Chapter 1

"Don't,"I grit out through my teeth.

And for a moment, a short three count, I think she might listen to me. But I knew as soon as the call came in that she'd be the first on the scene. It didn't matter that she'd only been clocked in for less than an hour. I knew her better than anyone else here. She would be en route to the scene as soon as the location was out over dispatch. The intel lined up. It matched with the gathered evidence that shifted from a drug ring to the trafficking of human life. Women specifically.

A neighbor from two miles north of the old tobacco mill had called saying he didn't remember the property selling at auction, but there was activity there all weekend. Enough that his horses were spooked and stayed away from the pasture that had once been their favorite. The same pasture beside the tobacco farmland.

My walkie crackles as I stand, lingering at my desk and waiting to hear her response.

"I'm not asking, Foxx. I'm going in. There's movement, and I just heard a scream or pleading. It's probable cause."

"Goddamnit," I bark. "Fucking reckless." With a huff, I rush out of my office and into the pit toward the exit. "Del, you get your team at that farm right fucking now," I shout to my superior officer. "How are there no more patrols in the vicinity?" Everyone in the precinct is aware of this call. Fiasco is a small town considering its population, but there's a lot of land. Not too much happens around here that multiple cars would need to be on a scene immediately. But I don't think about what I'm saying. I'm reacting and trying to move. Fast. "Fiona and a fucking rookie are the only ones on scene right now."

Del's eyebrows hit his hairline. I messed up as soon as I said it. Fiona. It should have been Officer Delaney. Not Fiona. It didn't matter that I'd known her since we were in grade school together; more than half of these guys had been in school along with us. But I'll worry about that conversation later. It isn't the fact that I'm swearing at my lieutenant or pissed off that I wasn't called on the scene first. I run the K-9 unit. Any drug situation in town has Julep and me on the scene ahead of any patrol crew. But right now, they need backup. If this is gang related, they're walking into something they might not be able to control.

I curl my tongue and whistle out, rushing through the garage bay and toward my squad car. Julep is at my side in seconds, nails clacking on the concrete floor. "Time to work, Jules."

Once I open the passenger back door, she jumps into her seat. I give her a quick pet along her dark brown head, hook her vest into the seatbelt harness, and I'm on my way. I'm a mile from the station when my radio channels start getting louder, the comms from other officers en route giving an update.

"Dispatch, we're eight minutes out."

It's too long. And I haven't heard a damn thing from Fiona. I look at the time on the dash. It's been four minutes since she last responded and nothing since. Fuck.

"Dispatch." Her voice sounds over comms and my grip on the steering wheel loosens. "The tobacco mill is as quiet as a mouse." But before I even exhale, I hear her voice back on the radio. It's a breathy whisper along with static that ratchets my nerves. "Dispatch?—"

Julep lets out a short bark from the backseat.

"We're going to her, girl."

Julep had a good twenty minutes of belly rubs from Fiona this morning. It"s been that way for the past six months. And before that, I had a feeling Fiona would still give her some extra pets before she snuck out every night.

I can see the tobacco farm in the distance. I flick off my sirens before I hit the main drag, but keep my lights on, especially now that it's dusk. I don't know what I'm coming into and the last thing I want is sirens to make this situation worse.

"Officer Delaney, do you copy," Dispatch responds again. "There are three units less than five minutes out. And the K-9 unit is less than two."

"Shots fired. Shots fired," comes over the next call, and I floor it as my heart races.

In the background, dispatch calls all available units to the abandoned tobacco mill that I'm turning into. Cutting the engine, I'm out of my car seconds later. I choose to leave Julep in the back, since shots fired means K-9 stays put until there's an all-clear. She won't help in a shoot-out, but she's read my body language and heard Fiona's over the radio, so I leave her growling in the back seat as I quietly remove my gun and flashlight. When I move closer to the mill, the doors are wide open, and remnants of dried tobacco leaves still hang from rafters intermittently. There's forgotten machinery, old and rusted, sitting in the center of the space. Beyond that, it's empty.

Muffled shouts and two more gunshots ring out from an oversized shed at least a hundred feet away, along the edge of the farmland. I hear the sirens from the two squad cars coming down the same long drag. Screeching tires pull into the driveway, and seconds later, one squad car flies past me and directly toward the shed.

She's fine."She gave her location" are the words I keep saying to myself as I sprint toward the officers entering the shed. I left my radio in the car so I can't be sure, but they have an exact location. She's going to be okay. She's a trained, experienced officer.

When I reach the shed door, gasping for breath with my flashlight raised and the gun cocked beneath, the situation in front of me is anything but controlled. "Jesus Christ," I mumble as I approach. Our newest rookie, Lee, is bleeding out on the floor in front of another officer, who's trying to make a tourniquet from his belt.

I don't stop to help.

Fiona.

"Mills, where's Delaney?" I ask, approaching the double doors on the other side of the shed. A flashlight bobs in the distance as I spot small tracks of blood in front of me.

Mills shouts from behind me, "Del is following the tracks. Nobody else was in here when we pulled up."

And that's when I hear it on Mills's radio. Del radioing dispatch. "I have another officer down. I need paramedics. Now."

I don't think. All my training—the caution that's necessary to override knee-jerk reactions and emotion-led actions—reduces to fragments in the wind. I run. I follow where the flashlight in the distance hasn't moved, rushing toward it at full speed. When I veer past a broken slotted fence, that's when I can make out the outline of them.

Del crouched over a still body in the grass. My eyes squint as my chest laces with pain. "No." I rush past Del and to his other side, and pull her away from him and into my arms. Tears that I don't remember falling wet my face as I shout at her unmoving body, "No, baby, what happened? Fuck. Fuck. No."

I don't care that I've just taken her out of her father's arms and into mine. I don't care that I've just shown all my cards that my relationship with Fiona Delaney had moved far beyond colleagues, friends, and even the ridiculous idea that it was only physical. I don't care that I keep repeating the same words over and over again. "I love you. You cannot die on me, do you hear me?"

I pull back to see where she's been injured, the small slit along her neck barely pulsing any longer as blood coats my arms and the ground below me. I push my palm against it to stop the bleeding. The shirt of her uniform is unbuttoned all the way down past her vest and a patch of wetness lines her side.

When I roll her toward me, Del's tear-streaked face squints in pain as he mutters out, "Jesus Christ, Fiona. My baby." We both look down at a piece of her skin that's shredded like she had gotten caught in a wired fence.

Her body grows heavier in my arms as I hold her tighter. "Just hold on, Fi. Just hold on."

I know she's not breathing, but I can't let go.

"She's gone, Grant."