Out of Time (Fall of the Morelli Crime Family #3)

23. Chapter 23

twenty-three

Mark

“ Y ou’re a lucky man, Rosenberg!” Brandon Burke chuckled, punching me in the arm.

I sure as shit didn’t feel like it. I felt like my entire world was falling apart.

“Aw, don’t be like that. I just mean that you’re lucky you get to ride along with The Elite. Not everyone gets to go on a SWAT bust. I know it’s unlucky that your girlfriend is probably in the middle of it all and is in danger of being used as a hostage in a shootout, but still. It’s gotta be fun riding along, right?”

“Yeah, thanks man,” I said. He had to hear the sarcasm in my voice. I hadn’t even thought about her being used as a hostage if our breach was anything less than perfect.

He shrugged. “It helps to put things in perspective sometimes.”

“Definitely.” His perspective was a little off, but to each his own. I was just fine worrying my ass off instead of searching for a silver lining.

“One minute out!” The driver of our 17,000-pound armored truck shouted back to us.

Brandon rolled his neck, the grin on his face melting into a grim mask. He was getting down to business and I appreciated it. He turned to me.

“You’re not cleared to roll out with the rest of us, Rosenberg. You can listen in, be the first one to enter after we give the all-clear, but until then, stay out of the way.”

I nodded, but didn’t like it. Admittedly, I was lucky enough to be in the truck, suited up in borrowed tactical gear and this close to the action with my injuries. But if Brandon Burke’s team really was so elite, I wouldn’t need to break my word and intervene.

Brandon frowned at me. “I’m serious, Rosenberg. We work as a team or we don’t work at all. SWAT teamwork is what saves lives, so don’t go playing the hero if you think you know better than us. We're trained for these situations, you aren’t.”

I rolled my eyes.

“You stay put. We breach together, clear the house, and keep any civilians safe. You never know who may step in front of a bullet, so non-lethal rounds where possible to secure the baddies.”

“Thirty seconds!” The driver intoned.

“Alright, team. I want you all to be like Jamie,” Brandon said, nodding at one of the guys hunkering down in the back with us. “He’s a Pisces: a romantic at heart, shy like a teenage virgin, horny like a forty-year-old virgin, and likes long walks along the beach. And like a fish, he goes with the flow. So we stay fluid, keep swimming, and adjust as the situation demands. You get me?”

“Go with the flow!” half a dozen voices shouted around me. Jesus. Brandon spouted a shit ton of nonsense, but his team treated him like a cult leader. They must’ve seen something in him I didn’t.

“Arrival in four, three, two, one!”

The truck braked hard and I almost lost my seat. Everyone in the car stayed still, having grabbed hold beforehand. I felt like a damn sorority girl being hazed.

The man called Jamie was closest to the door, and he was already descending to the ground before I got my bearings back from the whiplash.

I was the last one out, but Brandon was waiting for me. He poked me in the chest. “Stay here,” he reiterated. “You do not cross past the gate posts until you hear me give you the say so.”

“I heard you the first six times,” I said, trying to hide my annoyance.

“Got your earpiece in?” he asked like I was a damn kindergartener. To be fair, I threw a tantrum like one the first time he said I couldn’t join in on the bust.

“Yes,” I said, trying to keep my expression neutral. It was hard, but Brandon was right: these guys were an elite team. They knew what they were doing. As long as Bee was safe, I would let Brandon lead.

“We’re here. How’s she doing, Luke?” I asked into the earpiece I wore. He wasn’t in the truck with us, but he was our ears into that house for the raid. He was back in the surveillance van, driving it over so we could hear what Bianca was trying to achieve. She had to be wearing the wire—who knew when she’d taken it from me?—and there was no point to any of this if she wasn’t collecting evidence.

“Static, man, but I’m pulling up in another minute or so and I’ll patch you in.”

Stupid fucking technology. Her receiver would store the recordings of anything said, but we couldn’t listen live unless the van was in range for the transmitter.

I couldn’t stand still. I crossed and uncrossed my arms, an awkward move with my cast. I shuffled my feet in my borrowed boots, one a full size larger than the other to fit the massive bandages covering the burns and gashes on my foot. I rolled my shoulders, cracked my neck.

Brandon met my eyes, silently telling me to be patient.

“One minute, then,” he said, turning toward his team. “Jamie, Joe, you two start heading around back. Derek and Luis, you’re in the truck with the forward team.” That would be Brandon and the driver—whatever the hell his name was. “When we get the signal we’re crashing through that damn gate and breaching the residence. Two-Jays through the second floor, D and L through the back entrance on the D.L. Chris, and I through the front. Questions?”

I shook my head.

“Then get in your damn positions so we can roll!”

