“Well, you’re going to have to, because here they come.”
Two squad cars pulled up in front of the restaurant with their lights flashing. The sirens cut out as four police officers got out of their vehicles, hands resting on their service handguns.
“What seems to be the problem here?” one of the older-looking officers asked.
“That asshole dislocated my arm!” the process server exclaimed. “I need an ambulance!”
Alexei rolled his eyes but kept his mouth shut after a sharp look from Sean. Within moments the policemen and women had separated them, guiding both parties farther away from the restaurant and the ogling crowd to take their statements. Alexei decided from the get-go to play dumb foreigner.
Every question the officer in charge of questioning him asked, Alexei answered in the thickest Russian accent he could manage, which was pretty goddamn thick. He might have immigrated to the United States as a preteen from a refugee city in the Ukraine and spent three-quarters of his life in his new home, but his ethnically Russian family had been insular in the beginning. English hadn’t come easy, and while his younger sisters spoke without an accent, Alexei still carried his, even if time had tempered it.
It wasn’t enough to get him out of being patted down against the squad car, in view of everyone else. Alexei sighed heavily when the officer removed both his throwing knives from his person.
“The other guy said you had a knife. Looks like he was right,” the policewoman said in a testy voice. The electronic bodycam and ID bar pinned to the front of her uniform shirt showed her last name, Reed, and badge number. She looked to be in her early to mid-thirties, shorter than Alexei, but solid in a way that spoke of time spent in the gym. “These are illegal.”
“Have permit,” Alexei replied.
“That’s what they all say. Have anything else on you? Drugs, weapons, anything you want to tell me?”
“Nyet.” Alexei submitted to the rest of the pat down with a scowl on his face. “Can go?”
“You aren’t going anywhere. You can’t threaten innocent people trying to do their jobs. Guy is a process server. You don’t have the right to dislocate someone’s arm and shove a knife in their back just because you don’t want to be served.”
“Would know if I shove knife in back,” Alexei muttered under his breath.
“What did you just say?” Officer Reed asked sharply.
“He’s a veteran, ma’am. He doesn’t like his personal space invaded,” Sean explained from a few feet away.
“Being a veteran doesn’t give him the right to harm another person.”
“Have right defend myself,” Alexei retorted, still keeping his hands on the hood of the squad car.
“Not like this.”
Alexei refrained from rolling his eyes, but just barely. The officer was still interrogating him when an ambulance from the DC Fire and EMS Department pulled up behind the double-parked police cars. Alexei sighed thickly, knowing the director wasn’t going to appreciate this mess.
“So he wants to press charges, Reed,” her partner said some minutes later. His electronic ID bar said his last name was Arguello.
Alexei glared at where the process server was being coddled by EMS, asking to be brought to the hospital in a very loud voice.
“Not do wrong,” Alexei protested.
“You dislocated his arm and held him at knife-point,” Officer Reed said in a disapproving voice.
Alexei couldn’t really deny that when the evidence was getting tended to in the back of an ambulance. He scowled, but the scowl slipped from his face when Officer Reed unhooked the mag-cuffs from her belt.
“You have the right to remain silent—” she began.
Alexei didn’t hear the rest of it, eyes locked on mag-cuffs, a quiet unease snaking through his mind. Hedid notwant to put those mag-cuffs on, even though he knew there was no getting out of this situation.
He and Sean had each gone through retraining that had unflinchingly targeted what they’d been subjected to while held hostage by Cillian. That included being restrained, and while Alexei could handle it, he didn’tlikeit.
“No,” Sean said sharply. “He’ll go into your squad car without being cuffed, ma’am.”
Alexei drew in a sharp breath, eyes flicking away from the mag-cuffs to where Sean had stepped closer in a way neither officer liked.
“Move back,” Officer Arguello ordered, his hand straying back to his holstered gun.
