Page 26 of The Sins That Bleed

Knock Knock

RAI

S tiffness has seized my body and a jackhammer is pounding away inside my skull.

I’m sitting in my office at the end of another long day, typing up notes and adding everything to the case file, but my body is being punished for not moving from my desk.

Fuck, I’m getting old.

So far, we’d quadrupled the amount of leads we had and if we kept this up, I’d run out of room in my office soon from the sheer volume of paperwork. The day had flown by while Nico and I interviewed everyone we’d arrested.

They’d looked a little better than the day before, but not by much and, true to their word, they sang like canaries.

Names, address, family trees, and day-to-day operations were provided in great detail.

We had to verify it all, of course, but from the information we could confirm in real-time, they were giving us incredible leads.

“Knock knock,” Nico chirps through the open door, and I lift my head to look at him.

“You know, most people actually knock instead of saying it.”

“And here’s me thinking you’d actually be in a good mood after such a successful day! We’ve had a major break in the case, and you have the most handsome, intelligent, gorgeous, did I say handsome?—”

I throw a pack of sticky notes at him that he deftly catches, swiping them out of the air like it was nothing. His hearty laugh fills the room and I can’t hide my grin because he’s right, we’ve had a great day.

“I’m worried, is all, this all seems too good to be true and I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop, you know? How do we know our informant can be trusted?”

Nico moves into my office, closing the door behind him to give us some privacy from the rest of our coworkers. With a case this sensitive, you can’t trust any information accidently falling into the wrong hands.

“You mean, what if she is secretly a serial killer that lures unsuspecting victims to her basement and tortures them to death?” His face is deadpan, as if he’s actually there.

“What the fuck, Nico? That’s so dark! You’ll only give yourself nightmares, but yes, something like that.” I grumble the last part, and I’m confused as I watch his face warp back into a grin, as if he’s coming out of a trance. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine. Sorry, didn’t mean to freak you out, but I swear it’s what happened in a dream I had the other night and I guess I freaked myself out.”

He laughs again, but there is a nervous edge to it. I make a mental note to check-in with him more since he tends to always be chipper and positive, he can easily convince you he’s never struggling with anything.

“Good, you would tell me if you weren’t though?” I press.

“Of course, princess, you know I will.” This time when he smiles at me, I relax and give him a terse nod.

“Can you help me get this all filed away? I was thinking we can go out for something to eat, maybe pizza and a few beers to celebrate, my treat?”

His eyes light up and he immediately snaps into action, practically throwing himself at my desk so we can get out of here faster, and my smile is so big it makes my cheeks hurt. I wish we shared an office; we spend so much time together in here we might as well.

We finish up in record time and my office is back to being neat and tidy, everything back in its place. I lock up and we head out, saying goodnight to those still working before making our way to the elevator.

We chat and laugh the whole evening, neither of us talking about work for once, and its refreshing. I’ve been so caught up in the case and beating myself up at the lack of progress that I forgot what it was like to have fun, always working late into the night before just falling into bed.

We eat pepperoni pizza and drink beer until we can’t fit anything else in. We’d walked to our favourite pizza joint a few blocks from our apartment complex so we didn’t have to worry about staying sober and could enjoy ourselves.

Nico tells me a story about a cat that sounds like its summoning a démon and we can’t stop laughing at his attempt to copy it as we walk home, clutching our stomachs as we hoot and holla through the city streets.

I can’t recall the last time I had this much fun, and the thought makes me sad.

We’re both wiping tears as we make our way up to our apartments. I step out of the elevator first, barely able to say goodnight around giggles and stumble toward my place. I try and calm myself down but it isn’t working as I pull my keys from my pocket.

It takes me a moment to find the right one but eventually I do and raise it toward the keyhole and it’s only then that I realise my door is slightly ajar and it immediately sobers me. I know Valeska comes and goes, but she has never used the front door so I rule her out.

I draw my firearm from my ankle strap, the one I keep on me at all times in case situations like these come up. I flick the safety off and enter my apartment, flinging the door open and scanning the room, my gun aimed everywhere my eyes look.

There’s nobody here, but I need to clear the apartment before I assume I’m alone. I go room-by-room and check all the closets, even the fire escape gets a scan before I put the safety back on.

My apartment is empty, but whoever came here made an absolute mess. It looks like a bomb went off, cupboards open and hanging off the hinges, clothes and shoes strewn everywhere, all of the drawers left open and in disarray.

My books have been ripped apart, the torn pages crumpled and scattered like fallen leaves from a tree. I want to cry at the scene, my stress levels crank up at the mess and the itch to put everything in its place consumes me, but this is now a crime scene so I have to leave it.

