The Right to Surrender

by H M Thomas

  Grinning, Ronnie pulled away. “Really?”

  He nodded.

  She planted another kiss on his mouth. “I’ll be in the third room.”

  He would’ve expected nothing less. The third room had been Lilah’s room, the room where he’d first slept with Gretchen, and Ronnie damn well knew it.

  “I’ll be there.” He watched as she sashayed away.

  “Should I?” The girl in his lap motioned toward where Ronnie disappeared.

  “No,” he instructed. “Keep doing whatever it is you’re doing.”

  She opened and closed her mouth silently before she went back to her lap dance.

  Finn lifted his hand to check the watch at his wrist as the doors burst open and all hell broke loose.

  ~ ~ ~

  Gretchen stood behind Neil with her gun held across her body as agents burst through the back entrance of the nightclub. Music pumped through the open doors and screams rang out as people, most likely the innocent who’d never experienced a police raid, began to run. One of Carlisle’s suppliers sprinted toward them, and she raised her gun, surprised at how readily her finger went to the trigger. The man stopped, looking back for another escape.

  “Nowhere to go,” Neil warned him. “Get down.”

  The man’s eyes narrowed, flicking from Neil to her as he weighed his chances of getting past them. He lunged toward her, and she stepped forward, catching the side of his jaw with the butt of her rifle.

  “Get on the fucking ground,” she ordered.

  “Fucking-A, Chris.” Neil rushed past her and stepped between her and the man writhing on the floor, holding his broken jaw. He motioned for another agent to cuff the man and take him away.

  Gretchen pushed past Neil and rushed down the hall, trying to break away from her partner. Her desire to find Ronnie outweighed any potential danger, and she had to get away from Neil in order to protect him. She had a personal vendetta to settle with Ronnie Sinclair, one that could cost Neil his badge if he were with her. He caught up with her as they made their way down the hall, outside the room where she’d first slept with Finn.

  “Check in there.” Neil ducked his head toward her old room. She hesitated at the door before turning back to warn him not to follow, but he’d already continued down the hall.

  ~ ~ ~

  When the doors burst open, Finn tossed the girl to the floor and jumped to his feet supposedly as surprised as everyone else. As he rushed toward Carlisle, as per his job description in case of such an incident, he caught sight of Grant as the other man ran forward to meet him. Finn took Carlisle’s arm and pulled him up, ushering him out of the main part of the club and to his private office. Grant ran up to cover his back. They pushed through Carlisle’s door and slammed it behind them before Finn slid aside the false bookcase, and Carlisle disappeared through the private tunnel where he would essentially walk right into Captain Carpenter’s hands. Finn had barely replaced the bookcase, when the door behind him splintered, and three agents dressed in black entered the room with their guns raised. Finn turned and held his hands up, but Grant moved toward the men. As one agent’s finger twitched on the trigger, Finn had a moment to think of what a life with Gretchen could be like, before he threw himself into Grant and crashed to the floor on top of him.

  ~ ~ ~

  Gretchen’s head snapped up as the first gunshots rang out. Despite the inevitability of violence in these situations, tonight, more than ever she’d hoped for a peaceful ending. She swept into her old room, pushing back the memories it held, searching for any sign of life. When she found none, she lowered her gun. In front of her old dresser, she took a moment to wonder where she’d be now if she’d never slept with Finn that first night. From the corner of her eye, she caught movement in the mirror. Before she could turn, the cold steel of a gun pressed against her temple.

  “I never have understood why you all wear those vests when it’s so much more convenient to shoot you in the head.” Ronnie emphasized her words with a jab of the pistol as she reached across and yanked Gretchen’s gun from her hand.

  Gretchen smirked. “You won’t pull that trigger.”

  “You don’t think?” Ronnie’s hand shook.

  “You hire people to do your dirty work,” Gretchen explained. “You’re too smart to get your own hands dirty.”

