The Line of Duty

by Nichole Severn

  “You’ve got about twenty minutes before you bleed to death, and believe me, you don’t want that to happen out here.” Vincent strengthened his hold on the blade, both the wound in his thigh and the latest in his shoulder screaming for relief. “Tell me who sent you after me, and I’ll make sure you aren’t paralyzed for the rest of your life when I’m finished with you and your buddies.”

  “We’re not only here for you, Kalani.” The attacker sagged in Vincent’s arms, his breath turning into shallow hisses from between his teeth. He spit a mouthful of blood into the snow, staring up at Vincent with agony contorting his expression. The man’s jacket slid to one side and exposed the brass shield at his hip. “You should’ve left well enough alone.”

  “You’re NYPD.” Hell. The bastard confirmed his theory. The murder of the officer from the Internal Affairs Bureau had been connected to someone on the inside. Whether that meant IAB Officer Walter had been working for them was something Vincent would have to prove another day. Right now, he only had one priority: getting to Shea. He’d gotten her involved in this, and he’d get her out. Vincent pulled the knife from his attacker’s side and pushed him off-balance. “You shouldn’t have come after me.”

  His attacker hit the ground as flames inside the station broke through windows and consumed everything in its path. Two gunmen left. He swept the gun from the hole it’d made in the snow into his hand. Smoke billowed around him, and he covered his face in the crook of his elbow as he tracked a set of deep footprints around the north side of the ranger station. Heat seared his exposed skin, sweat building at the base of his spine as he maneuvered around the flames, but he’d push through the memories racing to the front of his mind. This wasn’t New York City. He wasn’t trapped by the fire here. Although the situations were more similar than he cared to admit.

  The trap had done its job. First, to incapacitate the two remaining gunmen hunting them, and second, to signal fire and rescue. With their luck, emergency personnel was already on their way. Shea had been instructed to head west as soon as she escaped the station, to another ranger station they’d located on a map inside about three miles from here. Now he just had to find her and take down anyone still on her trail.

  “Vincent.” That voice. Her voice. “Don’t come any closer.”

  He slowed, every muscle down his back tensing for battle as he took in the sight of her. Blood dripped down her nose and mouth, those impossibly green eyes even brighter in the flames. Gunmen flanked her on either side, weapons aimed at her midsection. Tendrils of her hair clung to her skin, the glow of the fire accentuating the freckles across her nose and cheeks. She hadn’t gotten away. A soft buzzing filled his ears as he curled his hand around the gun. “She has nothing to do with this. You came for me. Let her go, and you can have me.”

  “What?” Shea tried to rip her arm from one man’s grip, but he held on tight. “No.”

  “You brought her into this, Kalani. That makes her a loose end.” The gunman at her right stepped forward, and a sense of recognition surfaced. Short brown hair, dark eyes, sharp features with a bristled jawline. Vincent had met this man before. But where? “You just couldn’t stop yourself from looking into that IAB officer’s death, even after we gave you a second chance.” He jerked Shea into his chest and pressed a gun to her temple, and everything inside Vincent raged. “How many more people are you going to put in danger before you take a hint? First your teammates back in New York, now this one. She must not mean much if you were willing to risk her life to get what you wanted.”

  The opposite rang true. She was a motivating factor for him getting on that damn plane, the reason he didn’t want to spend the rest of his life looking over his shoulder. She was...everything. His attention slid to Shea, to her almost imperceptible nod as the station burned behind him, and the pressure behind his sternum reached full capacity. “You have no idea who you’re dealing with.”

  An evil smile stretched the gunman’s mouth, and a flash of memory darted across his mind. His stomach dropped out as Vincent realized where he’d met this man before. The last homicide he’d worked... The gunman had been at the outer perimeter but inside the crime scene tape taking statements from witnesses. “I’ve done my research on you, Kalani. I think I’ll take my chances.”

  The bastard was a cop, same as his attacker bleeding out on the other side of the station. Vincent studied the second gunman, caught the briefest hint of the SIG SAUER similar to his old service weapon. They were all cops. NYPD, if he had to guess. Alaska was far outside the lines of their jurisdiction, which meant the squad wasn’t here in an official capacity. He locked his gaze on Shea. The tactical team that’d been hunting them these past two days was made up of corrupt NYPD officers.

