The phone buzzed insistently on the nightstand farthest from her reach. Even silenced, that familiar bzzzzzzzt still bored through her sleep like a dentist's drill, yanking Bree from the deepest, fullest sleep she'd known in months with a frustrated rush of a sigh. She might have shoved an accidental elbow into Jarod's belly when she crawled over him, if the small 'oof' in the moonlit darkness was anything to gauge by. But his soft, low laugh was soothing to her ears, and Bree felt herself embraced and then lifted over his body, to the side of the bed nearer the phone.

She fumbled for the phone, swiped quickly when she saw the number, and the time: 3:17 am. Fuck. This wasn't going to be anything good, she knew, and Bree cursed the hell out of the timing - inside though, of course.

Because on the outside she was trying not to giggle like a little girl when Jarod nibbled at her neck, his hands deliberately, playfully distracting even while simultaneously trying to sound both awake and remotely professional. "Yeah... Agent Walsh... "

Turns out Lindsey's blind date 'outreach effort' wasn't nearly so cringe-worthy as she'd feared. Not even close actually. Jerod wasn't just 'in the Navy' - he was a former Navy SEAL who'd found a quieter life on the outside, a bank executive now. Sure, he was nearly a decade older than Bree, but that wasn't necessarily a bad thing really. Old enough to know what he was doing, without a doubt, but not so young he thought he had to flee before morning light. 

And as an extra bonus, Riddick was yet to shred a single item of his clothing yet.

"Right... Yes, that one's mine... "

Bree clutched Jarod's wrist beneath the blankets, sitting straight up in bed, lengths of auburn hair almost as wild as the sudden look in her eyes.

"Are you sure?" she hissed softly, incredulous.

"Yeah, yeah I'll be there... 'bout half an hour. Schedule the next available flight... Right, for Chicago - send the info to my phone, this number... "

Bree slipped out from under the blankets, flipping on the lamp with an apologetic glance and a shrug of her shoulders to Jarod. For his part, the man simply stretched and smiled, sitting up in Bree's bed with a grin as he watched her dash to her closet.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

All in all, Jarod had been a good sport about the whole 'time for you to go' thing - and she had been up front about the job after all. Bree wasn't sure she'd see him again when she got back - though she hoped. But he'd been good to her, just what she'd needed when she needed it most, and the preternatural calm that hung about her now said every bit as much. And as those grey eyes peered up from beneath the hood of her sweatshirt to a window on the 9th floor of this piece of shit dilapidated building, she let loose a long, slow sigh, the only obvious sign of her agitation.

'Hello Ethan... Missed me?'

Two days of surveillance had confirmed the 'night manager's' story - and yes, that was a title she used VERY loosely. Forty-eight hours might not sound very long, but she honestly didn't believe they could risk too much longer. For whatever reason, the green-eyed man really did seem to have a routine of sorts, though she didn't trust the surveillance to follow him wherever he went to during the nights, but there was a plain clothes cop who made sure it really was him, returning in the early morning hours, emerging at night like some kind of damned vampire.

And the minute the ink was dry on the arrest warrant, Bree had her team assembled.

While not necessarily a police 'no go zone,' wisdom dictated a definitely understated approach in this section of Chicago. This would be nothing like the raid on the Richmond casino, with absolutely no indication outside of a law enforcement presence. The building itself had to be the biggest damn fire trap she'd ever seen in her life, and it made Bree sick knowing there were probably kids living somewhere in its confines, but for her purposes? The elevators didn't work, the only way up or down those fifteen floors being the stairwells - exactly where a pair of plain-clothes SWAT members would be waiting. There was no way for Ethan to slip past them, unless he was feeling particularly suicidal on those precariously rickety fire escapes - or just sprouted wings.

Bree raced up the stairs silently, only just pulling the velcro slips over her hoodie to show the bright yellow words 'FBI' when she and her pair of Chicago SWAT partners emerged in the dim, filthy hallway of the ninth floor. Pistols drawn, the sounds of their booted feet were muffled by the layer of filthy, tattered carpet in the hallway. With a nod of her head, the grim-faced man positioned himself in front of the door and, in a single, powerful and well-practiced move, kicked in the flimsy apartment door right off its hinges.