"Why am I here again? I was already questioned after what went down in the warehouse," Lucas sighs as Nash sits down across from him. Jason and I sit down as we listen from the outside.

"I'm going to ask one more time, you consent to speak to us without a lawyer?" Nash asks him ignoring his question.

"Yes, just like the first time you guys interrogated me. Now answer and tell me why the fuck you brought me here again," Lucas demands angrily. 

"I'm not going to waste our time, we found this in your bar," Nash says as he puts Lucas' laptop in front of him and we don't miss the flash of recognition in his eyes when he sees it

"How did you find it? I put it in a place where no one would think," Lucas questions as his eyes flicker back to Nash.

"You'll have to thank your old friend for finding it, she's the smartest out of all of us. The only one who knew that we should go back and check a second time and found this hiding in your ceiling," Nash replies with a proud smirk and I internally sigh. But it's clear that Lucas knows that there's nowhere to run and he can't bullshit his way out of this.

"Why am I not surprised, she's probably the smartest person I know," Lucas says with a rueful sigh before it turns into laughter.

"We can't argue with that. We had four officers go through that place, two through the bar itself and the other two in the office. None of them managed to find anything yet the one who just had a hunch to go back did," Jason comments as he glances over at me.

"I trust my instincts, if I have a gut feeling about something I always check it even if I'm sometimes wrong," I reply with a shrug. 

"Start talking Lucas, tell me everything you know," Nash tells him and he lets out another sigh. "You saw the news report. We can up your charge to manslaughter but if you cooperate we can try to get a lesser charge for you."

"Listen man, I didn't even know that it would kill anyone and whoever is making those drugs I don't know. Last year around September I got an email offering to make some extra cash," Lucas tells him as he clasps his hands together. "I was in debt, behind on my rent. Sure I had good business but I still owed the business loan I took out when I was starting and interest was increasing on the debt. I've aired out my frustrations every once in a while when I was working and I guess someone decided to reach out to help."

"At first I thought it was fake because it was too good to be true. They wanted me to do the background work of organizing their warehouse inventory. So I gave them my phone number and we started talking about how things would go," he continues, his fingers running through his hair.

"Did you know he was in debt?" Jason asks me and I shrug my shoulders in response. This is the first time hearing that he was behind in any type of payment.

"Do you know what they sounded like? Female, male or no idea?" Nash questions as he takes notes. "And how much was your debt?"

"I don't know, they sounded like one of those machine calls from telemarketers and as for my debt, two-hundred thousand," Lucas explains and I mentally sigh; this just means they've taken the extra steps to keep their identity hidden, even from the people working for them. 

"Did you already receive payment?" Nash questions and Lucas nods his head.

"The last payment I got was in December and it was ten grand," Lucas answers.

"Do you still have the email?" Nash asks him and Lucas nods his head again before a phone is passed to him. "Open that email for me and send it to this email," he tells him as he puts his business card in front of him. We silently watch Lucas do as Nash orders until he's passing back the phone to Nash. Nash types something on his phone before sliding it into his pocket and I hear the notification sound going off on my phone. I pull it out and see an email from Nash and when I see a forwarded email from him, my eyebrows shoot up when I recognize the username.

"This is the same person that sent out the request to Aurora," I say to Jason as I show him my screen.

"How's it going with tracking down the user?" he questions as I skim through the email. It's basically as he said, he got an offer of helping with repayment so long as he could do a job for them.

"I passed it off for Felix to deal with while I help with looking for Aurora," I tell him as I turn off my phone.

"We'll have to get a court order to get his bank statements, see who sent the money and track them down," he lists off and I turn to give him a grin.

"And you'll be taking care of the court order for us won't you?" I ask, the smile still on my face as he rolls his eyes.

"Don't make that smug face since you're not doing it. I hate doing paperwork as much as you do but it needs to be done. I'll start it after we finish here," he replies with a sigh as I snicker into my sweater collar.

"Two more questions before we wrap things up here, have you met any dealers while you were at the warehouse? And are there other locations where the drugs are stored that you know of?" Nash questions as Lucas shakes his head.

"No, whenever I got a call they would give me a time to go at to the warehouse and while I was doing an inventory check I was always on my own. As for your second question no. The places I was responsible for were the only one that was given to me so to the best of my knowledge I don't know if there are any others," Lucas says to him as Nash writes it down before closing his notebook.

"We're going to look in everything you've told us today and if we need any more information we will bring you back for questioning," Nash says as he stands up and pulls out a pair of handcuffs. 

"Wait, are you close with Natalia?" Lucas asks him, his fists clenched.

"I don't see how it's any of your business," Nash replies coldly.

"Could you just tell her sorry for me? Being in a jail cell ever since I left the hospital let me reflect on what I did and I'm sorry since she got caught up in this shit," Lucas tells him and my hand unconsciously goes to my arm. It's mainly healed but of course it's not like I can forget what happened. Nash looks at him calculatingly before glancing at the one-way window, his gaze serious as if he can see me before turning back to Lucas.

"I'll tell her," is all Nash says before moving around the table to cuff him.

"You can go if you want, it'll take some time as Nash transfers him back into the custody of the prison officers," Jason tells me and I get up stretching my arms over my head before moving towards the door to leave the room. 

