Bend, Don't Break

by Skye Callahan

  My heart raced, but my mind quieted for a moment, waiting to see what Rose would come up with.

  “Wait,” Rose said. “I need your help.”

  “What on earth can I do for you?”

  “I need to get to the guys who killed Elizabeth—I think they were involved in Alley’s death as well.”

  “Just leave it,” Raini hissed.

  “There are other girls in trouble—girls from the Retreat. Innocent girls.”

  Raini scratched her forehead and abruptly sat back in the seat. “What are you doing? Is Kirk going on some crazy new rescue mission? What the hell is he getting out of this one?”

  Trent bumped my arm and nodded toward the café. “What do you think she’ll do if we just come clean?”

  “Run,” I said. That’s what I would have done, but I knew better.

  “Worked on Miles,” Trent said with a sly smile.

  I shook my head and reached for the door handle. No point in wasting time on an argument I couldn’t win.

  As we entered the café, Trent motioned for Corell to hold his position—no need in spooking her more than necessary. Rose’s eyes widened when she saw us approaching and Raini spun around quickly in her seat. I slid into the booth, next to Rose, resting my arm around her shoulders. Trent pulled up a chair from a nearby table and sat at the end.

  “What the hell?” Raini whispered, keeping her eyes locked on me in particular.

  While everyone else was quiet, I launched into a brief explanation. “We need to find the people who are recruiting the girls so we can bring down their operation. We’re running out of people to trust who might be able to help.”

  Raini’s forehead crinkled and her gaze moved to Trent. “You’re all working together.”

  Trent looked down for a moment, then nodded. “He’s my partner.”

  “Partner,” she choked on the word.

  “I’m a cop,” I said. “Have been the entire time and I’m sorry.”

  “A cop,” she repeated, barely making a sound. She fidgeted and played with a charm bracelet that hung loosely around her wrist. “Sorry. You’re sorry?”

  I straightened, preparing for an outburst.

  “You got me away from Ross,” she said. “I don’t care what else you did or how you did it.”

  I laughed because I was so nervous I didn’t know what else to do.

  Raini smiled and nodded to Rose. “She was in on it?”

  “Not intentionally, but she’s not easily deterred,” I looked over Trent’s shoulder and motioned for Corell to join us, too. We had five people to possibly bring down a crime ring, and a dirty officer, but I’d done more with less, I supposed.

  “Anyone else?” Raini asked, scooting over to let Corell join the discussion.

  “This is it,” I said.

  She shook her head and laughed. “More protectors than I’ve ever had.”

  “Well,” Trent said, “that’s not true anymore, but I know we’re asking a lot of you.”

  “I’m not entirely certain what you’re asking,” she said.

  Trent slid the card for the escort company across the table. “For you to change your mind. Give them a call.”

  She exhaled loudly, then stared down at the card for along quiet moment.

  Rose straightened, her green eyes on me. “I could go, too.”

  I shook my head. “They know you. We don’t know what information anyone has given them on you, and judging from yesterday—”

  She put up her hand to stop me.

  Raini picked up the card. “I can do it. Then, what? How long?”

  Despite the high-tensions situation, calm flooded through me. We were finally on the right track—possibly about to lose our jobs, but everything finally felt whole. “We’ll make arrangements to have eyes on you when you meet them. Tell them you’re desperate—you can’t pay your bills, the utilities are threatening shut off.”

  She nodded.

  “Um,” Corell put up his finger. “What about the... internal problem?”

  Trent smiled and slapped his shoulder. “I have a plan. You two get her set up and ready to go, and I’ll go set up part two.”

  “Any idea what he’s planning?” Rose asked as Trent put his chair back—giving us a simple nod as he left.

  “Nope. But I think you’re stuck with me since I rode over with him.”

  “Smart.” She lifted her cup toward me. “Want to be my taste tester?”

  “And what are you going to do if I pass out?” I peeked in the cup at the light brown liquid. “How much cream and sugar did you put in this?”

  “I like it sweet.” She swirled it around in the cup and took a drink. “I watched them make it, and I’m still paranoid.”

  I grimaced and put the cup back on the table. “Speaking of coffee—”

  Corell shifted uncomfortably, predicting where the conversation was about to go. “It had just finished brewing, I poured a cup, grabbed the chips and headed back to the interview room. I crossed paths with Winsor right outside the door and he said he’d take it in with him.” He put up his right hand. “I swear, that’s it. But if you thought I had anything to do with it—”

  “I didn’t. Just wanted to know the details.”

  Corell’s eyes widened. “But that leaves—”

  “A couple of possibilities,” I said. “Neither of which are brilliant. If you want to bow out, do it now.”

  Raini stared at us wide-eyed as we talked, but she stayed quietly tucked into her corner of the booth.

  “You ready to make the call,” I asked her.

  She shook her head, staring down at the card she’d left on the table in front of her. “Yeah. I can do this.”

  I pulled another card out of my wallet and handed it to her as well. A cell number is written on the back—it’s secure and untraceable, so you can send me a message if you need me.”

  “I’ll put it in my phone,” she said, “with a fake name, just in case.”

