Now that the element of surprise was no longer needed, a few cop cars came rushing down the street with their lights blaring. They stopped on each side of the driveway, blocking the street on either side of it. Floodlights on their side mirrors turned to brighten the front lawn. Red and blue lights flickered from the back of the house too, so there must also be cops blocking the alley behind. The windows in some of the neighboring houses lit up and their curtains shifted as people looked out.

Cole sat at the very edge of his seat, knees pressed up under the dash.

It was a scene of utterly coordinated chaos for what amounted to only three or four minutes before everything quieted down. By then, not only had faces appeared in windows, alight with the flashing emergency lights, but people had also come out onto their porches. They wrapped themselves in bathrobes and wore slippers, rubbing their eyes and craning their necks to see better. A few crossed their yards to gossip with others.

Knowing how Logan was as a person, he likely hadn't been a popular neighbor.

A car turned onto the street. Instead of turning around like a sensible person, the driver continued down the street. It was a man. He stopped just before the police car barricade and stepped out almost directly next to where Gideon had parked. Then he started asking what was going on, waving his arms around and smiling as if having a normal conversation with an acquaintance he had run into at the grocery store. And the cop responded in kind, albeit vaguely, without giving away what they were actually arresting Logan for. Then the conversation turned to more mundane topics.

Cole watched with an open mouth.

Before the accident that tore his family apart when he was in middle school, they lived in a nice neighborhood like this. Nothing as dramatic as a police raid and arrest had ever happened. And then after, he lived in much less nice neighborhoods, where people did not peek through their blinds lest they see the wrong thing at the wrong time. And they didn't talk to the cops about Little League.

Somehow this entire night turned out to be more wild and less exciting than he'd imagined.

Then Gideon popped his door open. All the hubbub was abruptly much louder, invading the inside of the car and reminding Cole that he was not watching this through a TV screen. He was actually here.

"Where are you going?" he hissed.

"To have a smoke," Gideon said before standing up and closing the door behind himself. The noise muffled once again. Cole glanced toward the house, wondering when they would bring Logan out, and then followed Gideon's lead.

The air was no less muggy outside the car than it had been inside. Even the outline of the crescent moon seemed hazy where it hung low above the rooftop of one of the houses. Cole watched Gideon light up his cigarette with a hint of distaste. He liked smoking when it was this humid even less than he normally enjoyed it.

A flicker of recognition flitted over the cop's face as soon as he spotted Gideon.

Giving nothing away with his expression, Gideon sucked on his cigarette, exhaled the smoke, and asked, "Everything go well?"

He asked this with the authority of a person who worked well above these beat cops, maybe even above the detective in charge of the investigation. Someone who did not need to step foot inside Logan's house, but could demand information about the operation and expect immediate answers.

"So far so good, sir," the cop nodded. "We'll have him out in a cruiser in a few minutes for you to talk to him if you want."

Gideon nodded and smoked some more instead of responding.

A burst of radio chatter emerged from the cop's shoulder and he tilted his head to the side to speak into his radio. Cole spotted a body cam on his chest and wondered if it was on or not. Did the Bartas have people in the department watching hours and hours of footage to scrub moments like these from the record?

The guy who'd been making conversation with the cop about Little League wisely took his leave. He promised to see the cop that weekend at their sons' game before backing down the street.

Gideon smoked. Cole smiled at the cop when he caught him looking. For a few more minutes, nothing else happened. Then a figure emerged from the house. It was Logan. He was being frog-marched down the front steps and across the lawn toward the other cop car blocking the street.

It had been months since Cole last saw his face. It still tore open a yawning pit of dread in his stomach as if he'd moved wrong and broken the stitches on a freshly dressed wound. His scalp went numb and his fingers trembled.

"You can stay in the car," said Gideon, who hadn't even wanted Cole to come along at all.

Cole shoved his hands into the pockets of his jeans and schooled his expression. "And miss his reaction when he sees how totally fucked he is?"

Then the cop's shoulder burst with chatter again. He spoke into the radio and gave them a nod. Gideon nodded back and put an arm behind Cole's back, not touching, but guiding him forward. As they walked down the street toward the other cop car, another figure burst out of the front door, scrambling down the steps to the lawn.

This was the boy who'd gone in with Logan. His clothes had been pulled on haphazardly and his hair was a mess as if someone had been running their hands through it. He blabbered, asking them to stop, begging them to explain what was going on, and demanding that they listen to him when he said that Logan hadn't done anything wrong. A pair of cops came out of the house hot on his heels. One grabbed him around the middle to keep him from running over to where Logan was currently being guided into the backseat. He pounded against the cop's shoulders as he was hauled toward the other cop car. Definitely not a plant then.

