ARROGANT BRIT (A BRITISH BAD BOY ROMANCE) (76 page)

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Dark
thoughts
filled my head as I reached down and flipped on the old police CB. Before I
even had a chance to consider whether or not I should use it to call into the
station, I got caught up listening to the chatter.

Captain
Pierce had wasted no time. He had issued an APB on Nathaniel Hale, and men were
being stationed around the city even as I battered the poor car on the uneven
dirt. Squinting, I could see the highway that loomed ahead, and with it, the
end of this journey.

Don’t
use the radio. Don’t let the Captain know you’re alive. Get the video. Get
yourself some proof, first.

As I
swerved the car onto the asphalt and floored it, I wondered where Nathan was.
We had scheduled a meet at a small diner on Fourth Street, but he wasn’t
supposed to show up there for hours. I only hoped he would keep his damn head
down until all of this was over.

There
had been so many fuck-ups today already. I didn’t want him to be another one,
maybe one that I couldn’t fix. There had to be a way to make things right, and
I was determined to find out how to do exactly that.

The
miles ticked by as I hit traffic. It was nearly rush hour. That would slow me
down getting out to Nathan’s mansion, but it wasn’t about to stop me. I reached
over, flipping the switch on the dash that lit up the siren and lights hidden
behind the grill. Like Moses parting the red sea, cars began to move aside.

I’m coming, Nathan…

I had
to ignore my fears and reservations. I needed to get to the t22 receiver from
the undercover car and bring the evidence to someone I trusted. If I could get
to the video, maybe I could fix this.

The off
ramp was coming up fast, and I brought the car swerving down and into the
upscale residential neighborhood, its houses getting more and more expensive as
I approached Nathan’s mansion. Turning onto a side street, I came up quickly to
the car we had parked to serve as a recording station. Inside, I knew the small
receivers were doing their job, but what I needed was the USB drive they were
piping the information into.

Without
a key, I used the butt of the shotgun to smash in one of the windows, ripping
the usb drive free and returning to my car.

I was
hyperventilating as I tossed the small portable hard drive into the passenger’s
seat. This was it. But what exactly did it buy me? A chance, sure, but if the Captain
was compromised, how high did this go? Was the commissioner involved? The
mayor?

And
even if I found someone to trust, what good would it do if Wallace could still
strike at us from behind bars?

No. I
couldn’t take this to the police. Not when it was possible that this infection
ran rampant throughout the entire department.

My
thoughts flashed back to the white envelope and the press. I could bring it to
the Times. I still knew a person or two on the inside. They could keep me safe
and break this case wide open. The FBI would be all over it within a few weeks.
I could start again with a new name and a new life… WITSEC protection and the
whole nine!

With
Nathan at my side? We could run away together. Surely he had some money stashed
offshore.

I took
a deep breath as I got nearer to my car, trying to soothe my nerves. Everything
was going to be okay. A short drive, a few words with a reporter, and we could
let the feds sort this whole thing out. I was done.

Before
I could even get to the door, I could hear it. The police radio was going
crazy. Opening the door and leaping inside, I froze in place, my mind decoding
the various messages cross-firing over the speakers.

Code 999, officer needs help urgently. 10-59, hostage
situation exists. Swat team en route. Police surrounding a building on Elm
Street. Suspect deemed armed and extremely dangerous… Officer involved
shooting…

I was
gasping for air in the driver’s seat, desperately trying not to pick up the radio.
My hand gripped the wheel so hard it was sending pain shooting up my arm. God
help me if Nathan was involved. Did the damn fool go and poke his head up? Had
he killed someone? What the hell was he doing on Elm?

“Oh,
Christ…” I said aloud, throwing the car into gear. Captain Pierce’s house was
on Elm Street. I’d told him the Captain was after him. Was Nathan trying to
settle the score? My mind reeled as I tried to make sense of it, but a moment
later, everything clicked into place.

Nathan
must have left someone to watch the house. He must have known Captain Pierce
took me out of there. He must have thought I was as good as dead, and that made
him extremely dangerous.

Without
a second thought, I floored it. Lights on and siren blaring, I flew along side
streets, blazing a trail toward Elm. SWAT would be out in force, and if they
went into that house and found Nathaniel Hale with Captain Pierce, they
wouldn’t be so sympathetic. Despite everything the Captain had done, Elm Street
was his home. He had a wife and a kid.

First
rule of the force:
nobody
messes with a cop’s family. Crooked or not, it
didn’t matter.
Nathan would never even have a chance to explain
himself before they took his head clean off. If I could get there in time,
maybe I could stop it. Speed blurred my vision as the trunk slammed open and
closed with every little bump.

