Nina
I tore down the alley at breakneck speed, lungs burning, heart hammering against my ribs. Ahead of me, Santiago slipped through back doors, cafés, and side streets with infuriating ease, a ghost in a suit, always just out of reach. I could only wonder how he was so familiar with these streets. It was even more evidence of his gang affiliation.
By the time I finally cornered him in a narrow dead-end alley, sweat was running down my spine. I swiped an arm across my face, breath ragged.
"There's nowhere left to run," I said, voice rougher than I wanted.
My calves screamed from the heels, my hair had long since escaped its neat chignon, tumbling down my back in wild, riotous waves.
"Isn't there?" he asked, raising a brow - calm as sin, unbothered by the chase.
"You're under arrest, Mr. Santiago."
"For attending a party?". His tone was a velvet taunt. "Come now, agent, we both know you've got nothing solid. You're wasting both our time."
"You attacked a detective."
He laughed, low, dark, and far too self-assured. "Attacked? Is that what we're calling it now? Because the way I remember it, we just slipped off to a dark corner and got... frisky."
I gasped, heat flooding my face. "We did not- stop making it sound like-" I broke off, choking on my own indignation. "You're coming with me to the station, Santiago. You can explain how the hell you ended up here, of all the damn places in the world."
"Fine," he said easily, lifting his hands. "I surrender."
Suspicion prickled. "This better not be one of your tricks."
"What trick? You said it yourself, nowhere left to run."
I edged forward, cuffs ready, pulse spiking. The moment I reached for him, he moved, fast, fluid, practiced. His hand shot out, catching my wrist and spinning me. In one breath, my back hit cold brick, and in the next, the cuff was locked - not on him, but on me, my wrist yanked above my head and clipped to a rusted pipe.
"Don't you dare leave me like this!" I shouted, jerking against the restraint.
He tsked softly. "You'll hurt yourself, Agent Torres. But don't worry, your ex should be along any minute to save the day."
"Rafael!" I hissed as he turned to leave, panic threading through my anger. "Wait!"
He froze, glancing over his shoulder, smirk already forming. "Rafael? That's new. Don't tell me you're rethinking that dinner you turned down?"
"I'd rather chew my own foot."
Amusement flickered in his eyes. "Good night, Nina."
"Was it all an act?" The words slipped out before I could stop them, small, foolish, exposed.
He hesitated, just a fraction, then smiled that wicked, unreadable smile.
I watched him walk away, shame and bitterness exploding through me. I was such a goddamn fool. How could I mess up so royally? Damn it.
Hanging my head, I prayed Paul had at least managed to get away with the informant. Eventually, he would come back for me after the informant was in a safe house, or a passerby could see me and help me out of this mess.
I yanked at the cuffs again, cursing under my breath.
I was going to murder that bastard Santiago when I saw him next.
"What the hell?"
Paul's voice had my head snapping up. He stood at the end of the alley, staring at me with wide eyed surprise. He looked like a mess with blood pooling down one side of his face and splattered all over his previously pristine tux.
"Paul?" I gasped. "What are you doing here? You need to get the informant to a safe house. You need to leave right now!"
Ignoring me, he stepped forward and tugged at the cuff. "How the hell did this happen?"
I groaned. "It's... Complicated. You're wasting precious time. What the hell is your problem? You can't just leave the informant by themselves out there."
He shot me a cool glance before pulling out one of the hair pins hanging off my hair. Within seconds, I heard a click and I went tumbling forward, finally free from the cuffs. I winced at the pain of blood suddenly flowing back into my arms, flexing them to hasten the process.
"We need to_"
"What we need to do is go back to the precinct and report what went down here." He cut in, dragging a hand through his hair. "We have a whole lot of paper work waiting for us, Torres, and I'm really not looking forward to it."
"What about_"
"Dead." He hissed, eyes flashing at me. "And it's your fucking fault Torres. What were you thinking?"
"I had to_"
He slashed a hand through the air, cutting me off. "No. What you had to do was exactly what I said you should do, which was getting the informant away. Chief keef put me in charge, which means that you're supposed to listen to me, not go running off to do whatever the_" he trailed off, his both hands tugging at his hair now, eyes squeezed shut.
When he glanced at me again, he didn't look furious, just suspicious. "What happened out here? Why was Rafael Santiago here and why did you ditch our mission to go after him?"
"Because he's part of our mission. It's all tied together, Paul. It wasn't a damn coincidence that he was here today of all days." I said. "He knew something. He had to have known something."
He was silent for a moment. "It doesn't change the fact that we had a clear mission. Santiago wasn't a part of it. Our priority was the informant and now he's dead. We have nothing now. Not the informant and not even damn Santiago. Christ, Torres."
I swallowed down the scream threatening to claw out of my throat. "I fucked up, Paul."
"Yeah, you did. And when the chief hears about this, say goodbye to ever being in the field again." He snarled. "He'll have you glued to your desk filling paper work and stapling case files for the next five years, and that would be even more than you deserve."
He turned on his heel and began to march out. At the last minute he stopped in his track and glanced over his shoulder at me. "Are you coming?"
Sighing, I trudged after him, fingers curled into fists at my sides and tears pricking the back of my eyes.
Just like every other attempt I had made to get to the bottom of this mess, this one had failed too. How much more failure did I need to experience? How many more informants and innocents had to die before it got through my thick skull that I wasn't the hero in this story?
I was just Nina Torres, the orphan nobody who just wanted her sister back.