Cole only realized he'd stopped in his tracks when Gideon's hand pressed into the small of his back. That touch also made him realize the trembling in his hands had spread to his entire body.

"Alright?" Gideon asked under his breath.

"Is...is he going to be okay?" Cole asked. "I mean," he swallowed and peeked at how they were shoving the boy into the back of the other car. They kept telling him he needed to calm down, but weren't giving him any concrete answers. "He isn't going to be in trouble or..."

Trusting cops did not come easily to Cole. If it were him instead of that boy, he'd be losing his mind too. Instead of making him feel safe and secure like someone at the end of a horror movie when the sun finally rose and people came to rescue him, being shoved in the back of a cop car would be more like descending from a horror movie into the deepest depths of hell. Cop cars were bad news, not good news, in his experience. After all, they'd come to take his father away, throw him in jail, and start the whole downward spiral of his life.

Although, lately his life had taken a turn for the better.

"He'll be fine," Gideon assured him. "CPS has to get involved, but I'm sending someone I know to take care of it."

Gideon not only knew people in the city police department, but also human services. He probably knew people in the FBI who could take care of things for him. Hell, maybe he even knew people in the CIA and Border Patrol who could take care of things. All the drugs that the Bartas traded certainly weren't local products. They were probably internationally produced and imported. His mother went on sabbatical in Italy, for Christ's sake. She was probably there drinking wine with the mob.

"You still want to see him?" Gideon asked when Cole didn't respond.

"Yes," Cole's voice cracked, so he cleared his throat. "Yes. I've dreamed for years of seeing his face."

He was no longer that boy who'd beg the cops to see that his savior hadn't done anything wrong. Hell, by the time he was eighteen and making plans to move out of Logan's place, he already would have stood on the front porch laughing and laughing. Now, he had been the cause of the whole take down. Gideon implemented this, but he had done it for Cole's sake.

He squared his shoulders and marched toward the cop car containing Logan. The cops who'd put him inside leaned against the trunk, talking about what they'd had for dinner, completely ignoring the two unrelated people opening the cruiser's doors.

Gideon slid into the driver's seat and Cole into the passenger's seat. Then they turned to look at Logan through the cage. He did not appear surprised to see them. In fact, he did not appear to be processing much at all. His expression was completely blank, as if he'd gone offline. 404 error style.

How does someone who thought they were invincible react when the cops put them in handcuffs and told them that they were not, in fact, untouchable?

By going into shock, apparently.

Satisfaction curled through Cole's body.

"There isn't much to say," Gideon spoke first. "I'm not one for big speeches. Obviously you hurt the wrong person, then were stupid enough to deliver them into the hands of someone who could help them get revenge. I just want you to know that taking you down was easier than swatting a fly."

Logan used to talk smack about how the mafia and gangs didn't mess with him because they knew better. He lived in a completely alternate reality where they left him alone out of fear or respect or something. He really, truly believed it. Maybe on some level he knew it was only because he was too insufferable and also not noteworthy enough to bother with. And that was why he'd never made a nuisance of himself to those with power.

Unfortunately, he was the biggest nuisance in the world to those he thought he had power over. And now he had to face the reality everyone else lived in, where the other criminals in the city could swat him out of existence just like that. And his delusions were not finished crumbling.

"In addition," Gideon pulled an envelope folded in half out of the back pocket of his jeans. "I want you to know that you aren't going to be able to keep running your operation from behind bars. You don't have that kind of power. You'll be lucky to keep your life. And it seems like your luck is running out."

As he spoke, he pulled a packet of paperwork out of the envelope and unfolded it to hold it against the cage. "This is your will. You recently changed it so that if anything happens to you, everything goes to your most trusted employee, Elijah Johnson"

For the first time, a mix of emotions flashed across Logan's face, settling into bloodless horror. "I did not."

"You did," Gideon smiled. "See, look right there. It's your signature, and that of your lawyer. She'll be meeting you at the station, by the way. I already contacted her for you, so you can use your one phone call to do whatever you want."

Logan's jaw hung open. Gideon as good as told him that even his lawyer was in the his pocket now. In less than fifteen minutes, Gideon had taken absolutely everything from him. Cole couldn't help but laugh. Logan's eyes slid toward him, and his face morphed into an ugly sneer.

"I did everything for you," he sneered. "I paid off your debt. I gave you a place to live. And you were never grateful for any of it were you. You ungrateful piece of..."

"You did all that for yourself," Cole interrupted coldly. "And this isn't just revenge. It's to stop you from using other people the way you used me. Like that kid you brought home tonight. Now maybe he won't end up like I did. Revenge would only be sweet if you could actually feel regret for what you did, which I know you never will. Goodbye Logan. I hope it was all worth it to you."