I’m coming, Nathan. I’m coming.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Breathe…
Just
breathe…

I tried
to keep my cool as the Crown Vic swerved onto Elm, coming to a hard stop just
shy of the police line. I practically leapt out, shouting at the Lieutenant to
let me through as he trained a gun at me. His eyes flashed with recognition and
he gave me a wave, my hand reaching back into the seat to pull the tactical
shotgun out of the vehicle. I slung it over my shoulder, crossing the police
line with purpose and intent.

“Detective,
where the fuck have you been?” Lieutenant Daniels shouted as I stormed past
him. At least one cop wasn’t in on this little scheme.

“Enjoying
the roomy trunk of my cruiser,” I shouted back, walking straight past the line
of police before breaking into a run.

“Detective!
Stop!” Daniels shouted, but I wasn’t giving him a chance to slow me down. He
was a good cop, but I had no way of knowing how far the corruption had spread.
Any of these men could stop me from getting into that house, and I wasn’t about
to let that happen. I needed to keep moving.

Captain
Pierce’s house loomed at the edge of the cul-de-sac. The police had formed a
semicircle around the front as a pair of helicopters thumped through the air
overhead, blades chopping at the clouds almost as fast as my heart was beating.

I held
my breath as I passed SWAT, trying to remain as inconspicuous as possible while
still moving at a good clip. For my sake, and Nathan’s, I hoped to God that the
corruption hadn’t spread to their snipers, wherever they were. Thankfully,
nobody stopped me as I stepped away from the perimeter and headed straight for
the house.

I
reached the captain’s stoop and racked a round into the shotgun before bursting
through the door, ready to rain down lead justice on anyone who stood in my
way. If Nathaniel Hale was here, I needed to understand. I needed to see him,
and if necessary, I needed to stop him. Someone needed to take Captain Pierce down,
but not like this. Not with murder, and not in front of his wife and kid. I
half expected carnage… What I found instead was a woman tied to a chair,
screaming.

“Upstairs!
Oh, God, they’re upstairs!” she shrieked, frantically motioning toward the living
room with her head.

Confused,
I aimed the shotgun toward the stairwell. “Who’s upstairs? Who the hell is up
there?” I asked her, adrenaline surging through my body. Behind me, I could
hear cops shouting, their voices strained. They knew I’d breached the house. I
kicked the door shut and stepped away. I wasn’t about to give anybody a clean
shot.

“My
husband. My son. Please, help them!” she begged me, tears streaming down her
pale face.

“Who’s up there with them? Who has your husband?”

“A man.”

There
wasn’t time for more explanation, and I doubted she was capable of giving a
coherent one, anyway. Poor woman looked shell shocked, like she was just
hanging on by a thread. I nodded to her and rushed past.

I
stormed the stairwell. I couldn’t stop myself. Whatever was happening here, I
was the only one who could fix this. I was the only one on the force who I knew
for sure wasn’t some Irish puppet. I was the only one I could trust. It was a
terrifyingly lonely feeling.

I hit
the landing, careful not to let my desperation get the best of me. I couldn’t
go into this half-cocked, and I was dangerously close to doing just that. I had
no backup, no one to cover me if things went south. I had to be more cautious,
more patient. I had to plan ahead.

Gun
drawn, I edged around the corner of the hall, sweeping my gun toward the door.
When no one moved, I moved quickly and quietly past the family portraits
hanging on the walls, all signs of domesticity passing by me in a blur. This
wasn’t a house to me anymore. This was a war zone.

I
stopped in front of the door. I knew I should have waited, should have listened
for who was inside, but there was only so much time I could waste. If Nathan
was in there with the Captain, then I needed to intervene as soon as possible,
and even if he wasn’t, the cops outside wouldn’t wait forever to come and get
me.

I took
a deep breath through my nose and let it out between my trembling lips. This
could have been the last thing I’d ever do. Was I prepared for that? Was I
ready to die today?

No,
I
decided.
Stop thinking like that. You
fight. You fight smart, and fight hard.

I nodded to myself and faced the door.
Here goes…

I
kicked the door wide open. It swung inward with a crash, burying its knob
inside the interior wall as I raised my gun again, throwing myself over the
threshold.

“Police!”

Adrenaline
pulsed through my veins as the little boy came into view, cowering in a corner.
The Captain was just to the left with his hands in the air, the long barrel of
a handgun pointed at his head. We stared at each other in shock.

It
wasn’t Nathan inside with them. It was one of the phony Irish policemen. I was
hit with a sensation that was equal parts relief and cold, hard dread. I was
glad it wasn’t him, but at the same time, the fact that it wasn’t created a new
set of problems. I could have talked Nathan down. This guy? Probably not so
much.

This was not the situation I had expected to walk
into.

“Drop
the weapon,” I growled, training my shotgun on the Irishman. Behind him, I
could see the shattered window and the shell casings scattered on the floor. He
must have fired at least half a dozen rounds toward the officers on the street.
Clearly, this was a man who had lost control of the situation.

