Chapter 3

Laura Huxley POV

Laura blinked, “ What?!” she spat.

Hadley spared her a glance before he picked up a folder from the desk and dropped it in front of her. She walked over and picked up the folder.

As she opened the folder, she saw what it was about. A picture of the guy she had chased was in the folder, along with other details about him. His age, address, security number, parents who were deceased and other details she cared less about.

What caught her eyes though was the big 'classified' written on the next page that should have his previous criminal records if he’s not a first offender.

Laura stuttered, “ you’re kidding me…” she said, glaring at Hadley.

“ If there’s anything you don’t understand Laura, take that up with the prosecution, not me…” he told her.

He knows what this case means to her. It meant a step forward in catching her father’s murderer. She couldn’t back out now, not when she was this close.

“ what?, You expect me to drop a case I’ve been working on for weeks. I’ve burnt my ass, following this guy and when he’s now in custody you want me to drop it and hand everything to the Prosecution without telling me why!” she fired at him.

“ Hell, like I know..” he mumbled.

She heard him and sighed. This was just another classified case that smelled fishy. Before she had started pursuing this guy whose name was, she paused, flipping back to the previous page, Reid, she had ran his face through their facial detection system at the headquarters and had found nothing on him.

Laura dragged her hand through her hair, Wondering how bad this could get.

“ who is the prosecutor in charge?” she asked him.

Hadley shook his head, “ you don’t want to know…” he said.

She scoffed, “ oh, now I want to know…” Laura muttered.

He sighed, “ Andreas Ortega…” Hadley told her.

The worse of the bunch. She had never met the man one on one before, mainly because she usually didn’t work on cases that involved the prosecution. But she had heard about him and his exploits.

The man was the face of the Prosecution office. Andreas Ortega was not someone who you wanted to get on your bad side, he comes from old money.

“ Like I said, drop it… it’s not worth the Chase…” Hadley told her.

Laura smiled dryly, what and why would he want the case, she thought. “ oh it’s worth it…” she told him, turning around and walking out of the office. She heard Hadley calling her name, but she didn’t stop to answer him.

If the prosecution wanted the case, then she was going to deliver it to them, personally. Usually, they sent someone down to the headquarters to get the file, but this time, she was going to them.

They were bound to cross paths, she and Andreas Ortega, she had just not imagined that today was going to be the day. Maybe it would have happened earlier in her career if she worked regularly at the office. She was usually assigned to undercover cases and had just rounded one up few weeks ago.

She briefly stopped by her rarely used desk and picked up the folder containing her investigation about Reid, she had a copy somewhere in her personal flash drive.

“ Where are you going to?” Sam asked her from his desk, opposite her own desk.

“ Out… to the prosecution office…” she told him, not even waiting to hear his response as she left.

The hot afternoon sun made her want to turn back but she still forged ahead until she got to her car. She opened the door and climbed in, driving out of the headquarters to the prosecution office.

The prosecution building was by far the biggest government building in the city and loomed over even the police headquarters. She parked at a spot and stepped out.

This was the first time she was coming to the prosecution office, so she would have to find her way. She stopped at the reception at the ground floor.

“ Good day , how can I help you…?” a lady at the reception asked her

“ Here to see Prosecutor Andreas Ortega…” she told the lady behind the desk.

The lady looked up at her like she was a joke, “ do you have an appointment?” the lady asked her.

She frowned, “ no I don’t, but it’s urgent and I have to meet him…” she said.

“ well, he’s not free to see you…if you want to meet him, book an appointment…” the lady said, going back to continue typing into her computer.

Laura sighed, she didn’t want to go this way, but she had to if she wanted to see him, “ I’m from the police…I was asked to hand over some files…” she said, showing the lady her Police badge.

The lady bristled seeing her badge, “ I’ll call his secretary, give me a minute…” she told Laura.

Laura nodded and relaxed as she watched the lady make the call. She could see how uncomfortable the lady was making the call. Finally, the lady sighed and dropped the phone, looking at her.

“ He’s in a meeting, but you can go to his office and wait until he is done with the meeting…” the lady said.

Laura nodded, she started to move to the elevators when she remembered that she doesn’t know where his office was located.

“ uhm…excuse me, what floor is his office located?” she asked the lady.

If killing her was possible, the lady would have killed her and buried her minutes ago.

When Prosecutor Ortega’s secretary had told her to wait, she had not expected that she would be waiting for the rest of the afternoon. Apparently, what ever meeting he was currently in was one important meeting that was taking longer to end.

She sighed, standing up from her seat to go get coffee at the vending machine. She was tired of requesting for water from his secretary.

Laura hated to drink already made coffee, but right now, she did not have a choice. She was hungry and couldn’t leave since she had waited for long. She needed to get this done, know why they wanted the case because there was no way she would get this far and have the case taken from her.

It had to be the Mafia, she thought. That was the only explanation. Only the Mafia could pull such a string. She was getting too close, closer than they expected and they didn’t want her to dig any further.

Does that mean that Prosecutor Andreas Ortega was working for the Mafia too?, The question popped up in her head. She sighed, shaking her head. There was no evidence to prove that he was, it could have been an order from the top.

She pushed the button and put in a few coins to buy the coffee, but when she bent to get the can that had rolled out of the machine. She heard the door open.

Laura looked up at the opened door as two men stepped out. She recognized one as Prosecutor Andreas Ortega, it was so easy to recognize him, he was the face of the Prosecution office and had his face plastered everywhere. The other man though, she didn’t recognize him until he turned to her direction.

Laura sucked in a breath and hid behind the vending machine.

“ shit!” she swore, her heart beating rapidly against her chest. This was the last place she would have expected to see the man.

Seeing him brought back memories, memories that she would rather they remained buried. He was exactly as she remembered. Pitch black hair, handsome, sexy as fuck, and those stricking icy blue eyes that had pierced through her soul.

Laura took steady breathes as she heard footsteps coming towards her direction. She looked around looking for where to hide, she didn’t know if he would still recognize her after so many years, ten years to be precise, but she was not taking any chances.

'one, two, three', she counted his footsteps in her heart. Any second now and he would see her. Of all the places to meet Armani Steele, it had to be at the Prosecution office.

She saw a silhouette of his figure first, from where she was hiding, before all hell went loose.