  “Which is why no one will believe it’s me.” Ronnie pulled back the hammer.

  “You won’t make it out alive, if you shoot me.” Gretchen watched the other woman in the mirror, waiting.

  Ronnie’s eyes darted to the door and her hand drooped. In that instant Gretchen struck, spinning around and swinging her elbow so it connected with the other woman’s chin. Ronnie’s head jerked back, and she stumbled.

  Gretchen spun around. “You should’ve had them kill me when you had the chance.”

  Ronnie’s eyes went wide, and she gave her head a swift shake. “You.”

  Ronnie tried to lift the gun, and Gretchen grabbed her wrist. Pulling Ronnie’s arm across her own body, she slammed the heel of her hand down on the back of the other woman’s elbow with a satisfying snap. The gun fired as Ronnie went to her knees, and Gretchen fisted her hand in her red hair and brought Ronnie’s head down as she drove her knee up and into her face.

  The gun clattered to the floor and Gretchen kicked it away, before letting Ronnie fall, bleeding, to the floor. She stood for a moment as Ronnie tried to push herself up, before she shoved her down with a booted foot across her throat.

  “You have the right to shut the fuck up,” she told her, still too angry to even smirk. “Frankly though, I don’t give a shit what you do.” She pressed a little harder and Ronnie thrashed, trying to use her broken arm to push Gretchen’s foot away.

  “All clear in here?” Neil lounged in the doorway, his gun loose at his side.

  Gretchen met his stare.

  “I could come back,” he offered.

  “No.” Although a part of her still thirsted for the other woman’s misery, she had to let justice do the rest. Neil entered the room, and she moved away so he could take over.

  The hall echoed when she stepped out of the room. The intel had been good. They’d been able to sweep in and take over in minutes. Now she’d have to deal with the aftermath. In the main room, the overhead lights were on, making the stage and dance floor look like scenery from a familiar TV show. In a corner, Amber cried. If the mascara tracks that ran down her face were any indication, she’d been at it since the team entered the club. Gretchen had started toward her, when two officers came out of Carlisle’s office with Grant cuffed between them. Blood covered the bouncer’s chest and Gretchen’s heart clogged in her throat. It didn’t matter that at the moment they were supposed to be on different sides, she couldn’t forget that he’d friended her and protected her.

  “Grant,” she spoke calmly despite the conflicting emotions that rioted inside her. These people had been her friends once. Her name and profession may have been fabricated, but the relationships had been real. “Are you okay?” she asked.

  He didn’t even blink at being addressed so familiarly by an agent. “It’s not my blood.” He looked away.

  “Well thank God.” She smiled reassuringly at him. She didn’t want to see Grant go down for following orders. He may not have been innocent, but like Finn, he wasn’t bad either.

  She moved closer, sure he’d recognized her, and lowered her voice so only he could hear. “If there’s anything—”

  “It’s Jay.”

  What? Gretchen grabbed his arm and forced him to face her so she could search his tortured gaze.

  “The blood.” His voice cracked. “It’s Jay’s.”

  It took her a moment to realize he spoke of her Finn. When she did, she pushed past him and ran to Carlisle’s office.

  By
the time she charged through the door, a sheet had already been spread over the body. Blood had already soaked through the cotton.

  She stopped short, gasping for breath. “Who is that?”

  Grant was wrong. It had to be someone else, someone truly evil who deserved to die.

  “I think it’s Jay Finley,” Carpenter spoke from behind her. “The other man called him Jay, and from what we can tell, he fits the description.”

  She shook her head and pushed forward. They were wrong. She’d tell them it wasn’t Finn. She could identify even the smallest bit of him, like the small scar at his hip, or the freckles on his shoulder or the birthmark on his knee.

  Carpenter stepped in front of her. “You need to get out. The two of you were too close. You don’t need to be here. Go handle things with Sinclair.”