  “I wasn’t talking about me.” Vincent lunged forward, targeting the attacker on her right as Shea threw her elbow back into the man at her left. In an instant, he’d closed the distance between him and the first gunman. A bullet ripped past his ear as he collided with the cop, taking them both down. He hauled back his injured shoulder and launched his fist into the officer’s face to finish the job.

  Shea’s sharp groan pulled at his attention from behind. The second gunman stood over her, and a predatory growl was torn from Vincent’s throat. Nobody put their hands on her. No one. He shoved to his feet, but he’d made it only one step before something hard slammed against his head. He collapsed into the snow, pitched into darkness.

  * * *

  HER FACE THROBBED. Shea blinked against the sudden brightness around her as her body jerked to a stop. Hot. Why was it so hot? She’d spent the past two days chilled to the bone, but now sweat built beneath her heavy clothing. She tugged at the zip ties around her wrists and ankles. Ringing filled her ears as she twisted her head to one side, to the trees within arm’s reach. Her last memories played across her mind in flashes and tensed the muscles down her spine. She’d been knocked unconscious. The tactical team had found them, and she’d barely escaped the station before the old wood floor had caught fire from Vincent’s trap. She hiked her head back over her shoulder, snow crunching beneath the crown of her head. Now two members of that same team were hefting something heavy closer to the flames destroying the ranger station. The air rushed out of her lungs, but she bit back the scream caught in her throat. Not something. Vincent.

  “Boss said destroy the evidence. Then we can get the hell out of here,” one of them said.

  No. Shea rolled onto one side, feeling for something—anything—she could use to break the zip ties. Her fingers sorted through loose rock, chunks of ice and broken twigs from the trees above. Eyes on both men, she slowly sat up and fisted a large piece of ice from beneath the powder. If the edge was sharp enough, it’d cut through the plastic. Unless the heat from her hands melted it first. She placed the icy blade’s edge between her feet and started sawing at the ties around her ankles. Fire crackled and popped from less than ten feet away, her skin burning hot to the point she had to turn away to protect her face.

  Pain pulsed across her cheek from where the second gunman had struck her, but she pushed it to the back of her mind as ice turned to water in her hands. Damn it. The ice was melting too fast. She wouldn’t be able to get both her hands and her ankles free at this pace. Not before the gunmen dragged Vincent into the flames. She worked faster, harder. She strengthened her grip around the melting weapon as desperation clawed up her throat and clenched her back teeth against the numbness in her hand. “Come on.”

  The zip tie snapped from around her feet, but relief was short-lived. A shadow crossed over her, instantly cooling her exposed skin.

  “Well, well, well. Looks like we’ve got ourselves a fighter here.” The gunman, the one who’d knocked her unconscious, wrapped a strong grip around her arm and wrenched Shea to her feet. The sting of too much cologne burned her nostrils as he pulled her into his chest. Perfectly straight white teeth battled with the sneer stretching the man’
s cracked lips wide. His bruising hold on her arm increased as she maneuvered her bound wrists between their bodies. “I’ve always liked a challenge.”

  “Then you’re going to love me.” Shea brought up her hands, striking him right in the face as hard as she could. Her knuckles tingled with the hit, but she struck again. The gunman stumbled back, and she followed but didn’t catch him drawing a blade in time before stinging pain exploded across her arm. She blocked the next swing and clamped both hands on to his forearm as she rammed her knee into his kidney. Once. Twice. He lost the knife, then she used his own fist to follow through with another punch to his face, knocking him unconscious. Shea dived for the blade as her attacker collapsed at her feet and cut through the ties at her wrists. She unholstered the gun at his hip, catching sight of the NYPD badge on the other side of his belt.

  The men who’d attacked them, brought down the plane, they were...cops.

  Breathing heavy, vision blurred, she reached out to the nearest tree to keep her balance. She took aim at the first gunman near Vincent as he unholstered his weapon. “Drop the gun and get your hands up where I can see them.”