Jamie and Joe were already gone, presumably to scale the back wall and up through the second-floor balcony we knew existed after looking over the blueprints for the manor. Our driver, presumably Chris, hauled himself back up into the driver’s seat. Derek, Luis, and Brandon were already climbing back into the truck.

“Door, Mark,” Brandon said, emphasizing that I wouldn’t be coming with them. “Close us in.”

I felt like a misfit again, but before I could reach for the door handle, I heard voices in my earpiece. Lucas connected the feed to us.

A woman whimpering. I paused with my hand on the door, but within the space of time it took me to realize it wasn’t Bee making those sad noises, I could also hear Bee’s fainter voice in the background, far away from wherever her wire was. Shit.

“Don’t take me up there. Please!”

Bee was begging. Coughing. Gagging.

“I’m sorry! Let’s stay down here.”

I looked at Brandon. He pursed his lips together, then shook his head in a clear no.

I left the door hanging open, barreling away from the truck and toward the huge wrought-iron gate.

“Stop! We have to wait for J-team to be in position!” he hissed, not wanting to shout and alert anyone to our position.

I ignored him. He could wait, but I wouldn’t, not when Bee was begging, choking on her words. I was an extra man on the team and they didn’t need me. She did.

Bee was out of time.

More agile than I knew I could be, I scaled the iron gate. I could see the red light flashing off to the side as I landed, but figured if the men in there were busy hurting Bee—and some other woman, too, I recalled—then they wouldn’t be paying attention to a monitor alerting them to my presence.

If she was going to fight for us to be together—safe—then I would fight for her to survive this.

I landed on the far side with a thud. I kept my legs slightly bent to cushion the fall, but it still hurt like hell with my injured foot. I didn’t wait for the pain to fade, but used it as an incentive to keep going. Whatever pain I was in, I could move, could speak. Bee couldn’t.

I unholstered my weapon as I ran to the front door, holding it in front of me at the ready. By the time I bounded up the front steps I heard crackling in my ears.

The wire was gone, destroyed.

I dug out the earpiece and threw it into the bushes decorating the front of the house. If I couldn’t hear Bianca, then I didn’t need it anymore.

I threw myself bodily against the door, but it was locked, and so thick it didn’t budge a millimeter or make a sound.

I wouldn’t give up on Bee so easily.

I took half a second to assess the situation. There were large vertical stained glass windows on either side of the front door, but not even a potted plant to smash through them.

I couldn’t shoot them open, not knowing where Bee was inside of the house. Fucking SWAT team had to be right about everything. They had tools to bust open a massive door like this one and infrared tech that could tell me where people were standing.

But Bee didn’t have time for waiting. I already spent one second too many figuring out how to get into the house. Decision made.

I backed up a couple steps, then turned and ran back, throwing myself at the large decorative window next to the door. I lifted my arms to shield my face as I made contact with the window, smashing through to the other side.

The hard cast around my wrist was pretty damn imperviable, and I kept it up against my face as I braced my body for impact with the glass-covered floor. I landed in a roll, the thick tactical gear taking most of the glass without a problem until my borrowed boots hit the floor on the other side, too thick for any shards to pierce.

I rose from my crouch and lifted the gun back upright in the same second, tracking my sights across the room until I saw her: tears streaking down her face, a strap around her neck, being dragged upstairs by Angelo fucking Morelli. Her own father an accomplice to her attack as he trailed a couple steps below the pair.

“Freeze!” I shouted, gun aimed at Angelo, but aware enough to keep my gaze darting back and forth between the brothers. “Let go of her and put your hands in the air.”

Angelo was a cocky bastard and just raised an eyebrow at me. Why was he so calm, so…content? I’d seen him scream and rage at the tiniest inconvenience. Why wasn’t he acting out, flying into a blind fury?

I flicked my gaze back down to Carlo, the older Morelli brother and the head of the Morelli crime syndicate. We had the fucker. Accomplice to kidnapping, false imprisonment, assault, and battery in addition to all the other crimes he spoke about on tape earlier this evening.

It was done. Bee did it; she sacrificed everything for it.

I glanced at her, red in the face, gasping for breath, but looking so fucking relieved. Yeah, baby, I’m here. I got you.

But neither Morelli man moved. I paced a few steps closer and heard a creak from the ceiling above me. Jamie and Joe must have entered. I spoke again, louder, to cover up any more sounds.

“I said release the woman, and put your hands in the fucking air! You’re under arrest!”

“ The woman ,” Carlo mocked, turning to his younger brother. “He’s a better liar than she is, we must give him credit for that.”

Angelo laughed, a black sound. “You want your woman back? Come get her.”

My eyes widened as he kicked Bee’s knees out from under her, sending her tumbling down the steps.