  “They come off as a little crazy,” Rose said, giving me a sardonic look. “But they’re good at what they do.”

  Raini glanced at me then dropped her head, focusing on her phone instead. “I know.”

  I didn’t have to look over to know that Rose was glaring at me. I felt the heat from the entire room absorbed into my body.

  “Should I make the call now?” Raini asked, taking the most intense of the attention off me—off our past.

  “Yeah. All we need is a meeting place. We’ll make sure you’re safe until then, and have someone waiting nearby when you go to the meeting. There will be someone in range the whole time.”

  She snorted and shook her head. “You say that as if they won’t outnumber and outgun you even if you are close.”

  “So we out-strategize them.” I squeezed Rose’s hand under the table. “I need to pick up my car. Corell, you okay staying with—” I almost said Raini. I guess I had to amend that part of my brain, too. “—Fiona.”

  She smiled. “It takes some getting used to after a few years, but it’s particularly strange hearing it from you.”

  “My real name is James, by the way, I think I left that part out.”

  “I’ll stay with her,” Corell said, turning to Fiona with a faint smile. “And you can call me Ryan, you don’t have to be all formal like this guy.”

  I didn’t want to leave her at all, but I also had plans to be made before we went in—mainly making sure that Rose was safe and that we’d have the supplies we needed. I gave Corell an address for the safe house and told him to meet us there in an hour. Hopefully, Trent would be done setting up whatever the hell he’d planned by then.

  Rose and I climbed into her car, but she didn’t start the engine. She kept her hands tight around the steering wheel and stared through the window. “I want to help.”

  “You just did.”

  “You can’t go in there—just the three of you and keep an eye on everyone and everything.”

  “I don’t intend to. Once
we get there, we’re calling in backup.”

  “But—”

  “We’ll put them in a bind and it’ll be too late for Richards to do anything about it.”

  “You all are going to end up fired.”

  I huffed. I didn’t want to be going over this again. We already knew this part, but every way we went about it was a loss game. “Yeah, we’ve discussed that.”

  “With Ryan? How long has he been with the force?”

  “Yes, with Ryan.” My voice rose. This was my job—the one I’d done successfully for years, and although I anticipated her concern, we didn’t have time to sit and debate it out again. “We gave him the option to back out.”

  “But why would he if his sense of moral obligation even matches a quarter of yours?” She banged her head against the headrest and reached for the ignition. I had a feeling that whatever had her flustered didn’t have so much to do with our plan.

  “We don’t have a lot of options, and Corell knows how to handle himself.”

  “So do I,” she yelled.

  “Can we have this argument later? I need to pick up my car, I have some things in the trunk that we’ll need.”

  She started the car, but still didn’t move to put it in gear. “Did you sleep with her?”

  It felt like everything inside my chest suddenly vanished, leaving an empty throbbing hole that threatened to collapse on itself. “Yes. Once.”

  “She has feelings for you.”

  “She doesn’t know me. I saved her from Ross, she spent one night in my bed.”

  “Come on, I know how dangerous that is,” she said it like she meant it to be funny, but there was no humor on her face. Her eyes were moist with tears yet to fall, and her chest shook with each breath.

  I pried her hand away from the steering wheel and kissed her knuckles. “I have a girlfriend, Sugar. One that I’m very happy with, and intend to spend a long time enjoying.”

  She covered her mouth, muffling a sound that was a cross between a laugh and a sob.

  In some twisted way, it was actually comforting to know that the jealousy problem went both ways. At least I wasn’t the only irrational one—but I wasn’t about to use that word to her face.

  “I kept telling myself not to get jealous over you,” she whispered.

  I wasn’t sure if she was talking about in the café or at the Retreat.

  “I knew it was inevitable. I wanted to claw Kat’s eyes out, and then, Alley—Ross was a sick bastard.”

  He’d wanted to make sure that her initiation made a statement—that we were all his toys. While he and three others forced her to perform oral sex on them, he ordered Alley to do the same to me.

  She tried to pull her hand away, but I didn’t release it. “You were the only one I enjoyed being with—and you have no idea how badly I hated myself over that sometimes.”

  “Oh, I think I do.” Jerking her hand away, she put the car in gear and reversed out of the parking space. “Falling in love with you... definitely the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life. But it turned me into a fighter, and I don’t intend on letting anyone take any of that away from me.”

  Her not so subtle way of telling me that she wasn’t sitting at home while I went out on this operation.

  Trent eyed Rose suspiciously when we all met up at the safe house an hour later. She slipped off to the side of the room to talk to Fiona. Then, Trent directed his inquisitive gaze on me.

  “What would you have had me do? Slip her some more drugs?” I said as quietly as possible. “You think it’s so easy, you convince her to listen.”

  “Welcome to my world,” he said, tipping his head to the side.

  “What the hell is that supposed to mean?” I reached for him, but he ducked away and laughed.

  “It means,” he got in a smack to the side of my head, “I think you’re rubbing off on her.”

  I had no doubt that everyone was watching our exchange—a mix of pre-operation jitters getting worked out and excessive frustration. I motioned for Rose to come over. “I need you to wait here.”

