The F King:A Bad Boy Romance(28)

Without warning, I vomited all over my coffee table, and struggled to  hold on to consciousness as the world swam crazily around me. I pushed  the table away as I shakily returned to my feet, stumbling to the  kitchen before emptying the rest of my stomach contents into the sink.

I could barely even feel the cold water against the fire on my face, as I  ran the tap and splashed it on my skin. The burning in my throat from  the bile was similarly untouched by whatever water I managed to slurp  from my cupped hands.

"Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck … "

My stomach cramped up again, but there was nothing left. I turned from  the sink and doubled over. How had this happened? What had they found  out?

"What the fuck have I done?" I groaned.

Around the solid knot of my stomach, I could feel anger spluttering like  an engine trying to start while submerged in a swamp. With a shaking  hand, I picked up my phone up off the floor.

A knock came at the door, and I spun around so fast that I almost  toppled over. I looked from the door, to the fire escape, then back to  the door again for a couple of seconds, before taking a step in the  direction of the fire escape.

"Mr. Crewe? Police, open up!"

I shook my head to try and clear it, but only succeeded in sparking a  headache that cluttered my thoughts even more. After creeping up to the  door, I looked through the peephole, and saw two men in police uniform  standing on the other side.

"Oh fuck."

"Mr. Crewe? Is that you?"

I bolted for the window to the fire escape and heard a solid thump on  the door behind me. The second strike splintered the door frame, and I  heard footsteps sprinting behind me.

A hand reached through the window, fingers scrabbled at my clothes, and I  barely managed to get away, racing down the metal stairs.

"Stop! Don't move! Police! Fuck! Get down there!"

I didn't have to look back to know that at least one of them was hot on  my trail. Their footsteps clanged on the metal almost as loudly as mine  did.

Fiery air burned in my throat, already sensitive from the stomach acid,  and I had no fucking idea how I was keeping my balance, let alone  achieving such speed down the steps. Yet, however fast I was going, the  police officer stayed right behind me, occasionally telling me to "halt"  but mostly saving his breath for the chase.

My mind was whirling with complete gibberish, panicked and not making  any sense at all. The only thing I could do was run, but after a while  it felt less like reality and more like a nightmare, as if the fire  escape was no escape at all, it just went on forever.

I was on the verge of losing my mind and simply jumping off the side,  when I came to a spring-loaded ladder. I jumped on it and it slid down  until the bottom rung was only about eight feet off the ground.

I jumped off the bottom rung, and dropped to the ground. My feet  couldn't have made contact with the concrete for more than a split  second before I was hit from behind in a flying tackle that set off an  explosion of pain in my back.

Painful pins and needles tingled in my fingers until my knees hit the  ground, followed shortly after by my chin, a crushing weight on top of  me. I spun around, wincing at the protests from my back, to see that it  was the other cop on top of me.

"Stop resisting!"

I launched as solid a punch as I could from my position, catching him in  the chin, but without enough power to dislodge him. He retaliated with a  punch of his own, and I heard my nose crunch. I saw stars when the back  of my head bounced off the concrete.

"Stop resisting!"

The other police officer landed, and between the two of them they  managed to flip me back over, get control of my arms and cuff them  behind my back, before hauling me to my feet.         

     



 

"Fuckin' hell! We came here because we had some bad news," one of them  said, pushing me along the alley towards the front of the building.  "Your mother-"

"I saw the fuckin' news."

"Yeah, well …  once you identify the body, we're gonna have a big talk. You got something to hide, Mr. Crewe?"

I hung my head and watched the blood dripping from my nose, landing on  my shirt. My extremities still felt numb except for a flare of pain in  my back that flashed out to my fingertips every few steps.

This was completely fucked. The Acardis would be waiting once the police  released me. I'd be in the chains Giovanni had threatened me with. I'd  never see Sarina again. My mom was dead and I'd never see Sarina again.