  “Gotta say I’m impressed, Officer Ramsey.” His voice sent an uncontrollable quake down through her as he raised both arms above his head, gun still in hand. One shot. That was all it would take to rip the man who’d helped bring her back to life away, but she’d pull this trigger just as quickly. “Although we’ve gotten close over the past hour, so I feel like I should call you Shea.”

  Her stomach lurched. Whether from the possible concussion or the fact that the man pointing a gun at Vincent had done his research, she didn’t know. Her attention dipped to Vincent, to the slight rise and fall of his chest. He was alive. She still had a chance to get them out of here. She caught sight of their supply bag where their attackers had thrown it after intercepting her dash into the trees. She hadn’t been fast enough, but she wouldn’t make that mistake again. “Is the fact that you know my name supposed to scare me?”

  “I could’ve gotten your name off the plane’s passenger manifest or threatened to shoot your pilot unless he gave me the names of his passengers, but I didn’t have to do either of those things.” The gunman shook his head, dark eyes glittering with help from the fire. A humorless laugh burst from his Kevlar-covered chest. “We found out you’ve been partnering with Vincent here for a few months when we stopped in to check up on him. I got the feeling he wasn’t going to heed our warning to back off his...independent investigation into a case from back home, maybe even trusted someone here with the intel he thought he had. Turns out, I was right. Then I find out you’re on the same plane he is heading to New York, and that gets me thinking. Vincent could’ve been trying to use Anchorage PD resources to find out who killed his IAB friend. And, well, we can’t have that.” He waved the gun toward her, and she slipped her finger over the trigger of her own weapon. “I know what kind of cop you are, Shea. I know there’s nothing I can say to get you to walk away now. So instead of coming in here and trying to convince you to forget you ever saw us, I had my guys in New York pay a visit to your ex.”

  The blood drained from her face. Logan? Her heart pounded hard in her chest, threatening to burst through her rib cage. She swiped her tongue across her lips to counter the sudden dryness in her throat. It was a manipulation, a desperate measure to get her to believe he had leverage over her. These dirty cops had come for Vincent, and she had no doubt in her mind they’d say anything to get what they wanted. But they couldn’t have him. Her arms shook with the weight of the gun in her hand, but she held strong. “I said drop the gun.”

  “I get it. Exes are exes for a reason, right? You probably don’t feel the same way about him as you would about, say, that little boy of yours.” That smile was back, and her gut knotted tight. “What was his name?” The gunman lowered his hands slowly, and Shea stepped forward in warning. A slight pull at one corner of his mouth accentuated the sharp angles of his face. “Wells, right? Cute kid. It’d be a shame if he got caught in the middle of what we have going on here.” The gunman nudged Vincent with his boot. “It’s too late for your partner here, but you can still walk away. You can go to New York and get your son back. That’s what you want, right? I can make that happen. All you have to do is stand down, Officer Ramsey.”

  He was threatening her son. Threatening Vincent. Seconds slipped by. A minute. She had a chance to get to Wells, to fight for him as she should’ve done in the first place. Sweat fell from her temples, her hands damp against the gun’s grip. All she had to do was walk away. The fire had destroyed the ranger station in a matter of minutes and had started spreading to the nearby tree line. A groan reached her ears from behind. The attacker she’d taken down was coming around. She was out of time.

  “I swore an oath to protect and serve.” Shea lowered her weapon, shortened her shooting stance. Made herself a smaller target. Her gaze dropped to Vincent as his hand splayed across the white snow, leaving a print of red behind. He’d been injured trying to protect her, and every cell in her body screamed in retaliation. The man giving her the chance to run was a cop. His entire squad was made of cops, but they weren’t playing by the rules. She wasn’t an officer out here. She didn’t have the manpower to arrest these men. So maybe Vincent had been right. Maybe the rules didn’t always apply, and he and his team weren’t the vigilantes she’d believed. She lifted her gaze to the gunman. “And that’s exactly what I’m going to do.”

  Shea raised the gun and fired.