  She shook her head. Fuck Ronnie Sinclair. If Finn was dead, none of that mattered. “I need to see—”

  “No, get out of here,” Carpenter ordered.

  She didn’t comply. Her gaze went to the hand left uncovered by the sheet. There were calluses from Finn’s hours of woodworking and a scar across the palm from an errant saw when he and Brock had built their first fort decades ago.

  “No.” Her chest squeezed too full and tight. She pushed against Carpenter, determined to get to Finn. “No.”

  Neil stood behind her now. “Come on, Chris, let’s get out of here.”

  She shook her head. She couldn’t leave. Finn needed her now. There had to be something she could do to erase this. “No,” she screamed and pushed Neil, lunging toward the body.

  Neil caught her by the waist and jerked her back, tightening his grip when her hands tried to bat him away.

  “No,” she repeated. Then she was screaming for Finn as Neil forced her through the club and the people she’d helped destroy.

  Chapter 16

  Gretchen had expected to feel such satisfaction at seeing Ronnie Sinclair behind bars. Not surprisingly, she didn’t feel much at all when her heart lay dead somewhere.

  They hadn’t told her anything about Finn or what they’d done with his remains. From the bits and pieces of conversations she’d overheard, she’d gathered he’d been shot protecting Grant. Not surprising. Finn had been born to protect. Maybe he’d been right to fight the good parts of him for so long, giving in had gotten him killed. He’d finally proven to everyone what she’d known all along, he was a good man with a good heart. Only now he was gone, and she couldn’t wrap her mind around the fact she’d never see him again.

  She stood with her arms crossed over her chest and watched Ronnie through the interrogation room’s one-way mirror. Ronnie’s nose and arm were broken, and although she’d spent the last forty-eight hours in the hospital as she and the doctors debated over how best to treat her, she didn’t appear any better off than she’d been when Neil had dragged her, handcuffed, from the room two nights before. Gretchen took a deep breath and pushed through the door into the interrogation room. A slight tingle of pleasure swept through her as Ronnie’s eyes widened when she spotted Gretchen.

  Gretchen smiled. “Good evening. I hope you’re well tonight.” She turned slightly when the door behind her opened and Neil stepped inside.

  Ronnie turned to Neil. “Please, you have to get her out of here,” she cried. “She did this to me. She tried to kill me.”

  “You had a gun to her head,” Neil reminded her. “I think she would’ve been within her rights if she had killed you. She only injured you.”

  “Injured me?” Ronnie screeched. “She fucking disfigured me.”

  “You’ll thank me,” Gretchen assured her. “You were way too pretty for prison before. No one would’ve taken you seriously. I’ve given you a look and a story. I’ve worked wonders for you.”

  Neil took a seat across the table from Ronnie.

  “She’s lying,” Ronnie started.

  Neil shook his head. “We recorded all of it. The room had cameras. We got everything.”

  “Cameras?” Ronnie muttered.

  “Yes,” Gretchen piped in. “Like Lilah’s apartment where your men attacked me.” She dropped the file with the pictures and drive on to the table in front of Ronnie.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I didn’t—”

  “Save it. Your men admitted it.” It might not have been the truth, but no one would deny it. Tears stung at Gretchen’s eyes. Shaking them away, she asked, “Why were you in that room anyway?”

  Neil had already told Gretchen he’d sent her into her old room because their informant had promised Ronnie would be there.

  The other woman’s eyes narrowed. “Jay sent me.”

  “Jay sent you?” She hadn’t expected that. “Why?”

  “We were going to meet the stripper back there, so we could fuck her.”

  Despite her best efforts to remain impassive, Gretchen flinched as if struck by Ronnie’s words.

  “Poor little good girl,” Ronnie pouted. “Did you think he’d love you? That you could save him? How’s that working out for you now?”

  Gretchen steeled herself against the other woman’s taunting and smiled, despite the turbulent storm of emotions within her. “Not great, since he’s dead.”

