"Sarg, we got another problem. They got cell jammers, block reception in the entire area"

"No, no, no we could use the old CPD analog radios" Al suggests, "They use that old trunk band. You ain't blocking those babies. I'll dig 'em up"

"I said hands off!" Agent Rosa shouts, walking onto the unit with another agent and commander Fischer, "Then you kidnap him?"

"He wanted to see Chicago" Voight says, nonchalantly.

"You didn't think his bodyguards would contact me to say that your unit grabbed him off the street in broad daylight?"

"Did you talk to Sosa yourself? Cause I'm sure he has a different story"

"I did. White Zinfandel, huh?" Rosa scoffs.

"He seemed to enjoy it"

"You know, I can have you arrested for official misconduct. That goes for all of you!"

"Agent Rosa, there's no need to go there, because if the Sergeant here so much as looks at another foreign dignitary, I'll strip his badge myself" Fischer says, "And I'll reassign his entire unit to patrol...am I clear Sergeant?"

"Yes, commander"

~~~

After the team gathers Mason Rutowski from the rally. Maxine and Adam begin to interrogate him.

"Man, I can't believe you're a cop" Rutowski scoffs at Ruzek.

"I hear the name Mad Max and I'm expecting a record as long as my arm" Max states, "All I found on you is a charge for trespassing at an oil refinery in Minnesota"

"It was a greenpeace rally, no one was hurt"

"Not that time, you certainly upped your game since then, haven't you?" Max says, showing Mad Max a piece of paper, "We know you sent this to Fabian Sosa. 200k? Is that how you planned on paying off your mom's house, use the rest to fund your little group?"

"What?!"

"Felicia Hughes, she's the perfect dupe. I mean, am I right?" Adam asks, "She's a pretty girl, she's trusting, naive. You figure you dangle her in front of a wealthy dignitary. He's gonna take her to his room, you can come back later, sting him for cash"

"I didn't write this" Mason says, "I didn't send this"

"Here's how we see it" Maxine says, "You con Felicia into playing prostitute, so that hopefully Damian Sosa picks her up at the bar. You feed her a bunch of BS about how you're gonna take down some oppressive tyrant and rainbows are gonna crisscross the sky, but she finds out your just there to line your pockets"

"How dare you suggest that"

"Then who did it? Who did this?" Adam questions.

"I don't know! Someone must have hacked my internet"

"Yeah, the whole, 'Somebody hacked my internet' defense doesn't really hold up in court, Mason"

"Why'd you kill Felicia?" Adam questions, pulling Mason's chair back towards him.

"Oh, so this is how you're going to try and bring me down? Frame me for a made up murder?"

"You wish you were that important" Maxine says.

"Write down everybody you were with last night" Adam says, giving Mason a pad and pen, "Everybody"

~~~

"How's New York?" Jay asks his big brother, as they walk into the break room.

"Good. I just uh, needed a little breather" Will says, sitting down.

"From what? From VIP booths and models? What's the real reason?" Jay asks, his hands placed on his hips.

"When did you become such a cynic" Will asks and Jay shrugs, "oh, what, I can't take a vacation, come back and hang with my little brother?" Then he looks behind Jay to see Maxine and Erin talking, "so, which one is she?"

"Don't"

"No, just nod your head. I mean, they're both hot" Will jokes and Jay snickers, "or is it that desk sergeant from downstairs?"

"Yes, we're on the back burner right now" the youngest halstead says, "where you staying? Dad's?"

"I was thinking your place"

"What about Charlie? Have you even tried to talk to her since you've been back?"

Will sighs, "No. She probably still hates me"

"She's your sister. Try" Jay says, then takes his keys out from his pocket, "I'm pretty deep in a case right now, so, take a cab, we'll get some food later or something, alright?" then he hands his big brother his apartment key, "shut up, here she comes"

Will stands up and clears his throat, "okay" when he sees Maxine walking over to them.

