Hawaii Five-0: Adventures (Secrets Part 2)

Freed ?

Two days later:

The whole Five-0 team has been in a sad mood since everyone learned of Steve's death. No one came to the headquarters in a good mood in the morning and everyone just went about their work all day without speaking much to each other.
Catherine was having a particularly hard time, she hadn't slept in those two days and didn't know when she would ever be able to sleep again. She just felt empty, alone and deeply sad. When Steve died, a part of her died too, and Catherine was sure that part would leave a hole in her heart forever.

Steve:

Steve was now fully privy to the plan. He knew what he had to do and that it was to take place tonight. But one thing just kept bothering him and that was Catherine and the fact that she was probably pregnant. He knew exactly how Catherine felt now because he had always felt the same way when she was on any mission and he couldn't be sure how she was doing. This uncertainty would not let you go until that person came back. And now Steve didn't even know if he could get back to Catherine. He hoped so, but it was unlikely. Because there was no reason these people should let him live after this.
Suddenly the door of the cell, where Steve had spent the last few days, opened again. Brandon, the suspected leader, stepped into the room.
"Commander, I hope you are ready. We're on our way now."

"Before I do that, let me speak to Catherine. I just want to let her know I'm fine and not to worry."

"That won't be necessary anymore, believe me."

"Why? Did you do something to her?!"

"No, she's fine. Maybe not on an emotional level, but we don't care about that now. Anyway, we just made sure that she and nobody else on your team will be looking for you. That's all."

Steve realized what Brandon was trying to convey to him. He must have somehow caused Catherine and the others to think that he had been reported missing or even dead on his mission. This made Steve sad and angry at the same time. He didn't even want to imagine what Catherine was going through now. However, this was also an incentive for him to try even harder to get back to her home as quickly as possible and put her out of her torment. And in order to achieve that goal, he had to do what these people wanted him to do.

So he now followed Brandon out of the room, down a hallway until they came to a door that led outside. There they stood on a kind of gravel place and on it stood a black van. Steve was forced to get in and shortly thereafter the van started to move. There were three other men with Steve, all dressed in black and wearing ski masks, so Steve couldn't see their faces.
They drove about 20 minutes by Steve's timing, after which the van stopped and one of the men held out a black ski mask to Steve, which he was forced to put on.
Shortly thereafter, everyone got out and the robbery began...

A few hours later:

Catherine was still in the office when her cell phone rang. She picked it up and listened intently to what she was being told. There has been a robbery into the HPD evidence room and the perpetrators have fled.
Catherine quickly shared this information with the others and they drove off to the HPD together.

When they got to the evidence room, it looked very untidy. A few shelves had been knocked over and things from others were strewn across the floor. Nobody could yet say exactly what was stolen, but one thing was immediately apparent: the money, which had been confiscated in a raid three weeks earlier. It was three million dollars.
The first thing to do here was to clean up, so the team just took a quick look around the place and then went to a computer to watch the video from the surveillance cameras.
They saw six men dressed in black and wearing ski masks stormed into the evidence room. Five started putting the money in bags. The sixth man stood at the entrance to the chamber and appeared to be on guard. But suddenly he looked straight into the camera and pulled his ski mask off his head.
Everyone froze. They couldn't believe what they were seeing. It was probably Steve looking into the camera. But only briefly, because when one of the other men noticed this action, he ran towards Steve and pushed him out of the camera's field of view.
Catherine's face showed different emotions one after the other. Surprise, confusion, doubt, relief and also happiness. Steve was still alive and so she still had the chance to bring him back home.
"It's clearly Steve! We must find and save him before it's too late."
Catherine was very excited and looked back and forth between the others. Danny first took Catherine out of the building to talk to her in private.

"Listen Catherine. The video isn't exactly clear and we should send it to Charlie before we jump to conclusions. I want to believe it's Steve, but getting false hope isn't going to bring Steve back."

As Catherine began to speak again, the tears began to slowly run down her face again.
"I know that, Danny... But I just have to believe that he's still alive. No matter how small the chance is... Oh man, Danny. I just don't want to lose him... I can't let him go."

Danny took Catherine in his arms and rubbed her back soothingly.
"Hey, calm down. I understand you very well, I feel the same way. I just don't want to make you feel any worse if Steve really is dead. You remember the conversation you had with Steve when we were both buried, don't you?"

"Yes, of course."

"I was already at a safe distance at that moment, but I still heard what Steve said. And he told you not to blame yourself for doing everything you could. You should forgive yourself and move on through life, not rebuild your wall around you. Just think of his words. He wouldn't want you to beat yourself up like that. I mean, I don't want to know how long you haven't slept."

"I know what he said, but... I just can't let go... it hurts too much. So I don't care how small the hint is. I believe Steve is still alive."

"That's a good thing, but please hold off on getting your high hopes until Charlie gets the video ready for us to run facial recognition on, okay?"

"Yes."

So the team sent the video recording to Charlie and hoped he could do something about it...

Steve:

After Steve deliberately stood in front of a camera and was rudely pushed aside, all he knew was running back into the van with the other men. After that everything was black.

When Steve woke up again, he found himself in the small room he had been in for the past few days. Only now he just felt bad since he had actually helped someone break into the evidence room at the HPD to steal money. That really gave him a very bad conscience. But hopefully he'd been able to save Catherine that way. And while the action with the camera had already earned him some injuries as punishment, it had definitely been worth it to him. He didn't want Catherine to think he was dead. So he just hoped that his friends would see the camera footage and then start looking for him. Because Steve was sure of one thing. Should Catherine see these recordings, she would not give up until she found him.

Suddenly the door opened and a man unknown to Steve entered the room. Without saying a word, the man stepped closer to Steve and, without warning, pressed the taser to his neck. Then everything was black again.

When Steve came to consciousness, it was cold. He opened his eyes and looked around. He was actually lying on the cold flagstones of his front yard. But why would these people just let him go ? That didn't make any sense to Steve. Something was very wrong here. Steve got up and reached into the pockets of his cargo pants. In fact, he had his keys back, as well as his gun. Just not his cell phone. But then Steve immediately remembered why. He hadn't taken it with him, or rather he wasn't allowed to take it with him when the man fetched him from the hospital.
Steve went to the front door and unlocked it. There were no lights inside, so Steve flipped the light switch. He walked a bit through the living room and so his eyes fell on the coffee table. His cell phone was there, right next to a DVD case and the remote control. Steve picked up the case to see exactly what it was. But as soon as he found out, a bad feeling crept over him again. It was the footage of his wedding to Catherine. She must have been watching these for the past few days, probably while thinking he was dead.
Steve didn't want to think about it anymore and therefore picked up his cell phone. It had a couple of missed calls and a message from an unknown number. Steve looked at the photo of the message, read the text and his expression changed immediately...