by Fiona Price
Risk it All
Fiona Price
To M. A. C. R. P.
Prologue
She couldn't really remember what had happened before she was tossed on the helicopter, rescued from a mission that went wrong. She knew that for sure, but she didn't know who the people were or where she was going, but she knew that it couldn't be somewhere good. They had approached her, and her reaction to them was as if they were the enemy, so of course she fought back. It was five against one and they got her face down in the dust, handcuffing her with sturdy black zip ties. Yanking her off the ground, she fought back against them, but it was no use. She was effectively being kidnapped, and that was the end of that story. She was sure her team would come back for her.
But as more time passed, it didn't seem like they were trying all that hard to rescue her.
She was caked in blood, having smeared it all over her face during the mission. It was intense and risky, she and the team were in a guns-blazing battle against the Armenian mafia, and it was no joke. Her captors weren't like the people she was fighting, but they wouldn't tell her who they were or what they wanted with her. That made her anxious, since she overheard them talking about New York- which is a long way from Hawaii.
Two of the five men were sitting on either side of her. Her arms were tied behind her back, her elbows sticking out and they had laced their arms through hers to ensure she couldn't run. Two others sat across from her, staring her down, and the fifth was the one leading the mission to get her, and then there was the pilot. She stared the agents down until they got to the mainland where the helicopter descended. The blood was fully dried on her face, coming off in a powder when she moved her face or blinked as it fell off her eyelashes. It was a bloodbath, for sure. Alissa and Shane had each seen combat, but bullets were flying at them from all directions, and she understood then why they thought she was such a threat.
She couldn't even walk herself to the plane that would take her to New York. The agents that had their arms locked through hers were taller than her short five feet, they lifted her up off the ground and carried her to the military jet. She kicked her legs, since it was against her nature to sit aside and be submissive. She wanted some control, but she was unlikely to get it. It seemed like a governmental operation to extract her from Hawaii and they wouldn't let her off easy. They followed the same procedure on the plane, staring her down and holding her in place. She was extremely jet lagged, for she refused to let herself sleep and couldn't even if she tried in the presence of the military men.
That was, until she got to New York and she knew exactly where they were taking her. She was heading straight for the landing for the mainland office for the task force in Manhattan.
The small plane landed on the roof, and she finally got a chance to put her feet on the ground. They held her hands that were still secured behind her, but she walked all on her own to the boss who was waiting at the entrance for her.
"Lieutenant Alissa Montgomery. We've been waiting for you." He spoke. She had only heard about him in stories, she had never met or seen him in real life, but it seemed as if he knew her well.
Staying silent, she continued her march towards him. The security detail followed her until they had maneuvered through the maze that was the tower, and he gave the signal for them to back off. She was standing in the middle of the room, her feet in a strong stance and her chin up high despite being captured.
"What am I doing here?" Alissa asked her boss.
"We'll talk after we disarm you." He answered, and a team had entered the room. They had kept their distance from her, analyzing her. She didn't know why they were, and she didn't like how it felt to have them stare her down with creased foreheads and questioning eyes. A female agent approached her, beginning to strip her of her weapons and tactical gear. She undid the snaps of Alissa's tactical vest, letting the Kevlar thud on the white flooring. Alissa was in full tac gear, making the process just a little bit harder for everyone.
A different agent picked up the vest, taking out every weapon and separating the pieces so they were useless. The line of black metal just extended as the woman continued her work on Alissa. She removed her thigh holster next, handing it off to her partner and he unloaded the weapons, it was like clockwork. Alissa, though, wasn't so sure how much she liked being kidnapped and disarmed. She knew that she was just being restrained by plastic and was able to covertly free herself. She would have gotten away with it too, if the third agent didn't set up his tactical gear in the same way and knew exactly what she was hiding and what she was doing.
"Natalie, watch out!" He called, jumping out of his seat towards her. Alissa hid a knife against her lower back and had cut herself free, and now that she was able to do some damage, she was even more of a threat. Natalie took her down and pinned her to the floor as the third agent stood above her, his gun drawn and pointed at her, daring her to make another move like that. Natalie flipped her over and cuffed her with metal cuffs instead of the plastic ones Alissa easily escaped.
The third agent put his gun away and lifted her off the floor, so she was standing again, and she was pissed. He did not keep a friendly hand on her shoulder. It was aggressive and holding her in place. Natalie took out knives from her ankle holsters, passing them off to her partner. Even when she had done a full pat down and had taken away around 20 weapons from her person, Natalie still wasn't sure she had gotten everything. Nodding to the boss, the third agent, James, marched her with a little bit of a push away from the white room and into a conference room.
He sat her down in a chair and stepped back against the wall. Nobody wanted to talk to her, they weren't even sure what to say to her. She was staring at them from behind a mask of blood, and they weren't sure how to read her eyes. As if she wasn't there, Steve, Natalie's partner, walked into the conference room and slapped a file down on the glass table. Alissa didn't even flinch at the gesture.
"Lieutenant," He addressed Alissa. "We have a lot of questions for you."
