Chapter 1
Nadia
He has got to be kidding me. He wants me to infiltrate a biker gang? How am I supposed to do that? Those fuckers are suspicious of everyone getting closer to them, especially now that some of them have kids, so why would my boss think I can just show up and get them to trust me with their secrets?
How am I going to do this? What’s worse, my boss threatens me with my job if I don’t succeed. I’ll be sent to some shithole if I don’t do this right. I’ve worked too hard to get to where I am to jeopardize it like this.
“Since those people are suspicious as fuck, I’ll give you three months,” the chief says with a scowl, looking me up and down. “It shouldn’t be that hard for you.”
Is he fucking serious? I know exactly what he’s trying to say. He’s telling me to use my body to get close to the bikers, like I’m some fucking whore.
“Don’t disappoint me, Nadia,” the Chief says firmly before he dismisses me.
Sexist scumbag. I hate him so much. How the fuck did he become the chief of police? All he does is make others do his job then claims the credit for their achievements. And then he has the audacity to tell me to whore myself out to some bikers from some small town because he’s too much of a loser to get them himself.
Seething, I go back to my desk, where I see my partner, Zack, casually sitting on the table and eating my sandwich. “Can’t you make your own fucking food?!” I shove him off the desk, getting a quiet chuckle from him. He finds it funny!
“Someone’s in a bad mood… Is it the time of the month?” Zack jokes, but I’m not amused.
“Do you want to get punched?” I sneer at him, clenching my fist threateningly.
“Sorry, sorry. So what got you so angry?”
“Chief. He wants to screw me over.”
“Of course he does, he feels threatened by you, so he’s trying to get rid of you. And what did he tell you to do this time?”
“He told me to infiltrate a biker gang in a small town in a different county. You should’ve seen the way he looked at me. He could’ve openly told me to whore myself out to those guys,” I groan, leaning back in my chair tiredly.
Zack only stares at me quietly, knowing well that there are no words of consolation that will make my mood better. He’s been working with me for two years, and over that time, he got to know me well. He knows I don’t need empty consolation, I need a way to get close to those damn bikers and earning their trust without having to resort to extremities.
I need to think of something.
The rest of my shift is relatively peaceful, if chasing a drug dealer all over the city, dealing with a Karen and filling up ridiculous amount of paperwork can be called peaceful. I didn’t join the police force to deal with angry Karens who have nothing to do but bother people.
But the longer I work here, the more I realize that it’s nothing like I expected. My boss sees me as a joke, my coworkers don’t take me seriously because they think I’m weaker than them. The only person who understands me is my partner, though he also makes fun of me sometimes by joking about me being on my period or teasing me by bringing me chocolate and some overpriced Frappuccinos that I hate. I prefer normal coffee with milk, not some weird mixture of ten different ingredients. Simplicity is the key, at least for me.
After a long day, I can finally go home, but when I reach it, I’m greeted by the sight of my brother and his buddies lounging lazily in my living room. I only sigh heavily when I see all the bottles and cans strewn around the room, knowing well that they won’t clean them later.
“Hey, parasite, I told you to not have parties here,” I yell at my brother, but all he does is laugh at me. Stupid asshole. He mooches off me with no shame and brazenly breaks the rules I made. If this goes on, I’ll throw him out. Our parents couldn’t take his behavior and threw him out, so he ended up living with me, but my patience is wearing thin.
Maybe moving to another town is not a bad idea. I could finally get away from my bum of a brother, my boss who sees me as a stupid coffeemaker instead of a cop, and my neighbors who bother me about my car disturbing them when I come home too late for their taste. Well, I’m sorry I don’t work a nine-to-five job and I often come home at night because I’m busy catching criminals!
I fix myself a quick dinner then go to my room to sleep off the stress. I try my best to ignore the noise that’s coming from the living room as my brother and his buddies laugh boisterously. Do they have to be so loud?
After an hour of ineffectively trying to fall asleep, I decide to put those idiots in their place. If they can’t respect me, then they have to find another place to party.
I go to the living room wearing nothing but my pajamas, which consists of a t-shirt and a pair of shorts, then yell at the idiots, “Shut the fuck up, will you?! I’m trying to sleep!”
“Calm your tits, sis. We’re just having fun. You should try it sometimes!” my brother laughs drunkenly, completely detached from reality.
“You can have fun wherever you want, but not in my house!” I snarl, slapping my brother upside the head. “My house, my rules, so if you don’t want to follow them, you can fuck off.”
“What? Are you serious? You’re throwing me out? You’re my sister! How can you do that?!”