  She met Ronnie’s usually cool blue eyes, feeling nothing as the woman’s eyes filled slightly with tears, before Ronnie quickly gathered herself.

  “Dead?” she asked. “How?”

  Gretchen shrugged. “Don’t know. I was too busy defending myself against you to save him.” She turned to Neil. “You can finish this.”

  She rushed out of the room and through the halls to the locker room, trying to make herself breathe the way the shrink had told her to the night before. But her chest was too full of the pain of missing Finn to expand enough for air.

  Her anger at Finn and herself and the world rose within her. She kicked the locker in front of her until it bent under the force of the blows, then spun, shoving a chair to the floor and sending the table sliding. She pounded on the tabletop with the sides of her fists and screamed as loud as she could.

  The door to the locker room flew open before it banged shut. Someone yelled her name before they pulled her away from the table and turned her into a hard male chest. She struggled and tried to pull away. She didn’t want to be consoled, she wanted Finn alive. Even if he never wanted to see her again, she wanted him alive.

  “Gretchen, it’s okay, honey, shh.” The soothing voice managed to drill through the rage inside her, and she looked up.

  “Grant.” She pushed against his solid chest, but he only held her tighter.

  “I’ve got you,” he assured her.

  “What . . . Why are you here?” She looked around the room for a guard or someone who would explain why this man, whom she’d seen in handcuffs only days before, was standing in the agents’ locker room.

  “I heard you. I wanted to make sure you were okay.”

  He gripped her shoulders and bent, until they were eye-to-eye. He studied her with such a penetrating gaze, she felt as if he could see the pain that filled every crevice of her soul. She tried to move away. She couldn’t let anyone see the dark thoughts she hid.

  Grant held firm. “I told you I had your back. That hasn’t changed.”

  Finally, she broke away and turned from him. “I don’t understand. Why would they let you in here?”

  “Because I’m one of you. I’m Agent Joseph Grant. I’ve been an agent for the past ten years and undercover shadowing Jay for the past three.”

  This couldn’t be right. She turned slowly and raised her gaze to meet his.

  He nodded. “I was your deep cover.”

  No. Grant had helped Finn take care of Carlisle’s problems. He’d vouched for Finn and told her he was a good man. It didn’t make sense t
hat he was a cop. Then again, she was a cop, and she loved Finn fiercely, in spite of, and maybe even because of, the things he’d seen and done.

  She knew now there were times, when even those who’d sworn to obey the rules, could turn away for someone as good and yet flawed as Finn James. Her heart broke again at what she’d lost, and her eyes filled with tears.

  He stepped toward her. “I know you have your reasons to hate me, but I’m here for you. I know Finn, I knew how you felt about him before the job, and I know how he felt about you after.”

  She shook her head and moved away. “Don’t. I loved him and I’ll own that. Let’s not make his feelings for me into something more than they were.”

  She thought back to how Ronnie had reacted to news of Finn’s death. How she’d questioned Gretchen without falling apart. Gretchen had fallen so far apart she wondered if she’d ever be able to pull herself back together. And he’d chosen the other woman over her.

  “You think he didn’t love you, because they told you he was with Ronnie?” Grant asked behind her.

  “He was with her. I saw them, I—”

  “All a con. He had to play her to set her up to be taken down. For you to take her down. You had to believe he’d gone back to her, so you’d stay away. She had to believe you were out of the picture, so she’d trust him.”

  Gretchen shook her head again. She couldn’t believe him. “I guess we’ll never know.” She bit back the tears and shrugged hopelessly.

  Grant still watched her with too much understanding. “Maybe, maybe not. I want you to know, I still have your back.”

  She nodded and watched as he walked toward the door. “Grant.”

  He stopped and turned to her.

  “Did you see him that night before we got there? Was he with Ronnie?”

  He sighed heavily. “For a minute.” It was clear he didn’t want to add to her hurt. “He sent her back to a room.”