Breaking Point

Breaking Point

soppingwetpanties

This story is the eighth in the timeline of fifteen Max Pemberton detective stories. You're encouraged to read the stories preceding this one to give you additional background, though this story can stand on its own.

Dedicated to migbird, Max's constant companion.

For those of you who don't know Max, she's a big, sexy police detective with a tough as nails demeanor and a soft center. She follows her heart, and not her head, which usually gets her into trouble with her girlfriends, her boss and the bad guys. In this story she's faced with her biggest foe - herself. Can she make a lifelong commitment to Sky, a junior detective in Homicide?

Here's the breakdown of Max's stories in chronological order:

Maelstrom

Deception

Blindsided

Jackknifed

Tailspin

Crash Landing

Rebound

Breaking Point

Cold Steel (written first, followed by Hot Steel)

Hot Steel

Pink Ice

Betrayal

Loss of Innocence

Revenge is Best Served Cold

To Hell... And Back

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, merchandise, companies, events and incidents are either the products of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental. All characters in sexual situations are 18 years or older.

Chapter One

An Inglorious Death

The screams of the police sirens were deafening, echoing off the corrugated steel walls of Jim Landry's expansive new car warehouse. My lover and fellow police officer Skylar Hobson was still sitting in the driver's seat of a shiny new black Audi that had yet to touch the showroom floor, shivering in my arms, while Lily Chao's killer was lying dead as a doornail not more than two feet from us. He bled out from a massive head wound, thanks to my point-blank kill shot that splattered his brains against the wall. My first shot was made hastily and wounded him in the shoulder. I made him get up, unarmed, then popped him in the head and placed his gun in his hand to bolster my claim of self-defense.

Yeah, I fucking killed him, and I'd do it again if given the chance. There was no room in the world for a piece of shit like him.

When I graduated from the Academy I thought the law created a bright line between what was right and what was wrong. But that was the Academy -- not the real world. Lawyers spent their working lives debating the law. I spent my working life making decisions on what I thought was right, not necessarily according to the letter of the law or following the dictates of "proper" police procedure. I made no apologies to myself, or anyone else when it came to the accuracy of my moral compass.

All I knew at that moment in time was that I wasn't letting that murdering Russian motherfucker leave the warehouse alive that day. Lily's ghost told me so. So I did what I had to do. I executed him in cold blood and felt not an iota of remorse when I pulled the trigger.

The first officers to arrive at the scene were Emil Martinez, one of my colleagues in Vice, and my long-time partner Lesley Groesbeck. Lesley was temporarily assigned to Emil during the pendency of my suspension. I was suspended by my superior, Lieutenant Billie Odette, for disobeying her order to stay away from Lily's murder investigation, which was rightfully being handled by Homicide. I couldn't stay away because Lily told me as she bled out that the shooter was from Bratva, the Russian version of Mafia. No one in the department believed her dying words because Bratva had no reported presence in Cincinnati.

That is, no one except me.

But of course Lily turned out to be right. Sky and I spent countless hours confirming her lead. In the end, we identified Konstantin Kreshnevsky, a member of Bratva, as Lily's killer. Sky went rogue on me and chased after Kreshnevsky on her own, getting herself cornered by the Russian in the new car warehouse. When I got to her she was quaking uncontrollably with fear. It was fortunate I got wind of her extracurricular manhunt and got to her in the nick of time. Sky was still in my clutches, descending into a state of shock, when the police arrived.

"Max!" Lesley called out to me, relieved to find me unharmed. She was my partner and always had my back. I wasn't surprised that she would be the first one to find me.

"Are you OK?" she asked, breathing heavily, her powder blue eyes staring at me.

Then she peered into the car and saw that I was cradling Sky in my arms.

"Is she hurt?" Lesley asked me, her face showing deep concern.

"We're fine," I said, trying to calm Sky in the process. "She had a little scare and needs some air."

That was a massive understatement. She had the scare, literally, of her life, and was in shock. She was about to have her head blown off by a professional hitman wielding a Russian made RSh-12 handgun, the most powerful handgun in the world. No one should ever have to stare down the barrel of an assassin's cannon.

