Total pages in book: 150
Estimated words: 136791 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 684(@200wpm)___ 547(@250wpm)___ 456(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 136791 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 684(@200wpm)___ 547(@250wpm)___ 456(@300wpm)
By the time Jason Ames found me, I was already dragging motherfuckers a lot like Kaleo into Seattle PD and handing them and evidence of their crimes over to whatever wide-eyed officer was unlucky enough to be stuck on desk duty at the time.
Then – Age Twenty-Three
"Man, this is bullshit."
"Shut the fuck up," I mutter and grab the prick by his collar, yanking him closer to me when he starts to drift away like he's looking for an opportunity to run. I'm twice his size and have already caught him twice after his stupid ass tried to run from me.
He's still breathing hard from his last attempt, but I'm barely winded. I grew up winning track meets before I went overseas. I could do this shit with him all night. I think he knows it too. He curses again and tries to yank his arm out of my hold without any real force. I tighten my grip anyway, practically dragging him up the sidewalk to the double doors of Seattle Police Department's Southwest Precinct office.
The sky is a bleak shade of gray, heavy with dark clouds stretching as far as the eye can see. The wind whips through the air, blowing leaves and trash across the already wet pavement. The rain is a hazy curtain in the distance, slowly creeping closer.
I just want to get this over with and get inside before the next monsoon hits. In Los Angeles, the sun always shines and the smog never recedes. My time in Syria was dry, hot, and humid. Seattle is nothing like either place. When summer blew out a week ago, the rain blew in.
I'm already fucking tired of it.
The kid mutters under his breath, calling me a fucking cocksucker.
"Shut the fuck up and walk," I tell him, tired of his shit.
"Fuck you," he growls at me, his voice changing pitch halfway through as if he's still going through puberty. "You ain't no fucking cop."
He's right. I'm not a cop. In jeans and a hoodie with three days of scruff on my face and my hair all fucked up, I couldn’t pass for a fucking cop if I tried. Even on a good day, I don’t look like the type of motherfucker you want to hand a badge and a gun. I'm not sure why the fuck they put a gun in my hand overseas, honestly. I’m more like this kid than even he knows, but it doesn't change anything.
He's still going to jail and I'm still the one marching his stupid ass there.
Calvin Titus may only be twenty-one, but he's a mean son of a bitch. He's been robbing old ladies and little kids for years.
Six days ago, he left a seventy-three-year-old in a coma after beating the man with his own cane. Seattle PD has been looking for the man's assailant ever since, but didn't have a clue who he was or where to find him.
Lucky for them, I did. Titus spends his afternoons outside the local elementary school with a few of his boys, slinging dope to fifth and sixth graders. If Seattle doesn't screw up all my hard work, he won't be doing that again anytime soon.
"Man, let me go," he says when I shoulder open the doors to the precinct and push my way inside with him still in my grip. "I got rights."
"So did Thomas Chandler," I growl, yanking him forward by the arm when he plants his feet and refuses to budge.
The pudgy cop on desk duty looks up from his phone, his bushy brows climbing toward his hairline as his gaze runs over me and then Titus. He doesn't make a move to help me with the kid.
"Mind giving me a hand here?" I snap when Titus grabs onto the edge of the door and clings like that's going to save his scrawny ass.
The cop glances between us, his eyes wide, and then hurries around the chest-high desk to help me. Titus fights like hell, trying to free himself from my iron grip. All he manages to do is tear his shirt and earn himself a hard elbow to the ribs.
"Son of a bitch," the pudgy cop growls when Titus knees him in the balls. He locks his beefy arm around the kid's neck and sweeps his feet out from underneath him, taking him to the ground.
Titus thrashes and curses, calling me and the cop every name in the book.
I just shake my head and position myself in front of the doors in case he manages to break loose and tries to make a run for it.
The cop kneels beside him and wrestles him into submission before slapping cuffs on him. Titus yells and curses the entire time, but when the cop threatens to tase him if he doesn't shut up, the kid snaps his mouth closed.