Chapter 1

"Mommy!" Henry is screaming for her as Daniel's sister tries to coax him into the car, he doesn't want to go and live in Florida, he wants to stay with his Mom.

Regina can do nothing but shake her head and sob, "I'm so sorry Henry, you can't stay here, please understand."

But Henry is 8, he doesn't understand that at all and he continues to scream and cry even when the car pulls away from the side walk and disappears into the distance, leaving Regina standing alone and afraid because even though her son is gone, the danger may never be.

She can't do anything about this, except solve the case, catch the man who threatened her family, who killed seven women, and try to reunite with her son.

…

*4 years later*

The constant vibrating next her face pulls Regina from the five hours sleep she's managed to get that night, after spending it finishing up the paper work to a case the captain wanted finished. She reaches out and pulls the phone to her ear.

"What?" She snaps into the device. There's an unspoken rule at the precinct that if a Detective doesn't leave their desk until after 12am, then you don't call them before 7am.

It's 5.30.

She hears Captain Lucas "Mills, I'm sorry, there's been a homicide and we need a detective down there. Swan is sick, so that leaves you."

Regina considers some witty comeback, knowing that her Captain will just laugh and tell her to get her ass out of bed, but there's something dark in the older woman's voice. "Why not Jones and Booth?"

There's a pause then, as a breath is drawn in on the other end of the call, "The victim is Milah Gold, the girl Jones had a thing with last year, and it's bad."

It's all Regina needs to hear, "Don't worry about it, I'll get straight down there, send me the address." She hangs up and pulls herself out of bed.

She grabs the first thing she sees, a cream silk shirt and a pant suit, then makes her way out to her car. A thought crosses her mind to grab a coffee but she thinks about Detective Jones finding out about this and rushing to the crime scene so decides that maybe her idea isn't such a good one, because she needs to be there to keep him away.

The homicide it turns out, happened during the early hours, and it is not as simple as she first thought. Regina remembers the woman vividly, knows that she was married, separated from her very rich and very powerful husband and had a tryst with Jones, then ran out of money and went back to said husband. Only the murder isn't a result from a domestic incident gone wrong; it's a well-planned assassination.

Regina crouches next to the medical examiner, Doctor Whale, "What have we got Victor?"

"Gunshot wound to the head, I'd say it was pretty instantaneous." He speaks quite slowly to her, as if she doesn't understand at all, and that irritates her more than the fact she had to get up at 5 in the morning.

"Yes, I see the pool of blood underneath her head, I mean what type of gun, what type of range was the shot taken from?"

The M.E. smirks at her then, "I was getting to that part." He gestures to the gaping hole in the victim's head, "It's a long range sniper bullet wound, I'd say the shot was taken from a roof over there", he gestures to the roof of the opposite houses, "Somehow I don't think this was the husband, Mr Gold doesn't strike me as a cold blooded assassin."

She hums quietly and stands up straight, "We'll see, anyone can hire a gun for money."

As if on que, Gold turns up in his black sedan in a crumpled suit, leaning heavily on his stick as he rushes towards the yellow tape. "Milah!" He yells. The he sees her body and angrily raises the stick in the air, intending to do some kind of damage to someone.

Regina quickly approaches him, arm raised upwards, "Sir, you need to calm down, I'm Detective Mills, and I'm very sorry for your loss but I'm investigating your wife's murder."

It seems to work as the man stops whatever assault he had planned and slumps onto the stick once more. She spies a uniformed officer, Officer Blanchard, standing metres away and gestures to her, "I need you to knock on doors, speak to the neighbours, can you do that?"

The woman nods enthusiastically, "Of course detective." The response is much too happy for the crime scene and bordering on inappropriate but the girl is something to do with David, one of the detectives in her unit, so she stops herself from saying anything.

She approaches Gold who is on his phone now, barking orders at his people, ordering their silence on the matter, when he sees her and hangs up. Regina grabs the notepad from her pocket and begins to question him.

When Gold starts to shuffle nervously, Regina stops, "Look, I'm sorry to be blunt but your wife is dead and we need your alibi and any information you can give us so we can catch this killer, ok?," the man nods so she continues, "Right, first of all, any problems recently with anyone you know?"

Mr Gold thinks for a second, then pales, "There was an incident, I didn't mean for it to get out of hand but—," he stops as his phone pings, a message appearing on the screen. There's a second of silence before he begins to look around nervously, backing away from the detective, "Actually, I…I don't have anything to say, please, I need to tell my son about this. I—"

He's cut off as metal makes contact with his head, red splattering Regina as the man falls backwards to the ground. He's been shot.

"Shots fired, shots fired!" Regina yells at the others. There's commotion as uniforms reach for their weapons in anticipation of a second bullet which never comes. When she looks down there's an image displayed on the dead man's phone, taken only seconds earlier. There's a caption, and when Regina takes a closer look, she realises why Gold was so afraid. You're next, it says.

A new crime scene is cornered off when it becomes apparent the shooter is long gone and Regina goes to work again, questioning witnesses.

It takes only five minutes for the FBI to appear and claim the crime scene as their own. Gold was notorious for his bad behaviour, and it seems he'd got on the bad side of dangerous people.

When Regina is approached by an FBI agent and told that her unit is no longer needed on the case she just nods, "That's fine, we're happy to cooperate if you need us."

Then she leaves and heads into the precinct for the second time in 7 hours, already completely done with the day.

…

It gets slightly better when she gets to work and Nolan places a steaming mug of coffee on her desk. She looks up, a ghost of a smile on her face, "Thanks David."

He leans in, "I heard Gold's dead, and the FBI have taken over the case, that true?"

She nods, "I think whatever's going on here is a little above us, I'm glad we're away from it, I don't need the paperwork." Regina sips the coffee, only to find Detective Nolan still looking at her. "What?"

He gestures to her face, "Is it a bad time to say you have blood all over your face and shirt?" There's an apologetic tone in his voice but Regina knows the man is probably dying of amusement inside, most of the men in her squad room are immature at the best of times.

She mumbles something about going to change and heads to the locker room wishing the day to be over already. There's no spare shirt in her locker but luckily Ruby appears then and hands her a white button down. "Lucas said you needed a change of shirt, something about not wanting to give your new partner a bad impression."

"My new what?" Regina says, shock evident. She hadn't had a partner for over four years and the Captain knows exactly why. Even so, she never minded working with Swan, Nolan or even Booth when necessary, but still, she had no desire for any partner.

Ruby smiles then, "I'm sure he'll learn quickly that you have your own way of working through cases." And yes, Regina has her way of doing things but that isn't by choice. Her last partner was well before Ruby started working for them as their profiler/sketch artist, and the girl probably has no idea of what happened.

Regina sighs, "Fine, tell the captain I'll be out in twenty to meet this partner of mine, I need to wipe the blood off my face."

"Right, like she's going to give you that long, I'll tell her you'll be out in ten", Ruby turns to leave then, pausing only to say one more thing, "Give him a chance Regina, he seems like a good guy."

Right, Regina thinks, being a good guy in this line of work gets you killed.

I hope you enjoyed the first chapter of this fic. I've spent a lot of time thinking and planning so hopefully I can get to the end.

Feel free to leave feedback/criticism.

xo