Lesley pointed at the bloodied corpse on the ground, who happened to be missing a good part of his face.

"That's Lily's killer?"

"I'm certain of it," I told her. "Ballistics will confirm it's the same gun that was used to kill Lily," I said confidently, leading her with my eyes to the gun in his hand.

"And you bagged him?" she asked, her question already showing her skepticism for the accuracy of my story, which I had yet to tell.

"I did," I confirmed.

"Jesus Max. So it is Bratva?"

"Sure as you're standing here."

"Odette's going to eat crow," Lesley said gleefully. Lesley and I had a world of respect for Billie, but in this instance she made the wrong call and we were going to rub her nose in it if she didn't acknowledge her mistake.

"I'm going to watch her eat it," I said. It felt good to be right, but it was also cold comfort since Lily was still in an early grave, no matter who did it.

A team of EMT's rushed up to us. One of them draped a blanket around Sky and helped her get up and start walking. Members of the Homicide team followed shortly after and were taking photographs of the crime scene and already marking the position of the body. I watched as Sky was helped into the back of the EMT's van, her face frozen with a lifeless expression.

My history with Sky was complicated. She was a junior member of Homicide and teamed up with me to solve a killing that exonerated Alessandra Caruso, my partner Lesley's lover [ed. note, see Jackknifed]. I fell in love with Sky but screwed up our relationship by stepping out on her. Sky hadn't forgiven me, but overlooked my transgression so we could find Lily's murderer. Sky didn't overlook my infidelity because she was going to give me another chance. She did it because she had to prove to her colleagues in Homicide that she was good police, and deserving of a spot as a field investigator, and not just a back-room researcher she seemed destined to become. I helped her prove herself as an excellent, though impulsive, investigator, and had just saved her life.

Like I said, our relationship was complicated.

"I'm riding in the back," I told the EMT. She was kneeling next to Sky taking her vitals. I climbed into the decked-out van. Sky was prone, wrapped in a thermal blanket and quivering. The sound of the beeping of the heart monitor told me her heart rate was way too fast. She looked ashen. I took her hand and squeezed it tight.

"Max... I'm so cold... so cold..." she babbled, almost incoherently. Her eyes looked wild.

"Rest my sweet," I told her, "rest."

I was grateful that I had her, even in this state. She was almost another senseless homicide, a person caught in the crossfire between the Russians and the locals who controlled the turf the Russians coveted.

But that didn't happen. She was my baby and I saved her from certain death.

* * *

I was in the hospital's noisy and crowded waiting room, checking the messages on my phone. It was the first free minutes I had since I figured out Sky was about to be killed. That was twelve hours of hard running without a sip of water. My mind was racing as well. I had just killed someone in cold blood and the woman I loved was slipping into a lifeless trance. This was not a good time in my life.

I had over five hundred unopened e-mails. I'm sure some of them were from Odette asking what the fuck I was doing while I was on suspension and threatening me if I kept pursuing my Bratva hunch. Of course I didn't open her e-mails so I could feign ignorance if I was wrong. I was cursing at my phone when a nurse rescued me from e-mail jail. I knew it was about Sky so I instinctively grabbed his collar.

"Hey," he said, looking at the hand I had on his shirt collar.

"Sorry," I said. "She's my partner."

His face told me he understood why I reacted the way I did. "She's not doing very well," he told me.

That wasn't news to me. She was horribly shaken. She would never be able to forget that feeling, and it would likely to come back to haunt her in the middle of the night. I've felt that way before and had those nightmares. After all, she was in the fucking hospital because of the fright she experienced.

"Where is she?" I asked.

"I'll take you there." Then the nurse paused. The sour look on his face was gone. "I want to thank you for your service."

He must have known I was the officer who rescued Sky. There were police crawling all over the lobby. No one took a shot at one of our own and got away with it. My compadres were all eager to find the scum behind the hitman. I'm sure a good number of them would be tempted to do what I did to Kreshnevsky if they found out who pushed the button.

I followed the nurse and pushed my way through a wall of people, many of whom I knew, to Sky's room. There were two uniformed policemen outside guarding her door. One of them was Martinez.

