Reborn to Clear My Name Chapter 02

Reborn to Clear My Name Chapter 02

By the time Isabelle finally walked out of the building and everyone was preparing to breach, she started making trouble again.

“Gianni, am I useless?”

“Don’t think that, Isabelle.”

“It was your first time in a situation like this. The fact that you didn’t fall apart is impressive enough.”

“No. I have to prove myself.”

“I don’t want to be the one dragging everyone down.”

“Give me a gun. I’ll take out the kidnapper.”

“Fine. Take this sniper rifle. Go to the roof.”

“Everyone, listen. No one moves without my order.”

The earpiece went silent. No one wanted to waste another word on those two.

My gaze never left the kidnapper. Three minutes remained before the deadline he had set.

But through the scope, something about him looked wrong. Chances were, he never intended to keep his word.

“Maelle, I’m here.”

Isabelle kicked open the rooftop door and ran over to me, clutching the rifle and gasping for breath.

“Maelle, teach me how to shoot.”

“I don’t have time to play games with you.”

I didn’t look at her, just kept my eye to the scope.

She immediately got upset and kicked me hard in the back.

Then she threw the rifle on the ground and stepped directly onto my back.

“Maelle, hurry up and tell me. Don’t you dare ignore me.”

The blow was heavy. A dull, spreading ache radiated through my back and ribs.

Right now, my teammates’ lives were riding on my shot.

I couldn’t move. I had to hold this position for the one window I might get.

When I ignored her again, she grabbed my arm and shook it violently.

The core tenets of sniper training are stability, precision, and decisiveness.

The years of training I’d put in weren’t something a person who could barely hold a rifle steady could possibly comprehend.

My arm didn’t budge.

I held my ground until I hit my limit, then finally snapped.

“Isabelle, if you want to have a meltdown, do it somewhere else. Stop getting in my way.”

The moment she heard that, she started crying into her earpiece.

“Gianni, Maelle’s ignoring me.”

“I begged her, but she just won’t teach me… I knew it, I’m so stupid. I can’t do anything right…”

Gianni didn’t hesitate before opening fire on me over the channel.

“How hard is it to teach her?”

“You’re always like this. It’s like no one ever taught you how to work with your colleagues.”

“No wonder you have no discipline. Foster care really did a number on you.”

I grew up in the foster system. It had always been my deepest wound.

After I entered the police academy, Gianni was the only person I’d ever told.

He had promised that from then on, he was all the family I’d need.

Now he was using it as a weapon to tear me down.

I clenched my jaw, my nails digging so hard into my palm that it hurt.

I knew this wasn’t the time to settle the score with him.

Finish the mission first. Everything else could wait.

I put my eye back to the scope.

Then I realized the kidnapper, who had been facing the doors and windows, was now staring straight at our position.

From this distance, with an anti-reflection device on my scope, there was no way he could have spotted me that quickly.

My eyes shot to the rifle Isabelle had thrown on the ground.

There was nothing on the front of her scope. Sunlight was glinting off the glass.

Our position was compromised.