Page 23 of A Captive Situation

She screamed, her voice breaking, “Help her! Helpher! I don’t know—I don’t know what happened.” Her hands were flailing around her.

“Is there anyone else here?”

“What?”

I needed to clear the scene, make sure it was safe, and as I stepped over the body, the woman in the kitchen began screaming again. I ignored her, doing a quick sweep, but no one else was in the apartment. After that, I holstered my gun and went to the woman on the floor.

I had two sides to me, and both were operational right now.

My heart was pumping. Adrenaline was racing through my veins, but the other side of me locked down. There was a firm divider inside of me, keeping the anxiety, fear, hunger at bay, and the other part of me was where I grew cold. Detached. I needed to be so I was clearheaded as I went through the motions of what I used to do for a living.

First aid. CPR.

This was a part of the job I did for so fucking long, but I hated it.

I didn’t realize it until now, but this part, I hated it. But it’s what I signed up to do because I didn’t feel I had a choice in the matter. I couldn’t let Justin join the family business. I wouldn’t let him be turned into a criminal so I went to the academy to be something else, but goddammit. In the end, I became worse than what I was trying to save him from. I just didn’t know it until I turned my resignation in.

Fuck. How sad was that?

I kept giving CPR until the first EMT got to me. “We got it, Jake. You can back up.”

I looked up, confused, but I knew the paramedic. Recognized her.

Her partner rounded, taking my place and I moved aside, letting them do their job. “Stray bullet.” I motioned to the window, but the first paramedic had already clocked it, her glance at the window before straying over to me lingering. “We got it. Go downstairs.”

I nodded. That divider wall started to lift. Just a bit. Some of my adrenaline slipped through.

Another paramedic was in the hallway, talking to the child. He looked up, familiarity flaring because he knew me too. We gave each other a nod, but I kept moving, circling through the diner where I sawa couple street cops inside, questioning people. Both looked up, saw me, saw the blood on my shirt.

I reached to show my badge.

Then stopped because there was just air there now.

“Sir?” One stepped toward me.

I held up a hand. “I used to be a cop. OC.” Organized crime.

That made him pause. His gaze lingered on my holstered weapon before he motioned to the street. “Manhattan South is on the way. Homicide. They’ll want to talk to you.”

Homicide.

Shit.

The guy had died.

Chapter Eight

Sawyer

“You want another coffee?” The server came back, eyeing me, but I saw the strain on her face.

I turned in my booth, my back to the whole posse that had formed outside. The ambulances. The fireman. The police. The paramedics.

I was on my third cup since everything happened. I nudged my mug toward her. “Thanks. Yeah.”

This was all new to me.

I was alive.

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