Committed (9 page)

“Suspect car one is south of your position. No movement inside yet,” their lookouts radioed in.

There wasn’t a sound, not a cough, sneeze, or boot scuffing the ground. Nothing.

“Two vehicles have turned onto the road from the highway. ETA, five minutes. The north team is moving into position behind them.”

Damien’s culvert team would wait for his signal once they were cleared. He knew the whole operation would go down in a flash.

He sucked down a calming breath and a pair of green eyes came to mind.

Rapunzel.

Engines rumbled through the night.

“Two vehicles approaching from the north.”

Damien tilted his head and listened. A door opened and then one, maybe two people exited the vehicle, feet now crunching on gravel, low voices, doors slamming shut.

“Six people are exiting from the first vehicle. It looks like Emilio, a woman, and four of his thugs. Getting names on them now.” The sound of papers being shuffled came through the radio, as their support team quickly matched descriptions from live surveillance and video feeds being coordinated in the mobile headquarters with their existing intel on the whole operation. The woman rattled off four men Damien was well acquainted with, and one unexpected name. Valentina Molina, Emilio’s wife.

It was highly unusual for women to be present. As far as Damien knew, Valentina was completely unconnected to her husband’s drug career. Still, she was aware of it and had married into it, which made her just as guilty in his mind. If she was willing to turn a blind eye to the misdeeds of the kind of trash that would kill a young woman like Kimberly, she could rot in prison alongside her husband, for all he cared.

Two sets of brakes engaged, but only one vehicle killed the engine. The other remained idling.

“The center vehicle is José Morales. He appears to be alone in a four-door sedan. Undercover Agent Matías Govea just exited the third SUV.” There was a pause. “Govea is giving the all-clear signal. Valdez’s men are exiting, and there’s Valdez himself.”

The commentary helped Damien follow the sounds of movement overhead. There were a
lot of players on this board, and they needed to take as many of them alive as they could. “Mobile units are headed in quiet. Agent Moana, on your mark.”

It was his game now. Gio would be coming in with the cavalry, but the infantry had to hold it together.

Damien counted to twenty, as they’d practiced.

“Let’s roll,” he said, barely above a whisper. His words were carried over their radios, and the officers at the end of the culverts, equipped with the heaviest shields, moved forward.

By the time Damien exited the eastern side of the road, a line of officers were creeping up the bank.

“West side ready,” another DEA agent whispered in his ear.

In the distance, he heard the roar of engines pushed hard. There was a pause in the murmur of voices.

“Police. Put your weapons down,” Damien yelled, scrambling up after the officers. He fucking hated being in the back, but the SWAT guys were better equipped for this part of the job.

His cry was echoed from the other side of the road.

A moment later, gunfire ripped through the night.

Damien threw himself against the side of the idling SUV next to a SWAT officer. Five officers were returning fire from behind the hood of the vehicle. Damien crouched and hustled around the back of the SUV, cursing these bastards with every step.

A foot scraped the ground.

Damien brought his gun up as a cold-eyed killer edged around the back of the vehicle. Damien unloaded three shots into the man’s chest. He stepped over the body. A second thug stared at him, shaking.

“Drop your weapon,” Damien snapped.

The thug did as commanded and flattened himself, face-first, against the SUV.

Damien caught movement from the corner of his eye. The hair on the back of his neck rose. He ducked and dodged sideways as a bullet shot through the space he’d been standing in. Another hit the thug who’d surrendered, and he fell heavily, landing on top of his fallen friend.

He leaned around the SUV and aimed at movement on the other side of the sedan. He squeezed the trigger. Once. Twice. Three times.

A shrill scream rent the night, jarring Damien to his bones. He had a flash of another woman caught in the blaze of bullets, and he felt a surge of guilt and fear, but there was no time to take it all in.

The vans zoomed in on both sides, more officers spilling out. There was another wave of gunfire, a sudden burst of multiple gunshots like firecrackers, probably from the suspects emptying their guns in a last-ditch effort.

“Don’t shoot me,” someone cried.