This was all happening so fast that my head was spinning. One cop  pressed down on my head as he bundled me into the back of the cruiser.

I looked dazedly out the windows as my stomach cramped again.

The cops got in the car, and the passenger cop turned to glance at me as  the two of them pulled at their seatbelts. Before either of them could  secure themselves, the sound of an engine from our left came loud and  clear, and I stared into its headlights with less than a second to  prepare for impact.

The noise of breaking glass and crunching metal was all-consuming. The  cop car flipped over on its side at impact, and the three of us bounced  around in there like the balls in a lottery.

With my hands cuffed behind my back, I had no chance to brace myself,  and it was all happening so fast that I might not have had any chance  anyway. The car teetered on its side for a second, then finally lurched  over on to its roof.

It was all I could do to groan when I heard doors opening and footsteps  approaching rapidly. A man wearing a balaclava opened the front  passenger door, looked in, pointed a gun at the cop's head and shot him  five times at point blank range with no hesitation.

Some fucking huge guy, also in a balaclava, reached in the driver's side  door and dragged the other cop out, and I lost sight of him for a  second. The next thing I knew, the cop came down on the sidewalk  head-first so hard that I could hear the crunch, and he went completely  limp.

The back door opened and the huge guy dragged me out of the car, around  the back of their van. They threw me in and I landed on top of two men  in suits, beaten to a bloody pulp and restrained, though they were as  still as the dead.

The doors closed and, seconds later, the van left at high speed.





Sarina





"Don't worry so much," said Millie. "You've been killing it in the assignments, you can afford to have a shitty test."

"Yeah."

I put my bottle of water into the mini-fridge in our dorm floor  kitchenette. Tests were never going to be my forte, when I was only  getting such good grades on the assignments because the police  department outsourced them for me.

This was especially true given how little time I'd spent keeping up with  that aspect of my persona, in comparison with the time I'd spent with  Ryan. Not to mention how little I cared about my commerce degree. The  charade would be over soon.

Last night, I was within a hair's breadth of telling Ryan, but every  time the words were on the tip of my tongue, an image flashed through my  mind. That hurt and betrayed look that would be on his face fueled what  I could only describe as terror in my heart.

He might do the worst thing possible. He might not love me anymore.

So I chickened out, again, and now deflecting Millie with test worries  was the only way to explain my mood. I couldn't answer a single thing  she quizzed me about at the library, no matter how much extra time we  spent there.

"I'm gonna head down to the cafeteria to catch the ass-end of dinner, you coming?"

"No, I'm staying with Ryan tonight."

"Oh, OK. See you in class tomorrow?"

"Yep."

Millie reached up and patted me on the shoulder. "See ya."

"Bye."

Without a care in the world, Mille headed back to the elevator so she  could extract whatever nutrients as was possible from the cardboard they  called food here. I'd only taken a couple steps towards my room when my  phone rang.

I dug it out of my pocket. I didn't recognize the number and almost  declined the call. I wasn't in the mood to participate in a survey, or  hear about the benefits of another cellular network, but that would have  been a first on this number, anyway.

"Hello?" I said.

"Sarina!"

The voice on the other end was absolutely frantic, laced with so much  panic that if I knew the caller, I certainly didn't recognize them now.  Heavy breathing partially masked the sound of yelling and thuds in the  background.         

     



 

"Yes …  who is this?" I asked.

"It's Shelton! You need to get out now!"

My eyes darted around. I saw nobody, but lowered my voice to a harsh whisper anyway, as my heart started to beat faster.

"What's going on?"

"You are compromised, Sarina! A dirty fuckin' cop ratted you out!  They're coming for you! You understand me? Get out! Run! Disappear until  the dust-"

The sound of splintering wood came down the line and cut off Sergeant  Shelton's words. Less than a second later, I heard the phone clatter to  the ground as several gunshots went off. People screamed and then it all  went silent for a second, before all I could hear was the sound of a  single set of footsteps approaching.