"Roger that Chief, I'm going to take a break for a bit while you two deal with that," I tell him before quickly opening the door and closing it behind me before he can protest. I just feel like we're going through circles, this whole case is just mentally taxing.

✘✘

A snowflake lands on my eyelashes my fingers brush it away as I stare up at the sky. I'm at the back of the building sitting on top of the picnic table we use during the summer, leaning back on my palms as the snow falls around me. The snowflakes are big as they slowly fall, it's not even cold though the only thing that's freezing at this point is my ass and maybe my fingertips. I hear the back door open and I don't even turn as I hear footsteps crunching through the snow before an arm wraps around my shoulders.

"You guys escorted him out?" I question as I sit straighter and wrap my arm around Nash's waist.

"Yeah, he's gone but now comes the work of looking into who sent the money," he answers as I glance up at him.

"Well it's not like he could have covered it up since the bank is the one who stores that information. Now if he was given cash then that'd be an entirely different story. So far out of everything that's happened this part is going to be the easiest," I tell him as I turn back to look at the snow. "You taking a break with me?"

"I wanted to keep you company," he says as he kisses my temple. "Couldn't leave you out here on your own. How are you feeling after you heard what he said?"

"I don't know how I feel about his apology. He knew what he was doing was wrong but it's too late to be remorseful now," I reply as I snuggle into his side. "And I really don't care for his apology either."

"I'm still pretty fucking pissed about that," he snaps as his arm tightens and I chuckle.

"Well let that anger go, it already happened and the positive thing out of this is that I'm not dead from what happened at the warehouse," I say as I turn to face him and my free hand cups his cheek. He leans into my palm for a moment before his brows furrow.

"Your fingers are fucking cold, why aren't you wearing gloves?" he asks in a low voice as he turns his face and grasps my hand before kissing my knuckles.

"Hold them for me and warm them up," I say with a chuckle and he smirks before leaning down to kiss me and I smile against his lips. 

"Don't worry, I don't plan on letting go," he says softly as his lips skim from my cheek to my neck and I laugh quietly. We're interrupted when we hear our phones beeping. We pull back from one another taking out our phones and reading our messages. 

"Jason is calling us to come back inside," I say to him as I read the text. "Said he has something to tell us." I get off the table, brushing the snow that's piled onto my legs before Nash takes my hand and twines our fingers together. 

"Can probably guess what is. The warrant to go to those houses was probably sent back," he answers as we walk back to the door.

"And knowing Jason he's probably going to send us out with one of the groups," I comment as he holds the door open for me before closing it behind us.

"I know you want to be the one to put the cuffs on Aurora when we find her," he says to me as we shake the snow off of our shoes. 

"After what that bitch did last time, I want to see her face when we bring her here," I chuckle as we walk towards Jason's office. He lets go of my hand and although I'd rather continue holding it, we still have to be professional while we're here. I knock on Jason's door before turning the knob. "We're here Chief, what do you need from us?"

"We got the court order to check out the safe houses," Jason tells us as we step inside and Nash closes the door behind us. 

"We're teaming up with other precincts right?" I ask him as I sit down across from him.

"I already contacted them, each has a team ready to go to a house to see if she is there," he answers.

"And where does that leave us? Are we going with them?" Nash questions.

"Yes, you two along with Jax and his partner Mickey will be going to the one closest to us," he tells us. "It will be a synchronized operation, all of you will enter the houses at the same time." I haven't seen Mickey since the day Julia was stabbed, we don't really run into the same circle since he works on the smaller crimes that happen in the city but it's nice to have a familiar face.

"What time do we need to reach there?" I ask him, I can barely hide the anticipation from my face.

"Noon, everyone will be in position by noon and try not to let your excitement show so much Natalia," he sighs but I can't stop the grin that's overtaking my face.  

"We'll have to let Jade's teacher know because I doubt we'll be on time to pick her up," Nash says to me as I'm already taking out my phone.

"I'm way ahead of you," I reply to him as I text Camryn asking her if she could watch Jade after school, even take her to the hospital to see Julia. Not even two minutes pass before I get reply from her saying okay to my request. What the hell is she doing right now? Shouldn't she be in class teaching? I roll my eyes while chuckling before sending her a thank you message. "We're going to start preparing then and talk things over with Jax and Mickey."

"You guys do that, I need to finish the warrant for Lucas' statements," he answers as he turns back to his computer.

"And that is definitely our cue to leave, have fun Chief," I say mockingly, a smirk on my face before rushing outside of the office and I quickly turn the corner as a tissue box sails out of his office. I can't help but poke fun at Jason, he's like the brother I never had. In any case, fingers crossed that Aurora will be at the house we hit because this girl needs her revenge.

✘✘

A/N I didn't forget you guys!! This story and everyone is always in my head but I'll be honest, I got super lazy with writing, I've been taking my own vacation this past month. I've been binge-watching more anime than normal, September is coming and I'll definitely be scaling back sadly. But anyways, I've missed this story, been stuck with how I was going to tie up this chapter but it finally hit me after weeks. For those of you who are wondering who Mickey is, a minor character from chapter 9.

But continuing on, I think my next author's note I'll have a summary of the main points of everything that has happened up until now (cause even I need a refresher at this point). But right now though, hope you all enjoy the chapter!! Be sure to leave your thoughts of the chapter in the comments!!  

And I have a new twitter account (link in my bio) so if anyone wants to reach out to me, I'll reply asap!!