Chapter 28 Emilio
TWENTY-EIGHT
EMILIO
The sharp, deafening sound of a gunshot splits through my phone’s speaker, and a second later, glass explodes into the darkness with a sound that shreds the quiet. Raelynn’s scream rips into my ear, thin and animal and full of panic, and my chest caves.
“RAE!” I scream into the speaker, but the line answers me with static and the faint tail of her voice echoing away.
For one terrible second, she’s there and then nothing but a silence so loud it hurts.
“Rae!” I shout again, almost a plea this time, fingers tightening until my knuckles protest against the cheap plastic of my phone.
Fury and cold fear war in my chest, and I let the anger win for a second.
“FUCK!” I drive my injured fist into the passenger side of my truck.
A dent forms in the metal beneath my knuckles, and red beads up between the seams of the bandage.
The pain grounds me, and I draw in a breath, listening to anything else I can hear. Nothing but silence comes through.
I pray to the fucking gods she’s hiding in a good spot, somewhere to give her a good fighting chance, because I don’t know what I’ll do… no scratch that, I know exactly what I’ll fucking do if she is hurt. I’ll hunt the bastard down and kill him myself if something happens to her.
He’ll get a taste of his own medicine as I rip him to fucking shreds.
I press my forehead to the window, the cool glass steadying me for a moment.
“Baby,” I breathe into the phone even though the call’s gone quiet.
My voice drops, tight and raw. “If you can hear me, help is on the way. I’m coming…
” I let the word hang there, then twist it into a promise and a warning as I lift my head off the glass.
“And if you can hear me, Ripper,” I pause, spitting out his name like it’s acid on my tongue, every syllable a curse.
“Touch her and it’ll be the last thing you ever fucking do. ”
Ending the call, with shaking fingers, I dial 911. It rings twice, twice too fucking many, before Dispatch answers. I don’t even give them a chance to speak before I cut in, willing my voice to steady as I yank open the passenger door.
“This is off-duty Officer Emilio Perez, badge number 48274. I need immediate assistance at Catalina Crest Apartments, 9306 E Broadway Boulevard, apartment 151. Home invasion in progress as we speak, suspect is armed and dangerous!” I say quickly as I toss the folders that I had tucked under my arm onto the passenger seat.
The dispatcher’s tone sharpens instantly. “Copy that, Officer Perez. Units are being dispatched now. Is anyone injured?”
I slam the passenger door and round the front to the driver’s side. “Not that I know of,” I say through gritted teeth. “But someone will be if she is.”
I climb into my truck, jam my keys into the ignition, and twist. It roars to life, the radio spitting out some song.
I quickly switch to Bluetooth. The moment my phone connects, I toss it onto the passenger seat and throw my truck in reverse, and back out of the station, gravel spitting from the tires.
“Are you on the property now, Officer?” the dispatcher asks. Her prying questions are starting to grate on me, but I know she’s only doing her job.
“No,” I snap, my grip tightening on the steering wheel.
“I was on the phone with my girlfriend, Raelynn Carson, when she told me someone was trying to break in. I lost contact with her after I heard gunshots.” I take a hard right onto Speedway Boulevard, tires squealing.
“Just get someone there fast!” I yell before ending the call.
The city blurs past in streaks of amber light and shadow, every streetlight a heartbeat I can’t afford to lose.
My pulse hammers in my ears, keeping time with the low snarl of the truck’s engine as I push past eighty.
Red lights flash ahead and I barely slow, rolling through intersections when they’re clear, every nerve locked on the road, on the distance shrinking between me and her.
The tires hiss over the wet pavement, the whole truck trembling as I weave through the empty streets.
Every second that passes feels like another piece of her slipping away.
I hit the turn for her complex in under ten minutes. The parking lot is dark, except for the distant glow of a few porch lights. I kill my headlights before pulling up as close as I can to her building—to her apartment.
Then I see it.
The patio door, or what’s left of it. The glass is gone, blown inward, fragments glittering across the cement like frost. My chest seizes, the air leaving me in a sharp, silent gasp.
I throw my truck into park and pop the center console.
I take my Glock, check the magazine and chamber, then grab the flashlight and slide out.
