Unchecked (New York Unraveled #2)

Chapter Eight.

EVAN.

"How the fuck is this possible?" I screamed at my team. They had given me concrete information that there would be a raid on that very weekend. It was four in the morning on Monday and nobody, I mean nobody was caught with anything remotely drug-related. This whole mission had been a drastic failure.
All five of them were standing straight with their hands behind their backs and their heads bowed down. None of them dared to reply.
"I asked you a fucking question!" I slammed a fist in the wall. If this failed, I would be off the case and I hated failures, especially when I'd invested so many resources into it.
"We don't know, sir..." replied Jessica. She had the most balls out of all of them and to think that she was the only girl in the team.
"Now what am I supposed to write in the report? That I spent two days training five dumbshits for a faux call?" I shouted again. "It's almost as if they knew-" I was cut off by my own thoughts. "...almost as if they knew there was going to be a raid," I finished softly.
They passed each other glances.
"How could they have known? This information never went outside of here," pointed Roy.
"Are you guys positive you didn't tell anyone? Even by mistake? Maybe talked about it in a place where someone could've heard?" I asked.
All of them shook their heads simultaneously.
"Sure?" I asked menacingly.
"Very sure."
"Yes, sir."
"Go home," I told them. "We'll talk this over in the morning."
A lot of things were revolving around my mind. There was only one person who knew- Rayne. I had told her in a desperate explanation. It had slipped out of my mouth even while I still hadn't found out what man she had met four days ago and why she had lied to me about it. She was the only person who could have told somebody. Who else? How would this information get out of here?
For five hours, I kept sitting in the same chair and pacing on the same floor to sort my thoughts out. It was agonizing; I didn't want to believe that she could have done it. But I needed answers and I needed them fast before anybody else got a sniff on her. If this matter reached above, I wouldn't be able to get her or myself out of the mess.
Almost everybody had already come in by the time I exited. I called up Rayne and asked her if she wanted to meet me for breakfast.
"Have you slept at all?" she asked. I'd told her I'd be staying over at the headquarters for some work.
"Uh, not really," I replied, rubbing my hands across my face tiredly.
"Come to my place and rest for a bit. You need sleep more than food right now," she ordered.
I blinked at the caller screen. Man, she was one bossy shit and she spoke in such an obvious way, as if there's no scope anybody would disobey her.
"Okay. I'll be there in ten," I said.
It took me less than ten minutes but I wasted the extra time in cooking up the exact lines I was going to say to her.
It didn't matter. I was such a stupid fucker that the moment I saw her, I forgot what I had carefully planned. She ushered me inside and locked the door. "Go ahead. Knock yourself out."
I took off my blazer and draped it on the back of a couch. There was a bed against the far wall, right below the window. She had placed a blanket on the foot of the bed for me and closed the curtains so that the sunlight doesn't come in.
She got me a glass of water and pushed me down on the bed. "Why so down?" she asked, sitting beside me.
"Remember I told you about this raid we were planning?" I asked, carefully watching her expressions for any sign that might give her away.
"Yeah. The reason you needed Kelly. I remember," she said in a slightly miffed voice.
I had to smile at that. "Yeah. It didn't quite go as we planned."
"What happened?" she asked, taking my now empty glass from me.
"Somebody tipped the dealers off. We didn't find a single illegal activity," I said. "But it's confusing because nobody outside my team knew about it."
She raised an offensive eyebrow at me. "Why you lookin' at me like that, bruh?" she asked and took the glass to dump it in the kitchen.
I followed her and she must not have heard me because she bumped into me when she turned suddenly.
"I'm just saying. You couldn't have told anybody, could you?" 
She narrowed her eyes at me and shoved me till I was back on the bed. "You're sleep deprived. Accuse me again and I'll drive a hammer through your skull. Save your questioning routine for others."
I caught her by the arm before she could walk away and pulled her till she was right beside me. "Let me ask you something."
"Are you gonna shut your trap if I say no?" she asked hopefully.
I rolled her over till she was under me and held her face in my hands. "Not a chance."
"Fine." She rolled her eyes. "Do your thing."
"Remember that morning after the first time we slept together?" I asked.
"It wasn't all that long ago. Of course I remember," she said.
"I dropped you off at a coffeehouse. Where did you go?" 
"Inside the coffeehouse?" she said sarcastically.
"You didn't. Nobody was there. I'm asking again- where did you go?" I asked, more forcefully this time.
"How do you know? Have you been stalking me?"
Okay, she was offended and if my conjectures were wrong then I would have hell to pay.
"As a matter of fact, yes. Now. Where did you go?"
"It's none of your business. I wasn't planning a murder to have the police on my head. Now get out of my house and come back when you're ready to be Evan, not Detective Saunders," she said, pushed me back roughly and went off to stand far away from me. She pulled out a chair from behind the kitchen counter and sat down with a huff, making it a point to not look in my direction, even if the other direction was basically a wall.
I ran my fingers through my hair in frustration and sighed. I messed it up. It didn't look like any of it was her fault. Maybe one of the others mentioned something along the lines which someone else overheard. Or maybe the gangs supplying drugs were just two steps ahead of us. Either way, I messed it up.
I walked over to where Rayne was sitting with her chin in her palm and put my arms around her from behind. "I'm sorry. I guess you're right; I'm really sleep deprived."
"Why have you been stalking me, Evan?" she asked, her voice trembling a little.
"Because Nathan Black asked me to. Your best friend wouldn't stop fretting which meant he wouldn't stop fretting and you didn't want bodyguards so I was supposed to keep a check on you," I explained. I realized two second too late that it was the wrong thing to say.
Her head whipped towards me. "Is that why you asked me out?"
"No. No, no, no. Look at me," I said when she turned away. I rotated her chair to face me and cupped her cheek. "I told you that the reason I came back after dropping you home the first time I met you was because I wanted to ask you out. I wasn't lying. Him putting me on your trail only sanctioned me to do this. And gave me a little more courage. Trust me, I'm a wimp."
That brought out a little smile on her face. I patted myself mentally on the back for this small victory.
"Sleep with me?" I asked her. "Before I fall dead."
"I woke up two hours ago. But I'll lie down with you," she relented.
I removed my necktie and opened the top two buttons of my shirt as she opened the blanket and wrapped it around us. I laid my head down on her chest and then the last thing I remembered was the soft skin of her wrist brushing against my earlobe as she stroked my hair tenderly.

