TITLE: Coming Together

Who is after Callen? Will they succeed in getting revenge on him and his team?

I've had requests to continue the "Can't Stay Away" story but it was always only a one-shot. My minions have been pestering me to take pity on my readers, so even though it's taken me quite a while (major writer's block on the case fic portion of the story!), here's the sequel. This story takes place after Hetty went to Romania and after Kensi's mission to Afghanistan.

I only own my own characters Mark and Stefan. If you recognize them, they belong to NCIS Los Angeles unless they are a character from a previous story of mine.

Anything in bold italics is a quote from my one-shot "Can't Stay Away". Anything in regular italics is thoughts.

Nope…no matter how hard I wish, NCIS LA nor any of the characters on the show are mine. And sadly, they never will be.

My minions are dancing around the room because I've finally started posting a new story. They can't wait to hear from my readers on whether or not they like this new story. Their little eyes are crossed in anticipation.

Reviews are always welcome. If you are enjoying this story, drop me a line and tell me why.

Enjoy.

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CHAPTER 1: Upcoming Danger

He stood in front of his family's home staring at all the damage that had been done during the shootout with the four Americans. Almost every member of his family had been killed during the fight and most of the rest had been wounded as had he. He didn't know where the remaining members of his family were currently hiding. He knew his cousin Dracul had vanished somewhere but he wasn't sure how many others had survived and his thoughts were in turmoil. He stood there in a towering rage holding four grainy black and white photographs in his hand. His body was shaking with anger and pain as he looked around at the devastation. "I will avenge you all! I promise. He will not get away with this. I will find him and make him suffer for a very long time before I finally kill him as slowly as possible. This I swear on your bodies!"

As he continued looking around, he began tearing the photographs into tiny pieces while letting them fall to the ground around him even though every move of his arm sent shards of pain throughout his body from the wound in his shoulder. By the time he was finished, the people in the photographs were unrecognizable. All that could be seen in the tiny pieces were parts of people, one showing what looked like light curls, a piercing eye that might be blue in color if the photo wasn't in black and white in a different piece, black skin in another and one piece that showed an eye with what looked like a lighter ring around the dark pupil. It didn't matter though because he knew who they were. He would find them and kill every one of them, leaving their leader for the last so he could see the suffering his team went through because of him. He would destroy the team and then that traitorous woman who had come to Romania pretending to be family.

Giving his home one last look, he motioned to the men standing silently around him. "Clean this up and bury my family with honor. Then meet me at the vacation home. We have plans to make."

He turned and was helped away from the scene by his driver.

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He had been incredibly lucky to escape with his life but still wasn't sure how he had managed it. He spent many months recovering from his wounds and making his plans for revenge while waiting for his wounds to heal and his strength to return. He spent a lot of time thinking about how he was going to achieve his goal. "First I'm going to have to liquidate some assets so I'll have plenty of ready cash. I'm going to have to find and assemble a team of mercenaries along with several surviving members of our family to help me carry out my plan. Then I have to figure out a way to get everyone into the U.S. without drawing the attention of the authorities in any way. So much to do. I have to be patient and make sure that everything is in place. I don't want anything to go wrong."

By the time he was back to good health with the use of his arm again, he was ready to get started. He had used his contacts to try to find Dracul, but hadn't had any luck so far and didn't want to wait any longer before setting his plan in motion. The first step in his plan to recruit a team was completed relatively quickly. Getting them into the United States was taking more time than he liked, but he had to get false identities for all of them so they could slip into the United States undetected. And the false papers had to be good enough to pass undetected through customs. His family agreed to come with him quickly. It took him months to find and recruit the men who weren't family to form the team to help him. One he had the papers for each man in his team, he arranged for them to slip into the U.S. either alone or in pairs so they wouldn't attract attention. Once everyone arrived, they were to rendezvous with him in Los Angeles for further instructions.

Revenge was all he had left to live for. He was going to make them pay, and pay dearly for what they had done to him and his.

He slipped into the United States ahead of his team and found a building in an older part of the warehouse district in Los Angeles he could use as his main headquarters for his vengeance. He also found another building to use as a backup location. Everyone had to be in place in Los Angeles before he began the next step.

As he sat waiting for the men he had recruited to arrive, he thought back to when his quest for revenge had started. "Those damn people came to my family's home, in my country, to protect him! He should be dead now, not back home enjoying life. Almost my whole family died in the fire fight. I was lucky to get away and I didn't make it out unhurt. It's taken months for me to get back into shape and then more months to get the team together. I'll have my revenge on him though, just like my grandfather did on his mother. It's too bad he wasn't killed when his mother was. His entire line should have ended that day on the beach. If it had, my family would still be alive. I will finish it now. It's time."

One by one the men he had hired arrived at the warehouse he was using to plan his revenge. Once his team arrived and rendezvoused with him, the second step in his plan was complete. He knew he had to remain patient and follow his plan one step at a time and have everything completed that was required for each step before he took the next step. His target's teammates would be watching his back like they always did so he couldn't afford to make any mistakes. He wanted to take them all out before they knew what was coming. He could be a patient man when he needed to be and for this to be successful, he had to be very patient.

Once his whole team was standing in front of him in the warehouse, he laid out his main plan and the contingency plans he had made in case anything went wrong. He wasn't going to take any chances with something going wrong without a backup plan in place. Too much was riding on everything going according to plan. He wasn't staying at the warehouse himself because he didn't trust anyone to know where he was when he wasn't there.

One of his men, Mark Anderson, one of the few he trusted implicitly, worked at the Naval Base in San Diego. He was put in charge of selecting a target for the next step in his plan. He and Mark went back years. They had met when he was in college in the United States and had become fast friends. He had invited Mark to Romania to meet his family. From that beginning they had grown closer with Mark becoming a trusted ally and participant in the family business. While he had been recovering in Romania, Mark had returned to the states and gotten his job at the Naval Base in preparation for Stefan's arrival. He was now in the perfect position to help Stefan with whatever intel he might need.

He and Mark met on several occasions to talk about what would be needed to draw the team out. They spent days throwing out ideas and then dissecting them until they both agreed on what they were going to do next. Once they had that part of the plan in place, he told Mark to take his time to find an appropriate target to use as bait to draw the American out where he could be killed. He gave him a burner phone to contact him on and gave him all the information he would need to select the right target as bait. "As soon as you've selected your target, let me know and I'll get you the device to plant in his car. Take care old friend. I don't want anything happening to you."

"Don't worry Stefan. I'll be careful. I want to see this through with you. You and your family took me in and made me part of something I'd never had. I feel like it was my family that was killed as well."

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