“And you’re a leech! Get the hell out of my house, you ungrateful brat!”
My brother only gapes at me in shock, too surprised by my sudden outburst to find a counterargument.
“Sis, you can’t do that,” Joey quickly sobered up and got up from the couch then gently put his hands on my shoulders. He didn’t seem to realize that his breath still stank of liquor. “You can’t throw me out, sister. Please, where will I go?” You’re trying hard, brother, I admit, but your puppy eyes no longer work on me.
“You really think I’m that naïve?” I sneer quietly, pushing his hands away. “I warned you to keep yourself in check if you want to live with me, but I can’t fucking tolerate it anymore. If you like your friends so much, then you can stay with them for however long you like,” I smile sweetly at him then go to open the front door for him. “Out. All of you.”
“Sis, come on…”
“No, Joey! I’m done. I took you in because you were still a kid, but you’re already twenty-two years old, yet you still act like a fucking brat! Get out. Pack your things, get your buddies and escort your ass out of my house. You can continue your libation elsewhere.”
My brother quickly realizes that I’m not joking this time. I may have threatened to throw him out before, but I was always too weak to actually get rid of my own brother. Now, though, in the perspective of me moving to another county, I don’t want to leave him alone in my house. I don’t trust him to not destroy the place in my absence, so I think it’s better to either sell the house or rent it our to someone. I’ll have to ask Zack if he knows someone trustworthy.
I wait for my brother to pack his things then kindly open the front door for him so he can leave. He throws me a sad look on his way out, while his friends glare at me like I’m their mortal enemy. They’re clearly mad that I interrupted their ‘fun’. I even catch some of them mutter “bitch” under their breaths, but I don’t react.
If it weren’t for those dumbfucks, my brother wouldn’t stoop so low.
Once the guys were gone, I locked the door and went back to my room. I could finally sleep in peace.
Of course, I know that my brother will be back tomorrow, since there are still a lot of his things at my house. I’ll pack them for him in the morning and tell him about my plans. He’ll have to find another place to live, because I don’t trust him to stay alone.
Morning comes much too early for my taste, but I force myself to get up because of the number of things I need to take care of. I organize my brother’s things, take them to the living room then write a note for my brother for when he comes back. While I’m packing Joey’s things, the doorbell rings, so I go to see who it is. It’s Zack.
“You look like shit,” he frowns worriedly and hands me a large coffee. This time it’s not some weirdly named concoction, so I gratefully take it from him.
“Thanks a lot. Come in, I could use your help,” I invite him in.
“Uh-oh, you need muscle, don’t you?” he laughs when he sees the boxes in the living room.
“Yes, I do. I’ll pack the boxes, but I’ll need you to carry them here.”
“Sure thing.”
As we work, we talk about the new job the chief assigned to me. Zack doesn’t like the idea of me infiltrating a place as dangerous as a biker club. I tell him I’ll be fine, then ask him if he knows someone I could rent my house to. He only looks at me quietly for a moment then shakes his head dejectedly. “I’m not sure if I can find someone so quickly, but there is a way…” he says as we go to his car. Thanks to him, it took me less than an hour to pack all of my brother’s things, so I decide to treat him to breakfast.
“And what way is that?”
“I could rent it from you,” Zack smiles. “You know I’m living with my mother now, so if you don’t rip me off too much, I can rent the place.”
“Hmm, that might be a good idea. At least I don’t have to worry about you demolishing my place,” I laugh as we drive to our favorite diner. We’ve been going there since we became partners, and now we can be considered regulars there. It always amuses us when people suddenly go quiet as we sit at a table. It was comical how scared they were of having cops eating at the same place as them.
As we eat our hearty breakfast, we discuss my new job. “So when do you plan on going there?” Zack asks with a small frown, devouring his pancakes as if he’s been starving for weeks.
“I guess I’ll go there tomorrow or sometime this week. I’ll see how it goes.”
“Why the fuck didn’t the chief let me work with you? We’re partners,” Zack grumbles. I understand what he means. We’ve always been working together, but now we’re suddenly going to be separated only because the chief wants to screw me over.
“That fat cunt wants to prove that I’m not fit for this job, so he’s doing everything he can to fuck me over. You know what he’s like. He’s a chauvinistic pig who thinks women belong naked and pregnant in the kitchen, not in uniform chasing criminals.”
“I still wish I could go with you. We would finish the job quicker if we worked together. Everyone knows we’re the best.”
“That we are. But don’t worry, I can handle this,” I grin at him.
Even though I reassure Zack that I can take this, I’m still not sure if I can successfully get those bikers. Who knows what secrets they hold…