“I give up!” another yelled.

The cry was taken up across the road as, one by one, the thugs made their choice.

It was over.

Damien stepped around the bodies to take in the scene. The idling SUV chugged on, spitting out noxious fumes. “Someone kill this—”

The vehicle shuddered and shot forward.

Officers and suspects scattered as the car careened through the site, narrowly missing three handcuffed suspects. It took off toward the main road, a plume of dust rising in its wake. People yelled and, for a moment, there was mass confusion.

“Follow that car,” Damien roared. “Close off the exit route.”

Officers sprinted to the vans, and the radio buzzed with orders, information, demands. Damien gritted his teeth and punched the air. They’d almost gotten them all, except for one. He didn’t care if it was the lowest thug or Valdez himself, Damien wanted them all to face justice.

“Need a medic over here,” an agent yelled. “Officer down.”

The sting might be over, but the operation was still in motion. Damien’s heart jumped into his throat as he caught sight of the dark mass of curls.

“Gio!” He sprinted to her side and dropped to his knee. She was leaning against one of the SWAT vans, her face pale in the moonlight.

The gravel beneath her was stained black, and her white shirt was splattered with red.

“I’m okay,” she said through gritted teeth.

“With all due respect, shut the hell up.”

He pushed her hands aside and applied pressure to the thigh wound. Blood pumped through his fingers. The bullet must have clipped her femoral artery. He’d seen people bleed to death in minutes from these injuries.

Not Gio. Please, not Gio
, he prayed.

She was like a sister to him. Through the panic, he breathed deep and pressed harder.

“I need a fucking medic now,” he yelled into his headset.

There were always casualties in war. He prayed that, this time, Gio wouldn’t be one of them.

Poppy sank onto her couch, a blanket wrapped around her.

“You got bangs.” Her mother stopped in the archway from the kitchen to the living room.

“I did.” Poppy passed her fingers through the short fringe of hair. It had been an impulse thing, and she was still getting used to it.

“Honey, you don’t look well. What’s wrong?” Her mother came into the living room and sat across from her, worry lines creasing her forehead. Her eyes appeared large and owlish behind her glasses.

I screwed up, Mom. I met a guy who was amazing and had to break his promise to me, so I had a total temper tantrum and burned bridges. I’m super mature
.

“Long week.” She mustered a smile and laid her head against the back of the sofa. “How are things at The House?” Poppy’s mother had raised her in a commune that also owned and ran most of the northern Chicago homeless shelters. They’d never been much better off than the people they were helping, but Poppy never had to go hungry; she’d always had three meals a day.

“Oh, same old, same old.” She twisted toward Poppy, adjusting her tie-dyed dress so it fell over her legs. “We miss you helping out on the line. You could always come back, you know.”

“I know.”

Her mother reached across and tucked Poppy’s hair behind her ear. “What’s really bothering you? You don’t ask your old mom over very often.”

“That’s not true. My door is always open to you.”

“Yeah, but how am I supposed to know when you’re here or when you’re busy?”

“Cell phones?”

“Oh, mine was disconnected, so you’ll have to call The House for me.”

“Oh.” Poppy nodded, though it always frustrated her. The interworkings of a commune for five hundred people were complex, and The House had existed since back in the sixties, which explained the large concentration of hippies in this part of Chicago.

“So, what’s bothering you?”

Poppy sighed. “I met a guy I really liked, but I don’t think there’s room in his life for
anyone else.”

Her mother pursed her lips. There were complex rules governing dating in The House, and it was often hard for her to understand that Poppy’s life no longer followed the same guidelines.

“Why do you think that?” she asked.

Because instead of cuddling with me after sex, he ran off to go to work
.

“Just his priorities.” She picked at cat hair on the sofa. Her cats always hid when her mother came over, which sucked, because she could use a cat blanket right about then. “I get that there are emergencies and stuff that have to be handled immediately, but I think even in nonemergency situations his job would always take first priority.”

“What’s wrong with being number two?” Mom squinted, her head tilted to the side. Poppy knew her mother would never understand, but she’d wanted to try.