  Vincent’s attacker pulled the trigger at the same time his shoulder ripped back from the impact of her shot, but his bullet went wide. He fell with a pain-filled scream, the sound echoing off the rock around them.

  “Vincent!” She dashed toward him, gun still in hand, and tugged him to his feet. Taking the majority of his weight, Shea half dragged him to their discarded supply bag and then into the tree line just as the second gunman got to his feet. Her attacker ran for his superior, taking up a nearby weapon as she hauled Vincent to her side. “Come on, we’ve got to get out of here.”

  Three shots exploded from behind, but she kept them moving. Blood trickled down onto her hand from his shoulder as she fought to keep Vincent upright. The faster they ran, the faster he’d bleed, but they couldn’t stop. Couldn’t look back. No matter what happened next, they were in this together.

  Chapter Seven

  Shea had chosen him.

  His vision blurred as they stumbled through the trees, gunmen once again on their trail. Three miles of wilderness and bullets stood between them and the next ranger station, but Shea had taken her chances with him. Given up a shot at seeing her son again to save his life. Vincent pitched forward as another surge of pain crushed the air from his lungs. The bullet was still inside his shoulder, tearing through muscle and tissue. Every swing of his arm, every brush with the trees, was another lesson in pain tolerance, but he couldn’t give away their position. Distraction. He needed a distraction. “You could’ve walked away.”

  “What kind of person do you think I am? I wasn’t going to leave you with them to die.” Her heavy breathing hitched as she checked back over her shoulder, the gun still in her free hand. The glow of the fire lit her eyes in an unnatural display of brightness, and Vincent couldn’t look away. “I think you were right. The IAB officer’s murder you were looking into in New York goes a lot deeper than the investigating officers reported. The men trying to kill us are cops.”

  “They’re corrupt cops. Part of an organization inside the NYPD I’ve only heard rumors about until now. Back in New York, I collected evidence from four different homicide scenes that’d been cleaned a bit too well, like the perp knew how to hide evidence. I even found proof a detective had broken into a witness’s home in order to intimidate her to drop a complaint against his partner. They’re not just cops. They’re hit men, but these guys won’t answer to just anyone.” He locked his jaw against the shooting pain a
ll along the right side of his body as deep snow jerked him down. The shrapnel in his thigh, a bullet in his shoulder and the hit to his head from behind. He was lucky he was still standing. Lucky to be alive. Vincent tried to keep most of his weight off of Shea, but any extraneous shifting on his part only increased the discomfort. Hell, he wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for her. “They’ve got to have a superior officer giving orders. Someone in the NYPD who needed to cover up IAB Officer Walter’s murder and put out the hit on me and my team that night. I’m going to find out who.”

  “The NYPD is made up of over fifty thousand officers and civilian employees,” she said. “It could be anyone.”

  “I didn’t say it would be easy.” Numbness spread from his toes up his calves. The sun had gone down hours ago; every exhale froze instantaneously on the air. If they couldn’t make it to the next station, there was a chance they’d die out here. Vincent slowed. “Why did you do it?”

  He didn’t have to elaborate. They both knew he wanted to know why she’d given up the promise of seeing her son again in order to save his life.

  “They’ve already killed our pilot, an innocent man who, as far as we know, had nothing to do with your case in New York. I don’t care what they were promising. They weren’t going to let me walk away. Not after I’d seen their faces.” She redirected her attention to the darkness growing behind them. Her voice hardened, the muscles along her jawline flexing in the dim light from their flashlight. “But I pulled the trigger because he threatened my son. I wanted him to realize he’d made a mistake bringing Wells into this.”

  “I think he got the message.” Vincent put more pressure on his injured leg but kept his arm around her shoulders for support. How the hell had she dragged him at least half a mile through the wilderness without showing a hint of exhaustion in her features? She was strong, stronger than he’d originally estimated, but small cracks had begun to surface back at that station. She blamed herself for her divorce, for losing custody of her son to her ex, but when it’d come down to the wire, she’d stepped in to protect a man she’d resented from day one from a group of corrupt cops. She’d been right before. She wasn’t the woman he’d built up in his mind. She was better. “Whatever the reason, thank you.”