I take in the kitchen one last time before heading out, my eyes snagging on the roses Valeska had given me that now lay crushed and bleeding on the floor from being trampled over. I break the number one code that you’re taught in law enforcement when in an active crime scene, never touch anything.

I ignore all of my training as I reach down and find the poem Valeska wrote for me that came with the flowers and pocket it, ignoring the overwhelming urge to call her and tell her what happened.

I don’t need her to save me.

I step into the hall and call Nico, my panic flaring but he answers before the first ring even finishes and his words fill me with dread.

“Someone broke in to my apartment.” He sounds close to tears, and I screw my eyes shut at the sound.

If his apartment looks anything like mine, then I know he’s devastated. I don’t have much for any intruder to take, let alone destroy, but Nico…fuck. I try and keep him calm, snapping into work mode and separating myself from the fact that this is my home.

“They broke into mine, too, this isn’t a coincidence. I’m going to call it in and then we can talk. Did you sweep the apartment?”

“Yeah, all clear. You?” he replies.

“All clear, I’ll call it in.” I hang up and make the call, dispatchers telling me they will be here in minutes, so I stand and wait, thinking I’m glad we weren’t here when it happened.

A couple of hours later, Nico and I each have a bag packed, ready to find a hotel to stay in for the night. We spoke with the attending officers and gave them all the information we had, which wasn’t much.

We don’t say anything to each other as we head to the lobby of the apartment complex, our fun night of pizza and beer long since forgotten.

The doors open and we step out. I have no idea where we are going to stay—it’s late and the hotels in this part of the city are usually fully booked weeks in advance.

“Rai, Nico, over here.”

My head snaps over to the direction of the voice and I see Valeska standing in the lobby as if I have conjured her myself. She looks formidable in the three-piece suit that’s cut perfectly to her body, every inch the business mogul as she stands tall.

Her sleek black hair is down, parted in the middle as it surrounds her like a cloak. I’m transfixed. I want to march over to her and demand she leave, the fact I want her to take me with her and do dirty, wicked things is something I’m choosing to ignore.

Nico pulls me with him and I snap myself out of staring at her and head over, noticing that she’s got her friend Sunny with her tonight. Her short stature has me tilting my head down to meet her eyes.

“What brings you lovely ladies here tonight?” Nico asks them, sounding flirty instead of stressed like he had been earlier.

He still carries his stress like a cloak even as he pretends he isn’t. This night went to shit so fast.

“Oh you know, we were in the area and thought we’d stop by,” Sunny responds, keeping up the joke to break the tension.

My eyes find Valeska’s in the brightly lit lobby, unspoken words passing between us like she knows what happened already. I swallow roughly as the stress of tonight’s events wind my body tighter until I feel like I might snap. Her eyes narrow as she takes me in before she speaks.

“Come, you will be staying with us.” I go to cut her off but she waves a hand at me. “I wasn’t asking.”

She twirls on her heels and waltzes out the door, all grace and power. I have no choice but to follow behind Nico and Sunny as we step out into the chilly night. I’m thankful I put my knitted cardigan on earlier to ward some of the cold off.

A shiny black town car idles by the curb, and someone steps out to open the door for Valeska and Sunny. It’s the same guy from the club that took us to the private suite; he takes our bags and places them in the boot of the vehicle.

Zyon, if my memory serves me well, the handsome fucker.

I let Nico in first and climb in behind him, finding two rows of black leather seats facing each other. Valeska and Sunny sat on one side as we take the other, facing the two women who came and saved our asses from finding somewhere to sleep.

The door clicks shut and warmth envelops me. I shiver at the change in temperature but I’m grateful to not be freezing anymore. My body relaxes a little as I put my seatbelt on, while I try to ignore the scrutinising gaze of Valeska as she watches me.

I’m also pretending I don’t enjoy it but I’m failing miserably.

It’s like a lifetime has passed since I saw her, but in reality, it’s been no time at all. She looks perfectly fine; you’d never know a metal object was plunged through her chest a couple of days ago and I’m relieved.

I hadn’t realised how much I needed to see her in person to quell it, even if I still have questions about how it’s possible.

The car rolls forward, merging with the traffic that still exists even at this time of night. We sit in silence and the atmosphere in the luxury car grows thick with tension until Nico breaks it.

“So, where are you taking us, Lady V? To your secret lair to fatten us up before you eat us?”

Sunny barks out a laugh before slapping a hand over her mouth. My brow furrows at the reaction but it doesn’t deter Nico. He jokes about which food he’d like to eat and eventually Sunny plays along.

I feel Valeska’s eyes on me so I turn to her, my brow raised in question. I wouldn’t be surprised if she owned all the hotels in this vicinity, able to open up a room for us. The corner of her red stained lips tips up before she speaks.

“Actually, you’re both moving in with us.”