"Max, this is my brother, Will"

Maxine looks over at the red head and smiles, holding out her hand, "the doctor"

"Most days, yeah"

"Nice to meet you"

"You too"

"How long you in town?"

"Still figuring it out"

"We should all get together before you go"

Will nods his head, "definitely, yeah" then he feels his phone vibrates, "I should go. I'll see you later"

"Yeah" Jay said. Will looks over at the brunette and smiles, "it was nice to meet you" then he walks away.

Maxine looks over at her partner and smiles, "I just met someone from your family. Now I just need to meet your sister"

"Yeah, I didn't think it'd be a big deal to you"

"Jay, just because we can't continue what we had before doesn't mean I don't care about you. That's not gonna change"

"Me too"

~~~

Maxine is sitting at her desk, on her computer when Mouse and Jay walk onto the unit and Jay sits on the edge of his partner's desk.

"Okay, we ran all the black grid members in the cage, through the analytical software to try and get a match on that blackmail email" Mouse says, starting to ramble, "I checked all data networks, VPNS, protocols..."

"You got the guy or not?" Voight asks, interrupting mouse's ramble.

"No"

"What about Rutowski?" Ruzek questions.

"Four of his friends alibi him out, they say they were with him last night" Jay answers.

"Yeah, they were probably stoned out of their minds. We keep Rutowski in custody" Hank says.

"Look, Sergeant, me and Jay, we got an idea" Mouse says, "See, when we were in Helmand Province, way the hell up in the mountains, it was uh, me, and Jay, Mickey and Rev and uh, sticks, the guy with the Skull tattoo on his forearm, and..."

"Mouse, shut up" Voight says, "Halstead, what's the idea?"

"Guy in our unit was being held for ransom. So, we staged an exchange with the kidnappers. It's mostly classified. Long story short, we got him back and we didn't spend a dime"

"Look, we got Sosa's phone" Mouse says, "So I can send a message from his email, pretending to be him, say he doesn't want a paper trail so he's gonna send one of his drivers to deliver the 200k in cash, in person"

"And we just wait to see who shows up" Jay says and Voight looks at Dawson.

"Alright, sign 200k out of the 1505 funds. Write up an ops plan for Fischer, just tell him we need it for flash"

🪩🪩🪩

After doing the exchange and finding out that it was Pope, a member of the black grid group, who had killed Felicia.

Maxine walks into a diner to meet up with her biological mother Dylan. She didn't know why she was giving this woman the time of day, but she wanted to hear her out.

"Maxine!"

Max looks to her right to see her waving her over and she takes a deep breath and continues over to the table to sit across from the older woman.

"Thanks for meeting me"

"Sure. Where's Honey?"

"Said she couldn't make it"

"Makes her smarter than me. What did you want to talk about?"

"I was wondering if we could get to know each other"

Maxine scoffs, "get to know each other? It's been 32 years"

"I know. I know. And I am so sorry, I really am. I just wasn't ready for kids yet and your father was in a relationship. It just wasn't the right time"

"So you decided to abandon me and you separated me and my sister. How dare you? How do I even know you're my real mother and not some scammer"

Dylan sighed, "I thought you'd say that" then she grabs something from her purse and hands it to the detective, "this is your birth certificate"

Maxine reads over the piece of paper, "Huh. Why is my last name different from yours? I know Honey was adopted but.."

"The Ruzeks never adopted you?"

"No, they did. It's just—I thought we had the same last name so I didn't change it"

Dylan looks down in defeat, "Bishop is your grandmothers maiden name. She died from lung cancer before you were born. I'm so sorry, Maxine. Growing up, My family had a bit of a reputation. I didn't want you getting dragged into it"

"My fathers name isn't on this" Max asked, changing the subject.

"He knew I had you, but I never told him anything about you. Your name, nothing....anyways, let's not talk about him. Let's talk about how you're a detective, that's amazing"

Maxine smiled to herself, "thanks"

authors note;

ugh, my poor baby max 🥺😭😔