Blaze (The Stark Affair Book 3) Read Online Free PDF

MacArthur and along the port. We circle south past Brickell Key.
    The
view out here is amazing. The last time I was on a boat was after a party with
some friends back in high school.
    The
city looks so clean and pristine out here. Multi-colored lights glowing and
glistening, hiding the seething streets I know so well. How can a place be so
beautiful and so ugly at the same time?
    And yet
I love it. We love it. Nothing stopping people from packing
up and leaving. But life anywhere else would seem dull by comparison.
    Colton
Stark smiles down at me. I nestle in closer.
    The electrical
field is afire with sharp dancing impulses between us.
    God,
I’m so happy. Everything fades away in the night wind as we pass under the
Rickenbacker. All my problems. My dad. Wondering who the mole is. My investigation of this
man.
    What
is happening to me?
    The
estates on our right are lit up in their gaudy ambience, casting a spell of
money across the water. Yet less than two miles behind them a family of five is
living in one smelly room.
    They got a thing for criminals. They like bad boys. All of them.
    Shit,
why am I hearing my dad’s voice in my head right now?
    I loosen
my grip on Colton’s arm.
    Is he right? Is my dad right?
    No,
I don’t think so.
    I
refuse to believe it. Colton Stark is no criminal.
    Shit,
now I sound like one of those girls I always had to deal with... always
defending her abusive man. Right to the end...

 
    * *
*

 
    “Four-Victor-Eight, we have a thirty, possible
thirty-one at Flamingo Terrace Apartments.”
    My heart sinks.
    Fuck.
    Thirty is stabbing or shooting. Thirty-one is
homicide.
    “Acknowledge,” says Mike into the radio as I
put the sirens on and turn around, barreling back the way we came.
    Fuck.
    I believed her. I trusted her.
    Soon we’re back on the street we just left. But
something has changed. I get that sick feeling I’ve come to know too well.
    As our lights hit the side stairs of the
apartment complex, my heart sinks.
    The girl who just talked to me several minutes
ago... who assured me her boyfriend was a good man... who said he wouldn’t hurt
her... is lying on the outside stairs leading up to the second level.
    In a strange contorted way. Surrounded by a
pool of blood.
    “Shit,” says Mike as he picks up the radio. “We
need backup now!” He slips out of his car, gun held in front of him.
    I take out my gun and cover him from the side.
The sound of the sirens from the back-up units get closer as I reach the outside stairwell.
    As I near Wanda, an anger wells up inside me.
It’s an uncontrollable urge. I don’t need to check if she’s breathing. I know
she’s gone.
    And she’s staring right up into my face.
    Saying something to me.
    Cursing me for believing her.
    How could I have been so stupid?
    So pretty. She could have had almost any man she wanted.
    But she chose Angel Guerrero-Juarez.
    And by doing so, ended her life.
    We run up the steps past Wanda to the third
door. It’s open.
    “Police!” shouts Mike as we enter the
apartment.
    Angel sits on the living room couch. He’s
smoking a crack pipe watching TV, covered in blood. Next to him on the couch is
a large kitchen knife, also covered in blood. The sound of a baby crying comes
from the bedroom.
    “Put the pipe down slowly and put your hands on
your head!” says Mike.
    Without looking away from the TV, Angel deliberately
lays the pipe down on the coffee table and moves his hands to his head.
    “On your knees now!” says Mike.
    Angel complies. The backup units arrive,
bursting into the tiny messy apartment.   They leap on Angel, pushing him face first into the floor
while tying his hands behind him with flex cuffs.
    I’m not sure exactly what happens next.
Everything goes blurry as something bursts in my head.
    All I remember is Mike and three of my
colleagues trying to pull me off Angel, his face bloody from my boot.
    From the descriptions conveyed to me later, I
apparently broke his nose and jaw.