There was no choice. I had to drop my position as I leapt forward, already too late to catch her before her shoulder smashed into the first step, but the smart girl twisted her body as she fell so she didn’t land directly on her head. She would be in pain as she fell the last couple of steps to land at my feet as I reached the base of the stairs, but she didn’t split her skull open.

Bee was alive and trembling in my arms. She was alive, no thanks to her family. These were the men who were supposed to love her, protect her, and instead one pushed her down the stairs while the other watched. They hurt her, could have killed her, and I was pissed .

I wasn’t sad, lamenting the loss of another woman I cared for. I didn’t feel guilty or cursed or pathetic.

I was livid. How dare they betray her trust over and over again?

I helped her to her feet quickly, aware of Carlo and Angelo descending the steps behind her. They stopped three steps up from us, both with their own handguns drawn on me, my weapon useless at my side.

Come on, Brandon, any time now.

Bee let out a watery gasp, a defeated moan. She didn’t know that the calvary was right outside, coming to save us any second now. I tried to shift her behind me, but she was reluctant to move, wrapping herself tight against my side. I’d throw my body in front of her to take a bullet if she’d let me, but she felt the same. She would stand by my side and face Angelo and Carlo together.

I had to stall.

“I think you’re smart enough to know it won’t help you to pull that trigger,” I said, making eye contact first with Carlo, then his brother. “I’m a police officer. You’re already facing enough charges for your crimes, you don’t want to add to that.”

The men briefly exchanged glances, but then Carlo shrugged.

“What no one knows can never hurt us.”

Bee let out that defeated groan again. I patted her hand against my chest reassuringly.

“And if I told you that everyone would know? Already does know what’s going on here? I got a whole SWAT team outside getting ready to breach this residence.”

Angelo scoffed. “And yet you came in alone? Unlikely.”

He obviously didn’t understand what it was like to love someone. I could never leave Bee in here alone with them, not while I knew she was in pain.

“You don’t believe me? Just wait. Hold off for a minute while they get into position. Just waiting on one of the teams to sneak in through the upstairs balcony so we could corner you properly.”

It probably wasn’t regulation to give the plan away, but the operation was already fucked. I just needed to waste enough time for Brandon and his team to do what they did best.

“Then they’ll get a hell of a surprise when they find two of my men up there. They’ve been waiting to spill some blood.”

Bee gasped. My vision turned red, remembering her terrified words in my ear. “No, don’t take me up there!”

“Meh,” I shrugged, hiding my fury as I wondered what the hell they were going to do to my girl up there. “I think we would have heard a struggle by now if they caught a couple intruders. My guys probably took them out quickly and quietly.”

I could only hope. I’d only heard the one creak from upstairs.

“I think you’re lying. You shouldn’t even be alive, but your men can’t do their damn jobs correctly,” Angelo accused, shifting his gaze from me over to his brother, his face growing darker and redder. There was the rage I’d been waiting for, what I’d witnessed in surveillance photos and videos. “Brother, you’re the one who made the mistake of hiring incompetent maintenance technicians who can’t even sabotage an elevator correctly, and you’re the one who let this traitorous bitch into our operation. I think that makes it your responsibility to end her part in it.”

My eyes jerked over to Carlo. His expression was steady as he aimed the gun in my direction. I watched his grip shift infinitesimally as his aim moved over to Bee.

My heart beat solidly twice in the space of time it took for me to shove Bianca behind me. I had the bulletproof vest on. I could take a chest shot.

But Bee wouldn’t stay behind me. Damn woman couldn’t read my mind. What was up with that? She tried to push in front of me again, brave woman.

Carlo’s hand tensed, but his finger didn’t move toward the trigger. Maybe there was some sort of fatherly love in him after all. Maybe he wouldn’t be able to do it. Maybe her life was worth something to him.

I heard another creak upstairs, footsteps moving around quickly. It was happening.

But I kept my eyes trained on Carlo, not reacting to what I knew would go down any second. Carlo finally let out a sigh and lowered the gun to his side.

“I can’t do it, Angelo. It’s my daughter. I’m sorry.”

Bee let out a harsh breath. I rested my cast covered arm against her, my fingertips wrapping as well as they could around hers where they rested against my chest. It was over. She was going to live through this.

“I have my limits,” Carlo continued, looking up at his brother. “You shoot her.”

My draw was quick, but Angelo’s arm was already raised. Both guns went off a fraction of a second apart, so quickly in succession I couldn’t tell who fired first. Bee tried to shove herself in front of me at the same time I tried to push her back with my broken arm, and the front door was shoved open, boots pounding on the tile floor behind me and the stairs in front of me.

SWAT arrived, but three seconds too late.

Bee was collapsing in my arms, red pooling across her stomach. She was hit.