That,
at least, partially worked in my favor. It meant that corruption or not, the
men and women on the street would be aiming at this asshole and not at me. Most
of them, anyway.

“I
said, drop it!” I shouted, wincing as he jumped, his finger resting firmly on
the trigger.

“You
should be dead,” the man offered up, glaring. He shot me his best sneer, but I
could see the tremor in his hand. “You should be fucking dead. This isn’t how
things are supposed to go. This isn’t my fucking fault!”

He
looked scared and way too young to be up here with that weapon in his hand. He
was quickly devolving, his trembling now so obvious that he was knocking the
business end of his gun against the Captain’s skull.

This
wasn’t good. A calm, cool, collected criminal was bad enough. But a man who
thought he had no way out, who believed he had no option except to choose his
own death? Those were way more dangerous, and any attempts to talk them down
almost always ended in blood.

“There’s
a SWAT team outside,” I began, “and every officer in a twelve-mile radius is
parked down there. They’ll be coming through the door downstairs any second
now. You’re not walking out of here. They won’t hesitate to kill you.” I took a
breath, trying to offer him a little bit of hope in the face of overwhelming
odds. “But if you drop the weapon and let me take you out of here, maybe none
of this has to happen. Cooperate, and we can work out a deal. It doesn’t have
to end this way.”

“No!”
the man shouted, swinging the Captain around to put him between us. “You think
I’m gonna let you put me in prison like you did Wallace? I’m not half the man
he is. The things they’ll do to me in there…”

He
trailed off, lower lip quivering. “I know how things go with your boys down
there. I won’t be in my cell for a week before some guard looks the other way
while I get shanked to death as I’m takin’ a piss.”

Okay.
This wasn’t working. It was time to change tactics. I wet my lips.

“
That
asshole you’re holding tried to
get me killed,” I said, lifting the gun higher. “And
this
shotgun is
loaded with slugs. Do you think I won’t hesitate to put one right through both
of you right fucking now?”

He
blinked at me. I saw his eyes dip to the shotgun, then back up to me. There was
uncertainty flashing across his face now. It was time for me to make the
decision for him.

I
stared him down with all the viciousness I could muster, my body taut as a bow
string.

“
Put the fucking
gun down!
”

I let
out a breath as he dropped it, the metal clattering against the wood floor. The
captain kicked it across the room, quickly moving away from the Irishman.

“Get to
your room, get under your bed,” he shouted at his son, and the boy fled from
the corner as fast as he could, shooting past me to do as his father bade him.

I’d
done it. I moved forward and tossed my handcuffs at the cowering Irishman,
snarling as they skittered across the floor to his feet.

“Put
them on,” I demanded. I left no room for argument in my tone. This fucker
needed to know he had no options left now.

We’d
have to act quickly. The SWAT team would be prepping an entry, especially after
I went and burst into the house prematurely. I watched the man pick up the
cuffs, preparing to strap them onto his wrists, his fingers trembling and his
shoulders slumped as he resigned himself to his fate.

A
gunshot shattered everything. The Irishman was stock still for a moment, as
though time itself had stopped at the colossal sound ripping through the air.
Then he collapsed, his face slack, eyes rolling as he hit the ground.

I
watched him fall as if in slow motion, crying out as I spun toward the Captain.
He stood there without a hint of remorse, holding the gun the Paddie had
discarded only moments before. He was still aiming it at him like a cobra
waiting to strike.

“What
are you doing?!” I asked him as the sound of crashing windows and shattering
wood rose up from beneath us. The SWAT team must have taken the shot as their
cue to enter.

“I’m
protecting my family,” he replied, leveling the gun at me. There was no joy
behind his eyes. No care or compassion.

I tried
to spin away, my head turning as he fired. A flash of pain seared through me
and I collapsed, my legs simply refusing to carry me any farther, my body
failing as I hit the ground.

I
didn’t even feel the impact. I knew it should have bothered me, knew part of my
brain was screaming that this was bad—
really
bad. I’d been hit. I was in shock, probably, which often did more damage than
the bullet itself. I had to maintain my grasp on reality. I had to…

But it
was no use. Every attempt I made to hold on to my life slipped through my
fingers like sand sifting back into the shore. I expected my life to flash
before my eyes, to see Momma and Jenny, to see Nathan’s face one last time, but
all I saw was darkness closing in from the outer corners of my vision, creating
a tunnel with no light at the end of it.

The
very last things I saw as I drifted into unconsciousness was the Irishman’s gun
skipping across the floor toward his corpse, his cold face staring at me in a
way I knew we’d soon share. Darkness took me as the rush of boots clambering up
the stairs filled my ears, then silenced.