My Vans scuff the pavement as I move, flashlight in my left hand, gun up in my right.
I cautiously step toward the front door, and my pulse beats erratically at the sight of the split wood.
I try the door, noting it’s still locked and round back towards the patio.
I draw in a breath as I push open the patio gate.
It creaks, the sound too loud in the quiet as I slip through.
My flashlight drifts over the porch and into the living room, glinting off the shards strewn across the living room floor as I cross the threshold.
Glass crunches underfoot as I move further into the room.
A low whimper breaks the quiet. I pivot toward it, gun up, beam low. Max lies crumpled by the couch, panting heavily. His flank glistens wet beneath the light.
“Shit,” I mutter, dropping to a crouch beside him.
“Hey, buddy.” He whines when I touch his head, the sound weak and broken.
There’s blood slicked around his hind leg, just above the flank.
“It’s okay, Max, good boy. Save your strength,” I drag my palm along his fur once before forcing myself back up.
Turning away from Max, I sweep my flashlight through the rest of the living room and into the kitchen before moving towards the hall. Sirens wail in the distance, growing closer with each passing second.
“Police!” I call out. “If anyone is in here, make yourself known!” I move down the narrow hall on tiptoe, flashlight in my left hand, Glock high in my right. “This is the police,” I call out again. “Come out with your hands up!”
Something creaks, and the hair on the back of my neck lifts. I swing the beam toward the sound just as a voice cracks through the dark.
“Emilio?”
My heart jumps at the sound of her voice. “It’s me, baby,” I answer, lowering my weapon just enough.
A door opens slightly at the end of the hall. Raelynn partially steps out with Tessa clinging to her arm.
“I-Is he gone?” Tessa’s voice trembles, eyes wide and glassy.
I open my mouth to answer, but the closet beside me explodes open, and I’m immediately met with something cold that punches through my shoulder with enough force to steal the breath from my lungs.
Everything goes wrong in a single, brutal second.
My Glock slips from my hand and clatters across the floor.
Rae and Tessa scream and retreat into the room, slamming and locking the door.
My back slams into the opposite wall, and I gasp for breath.
Pain flashes—a hot, immediate line from the joint up through my neck.
“Fuck,” I hiss, looking down just long enough to see the hilt buried deep in my shoulder, blood soaking through my gray shirt. My eyes flick up to the person holding it. A white mask stares at me, tilted, as if curious, and I swear I can sense the grin forming behind the emotionless vinyl.
He shoves the knife deeper. I scream, my good hand flying to the wound, trying to stop him from twisting it. He yanks it free with a wet sound that makes bile rise in my throat. Blood splatters his mask. I stumble, slam my hand over the wound, hot liquid leaking between my fingers.
“You weren’t here for her, were you?” I grind out, voice strangled.
He lunges again, blade flashing toward my chest. Pain screams through my shoulder, but adrenaline burns away the rest. I throw my body sideways, hit him with my full weight, and drive my knee up—hard.
The impact connects square in his groin.
He grunts, a harsh, muffled sound behind the mask, and drops back a step.
I dive for my gun. My fingers brush the grip, slick with my own blood, and I snatch it up. I twist, aim, and fire. The shot rips through the apartment, deafening. He dodges, and the bullet lodges in the wall just above the couch, drywall spraying from the impact.
Screams erupt behind me, and my attention briefly shifts to them, but it’s a moment too long, because the second I turn back, the bastard is already running out of the living room.
I fire again. The bullet rips through the tail end of his black coat, but he doesn’t stop.
He slips through the shattered patio door and into the night just as my backup arrives.
My arm trembles. Blood runs down to my wrist in steady drops.
Pain blooms hot and bright where the blade chewed me open.
I drop to a knee and press a hand to the wound, fingers slick with blood I can taste.
Outside, red and blue lights strobe across the glass shards littering the floor.
Sirens crescendo, boots thud on the porch, voices calling.
Somewhere, a radio crackles, someone yelling for scene control.
I force air into my lungs and turn toward the hallway.
“RAELYNN! TESSA!” My voice is hoarse, but it carries.
Backup floods through the door, shouting commands and sweeping the apartment, but all I can hear before everything goes black is her wails, her voice splintering apart from the end of the hall.