Hetty assigns the team to look into men that were chasing a woman in a parking garage, but doesn't give them any information. The woman was one of Hetty's recruits, Grace Stevens. After being grazed by a bullet, she hides out in the boathouse. Hetty finds her there and then Sam and Callen find the two women. Callen is furious that Hetty withheld the woman's identity and affiliation with NCIS from them.

Grace had been living undercover with a criminal, Nolan Vanderburg. He sent his men to kill her. The team found out he was staying at a hotel and set up a sting there. Nell went in as a maid and was found by Vanderburg's thug, Visser. Kensi gets Nell out clean.

The team sets up in the hotel lobby to grab Vanderburg's laptop since it wasn't in his hotel room. When Visser heads downstairs, Callen pulls the plug on the move. Instead, they plant a false report that an unidentified woman (Stevens) was seriously injured in the hospital to draw out Vanderburg. He shows up to identify his fiance and NCIS grabs him for interrogation.

Callen and Hetty get into an argument when he finds out that Stevens was an orphan just like he was. He wants to know how many kids there were like him, Stevens, Sullivan and Hunter. She answers, "A lot." They come to terms with it over a glass of 50 year old whiskey.