It was around 10:30 p.m. when Anthony DiNozzo settled his head in his hands with resignation. It was time to move on, and there was no way to deny it any longer. To go out everyday with people he didn’t trust, it was just a death sentence waiting to happen…and he had already come too close to that happening an uncomfortable amount of times.
The conclusion of the Royal Woods case was a relief, not only because another bad guy was put away, but also that that he could let the masks drop. He just knew that this was the last straw, though, after many, many, many other small incidents, this is the one that broke his faith. Who thinks it’s a joke to leave a partner without backup?
Earlier, he wouldn’t have been able to sneak a copy of the evidence that Abby had logged without getting her involved. It seemed that she, too, had stopped respecting him in any way over the last few years. Tony had no idea what he did to deserve this treatment – the insults, the insubordination, the disrespect in front of others – but he had had enough and there was no reason to continue taking it. Right now, though, he needed to know if it was indeed a joke that they had turned the receiver off, or if they had actually done it.
****
Two hours later, Tony was still sitting there shocked. They had actually done it — they had shut the receiver off. And the things they said about him! It was one thing when they were insulting him to his face – he figured that was a way of one upping him in front of Gibbs…or really anyone in authority. But to talk like this about him for real? Did they even know that they were being recorded as well? And did Abby hear this and ignore it? Well, no matter. Tony DiNozzo could not, in good conscience, risk that those two embarrassments to the badge would screw up covering anyone else’s six like they did his.
So Tony put on his big-boy pants, filled out the report, the complaint, and attached the evidence, along with saving three copies of everything so that Ms. Abigail Sciuto couldn’t get to it. And now — well, now it was time to call the big boss, because he couldn’t trust Gibbs — and, oh, how that hurt to even think — he had to call the Vance to go over all this before morning came. If he waited any longer, it would definitely come back to bite him in the ass. Speaking of covering his ass, he should put in a call to his buddy in Internal Affairs so that even Vance couldn’t sweep this under the rug.