Reborn to Clear My Name Chapter 01

Reborn to Clear My Name Chapter 01

The mayor’s son was held hostage. I had my rifle set up and just waited to shoot.

But right then, my husband Gianni, the on-scene SWAT commander, called off the operation.

He insisted on waiting for the “expert” he trusted so much.

That “expert” was Isabelle, a negotiation consultant.

The same thing had happened last time. The negotiation was a complete failure.

Isabelle was slow, and every word out of her mouth was wrong.

She agitated the kidnapper rather than calming him, and he slashed the hostage’s throat.

I could no longer stand by. I pulled the trigger, taking him out at once.

Isabelle broke down right there. The gossip that ripped through the unit afterward finished the job.

Her mental state collapsed. She ended up in a treatment facility.

Gianni never defended me. Instead, he transferred me to a dangerous undercover assignment.

The fatal move came right before the bust, when he called me.

His call lit up the encrypted channel, exposing my position instantly.

“I only asked you to wait a few more minutes. Did you have to humiliate Isabelle like that?”

“You wanted the glory that badly? Fine. Stay there and deal with the consequences.”

The call cut. A group of gang enforcers stormed in and cornered me.

They cut me. Slowly. The pain was so blinding I couldn’t even pass out.

The last thing I saw before I died was Gianni arriving with his “expert.”

The anguish on his face was a performance.

When I opened my eyes again, I was back at the beginning.

The kidnapper was standing in the same place, the hostage still in his hands.

I eased my finger off the trigger.

This time, I wasn’t in a hurry to shoot.

I wanted to see how they’d clean up their own mess.

…

“Seven minutes left. Where are we with negotiation? Any update from command?”

“Entry team and EOD are in position.”

“Is negotiation making progress or not? We can breach at any time.”

The deputy commander’s voice crackled over the public channel for the fourth time.

Gianni’s response was a blunt shutdown.

“I’ll say it again. You’re the deputy here.”

“Who gave you clearance to talk over me? I am the on-scene commander. Clear?”

“Isabelle is fine. It’s her first time on a live scene. Nerves are normal.”

“Give her more time. She’ll get it handled.”

The deputy commander couldn’t wait.

He was on the floor directly above the hostage situation, listening to the feed from the micro-mics, and he could hear everything.

“This Isabelle is saying all the wrong things. She’s provoking the suspect.”

“If this continues, the hostage is going to get hurt. Are you prepared to take responsibility for that?”

Gianni didn’t waste another word. He just cut the deputy’s comms.

Then he spoke low into his microphone.

“When I say wait, you wait. End of discussion.”

He switched to the sniper-only channel.

“Maelle, what’s your read?”

I eased the pressure of my finger on the trigger and answered calmly.

“Holding, per your command. You’re the OSC. We execute orders.”

Gianni was clearly stunned for a second. Then he was back on the public channel.

“You hear that? Learn from Maelle. That’s professionalism.”

“Everyone, listen up.”

“Report all movement to me. You execute on my approval only.”

“No one moves without my order.”

Through the scope, I watched the kidnapper.

His face was flushing, his breathing accelerating. The hand gripping the knife began to tremble.

He was close to losing control.

Across from him, Isabelle was still talking, her voice a monotone drone, like she was reading from a script.

She was completely oblivious to the fact that the man in front of her was about to snap.

This was the “professional” Gianni was protecting.

The abandoned warehouse was rigged with explosives.

The second the kidnapper hit that remote, the whole building would come down on our heads.

But Gianni insisted on letting a rookie negotiation consultant handle a highest-risk event like this.

He was using the whole team as her training exercise.

Last time, I took the shot at the last possible second and saved the hostage, who was scared out of his mind.

The entire SWAT team had witnessed Isabelle’s negotiation implode.

After the mission, the jokes about her behind her back were relentless.

She’d risked the entire team. A few harsh words were getting off easy.

Eventually, she couldn’t take it. She resigned and checked into a treatment facility.

And I got a commendation and a promotion for saving the hostage.

Gianni didn’t say a word.

For the next mission, he sent me undercover into a South Side drug ring.

I was barely in position at the target location when his call came through.

That “accidental” call gave up my frequency and general location.

The gang found me. They tied me to a lamppost and carved me up until I bled out.

Just before I died, I saw Gianni on the corner, murmuring into his phone, “I avenged her.”

I didn’t have to guess who “her” was. It was for Isabelle.

This time, I wasn’t making the same mistake.

I wanted to see just how far they would take this little performance.

Five minutes left.

Everyone inside the building was tense. Only Isabelle, standing across from the kidnapper, seemed relaxed.

“Hey, listen, buddy, don’t get so worked up. Just put the knife down. We can talk this out.”

“That knife won’t solve anything.”

“Just let the hostage go, and we can sit down and have a real conversation, okay?”

Her voice piped through all of our earpieces.

A murmur went through the team—did she even know how to negotiate?

“Does she only know two lines?”

“If two sentences could disarm a suspect, what would they need us for?”

“Are we really going to sit here and wait for this? Captain, give the breach order.”

Of course, Isabelle could hear the chatter on the channel, too.

Through my scope, I watched her actually pout at the kidnapper before whining into her mic.

“If you’re so good, you do it.”

“Gianni, I’m done. I’m not negotiating anymore. They’re all ganging up on me.”

As she spoke, her voice hitched, turning tearful.

The channel went dead silent. Everyone was stunned.

Finally, someone couldn’t hold back. “Do you think this is a TV show? What the hell are you doing?”

Then a few more voices started cursing over the channel.

Isabelle gave up completely. She turned and ran for the door, pounding on it with her fists.

“Open the door! Let me out! I’m done!”

It wasn’t that we couldn’t extract her. It was that she’d chosen the exact door our entry team had rigged with flashbangs.

If she came out that way, our whole deployment would be compromised.

An officer who’d just pulled back from that position swore into his mic.

“We cleared that door so we could hold it as an entry point.”

“We told you to stay away from that door. Don’t you listen?”

The moment he finished, Gianni spoke again.

“What are you yelling for? Clear the position. Let her withdraw.”

“Anyone else talks back, I’m cutting your comms, too.”

“Listen up. I am in command here.”

When Isabelle heard that, she actually laughed out loud, right in front of the kidnapper.

“Gianni’s the best. He always looks out for me.”

This time, even the kidnapper, who’d been a coiled spring of tension, let out a sharp, angry laugh.

“Great. So the CPD sent a clown to piss me off on purpose, is that it?”

“You really think you can play me?”

His arm locked tighter around the hostage’s neck as his other hand fished a remote detonator from his pocket.

“You want to play games? Fine. No one gets out of here alive.”

With a retaliatory suspect, the playbook was simple.

You humor him. Make him think he’s in control. That’s how you buy time.

Even I knew that, and my only job was to pull the trigger.

But this so-called expert just kept poking the bear, hitting every nerve with every word.

A priority alert screamed through the comms.

Suspect has raised the remote. Detonation is imminent.

Everyone in the building knew that if he pressed that button, we were all dead.

The entry team leader’s voice cut in, making an emergency request.

“Captain, entry team requests permission to breach. Immediately.”

“Suspect is no longer stable. I repeat, requesting immediate breach.”

“Repeat” was the highest level of urgency in our comms protocol.

It meant the situation was critical, and the commander had to respond. Now.

My finger found the trigger again. Protecting civilians was my job.

But Gianni’s answer was the same.

“Hold. We move after Isabelle is clear.”

“Gianni, you’re the best. I knew you’d protect me.”

Isabelle’s voice was still syrupy sweet over the channel, but no one answered her.

Every person in that building was hanging between life and death. No one was laughing.