"Hey Max, so sorry," Emil said. He gave me a hug. He wasn't the huggy type and the gesture was heartfelt.

"Thanks," I said while we were hugging. The other policeman nodded at me. It felt good to have them cover my back and to keep Sky safe. Whoever did push the button wouldn't stop at Sky. She was just a junior cop. Next time it would be someone higher in the chain of command, like me.

"You find those motherfuckers," Emil said, his eyes showing fire. He was right.

"I will, if it's the last thing I do." I wanted those lowlifes bad. But I hoped my words weren't going to be prophetic, and it would be the last thing I'd do. The feeling was creeping in that there was a legit chance I was playing at a level above me, and I'd be cut up in pieces and stuffed in a fifty-five-gallon drum and dropped to the bottom of the Ohio river.

The nurse held the door open for me. There were already bouquets of flowers lined up on the back wall, but no one was in there except for the doctor. It was a large private room, sparsely furnished. The doctor was a forty-ish woman about my height with a frown on her face. Sky was sitting up in bed with headphones on. Her eyes came alive when she saw me.

The doctor intercepted me before I could move closer.

"What in world happened to her?" she asked me. "I've never seen a case like this one. It took an hour and a lot of drugs to get her into a state where you can talk to her. She looks like she's tough, but this really shook her."

"Some guy was about to blow her head off," I said, not mincing words.

She paused. "I guess I would have had the same reaction," she said, letting my words sink in.

"Yeah. It was ugly. It's unfortunate but it's part of the job."

She gave me a look of "and what a fucked-up job that is." And this was coming from a woman who saw major trauma every day. Yeah, our profession wasn't for the faint of heart.

"Well," she said, almost regretting the words, "she hasn't stopped asking for you. I told her it was too soon, but she wouldn't have any of it. I finally gave in."

She looked at me as someone who thumbs her nose at authority. She stared me down.

"Now you don't say anything to upset her. I mean it."

"Promise," I said. I raised my hand up as if I were saying it under oath.

"OK, ten minutes. I'm going to stand outside with my watch."

She pointed to the one on her wrist to make sure I got the point. I nodded.

Sky slid her headphones off her head when she saw that the doctor had left. She reached her arms out to me.

I went into her arms and we hugged a good long time without saying anything. We didn't have to.

She finally took a deep breath and let go. She looked terrible. My heart fell.

"Are you OK?" I asked her.

I could tell that she was talking with great effort. "I'm fine Max."

It was a lie. We both knew it was a lie. I'd play along.

"Yeah, yeah, you'll get past this. I'll be there with you," I promised.

"Max, stay with me."

"The doctor said ten minutes. She's timing me," I said. She could tell I was going to leave in ten minutes. Although I was generally anti-authority, Sky's doctor was someone I didn't want to fuck with.

She blinked, realizing she'd have to get through the night by herself.

"I'm s... s... sorry," she said as she started to sob. "Thank you."

"It's all right," I said. "I was lucky to get there on time."

"Luck had nothing to do with it," she said, knowing the truth. "You saved my life."

It wasn't just the fright. It was the knowledge that she had fucked up big-time and almost got her and me shot. Her guilt was overwhelming.

"It's OK honey," I assured her. I had fucked up like that in a similar fashion. It's also something you have to live with. You make too many decisions in a day not to fuck up every now and again. It's just that some fuck-ups are worse than others. Sky's rated as a major fuck-up.

"Really?" Sky asked in between sobs.

"Yes Sky. I did the same sorts of things when I was your age. Believe me, your nose gets better to smell these things out."

"What are the guys saying?"

"They're saying that we took down a Russian hitman. We did good," I said. I left out the part about everyone talking about Sky being in the hospital.

She gave me a faint smile.

"You're not lying to me, are you Max?"

I was absolutely lying to her. She was going to have to prove she could take this kind of horror. You can't be in Homicide if killing makes you non-functional. They deal with the worst kind of shit.

"No, I'm not lying Sky."

"So... so I'm still on the team?"

Wow, she almost got deep-sixed and her biggest worry was whether she'd be able to keep her job.

"Sure, Sky, sure you are."

