Page 3 of Draven

The bartender refills my glass, and I pick it up, swirling the amber liquid around. The high of catching Moretti dissipates, leaving me with an emptiness the scotch will only temporarily fill. Tomorrow I’ll wake up with a sore head, a hunger to move on to the next case, and for a while, the hollow feeling in my belly will ease.

The door to the bar opens, the breeze ruffling my hair. The chair next to mine scrapes along the wooden flooring, and the scent of a woman’s perfume reaches my nostrils. Eyes facing front, I take another swig of my scotch. If she has any sense, she’ll read my body language and keep her trap shut. I’m not in the mood for small talk.

“What can I get you, miss?” the bartender asks.

“I’ll have whatever he’s having.”

I pause, the glass halfway to my lips, because I know that voice. Eight years might’ve passed, but time is irrelevant when someone you trusted sticks the knife in.

Slowly, I pivot, hoping I’m wrong.

Motherfucker.

Rhodes.

The rookie cop my superiors had tasked me with babysitting when I worked for the New Jersey State Police. Mentoring, they’d called it. What a crock of shit. She’s been fresh out of the academy, all wide-eyed and innocent, with impossibly high ideal, unaccepting of the savage reality she’d stepped into, where law enforcement was at war with several crime gangs. She’d had fun judging me every time I walked the line between right and wrong. Except, in her naivety, she didn’t realize that was the game we had to play to give us a chance to take down the bad guys.

Our testy professional relationship had come to a head one night when we’d received a call to a domestic. A nasty fucker called Tony Callides, who thought sexually abusing his fourteen-year-old stepdaughter was his God-given right. That evening, something inside the poor girl had snapped, and she’d stabbed Tony in the hand with a fork while eating dinner. Tony retaliated by beating her half to death. A neighbor had called it in when she heard the bloodcurdling screams coming from the apartment on the floor above.

Louise and I were the cops dispatched to deal with the situation.

Result: Tony’s face had gotten nice and friendly with a door. He might have suffered a broken arm, too. In my opinion, he’d gotten off lightly. The bastard should have been skinned alive and strung up for what he did to that innocent child. Let the rats feast on him.

Louise hadn’t uttered one word on the way back to the station. The first I’d heard about her complaint was when my sergeant called me in the next day and hauled me over a hot bed of coals.

The result? They’d placed her with a more suitable mentor. One who wouldn’t offend her “let’s treat the scum like human beings” sensibilities while they’d “encouraged” me to take a transfer to the NYPD, where, to quote my sarge, “We’re sure you’ll fit in better.”

Fuckers.

Am I still pissed that, because of her, I’d had no choice other than to leave behind my home, my family, and move to a city I’d never aspired to live in?

You bet your fucking ass I am.

In all fairness, I should have read the situation better. Her type followed the rules, regardless of whether or not the rules sucked. We’d been mismatched from the start. It had only been a matter of time before it came to a head.

But what pissed me off more was the way she scurried off to the boss like a fucking narc instead of telling me to my face what she thought. If she had, we could have had an adult conversation. Instead, she’d gone behind my back. I’d reacted by going ballistic on her ass—something she hadn’t taken lying down if my memory serves me correctly.

I also recall the argument giving me one of the biggest hard-ons of my life.

“What the fuck do you want?” I growl, raking her with a disdainful gaze.

She squares her shoulders and sets her jaw. “Nice to see you, too, Draven.”

The bartender plunks down a glass of scotch. Louise picks it up and knocks it back, swallowing it in one go. She hadn’t touched alcohol when I’d known her. Regular Mother fucking Teresa back in the day.

She turns her glass upside down, indicating to the bartender she doesn’t want a refill.

“I need your help,” she tells me.

I choke out a laugh. “That’s fucking rich, coming from the woman who tried to have me fired.”

She grimaces. “Still sore, huh? Don’t you think it’s time to let it go?”

I open my wallet, slam down some bills on the bar, and stand.

“Wait.” She clamps a hand on my arm, and my leather jacket squeaks as her grip tightens. “Please. Just listen.”

“Why should I? I don’t owe you shit.”

---