A Captive Situation (Kings of New York)

Once we were done, I tossed enough money on the table and we headed outside.

Her eyes were wet with unshed tears, but she was holding them in. She wasn’t letting them fall. Still hugging herself. She’d been holding herself like that most of the time we were in there. It did something to me.

But, fuck.

She was lost and I knew one thing. Lost people didn’t belong in this city. They became more lost and became my problem.

Or they did.

When I’d been police.

Fuck.

I wasn’t a cop anymore.

It was going to take some time for me to adjust. That’d been my identity for so long. Justin’s brother. Then a cop. Whether I’d been a good or a dirty one, I’d still been a fucking cop. I tuned in that I was glaring at her as we stood on the sidewalk outside of the diner.

I tried to shove my anger down, and reached for her. “Hey.”

“Worthing! You piece of shit.”

I heard someone yelling behind me.

The voice was male, aggressive, and ice rushed down my spine. I acted on instinct, the same reflex that’s kept me alive this far, and whipping around, I shoved Sawyer behind me, my arm up with my gun already extended. I didn’t have time to plant my feet because as I looked, the guy was walking my way. He was on the outside of the sidewalk, a long winter coat open, the ends flopping behind him. He was white, had a dark beard. Grizzled face. Weight at two sixty and not with muscle, and he thought he was a motherfucking gangster.

“You gonna be dead, you pi—”

I shot him.

No hesitation. No thinking.

I had my gun in my hand the second I heard him speak. And I was raising it as I turned to look at him. It was like breathing for me, and as everything slowed down, right as I pulled the trigger, I saw the surprise on his face. He was here to shoot me, but he never thought I’d shoot first.

I’d seen that look time and time again, and never understood it. He was shocked that I would defend myself?

The bullet ripped into him, hitting his shoulder, and his hand jerked up right as he pulled his own trigger. His aim went high, shattering a window, but I was moving at him, tackling him before he could regroup and try again.

He grunted, trying to meet me, and instead of a clean hit, I threw him against the vehicle behind us. The car’s alarm started going off, but at that moment, it was just him and me. No other sound penetrated my ears. This was a fight for life. My life, and I hadn’t made up my mind what I wanted to do with him, but it took a second hit before I got him down to the ground. He was bleeding everywhere. I heard a crack as his head made contact with the cement sidewalk underneath him, but his eyes were wild. Crazed. He was on something. Adrenaline, and bloodlust.

He still wanted to kill me.

A bloodcurdling scream pierced through the air, sending a new wave of chills down my back. That came from the building behind me, second or third floor.

His bullet must’ve hit an innocent civilian.

I didn’t have time to make a decision about what I wanted to do with him. I reared back and came down with a hit to his face, one that should knock him out. It did. His eyes rolled backward, which I’d seen before, but god, I never enjoyed seeing it. It was unnatural. But he was out, and I needed one second, just one, to take a breath, before I shoved myself up and took stock of the scene around me.

People were outside, watching. Phones were up. They were recording this.

Seeing a teenager coming out of the diner I’d just left, fumbling for his phone, I pointed at him. “Call 911.”

When he looked ready to protest because that meant he couldn’t get the video he’d need for fucking TikTok, I yelled, “Now!”

People were pressed against the diner’s window, staring at me. Some went pale. Wide eyes. Stunned expressions with their mouths hanging open. I ignored them all, reaching for my cuffs, but fuck, I didn’t have them on me anymore. That would’ve been my life three days ago.

Seeing a big guy standing on the sidewalk, I pointed at him next. “You!”

His eyes narrowed. He was one of the few without a phone videoing us. Hostility flashed next. He didn’t like cops, I was assuming. “I need you to sit on him.”

Confusion came over him, though he took a staggering step toward me, dressed in baggy sweats and a Giants jersey. He was well over six three and he had a little bit of a belly, but I was guessing most of him was solid muscle. Rough-shaven. “What’d you say, man?”

“I need him restrained if he wakes up.”

“What? How?”

“Sit on him.”

“Sit on him? What the fuck?”

More screaming broke out from above, and I whirled around, trying to locate it. My gun was drawn but pointed low and I ran past him, yelling over my shoulder, “Just keep him there until I get back.”

He was grumbling, but the diner’s waitress was waving for me. I went past Sawyer, a brief glimpse showing me that she was still watching the guy outside. She’d backed up against the wall, clutching her bag to her chest.

“Upstairs!” the waitress yelled, motioning to the back door.

“Stay here,” I said tersely to Sawyer.

She jerked her chin up and down a few times.

I touched her arm, just briefly, wanting to say something to put the blood back in her face that had drained away, but there wasn’t anything I could say. So, instead, I let myself touch her cheek, cupping it for a second. Her eyes went wide, but it was enough for me.

I ran past her back inside.

“The stairs there. They go up to that floor.”

The door was locked. I reared back and kicked it in, hitting the stairs running. As I did, I grabbed my phone and called it in, identifying myself, giving them a location and a brief report of what they should expect. “I’ll need multiple ambulances on scene.”

The operator was swift, replying, “Multiple 10-54 H en route.”

As we were finishing, I got to the second floor and found a child standing in the hallway, covered in blood. He looked nine, staring inside with a dazed expression. The kid was in shock. I slowed, getting to the door, and eyeing him, I moved around him so I could clear the doorway.

A woman was kneeling on the floor inside, screaming, crying, with blood covering her as well. She gasped, seeing me, but I held out a hand. “Miss, I’m—” That’s all I managed before she jumped to her feet, backed away, and pointed at the floor where another woman was lying there.

She screamed, her voice breaking, “Help her! Help her! 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.”noveldrama

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 saw a 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.