"Lieutenant?" Natalie asked.
"Yes. Lieutenant Montgomery is private special forces, working with the Miami task force unit for high profile crimes. Before that, she worked with the Boston PD. She graduated at the top of her class and has 19 confirmed kills from her time in the military. She is currently trained in the most powerful combat techniques."
"I hate to be the one to point this out, but she's just over five feet tall." James asked, gesturing to her.
"And I've strangled men with my thighs alone." Alissa answered.
"I would be careful, James." Steve spoke.
"So, is anyone going to tell me why I'm here?" Alissa asked. Steve swallowed hard and the eyes of Natasha and James were darting back and forth between him and Alissa, looking at him and waiting for him to deliver the news to her.
"Lieutenant," He began, his tone becoming softer and he sat at the table across from her. "There is no easy way to say this. You're not a hostage, you're not in trouble, in fact we rescued you. You are the only living member of the task force. Everything is gone."
The words bounced around in Alissa’s head, echoing again and again through her brain. She couldn’t comprehend the news… no, it couldn’t be true. That couldn’t be the ending of their story; she refused to believe that it was over just like that. It wasn’t supposed to happen that way, it just seemed impossible that they would all be dead at the hands of the mafia. It felt like a lie to her. It didn’t feel right.
"What about Commander McAndrews? Detective Matthew Daniels?" Alissa asked, her voice cracking in a rare display of vulnerability. Steve looked down at his hands. Alissa held her breath and willed her tear to run back into her eye.
"Oh my god." She whispered.
"We had our eyes on you for a while and
knew your capabilities, and we extracted you from the gunfight before you became a casualty too. You're the only one left."
Alissa was absolutely stunned. It just couldn't be possible. In the span of a little over a year, she had lost her fiancée, Alex, fell in love with someone new, and lost him too. She refused to let it be her reality. And, there was just something in Alissa's gut telling her that her Commander wasn't dead like they were telling her.
The second she was out of the cuffs, she was going to find out for herself what the truth really was.
I
Alissa could never have expected what had happened.
She didn't know why, how or who did it, and she didn't have time to think about what those answers would be as she could hear sirens wailing in the distance, coming closer and closer to her. She was in the wrong place at the wrong time, but she would have taken all the bullets if she had been there just minutes before. She would have died for Alex if that was an option. Alex was worth dying for.
Alissa wished she had known what was coming. She wished she would have known what to do. She thought back to just minutes before the tragedy, how things were going so well, nothing was out of the ordinary, it was a regular Saturday afternoon.
She was coming back from the grocery store, putting the bags down on the counter as she greeted Alex with warm, open arms and a kiss. Alex’s blonde hair bounced against the collar of her sleek black pantsuit, Alex towering over Alissa’s petite frame in her black Jimmy Choo stiletto court heels. She had just come back from the office, and Alissa embraced every chance she got to have with Alex, considering Alex was working hard to make partner at the law firm she worked at.
They made small talk as they put away the groceries, Alex’s diamond engagement ring glistening in the afternoon sunlight. Suddenly, Alex’s words were cut off and she gasped before collapsing onto the ground, a puddle of red seeping through the front of her white blouse. Alissa hadn’t even heard a gunshot.
She turned her head towards the sound and caught a glimpses of the shooter before he ran out of their backyard. It was an assassination, and he didn’t care that Alissa was right there to witness it all. There was no struggle. There was no fight. Alex didn’t even have a chance to defend herself. Instead, she was ripped right out from underneath Alissa.
Alissa didn’t know what to do. Alex wasn’t breathing, the gunshot wound had been a through-and-through and tore right through her heart. There was no saving Alex, she was gone nearly instantly. It didn’t matter what Alissa could have done, no amount of pressure or CPR would bring Alex back. So, she sat frozen on her kitchen floor, covered in blood, not even crying. She didn’t know how to respond. It felt like a terrible, horrible nightmare that she just couldn’t pull herself from. Her body wasn’t her own, she felt no control over her bloody hands. Her own engagement diamond was soaked through to the setting with Alex’s blood. It seeped into every tiny gap possible and stayed there, never to leave, always to be a permanent reminder of the worst day of her life.
The dark red sludge was pouring out of Alex’s chest and onto the white tile of their kitchen floor. Alissa remained still. Alex’s eyes stared into nothing.
But Alex was dead, and Commander Shane McAndrews and Detective Matthew Daniels think Alissa was the one who killed her.
Before she knew it, there were police everywhere, swarming around Alissa like bees. She was pulled away from Alex's body by unfamiliar hands on her strong and tattooed arms, her hands cuffed behind her back. She didn't hear anything the police had said, not when they read her rights or when they pulled her up from the body and handcuffed her. Alissa felt outside of herself, and she followed whatever they did. She didn't resist or try to explain because she didn't even know what was going on around her. She just accepted that she was being arrested. Two large, intimidating men came up to her, her petite height made her look up to see them.
