Page 23 of Broken Trust
The door crashed open.
There was a flashbang and movement she couldn’t make sense of, along with shouts that felt like gongs in her head. Boots pounded through the entryway, and Elin’s breath locked in her lungs.
The first clear frame made her throat close—a tidy foyer with backpacks on hooks and children’s shoes lined neatly along the wall.
The man they’d come for stood in the middle of it all, terror on his face, hands raised.
He didn’t look like a terrorist—a man who handled bombs.
He looked like an accountant. Mid-forties with brown hair going gray at the temples, wearing sweatpants and a T-shirt. He blinked against the light flooding the room, fear twisting his face as an officer shouted orders.
Her pulse thudded painfully like a car skidding on gravel. “He’s not… He doesn’t look like—”
Her voice failed her.
The feed shifted to show a golden retriever barking wildly near the kitchen. One of the Canadian police officers blocked it with his leg. “Easy, buddy. Easy.”
The dog backed off with a whine.
His owner was ordered to his knees, and an officer rushed forward to handcuff him.
“This doesn’t seem right!” Her whisper sounded like a wail to her ears.
His wife and kids would have no idea where he went. They may never see him again.
Just like her and Liam. Panic threaded into her lungs, making it even harder to breathe.
No, no, no. Her data hadn’t lied, but the atmosphere in that house was wrong. Shouldn’t there be weapons lined up on the wall instead of kids’ belongings? Shouldn’t there be evil men aiming weapons and bombs with blinking countdown timers—like the ones on every wall in this base?
Elin’s mouth went dry.
“Hold positions. Sweep all the rooms,” Con’s voice broke the silence.
The live feed split into four panels as officers cleared the humble kitchen, the hallway with photographs of family members and the upstairs bedrooms. Not a single thing in the house screamed that the man she’d placed a target on was a criminal.
Her stomach twisted tighter and tighter until she thought she would be sick.
Then Liam’s hand came to rest on the back of her neck. His thumb brushed along her hairline in slow, grounding strokes.
“You did everything right.” He pitched his voice low for her alone. “Breathe, Elin. The dog’s safe.”
The words hit deeper than she expected. She blinked, realizing she’d been fixating on the animal pacing the hallway on the feed. An officer had clipped a leash on him and led him out the side door.
She forced in a shaky breath. “He doesn’t look like the kind of man who could do this.”
Liam’s smoky eyes were the color of a troubled sea. “No one ever does.” His touch didn’t leave her neck, and he could probably feel the tremor running through her that had nothing to do with an overload of caffeine.
A voice projected through the comms. “Suspect detained. Computer equipment secured. No resistance.”
She scanned the screens that switched views continually, hunting for anything that made sense in this madness.
But the mission rolled on. The man was read his rights. He stammered about his wife being a nurse, working night shift at the hospital. His kids were spending the night at their grandma’s. Tears streaked his face.
Her heart cracked under the pressure of watching it.
This wasn’t what she signed up for. She wanted to protect people—to make the world safer. Not sit here, watching from another country, while some father begged to understand why armed men were in his living room.
Con turned to face the team. All were silent.
