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Even now the adrenaline raced through his body, coiled into his fingers and toes and pounded behind his eyes before running into his stomach, settling like a stone. Hours had passed since Alderman Ronin Gibbons himself had stared into his eyes and read what was tucked away in the far reaches of his mind like it was blazed across a newspaper headline for the entire world to read, and yet it only felt like mere minutes had passed since their encounter.
The ceiling fan spinning lazily above Jarek’s head caught the light creeping in from the street and shimmered brightly in the otherwise dark room. Jarek adjusted the pillow under his head and continued to stare it down, willing the wooden blades to distract him from himself.
He felt the empty place next to him deeply, tonight.
Gibbons… his brother’s killer… his brother… Liam… Liam’s blood… everything kept replaying itself in spectacular bloody fashion behind his eyes. In some replays he saw his brother’s face in Liam’s as he cradled him in the car, willing the life to stay in him, just a bit longer—
Most of the time Jarek could rationally think about his brother, but then sometimes there’s a bloody undercover cop pressed into his stomach, clutching at his shirt as if it were life support, and well, tonight’s was the sort of situation in which he had no chance at rational thoughts.
Tonight love for his brother had mixed with the genuine affection he’d developed somewhere along the way for Liam, and he had surprised even himself when he found his hand, clutching the car keys, shoved into Evers’ chest as a directive. Evers had eyed him with faint surprise, but apparently had decided to himself that now would be a good time to finally start letting those darker looks go unquestioned because he took the keys wordlessly and even gently helped get Jarek situated with Liam in his lap before taking the wheel and racing them away from the scene. Surely they both had expected Jarek to take control of the drive; he certainly had been ready to until he felt Liam grasp at his shirt with a kind of needing that he had last felt so long ago it was nearly foreign to him now. That his partner had such a calming presence was something he thought he’d never appreciate so much as he had tonight, as Evers quietly but efficiently got them in the car and paid attention to everything, down to the most minor of details—even though the kid was clearly falling apart over his first kill. One more crisis to check in on in the morning, he noted bitterly as his eyes tried to focus on a single fan blade, as if the stupid extra challenge would be enough to really distract him right now.
He had showered immediately upon his return from the precinct, scrubbing at his body even though he’d been covered up by Kevlar and a jacket. He may have been dressed in layers tonight, but he still thought he could feel the cold wetness of Liam’s blood on his arms and on his stomach; it was real enough that he finally ripped his eyes away from the oscillation above his head and curled up on his left side.
Teresa was going to explode when she found out about his late-night visitor. At least she would understand his anger, though; she would get it that simply striking down his brother’s murderer wasn’t the vengeance Jarek sought any longer. Gibbons’ trump card was an admirable play, a ballsy eleventh-hour move; Jarek had easily seen, though, that Gibbons was terrified that his meticulously constructed empire was about to crumble beneath him. Jarek even thought he could use that into some additional leverage for himself in the end, maybe get that name anyway though it had long since been the only thing he sought out in the name of his brother.
No, what Jarek sought was the end of it all—his brother hadn’t gone undercover on a lark, after all. The means to bring down the empires that ruled Chicago through extortion and fear had been the goal of the operation then, and nothing would give Jarek greater pleasure than ending it, and succeeding where his brother hadn’t been able to. There was no doubt in Jarek’s mind that he would enjoy killing the son of a bitch who took his brother’s life, absolutely none at all. And he would do it someday. That singular raw desire had morphed, though, as he worked through the ranks and Teresa skyrocketed into the superintendent’s office, into something greater than all of that. “Justice” was such a simplification of what he wanted tonight. It wasn’t just his brother’s life and his niece’s life tangled up in this anymore; he thought of Liam and he ached.
When he closed his eyes, he could still see Liam’s messy curls resting on his chest, could feel the blood running out between his fingers—and he could still hurt from the hollow pangs of uselessness tumbling around in his chest. He was starting to doubt his ability to sleep at this point. He pulled his eyes back open and stared into the darkness again.
Gibbons had had an absolutely electrifying effect on him tonight; Jarek wasn’t sure the adrenaline would actually fully leave his body until this case was over. He wanted nothing more than to pound that stony face into some dingy wall in an interrogation room, to make Gibbons give up the name of his brother’s killer, to give him all of the evidence he needed to finally put Gibbons away for his crimes against the people he cared about and against the city. He clenched a fist, not for the first time tonight, and put it to his mouth. Tomorrow, this would end. He punched into the mattress. This had to end; Gibbons was the beginning of that, and there would be no more delays, no other options. It was ending. The victory would be as much for him as it was for Teresa, who had lost her family to the corruption of the city, and for Vonda, who had lost hers to the violence.
It would be for Liam, who had summoned up within himself something surprising and brave—and that ledger sent shots of pride worthy of competing with the adrenaline coursing through Jarek—who could die yet for the cause with the bloody impressions of his outing still fresh in Jarek’s senses.
And it would be for Vincent.