Twenty – EightCity protectors were a lot like family. Firefighters were brothers and sisters to all firefighters. Cops were brothers and sisters to all cops. Firefighters and police officers, while not brothers, were distant cousins and usually friends. At the very least, they tended to be on the same side. Most of the time, they had each other's backs. It was a benefit Ben enjoyed at that moment. Embarrassed and defeated, he'd been photographed and fingerprinted (there'd been no way around it), but afterwards, owing to the unspoken familial relationship, he'd been left relatively comfortable in the booking room with no immediate plans to toss him in the clink. It wasn't the Hilton, but it wasn't a cell either.
There he sat with hundreds of plaques, trophies, patches, badges and photograp