I lied again. Odette was going to forbid me from using Sky and so was Odette's counterpart in Homicide. I was going to have to go to bat for her if she had any chance of staying on the team.

I spent the rest of the ten minutes holding her. She heard what she wanted to hear. It would allow her to get her head back on straight.

I noticed it'd been ten minutes. I started to move away from the bed. She grabbed my arm.

"Come here," she said.

She gave me a kiss.

"I love you," she said.

Then she started crying again.

"You hurt me Max... you hurt me bad..."

I got teary eyed as well. "I know honey," I told her, stroking her dark hair, "I don't mean to hurt people I love but I do."

"Max... you're too impulsive... you act on your emotions... and ignore the feelings of others."

Too true. I wanted to change. I did. But my emotions made me what I was, and it was too ingrained in my DNA. Sky knew that too... deep down.

"Is a crusty old broad like me capable of change?" I asked her.

She managed another weak smile. "I'd like you to try."

I clasped her hand. "You've got a broken toy, Sky. I want to say I'll change for you, but I've made that promise before."

"Max?"

"Yeah honey."

"Promise me again."

"I promise," I told her.

It wasn't the right time to raise my doubts.

The door to the room opened.

"Time's up," the doctor said.

* * *

I was living at the Royal Palms Motel, a dump in the West End, the shittiest neighborhood in Cincinnati. It took me the better part of two pints of vodka to help me fall asleep that night. Yeah, I had a drinking problem, but it wasn't the time to question myself on that. I needed a drink, and that was that.

Fuck. I'd killed somebody. There have been a few, but not many, and certainly not enough to forget their faces. I saw the Russian's look of horror when he realized I was going to execute him. I was the American police. I wasn't supposed to do something like that, you know taking the law into your own hands. Maybe they did that kind of shit in Russia, but here it's not part of standard police procedure. If someone in my department found out, I'd be on my way to jail.

The chirping of my cell phone cut through the haze of an alcohol induced hangover. I felt for it in the darkness. My head was pounding when I answered. The screen said that Odette was calling. It was exactly 6 a.m.

"Hello?" I said in a scratchy voice.

"Get back to work," she said, dispensing with the usual pleasantries. "I've decided to reinstate you pending confirmation in the ballistics report. You were right and I was wrong. Groesbeck's been reassigned back to you."

I grunted something back to her and hung up the phone. That was big of her. I had even more respect for her for having the courage to admit she was wrong. I didn't blame her for suspending me. I did disobey a direct order. But I also felt vindicated, and that was a good feeling, even though my body told me I felt like shit.

I took a quick shower and put on a freshly pressed uniform. I still looked like death warmed over but was happy to be going back to work, officially.

I went to the hospital first to check on Sky (she was still sleeping) and then went to the station for the first time in a month and sought out Lesley, who was out in the secure parking lot. I spotted her cute butt sticking out from the open door of one of the patrol cars, bending over to clean out the front seat. She looked up and wasn't surprised to see me. Odette must have already told her I'd be returning.

"You look like shit, Max," she said to me, seeing the dark circles under my eyes from a lack of sleep.

"Thanks partner, good seeing you too," I said. Lesley always looked good, and that morning was no exception. Her blonde hair was pulled back in a neat ponytail and her curvy body comfortably housed in a crisp uniform. Imagine Barbie as a police officer.

"How's Sky?" Lesley asked. She went back to cleaning our cruiser before we took it out. Half-eaten burritos and empty coffee cups littered the back seat from the previous night's crew.

I picked up a stale donut and tossed it in a nearby trash can. "Better, I checked on her this morning before I came here. The doctor told me she'll be discharged this afternoon." I didn't tell her that we might be getting back together. Better to be left unsaid until it happened.

"That's good. Want to talk about Kreshnevsky?" she asked, dying to know the details. She had to know something was up. It was too clean a kill. She was a smart detective and knew that I couldn't take down a trained assassin like I did.

I deflected. The less she knew the better.

"Lesley, you know there's a mandatory administrative hearing after an incident like that. I'm not supposed to talk about it."

"Right, like that's ever stopped you," she said indignantly. I was never one to follow regulations. She knew I was refusing to talk because I had done something I wasn't supposed to... like execute him.