Here's the next chapter, in which we finally get to learn more about Ryan's past! There's probably only one more after this, so enjoy it while you can :)

Thanks to The ButterflyCurse996, silvermoongirl10, minsenoma, and Tv Centric Universe for the reviews!

"Alright, yes, thank you."

Kate Beckett all but slammed the phone back onto its receiver, earning her a smirk from Castle. She let out a frustrated groan leaning back in her chair. "Nothing. Nobody knows anything, and the mother's alibi still checks out."

Richard Castle nodded patiently, but it was clear to the detective that he was about to start bouncing off the wall. "Great. Now that you've proven why it was worth it to work through lunch, can we please get something to eat now?"

"Sounds good to me," Beckett replied, stretching slightly as she stood for the first time in over an hour. "I'll call Ryan and Esposito and see if they want to join us."

"Can we get Chinese?" Castle quipped, way past paying any attention to what she was saying. "Or we can try this new Thai place they put in over on-"

"Huh, that's weird," Beckett cut him off, frowning at her cell phone. "Neither of them are answering their cell phones. When did Ryan and Esposito head over to check out the Marcus brother's house?"

Castle glanced at his watch briefly. "I don't know, a little over an hour ago. So what do you think? Chinese or Thai?"

"They should have checked in as soon as they got to the house." A sense of urgency suddenly gripped Kate, and she hurriedly shrugged on her jacket. "Lunch is going to have to wait, Castle. Come on. I've got a bad feeling."

"I-is it getting colder, or is it just me?" Ryan asked, his voice husky. Esposito looked down at his partner in concern. Ryan's lips were starting to take on a light blue tinge, and his shivering had increased. Shock was setting in.

"Maybe a little," Esposito lied, shifting closer to Ryan in a feeble attempt to share some of his body heat without actually moving him. He glanced at his watch for what felt like the millionth time, and silently willed Beckett to hurry up and find them already. Ryan's breathing was starting to take on a ragged edge, as though it were becoming increasingly difficult.

"I started working for 'em when I was twelve," Ryan murmured, breaking the silence.

Esposito frowned in confusion, not following his line of thought. "For who, bro?"

"The Westies."

"Ryan, stop." Javier nudged him gently. "What I said earlier... You don't have to tell me if you don't want to. I still trust you."

"I know," Ryan licked his lips. "But I want you to know, in case I don't make it outta here. I want you to know why I did it."

Esposito stiffened at his partner's words. He wanted to tell Ryan to stop being dramatic, that he was going to be fine. But the reality was, if backup didn't get there soon, Esposito doubted the other man stood much of a chance. The bleeding had slowed, but it had by no means stopped. It was all Esposito could do to sit here helplessly, watching him suffer.

"I started working for them when I was twelve," Ryan started again, shifting around slightly until Esposito's hands stilled him. "My dad was an Irish grocer livin' on the edge of Hell's Kitchen, 'course we had connections to the Westies. Finn himself used to stop by occasionally to buy his vegetables. He used my dad's store as a sort of smuggling center. He needed to get some gun parts other members, my dad would wrap it up with the bread or the meat when they came to pick up. Sometimes things would get smuggled in from outside the neighborhood in our deliveries."

Ryan coughed, and Esposito considered what he was hearing. "So what happened? What did Rourke mean when he mentioned drug running?"

"My uncle Jimmy." Ryan paused, disgust showing through the creases of pain on his face. "He's my dad's younger brother. I don't remember too much about him, except that Ma never really liked him. He was always getting into one bad thing or another, but my dad was always trying to help him out, even gave him a job at the store.

"Then Jimmy had the great idea of tryin' ta smuggle cocaine into the neighborhood using my dad's shipments. He only managed to sell a little before Rourke noticed. But that didn't stop him, 'cause he knew nothing solid could link him back to the shipments of cocaine." Despite his weakened state, Ryan's voice became a sort of growl. "That bastard skipped town the same day that Rourke's men walked into our store and opened fire."

"Rourke had your dad killed because he thought he'd turned on him," Esposito guessed.

Ryan nodded. "He had him killed because he thought he'd gotten greedy. Life wasn't so easy after that. Eventually Jimmy was exposed as the real drug runner and Rourke apologized, but that couldn't bring my dad back. Ma was real freaked; she picked up a couple extra jobs, but it was still hard for her to support us all. So I reached out to 'Uncle Finn' for help and he put me to work."