One was blonde and the other brunette. When she turned to look at them when they were talking to her, the bright afternoon sun hit her eyes directly and she had to squint, making her head hurt even more next to the thoughts of her trying to understand what happened to her soon-to-be wife. she found it hard to comprehend, the blood stains on her clothes distracting her more than anything.
The blonde, bearded cop obviously wasn't from around town and he wasn't having any of it. Even though she was out of it, Alissa knew that the detective had mentally checked out and was done for the day. He had a lot of other things to deal with. The taller, brunette cop had tattoos poking out from the cuffs of his tightly fitted shirtsleeves. He wasn't fucking around, and Alissa could tell that from his two thigh holsters and aggressive stance. He tried to get to her, but he was unsuccessful. She couldn't even get in touch with herself, so it would be a miracle if he got her out of her catatonic state.
"Shane, give it up. She's not going to respond." The blonde spoke to the taller, brunette cop.
"Yeah, and that makes her guilty. The guilty ones never talk."
"No, Shane, that does not make her guilty. Let's just get her back to the station and we'll see if she'll talk then."
"Matt, if that works, I'll buy the drinks tonight."
The interrogation room was eerily lit by industrial neon lights, one bulb flickering on and off above Alissa. She was handcuffed to a metal chair, the interrogation room otherwise empty except for Matt, the blonde detective, dress shirt sleeves rolled up and a tie loose around his neck.
He pulled up the second metal chair in the room and placed it in front of Alissa, the back of the chair facing her. He sat down, arms crossed over the top of the chair, and he looked into her green eyes, hiding behind her brownish blonde hair. He didn't ask her anything for a long time, he wanted to figure out the story her vacant eyes were trying to tell, first.
"Did you kill Alex, Lieutenant?" He asked, after their long stretch of silence that was making Shane inpatient.
"No." She responded simply, still in shock.
He got up from the chair after another moment of him analyzing her body language and walked over to the other man who was standing against the wall, his arms crossed, hiding in the shadows. He wasn't like any other cop Alissa had ever met. The blonde Brooklyn cop muttered quietly to him
"Man, I believe her."
"I can't believe you, Matt! You just take her word for it... I need evidence that proves she didn't do it, or else I say she did. She was at the crime scene with blood on her hands, over the body. And, you just asked her a yes or no question. Of course, she's going to say she didn't do it."
"There wasn't a gun at the scene, and they don't own one. If she had killed her, she would have run. That's what guilty people do. Shane, my gut is just telling me this poor girl is innocent."
"I need more than that. I need evidence saying she didn't do it."
"She has the look."
"You say I have a look, you have you be more specific than that."
"Shane, take a good long look at her. She's in shock. She can't get the image of her dead fiancée out of her head, the scene is replaying in her mind, each time with how she could have been there to save her. She didn't do it."
The dark-haired man glanced over at Alissa and replied in defeat before he left the room.
"I still want evidence."
"Well, just promise me that you won't go so hard on her like you usually do with our suspects. A gentle hand is probably going to work better in this case. Don't scare her, she could help us out when she starts to recover and come out of shock."
"I'm going to do what I can to get information out of her. We need answers, Matt."
"Then sit with her and wait for them. Don't fight me on this, Shane."
"How long have we been married, Matt? You told me that this was becoming predictable. You should know by now that this is how I do things."
"You got me shot on our first day together. I'm not so sure how much I like your methods, Shane!" Matt, the blonde, replied without missing a beat.
"Oh, come on, Matt!
You barely got scratched."
"Says the Navy Commander who was born without the primal sense of fear."
"Hey, you're the cop who wears a tie in Miami."
"Normal people wear ties to work! Honestly, Shane. Some people are born without a filter, you're born without the rational 'this could get me or anyone around me killed' gene. I have a therapist you need to see."
As much shock as Alissa was in, she could still hear the cops bickering in the corner of the interrogation room and she tried her hardest not to laugh out of disbelief and confusion. Her reality felt altered, it felt like a dream. Their voices were distant and muffled, then became echoic. She found it hard to focus, and their dynamic didn't help her return to normal.
When the interrogation room became silent once again, Alissa took a deep breath and looked up at the Commander and the detective who was a long way from home.
"I know it's not much, but I can tell you what I saw happen." Alissa whispered, her voice still trembling.
As soon as she said that, Matt pushed Shane out of the way of the chair so he could sit and face Alissa once again to hear her testimony.
"Alissa, anything will help us at this point. We need you on this."
"Well," She began. "I was just arriving home from running some errands around town, grocery shopping, things like that when I saw my fiancée get knocked back suddenly and collapse on the floor. When I took a closer look, I noticed that a fight had happened. I caught a glimpse of the... the killer, as he was leaving. He was six feet tall at least, muscular, about a buck 80, dark hair, and had a face tattoo."
"Alissa, is there anyone you can think of that might want to hurt your fiancée?" Shane asked.
"Maybe... just one."
"Okay, who is it?"
"I can't remember his name, but Alex would sometimes mention a guy who was accusing her of taking her client's money by charging extra fees to all the paperwork she wrote up, things like that."
