Chapter 6 - Blood on the ConcreteI didn't hand over anything.
Instead, I swept my left foot across the concrete floor, kicking a heavy steel rolling cart directly into Miller’s shins. The unexpected impact caught him off guard; he stumbled forward, his gun firing prematurely. The bullet shattered a row of glass evidence jars on the shelf above my head, raining shards of glass down around my shoulders.
I lunged forward, tackling him around the waist before he could recover his aim. We crashed hard into a metal storage rack, sending hundreds of plastic evidence bags flying across the floor.
Miller grunted, driving his elbow backward into my ribs. The pain flared white-hot across my chest, but adrenaline kept me moving. I grabbed a heavy aluminum flashlight from a fallen bin and brought it down hard across his wrist.
The pistol slipped from his fingers, clattering across the slick floor and sliding out of reach under a distant shelving unit.
"You bitch!" Miller roared, lunging at my throat with both hands. His fingers clamped around my windpipe, cutting off my air supply. Spots danced in front of my eyes. The cold concrete pressed against my spine as he pinned me down with his full weight.
I clawed at his wrists, my lungs burning for oxygen. My hand brushed against something metallic in my coat pocket—Maya’s wedding ring box.
With one final surge of desperation, I jammed the corner of the heavy wooden box directly into the soft tissue beneath Miller’s jawline.
He shrieked, his grip loosening just enough for me to wrench my head free and suck in a ragged, burning gasp of air.
Before he could recover, I brought my knee up squarely into his groin.
Miller collapsed sideways, gasping for breath, clutching himself as he curled into a fetal position on the floor.
I scrambled backward, coughing violently, my hand closing around my service weapon still locked safely in its holster. I drew the Glock, clicking off the safety, and leveled the barrel directly between his eyes.
"Don't move," I rasped, my voice raw and bleeding. "Move one inch, and I’ll skip the paperwork and let the coroner explain it."
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Miller lay on the cold concrete, wheezing, staring up at the barrel of my gun with absolute terror in his eyes. "You... you can't touch Vance, Lena. He owns the district attorney. He owns half the federal oversight committee. You're dead the second you walk out of this building."
"Good thing I’m not planning on walking out alone," I said, reaching down with my free hand to snap a pair of heavy steel tactical cuffs around his wrists. "You’re under arrest, Agent. Federal treason, conspiracy to commit murder, and accessory to corporate fraud. Welcome to the other side of the interrogation table."
