Untamed

Prologue

Two Years Earlier

The few times that sixteen-year-old Azmarie had pictured herself in handcuffs usually proved to be a lot kinkier than this. Added to the orange jumpsuit, the interrogation room and Good Cop/Bad Cop duo seated before her, and the young girl started to feel like the punch line to a very cruel joke.

It was a Friday night. Parties were taking place, bad decisions being made, and – for the first in a long time – Azmarie was not leading the masses. She was not scantily dressed while gate-crashing, not deliciously drunk while dancing on kitchen tables, not making morally compromising decisions; she was in an interrogation room. Being interrogated. Coming to terms with this fact was painful.

With every ticking sound made by the clock on the wall, Azmarie tapped her foot accordingly. An hour had gone by since she'd been plopped into her seat and little had been said on her part, thanks to her powerful silent treatment skills. Or cowardice, depending on how one viewed it. Bad Cop, a middle aged man with harsh lines on his face and the kind of stare that could reduce a grown man into a child, had been glaring at her for most of the past hour, like a predator studying its prey. Azmarie saw no shame in admitting she was the prey, the cute little bunny before a mean looking fox, and she averted her gaze from Bad Cop accordingly.

"Look," Bad Cop's deep voice resonated throughout the room, and demanded attention. While her gaze remained locked on the wall, her focus was locked on him. "it's clear 'brains' aren't a quality of yours, so I'll break this down for you. Tell us what we want to know – I'm talking names, dates, locations, or I will personally make sure you only ever see the sun through bars for a long time."

Silence followed, save for the clearing of Good Cop's throat. She, with a somewhat friendlier demeanour despite an equally hard gaze, cut her partner with a frown before reaching into a nearby suitcase and pulling out an envelope. From the envelope, three documents were pulled out and placed, face-down, on the table before her.

A frown was the only evidence of Azmarie's reaction toward Bad Cop's threat, an attempt at holding back the onslaught of sarcasm and wit that rested at the tip of her tongue. Call it childishness, but the young girl despised adults, and was vexed by his condescending tone even more. Where she was from, insults were met with violence, and dominance was established through shed blood. This wasn't Edenford, her hometown, and these weren't a pair of street thugs looking to stir up trouble. She was familiar with those; the police were a whole other matter, however, and 'yo mama' jokes weren't going to do her much good.

"Miss Lucas," Good Cop said as she pushed the documents toward Azmarie. "For your cooperation, we are offering you immunity in exchange for any valuable information you may have."

The documents turned out to be images. The first, a mugshot, and the young girl wouldn't have spared it a second thought until she saw those eyes. Green, and every bit as beautiful as they were in person. The owner of those eyes owned her heart, and was also the reason why she was still recovering from seven bullet wounds and was the reason why she now sat in an interrogation room. She hated the fact that the sight of his face caused her breath to catch in her throat, despised the fact that her cheeks heated and butterflies took residence in her stomach. Emiliano. She hated him, too.

"A rising star in the Brotherhood gang," Good Cop said, having noted Azmarie's reaction to the image. "Personally responsible for countless robberies, distribution of illegal narcotics and, as of recently, murder. We want to know everything there is to know about your boyfriend."

Murder?

Azmarie glanced at the picture again. The very same green eyes stared back at her, resulting in far less butterflies in her stomach, but they danced just the same. Struggling with the cuffs that bound her wrists, she pushed the mugshot aside, berating herself for the tightness in her chest, and reached for the second image. Her hands were shaking, and she grew aware of her growing position as the hapless bunny moments away from being eaten.