When I woke up, I was sure it was way past noon. Rayne was sitting cross legged, leaning against the window and my head was in her lap, my arms wrapped around her waist. When saw me stirring, she put aside the cellphone she had been tapping on and pushing my hair back from my forehead, kissed my temple. 
"Hey, sleepyhead," she said sweetly.
"Hi," I croaked, squeezing my eyes shut and opening them to drive away the haze of sleep.
"Get up. Time for breakfast," she said.
"What time is it?" I asked.
"Four o'clock," she replied.
"What the-" I sat up with a start which made my head spin.
"Relax. You haven't had anything since yesterday night. You're bound to feel a little lightheaded," she said gently.
"I have to get to work. I should've been there hours ago," I said, quickly standing up and wearing my socks and shoes.
"See, I got you lasagna but if you wanna go then..." she shrugged in an exaggerated manner.
"Don't do this. You know I'm hungry," I whined.
"Fifteen minutes won't hurt anybody," she said firmly and took my hand, leaving no room for arguments.
Obviously it took me more than fifteen minutes. She wouldn't let me go until I'd finished everything and it was too delicious to leave anyway. Merely saying goodbye at the door took me another ten minutes because our innocent kisses turned into a passionate fire that neither of us had the willpower to douse. Ultimately, we pulled back because one of the ladies who lived across the hall coughed way too loudly.
"Frustrated ladies who never get any," muttered Rayne.
I chuckled and pressed one last kiss to her lips. "Bye, RayneBow," I said.
"Bye, Evan," she said reluctantly.
One rendezvous with her put me in a far better mood. In fact, I was whistling all the way to the HQ. But when I got there, all my joy went down the drain. 
As I feared, I had been put off the case. It took me two straight hours of begging and grovelling with the Deputy Chief to give me one last chance. How I was going to do that, I had no idea. But I was going to. I had to. This was my last chance.
Let me give you a suggestion, Evan. You want to find the drugs? Search in the small places where few people go. You want to find the people? Search in the big places where they can get lost easily...
I stalked back to my office with a gray cloud looming above my head and every person out there could see the dark shadow it was casting all around me. Jessica, Roy and Dan looked up in carefully masked shock when I slammed the door behind me and slumped back in my chair.
"Three months," I growled. "The weekend three months from now is going to be the night for the kill. I want you to take a map of NY, mark every small and big bar and club. Three to five trained people undercover in every bar and club of the city three months from now, depending on the size of the place. Make them believe only the place they are raiding is the target. Even if the word gets out, it won't matter. The net would be spread everywhere."
"Where would we find so many people?" asked Dan.
I clenched and unclenched my fist. "Take permission from authorities and pick up the officers in training. Recruit the small time probationary police officers and constables. If it's still less, take civilians but keep them under complete inspection. We're finishing them once and for all."
In the span of three months, we trained about five hundred people. Most of them were supposed to go in two or three bars in one night. The bars missed on the first night would be targeted the next day. People don't expect a raid on two consecutive days. This was going to fill the jails in the city. I was resolved for this not to be a failure.