Number two is poop
.

“I just want to be important to someone,” she replied.

“You’re important to me.” Her mother scooted down the couch and placed her hand over Poppy’s.

“I know.” Poppy squeezed her hand.

“Being number two, three, four, or five is okay. I mean, you girls were probably three.” Though she said it as if it were a joke, it was how Poppy had grown up. For her mother, The House’s needs were first, then whatever pet project she had going, then Poppy and her sister, Rose. They’d never suffered neglect. There was always another person around to pick up the slack, but Poppy had spent most of her childhood with a woman who didn’t know how to be a mother, or show her children the kind of love they craved.

She suspected Rose had gotten married young and started having children to fill that void. Poppy had simply wanted a different life.

Poppy knew what it was like to be a low priority, to feel as if she were just a task to be done, and she didn’t want that again. But the dom had made her feel things she’d never experienced. For a short while, she’d been totally and completely submissive. It was a new sensation for her, and while she didn’t think she wanted to change how she identified in the kink world, she wanted to experience that thrill again. She’d foolishly cut ties with the dom, but maybe it was for the best.

“Why don’t we watch a movie? What’s the newest one?” Mom nodded toward Poppy’s precious movie shelf. She didn’t see the point in buying many movies, but she was a princess-movie
junkie to the core.

“I just got this one, haven’t even taken it out of the plastic wrap.” Poppy stood and crossed to the console that held her TV and other electronics.

“What do you need a TV that big for?” Mom asked.

Poppy took a deep breath and tore the wrapper off the movie. “I didn’t need it. I wanted it and I could afford it.”

“You know the TV in the third-floor lounge finally died?”

“That TV was almost as old as me.”

“But it worked just fine. We don’t have one now.”

“Are they going to budget for another one?”

“Don’t know.”

Poppy could hear the unspoken request.
You could donate your TV
.

She’d tried donating things to The House since she began earning her own money, but she’d seen those things sold, broken, or stolen in a matter of days. She didn’t think her mother wanted a TV, but whatever she was after she wouldn’t share with Poppy.

One of the first things she’d purchased for herself when she moved out of the commune was a TV. It was something simple and silly to other people, but she’d never been able to watch what she wanted to. Hell, she’d never even been able to make it through any of the
Beauty and the Beast
movies until she moved out.

It still felt strange that everything in her apartment belonged to her. In the commune, you owned nothing. There were a few exceptions, but they were rare. What was yours was everyone’s. There were days now when she came home and went to do something as simple as cooking, and was surprised her pots and pans were still there, or that her food wasn’t already eaten. Commune life wasn’t for everyone, and it wasn’t for Poppy.

She plopped down on the couch as the movie started and leaned against her mother. She might not be the most perfect mom in all of creation, but she was Poppy’s, and sometimes a girl just needed her mother.

Damien tapped against the hospital-room door. “Knock, knock.”

“Damn it all,” Gio grumbled from inside.

“Did you call my name, Agent?” Damien chuckled and let himself into the room, a bouquet of flowers tucked under his arm.

Gio sat on the hospital bed, her legs dangling off the side. Besides the standard-issue
gown, she had on a pair of sweatpants he highly doubted were part of the official uniform of the invalid.

“Damn you, too.” She scowled at him and yanked at a piece of tape holding her IV in place.

“Should you be doing that?” He quickly set the flowers down and grasped her hand.

“They have a shitty intern doing the IV and he pinched the damn tube. It hurt like hell.” Gio let him take her hand and her shoulders sagged. “I fucking hate being in here when there’s so much I should be doing.”

Damien could only imagine. Sunday, after the sting, had been a circus at the police department. They’d gotten everyone processed, and he’d managed to avoid the media coverage and the ire of any suit who’d been left out of the fast-tracked operation.

“They’ll hold the paperwork for you till tomorrow.” Sure enough, her IV tube was pinched. He carefully peeled the tape up and adjusted it on her arm before smoothing the tape back in place. “There you go. When do you get to go home?”