He Watched Me Die Twice Chapter 03
The memory rolled on. By this point, I was deep in Damian’s inner circle.
On the screen, I was managing a ring of coerced kids, sending them out on different drug runs.
I grabbed the shortest girl of the bunch and shoved a crumpled map into her sweaty hand.
I kept my voice dead low. “Remember, you have to take this exact route. If you wander off it, we’ll kill your mom.”
She nodded frantically, biting down on her lip so hard she wouldn’t make a sound.
Out in the plaza, the crowd immediately erupted.
“She’s a monster! Making little kids do her dirty work!” someone yelled.
“She doesn’t have a shred of decency left. Totally ruthless.”
People started hurling plastic water bottles, the heavy thuds echoing as they bounced off the massive screen.
A few hours later in the memory, Damian was screaming into his phone.
“Brianna! How the hell did you screw this up?”
The little girl had walked right into a police perimeter. They’d busted her with the drugs.
In the crowd, someone raised a question. “There were a dozen ways she could’ve gone. Why were the cops camped out on that exact route?”
But the angry voices drowned them out fast. “She just made a stupid mistake and blew the drop. Stop making excuses for a cartel lackey.”
On the screen, the bust had made Damian paranoid.
He pulled out a syringe loaded with a brand-new narcotic.
“You wanna prove you’re loyal?” he demanded. “Inject this.”
I stared at the needle, my whole body shaking.
Staring at the drug, I was suddenly reminded of the day I stood there in my police uniform, swearing my oath under the flag.
I closed my eyes and sucked in a breath.
Finally, pale and dead silent, I grabbed the syringe and drove the needle into my arm without a second thought.
In the plaza, Martha shivered. “This is just sick. I don’t get how Bri could go so bad.”
Jonathan held her close. He stared up at my face on the screen, his eyes dead and cold. “She chose to ruin herself.”
The scene shifted, pulling Martha’s face into focus within my memories.
We were inside an abandoned warehouse, and I was handing her a thick envelope.
“This is everything I’ve saved,” I told her. “Donate it anonymously to the anti-drug foundation. Specifically for the kids who’ve been hurt by it.”
A ripple of surprise went through the crowd in the plaza. Giving away money completely contradicted my reputation as a greedy opportunist.
Jonathan frowned, glancing at Martha beside him. “She gave you money? Why didn’t you ever mention that?”
Martha stiffened, her eyes darting nervously.
After a beat, she stammered, “Right, but there was a bag of cocaine in there, too. She was trying to make me an accomplice. I got scared, so I threw the whole thing away.”
Jonathan stayed quiet, though something complicated flickered in his eyes.
Voices in the crowd immediately leaped to Martha’s defense. “God, that’s sick. Trying to frame her own sister.”
“Ms. Martha did the right thing. She had to ditch that dirty money.”
“Look at her, she’s shaking too hard to even speak straight. Her drug-dealer sister must have terrified her.”
Seizing the opening, Martha buried her face against Jonathan’s chest.
He looked down at her, his gaze lingering on the top of her head for a second before he tightened his arm around her.
He still didn’t say a word.
In the memory, I pulled a flash drive from my pocket and shoved it into Martha’s hand.
“This is the intel on Damian’s latest operation. You have to get this directly to Jonathan, no matter what.”
My voice echoed through the warehouse, sharp and desperate.
“Marty, I’m begging you. You have to!”
My eyes were red-rimmed, my hands gripping her wrists like a vise.
Back in reality, Jonathan threw another hard, suspicious look at Martha.
The color drained from her face, and she took an instinctive step back.