Jack had known almost the minute he saw Danny with Jordan that there was history between them.

The first time the two had met, it had been a fluke, an accident of sorts. Inside his mind, Jack gave a sad frown. It was equally funny and heartbreaking to the man how so many monumental things relied on luck and chance. Danny was young, not yet an agent in the field. He was low man on the totem pole for the FBI, a young kid fresh out of grad school, and they had him working in narcotics, mostly running doughnuts and coffee to his superiors.

But eventually, Danny was let onto a case. It was a simple heart attack from a drug overdose, but the Feds wanted to check out the scene to make sure that there were no obvious leads lying around the perimeters. The man who died had been Jordan’s father, Joe Coliandri, a model employee and loving husband and father, so they all said. According to the mother, pregnant with her second child, he only used drugs recreationally. But the coke had been a bad batch - laced with heroin. Needless to say, his heart hadn’t been able to take the pressure.

A sad story to be certain. But it hadn’t stopped there. The tainted drugs had blazed a trail across Madison, New Jersey, leaving a connect-the-dots of dead bodies, all from heart-attack ODs. Each death brought them closer and closer to the dealers, and finally, twenty-four hours later a drug ring was brought to rest.

Being on the team earned Danny a name for himself, and from there he rose throughout the bureau, until he was given a chance to join the New York branch concerning missing persons, Jack’s very own.

For most, the story would have ended there. A tragic end to a man’s life brings success to another. However, from what Jack had seen, it was never safe to assume that things were over, only to pay attention until they actually were.

Two years later, Jack’s team got called out on assignment. Neighbors were calling, saying that a fifteen-year-old had been living alone with her infant brother for what appeared to be a matter of weeks. Their mother, Olivia Coliandri, had been MIA since earlier that month, and slowly, the neighbors were beginning to take notice of her absence. Jack and Danny had been the first agents called onto the scene. Jordan, upon seeing the two men barge into her house, ran with her two-year-old brother in tow, pent on leaving the premises.

Danny immediately recognized the child’s face, and in seconds, put together that she had been the same girl whose father had died years before. You never forget your first case, especially when it was the same case that sent you on your way to the top.

In that second that Danny and Jordan’s eyes had met, Jack had seen it. That spark of recognition – that instant personal investment. Even before Danny knew it was there, Jack had seen the whole picture unfolding, and predictably, one thing led to another. Danny, though he had only met the girl once, already knew her. And it didn’t take a genius to see how.

He had been there himself, more than once. He knew what it was like to lose a father and mother. He knew what it was like to find yourself taking extremes in dangerous situations, especially in his childhood. And by thinking like Jordan, he was able to find her when no one else could.

When the Feds entered her house, Jordan ran to where she knew she would be safe. There was a small cove outside the Bronx where religious icons were placed in reverence to the Virgin Mary. Naturally, one would think a place like that would be asking to be turned into a graffiti gallery for the local thugs-turned-artists. But no such thing occurred. After a few supposed ‘sightings’ of the Virgin Mary, the place was hailed as holy ground, and it was enough to scare the local Latino community into leaving the Grotto in peace.

Clue after clue led Danny to the Grotto, and coincidentally, to Jordan and her brother, Jason. Jack remembered. It was quite a sight. Try as he might, he would never forget the girl clutching tight to her little brother, standing in front of a likeness of the mother of Christ, eyes scared, tears running down her cheeks.

But that day, Danny had responded in ways every agent hopes they may one day attain. He connected. Though Jack hadn’t heard everything he had said, he had coaxed Jordan down from the hill in the Grotto, and he had promised to do everything in his power to keep her and her brother together. Because his words had been so sincere and because his face was one Jordan remembered, she had trusted him. It had been exactly what Jordan needed to hear, and somehow Danny had sensed that.

Though none, including Jack, had had high hopes for having such a promise fulfilled, Danny was better than his word. Nary a week later, he made arrangements to have both of them housed at St. Luke’s orphanage in the South Bronx. Using every connection he had, the paperwork went through, and the siblings were kept together.

Not many cases ended like that, and it was a triumph for Danny, Jordan, and the rest of Jack’s team. Jack had been proud of his agent that day. He had proven himself in the field and shown him what he was truly made of.

But that same day Danny had broken a rule, and one of the most sacred.

You do not under any circumstances allow yourself to become more emotionally attached than you already are.

Jack knew certain things about Danny’s past. He had a hard story. But despite the tragic tale, the man did not see the need to use kid gloves when dealing with the situation. If cases came up that rang too similar to his own, Jack did nothing to deter Danny from getting involved. Passion was a formidable asset to have in the business of locating others, and he trusted his agents to use those impulses at their own discretion.

But sometimes, you can’t plan for everything. Though Jack wasn’t entirely sure how it happened, he knew enough to see that Danny had opened the floodgates and allowed Jordan to enter into his life. Naturally, Jack had not given his consent, but Danny hadn’t asked for it, and up until recently, there had never been an instance that interfered with his professionalism on the job. With no proof present, the man had nothing to criticize.

But now here Danny was, sitting in his office, relaying a story about a midnight phone call that involved him far beyond the responsibilities of his profession.

Jack listened to the story intently, all while recalling the history from memory, extracting a file and replacing it back in his mind. It was standard operating procedure. Jack was good at things like that.

When the story was finished, Danny let out a hard sigh.

He looked at Jack, palms open at his sides.

“What should I do?”

Jack took in a breath. “You want my advice?”

Danny nodded. That’s why he was here.

“Walk away.”