  Her mouth dropped open. “You already gave me a long spiel on the consequences involved here—”

  “With the arrangements Trent made we’re back on the grid and I can’t take you.”

  “Fine,” she said. “Did you have to wait until now to tell me that?”

  “I wanted a witness,” I grumbled.

  Trent threw up his hands and whistled as if there were a herd of people he was trying to control. “Okay. Now that we have that sorted. Fiona, you said the meeting location is the Franklin Street Hotel?”

  “Yeah.” She had her arms wrapped around herself, and although she looked up at Trent for a split second when she answered, she kept her head angled down.

  I had no right to ask her to do this while expecting Rose to stay at home.

  “Corell and I will head over there now, so we’ll be nearby the entire time. If something makes you uncomfortable and you need us to pull you out, say dodge.”

  “How are you going to explain all of this when it’s over?” Rose asked.

  “We’re going to tell the truth—banking on discrediting Richards and then showing that we had no choice.”

  “Is this even legal?” Rose asked.

  “I pulled some strings,” Trent said. “Richards isn’t where the chain of command ends. I explained that we had a mole, but we couldn’t identify who. I told her the plan.”

  Rose raised her eyebrows, giving him an incredulous stare. “And she just believed you?”

  I put my arm around Rose’s shoulder and pulled her away from the group. “Remember the ‘fuck buddy’?”

  Her mouth formed an “O”, but she didn’t say anything else. The expression made me want to kiss her, but I held back, so I could explain and prevent further questions. “She’s a deputy chief—knows damn well how to play the political side. That’s not something we’re brilliant at so she can be quite helpful. He turned over all of the information on what happened to you last night, so our case looks good, we just need proof pointing to who did it.”

  “How is all of this going to accomplish that?”

  “She’ll watch and see who squirms the most,” I smirked pulling her back toward the others.

  Trent struggled to keep a straight face as we rejoined them. “Everything clear now?”

  “Yeah, I’ll follow Fiona over and stay out of sight,” I said. “If they decide to move the location once you get there, Trent will be ready to follow, and we’ll hand off so they don’t suspect anything.”

  We retested Fiona’s wire and suited up. Trent and Corell left first to get into position, and then I followed Fiona to the hotel.

  “Heading in,” Fiona said over the speaker.

  Trent came over the CB. “Richards is out of the office, so Libby has backup standing by. We’re not on the primary frequency just in case. I’ll call it in as soon as I know we’re not moving.”

  “Got it,” I replied, “Fiona is in.”

  I tucked the handset in the center console, waiting to hear from Fiona, but the receiver was still silent.

  “Fiona.” The familiar voice drew out her name. We had my “doppelganger” as Trent like to call him.

  “We were sorry to hear about your situation,” another man spoke, “but I think we can help you out with that. And, I’m sure you already know some of our girls, so I think you might find you enjoy working with old friends.”

  “I appreciate anything you can do for me,” Fiona said softly.

  I really didn’t want this to go down at the hotel. Trying to track them if they moved her would be a pain in the ass, too, but a less public location would keep innocent people out of the mess.

  “Follow me, then,” Kirk said.

  The mic rustled with their movement, and I saw them emerge through the front door. Kirk looked around, then directed her to a black BMW.

  I picked up the CB handset. “They’re getting into the BMW Claudia mentioned.”

/>   “My car—” Fiona pointed back toward the rest of the lot.

  “Don’t worry, darlin’,” Kirk opened the back door. “We’ll bring you right back after we finish up. We’re just going for a ride. I’ve been cramped up all day and I need some air and scenery.”

  They both climbed in the back door, and the other man, Drisco from the looks of him, got into the driver’s seat.

  I waited until the car cleared the lot to follow it to the end of the block. Trent was already waiting down the street and picked up their tail as soon as I turned off.

  “Not so bad, right?” Kirk asked. “Here, we have some paperwork that we’ll need to go over.”

  Papers rustled and the receiver cracked and popped as they moved out of range from me. I sped around the next corner, taking the road that ran parallel to the one they were on.

  “Why do you need to know about my medical history? Birth control?” Fiona asked.

  “Just a precaution,” Kirk said. “We like to know that our girls are healthy in the event that anything should happen.”

  “But you told me that this isn’t about sex.”

  “Now, darlin’—” Something moved against her and I hoped he wasn’t getting handsy. She didn’t need to be put through that, and if he happened to find the mic we were all going to be in a worse situation. “It’s about relationships, being there for someone, and showing them a good time—sometimes that leads to other things that are beyond my realm of control. Some girls go for it, and others don’t. If it makes you uncomfortable, maybe we should reconsider.”

  “No, Sir,” she said quietly. “I just wanted to know.”

  Trent came over the radio again. “They’re heading up Ninth Street—looks like they’re heading toward the river overlook.”

  I reached for the handset just as Corell came on. “I’m on them.”

  “I’ll head up and cut you off,” I said.

  I stared at the receiver—Fiona and Kirk had gone too silent, even if it had only been a few minutes.

  Finally, Fiona spoke up again. “Where are we going?”

  Kirk chuckled. “I have a friend who wants to meet us down by the river.”