Suddenly Ryan's breath caught in his throat, throwing him into a full on coughing attack. Esposito watched helplessly has the smaller man's whole body convulsed, both from the coughing and from the pain of jostling his wound. Once Ryan managed to get a hold of himself and had calmed down slightly, Esposito bent to check the wound. Whatever clotting that had occurred had been forcefully undone by the wracking coughs, causing it to bleed more heavily again.

"Shit," Esposito breathed, replacing his jacket over the wound and reapplying pressure. Ryan grimaced, and Esposito knew it was all he could do not to shy away from the pain. "It's bleeding again. We can talk later, Kev. You need to take it easy."

"No," Ryan choked out, shaking his head. "No, I- I'm okay."

Esposito knew that his partner was anything but okay. The Irishman's eyes kept sliding closed and, if possible, he was even paler than before. But Esposito also recognized that this was something that Ryan felt he needed to get off his chest, and he let him continue.

"First I was just an errand boy." Ryan rasped, his breathing finally settling back to a more normal pattern. "You know, taking messages back 'n forth between among the gang, small stuff like that. Did a little bit of stealing, a little spying in other neighborhoods for Rourke. He liked that I never got caught, and by the time I was sixteen he was letting me case joints for him by myself."

Ryan looked up at Esposito, shame reflecting from his pale blue eyes. "So yeah, I have a connection to the Westies. I was one."

Esposito nodded, taking all of it in. He never would have thought that mild mannered, goofy Kevin Ryan would have been a member of the Irish mafia. "But you got out, bro."

"Yeah, well, not by my choice," Ryan snorted, much to Esposito's surprise. "I was becoming fairly well known in the neighborhood as one'a Rourke's boys, and one day when I was walking home from school I was jumped by a rival gang. They picked me up, beat me within an inch of my life, and dropped me in front of one of Rourke's favorite hangouts. I jus' barely got lucky. Anyways, Ma freaked and packed us all up and moved us out of Hell's Kitchen. And I haven't talked ta Finn Rourke since then."

"Until the Dick Coonan case," Esposito supplied.

"Yeah," Ryan sighed, his eyes sliding shut again. " 'salways a strange kid. Useta follow us older boys 'round."

Esposito frowned, not only troubled by what Ryan had just revealed to him, but by how much more pronounced the slur of his words was becoming. He was just about to mention it, when he thought he heard voices coming from the rest of the house. Esposito grabbed Ryan's hand, and moved it to hold his jacket in place against the wound. "Hey, bro, think you can hold on to this for a sec? I think I heard someone."

He hurriedly made his way back to the entrance of the space, and pressed his ear against the door. Sure enough, he could hear Kate and Castle as they moved through the house, calling out for the other two detectives. Raising his fists, Esposito pounded as hard as he could against the door, trying to get their attention.

"Hey! Hey, we're in here!"

A minute later, Beckett's voice sounded from the other side of the wall. "Esposito?"

"Yeah, Beckett, it's me! The door locks from the outside."

"Yeah, I see it," Her voice was further muffled as she bent to presumably consider the lock. "Ryan in there with you?"

"Yeah," Esposito said, his entire body pumping with anxiety. "You gotta hurry, Beckett. He's bad, real bad. We're gonna need an ambulance right away."

"On it," Castle's voice sounded from further back.

"Stand back, Esposito!"

The door came flying open, and then Esposito was rushing back into the room towards Ryan, the other two close on his heels. He knelt by his partner with Beckett while Castle relayed information to the 911 operator on the phone. In the two minutes Esposito had been gone, Ryan had lapsed into unconsciousness and they could not rouse him.

"What happened?" Kate wanted to know, peering at the wound herself.

"We got jumped," Esposito said, blinking past the spots that decorated his vision. His headache was beginning to come back with a vengeance, probably due to fading adrenaline now that he knew help had arrived. "Knocked me out, shot Ryan. It's a through and through, but I couldn't get the bleeding to stop."

"Paramedics say they're three minutes out," Castle reported, joining his companions next to the prone detective on the floor. "Poor guy can't seem to catch a break."

Kate eyed her unconventional partner. "He will if he lives."