Birdy (Upper Echelon Duet Book 1)

me as soon as he’s filled the order before me.
Takes the man a while, but about twenty-ish minutes later, I’m slipping out of the restaurant and back down the pier with a cold beer in hand. That first welcome sip hits the damn spot, promising to fuel me with the courage I can never seem to find around Ángel unless it involves his dick. It’s then I realize he’s not responded to my text yet.
With a quick hand, I yank my phone from my back pocket and go about the motions of another outgoing call. It rings through to his voice mail just like the last time, prompting me to navigate through a couple screens to our text thread as police sirens blare in the near distance. I keep the message short, typing it out with only one thumb.
Me: Are we still meeting up?
I stand there in the middle of the ramp, my eyes boring into the screen, willing those three little dots to appear. All the while, people walk around me, some bump into me. I couldn’t care less. I’m more focused on the fact that nothing is happening, absolutely nothing. Where is he? Is he still wherever the fuck he is? Did he end up leaving earlier than planned?
Mind racing with a string of scenarios, I blow out another anxious breath and stuff the phone back into my pocket, heading down the ramp to the parking lot. The beer bottle sweats in my hand, dripping a cool trail beside me. I’m not sure what to do—if I should bother waiting anymore at this point—but I’m going to have to finish this beer before I can leave. I didn’t just waste twelve dollars on this thing.
Bringing the bottle to my lips, I tip my head back and start chugging, eyes watering through the burn. Idly, I grasp the warbled sound of those sirens growing closer, but I don’t stop, swallowing gulp after gulp of the hoppy goodness.
Until a series of tires squeal, snapping my head up to meet a cavalry of red and blue lights.
What the hell?
I scan the lot—everything and everyone around me. Nothing seems out of the ordinary. Everyone—including me—stands stock-still, waiting to see what the fuck is about to go down.
Two cruisers and three SUVs screech to a stop, not twenty feet away from me. Seconds later, there are at least ten pigs blowing out of the doors, each one drawing their pistol as their feet touch down on the sand-dusted asphalt, their aim in my general direction.
“Benita Adriana Villanueva?” one of them barks, shooting my heart up to my throat.
What the hell is fucking happening right now?
I’m by no means drunk, not even tipsy, but I can’t seem to make sense of it. I’m suddenly light-headed, my mind in a hazy fog from the beer I just chugged. “Yeahhh?” I drawl.
I barely blink, and a handful of them run up on me, including the one who just identified me. “Give me the bottle and put your hands behind your back,” he orders.
My grip tightens around the neck as I shuffle back a few steps. “What? Why?”
The pig offers a humorless laugh and pulls out his cuffs. “Because you’re under arrest; that’s why.”
“Under arrest? For what?” The stupidest question I could have possibly asked, considering there’s a long list of reasons why.
“You know why,” he answers, spinning me around just as the bottle’s ripped from my grip, completely disarming me.
No—this can’t be happening!
It just can’t! From my throat to the deepest pit of my stomach, my heart free falls, shattering into a million pieces. I’ve been under the radar for almost three years, keeping everything clean and organized. I followed Ángel’s suggested plan, too, adding my own personal touches here and there when necessary. There’s no way they could know what I’ve been up to.
None.
At least that’s what I’m trying to convince myself as they’re trying to cuff me.
Trying being the operative words because I’m blatantly refusing to let him put those cuffs around my wrists. Every wiggle and thrash of my body compresses his hold on me by the second. I know the whole lot is watching this go down, but I don’t care. I’m not going down for this. I can’t! 
“You can’t do this!” I yell! “You can’t just roll up on me and arrest me without probable cause!”
“We do have probable cause, plenty of evidence from following you around!” the one who apprehended me yells back.
“Bullshit!”
“Stop resisting, Villanueva! You’re making it worse for yourself!”
No, no, no! This can’t be happening! This can’t be fucking happening!
“Stop resisting!” another barks, but I don’t relent, tears now blurring my vision as the beer rushes up my throat.
I swallow it back, barely, and keep at it. I keep thrashing, keep wiggling, keep fucking crying until I find myself face-front on the ground, knocking the wind out of me with an audible whoosh.
I’m immobilized. Three sets of powerful, intent hands hold me down until I feel the cool metal touch my skin, my eyes bulging as they dig painfully into the bones of my wrists. I’ve never been cuffed this tightly; I wince as they pull me up onto my feet.
“You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney. If you cannot afford one, one will be appointed for you…”
That's when I see it, from the corner of my wet eye, droning out the rest of my rights: his car. He’s here. He came. "Ángel!" I screech at the top of my lungs, sobbing his name like he’s the hallelujah to my silent prayers. “Ángel, help me!”
But he wouldn’t be able to help me. Not then or when they shoved me into the back of the car.
It was too late.
I was going down for this, and I’d go down hard as hell.

Fuck.
Fuck, fuck, fuck!
I can’t do anything other than sit behind the wheel and watch