Partners

21.

The night fell, faster than I expected, apparently planning to take over some gang's house took a long time. Some of the police workers went away a long time ago, while others kept doing their work here. They all had 2 days to finish the planning. We were heading for the gang's house in 2 days.

Julianna left just few minutes ago. She took the responsibility to control the mission of the SWAT team. They needed to step in as soon as Elyssa gets back to me with the drive. She wanted to make it look like she was getting arrested as well. She wanted to still have their trust, in case something goes wrong.

"I guess that's it. For you two. Just remember the emergency meeting point if something goes wrong." Ramirez said, mainly to me.

Emergency meeting point is 2 streets down from the gang's house. There is a café in there just go there and ask for Howard.

I nodded, repeating the words in my mind, and tugged on Elyssa's hand. She was nearly drifting off on the side of the sofa. She 'huh'ed while sleepily looking around. Her eyelids were barely opening making the small ocean in her eyes look like a pond.

"Are you gonna empty the house? Unlike you I need a good night's sleep to function." Elyssa said with a tired smile. Ramirez chuckled. That's actually the first time I see his face expressing something other than anger.

"I am afraid, the head office didn't pay for another night in motel, they want all of us staying in our places, making less of a fuss." Ramirez said, seeming not so happy with the conditions.

"And my house is too far from here, and I need to be here again in another 6 hours I am just gonna stay here and work on other case." With that he brought out his bag and took out huge pack of papers.

Elyssa shrugged and grabbed my hand. "Whatever, we are going to sleep. Just don't break anything." I turned and followed Elyssa's lead to the bedroom.

Usually Elyssa set the couch out for herself, we weren't sleeping in the same room, let alone in the same bed. It sorts of felt rushed after our relationship, whatever we were, was just starting out.

Elyssa seemed to remember that after walking in to the bedroom. She looked around I swear I saw a small blush on her cheeks. "Um, do you have sleeping bag or something, I could sleep around here." She said and looked around.

I smiled and squeezed her hand before pulling her towards me. "It's alright, the bed is big enough to fit another person." She smiled at that and looked towards the bed.  "I always thought that you have too many pillows for one person."

I chuckled and jumped to the bed and dragged Elyssa as well, making her lay right next to me, with her hand on my stomach.

I was woken up by noises coming all around the house. At first, I tensed, thinking that someone broke in to the house. But then I remembered the events of previous night.

Looking down, I saw Elyssa's head on my shoulder, her mouth was slightly open making it clear that she was asleep. I moved my other arm to hug her closer to myself, and sighed with smile on my lips.

After 30 minutes it was clear that I wasn't going to fall asleep, everything was too loud. I slowly shifted away from Elyssa, tying to not wake her up. Luckily, she wasn't a light sleeper and I managed to get my arm under her head.

It was only 9 am in a Sunday morning and my house was already buzzing with noise. If my neighbors didn't hate me before, they sure are gonna hate me now.

After getting my hair in a good state I walked out of my room to get my morning routine done. Some of the people, sitting in my sofa looked at me weirdly. Sending each other the looks of 'who the hell is she'.

Ignoring them I went in to the bathroom, and then made my way to kitchen, to make a green tea. Ramirez was standing there, with coffee in his hands. He slightly nodded at me and I did the same.

I wouldn't consider Ramirez and I to be in good terms. He hates my dad and probably thinks that I am going to work against them in some way. It was clear when yesterday while going over the plan he put extra emphasis on 'no one needs to know about this, especially people with power' and glared at me.

It really irritated me but what could I do? Arguing with him would be pointless. So, I just have to ignore his every remark and just wait until all of this is done.

"Brooks, good to see you up so early, Julianna would be here in few minutes to help you with the preparations." I nearly flinched at his mention of my old surname.

I nodded. "Yeah, cool." I didn't know what I supposed to say at that, so I just slowly make my way towards the living room, and then saw that there isn't any space there so walk back in to the kitchen, with my cup of tea still in my hands, and Ramirez's eye concentrated on my face.

Not knowing how to make things less awkward, I just drank my tea. Ramirez still looked at me like I have committed a murder. "I am sorry, did I do something wrong?" I asked him.

His eyes stopped analyzing every part of me and instead turned to my face. He put on a fake smile and answered. "I don't know, maybe you haven't done anything yet, or maybe you are just waiting for a right moment to do something."

I sighed and put my cup down. "I don't get why are you so sure that I have so secret plan to ruin this operation. But, I am not going to risk my life just to ruin things for you. You are not in the center of my master plan of ruining the worlds, Officer." I said and turned my attention back to my tea.

Ramirez didn't say anything to me, and just walked out. Soon he was yelling out orders to people sitting in the living room.

Julianna gave me a lot of points to talk about, and I am pretty sure that I could keep conversation going for more than 10 minutes. As Julianna was explaining me the earpiece and what kind of information to look for, Elyssa walked in to the kitchen and yawned before going over to make a coffee.

"Good morning." I said and Elyssa smiled tiredly. She and Julianna exchanged a nod. "Morning, what are you guys up to?" Elyssa said after getting her coffee.

Julianna showed her the ear piece and Elyssa sighed. "Always hated those things. I can't really concentrate on my job with voices talking inside my head." I chuckled at that. "It can't be that hard to concentrate on stuff with it in your ear, right?" I asked Julianna and she shrugged.

"The talking will be limited to only important announcements, though, you both will hear extra noises from your surroundings, as you both need to be aware of the situation" I nodded, while processing the information.

Having a connection between me and Elyssa would make sure that we both are in check with each other, Elyssa could even give me guides on what to tell her father to keep him satisfied.

"Good, good, what are the key words, though?" Elyssa asked. Key words, as Julianna explained, are special words which we should tell to inform others from the outside with the situation inside. It all needs to be done without racing much suspicion.

"So, the main key word is lasagna- I know weird, but I wasn't the one who came up with it. After getting the drive and Olivia, you should tell this to start the operation. Tomato is the plan b, if something goes wrong you need to use tomato." Julianna read from the paper and Elyssa nodded with satisfaction.

"It is going to be a big lasagna after I am done with them."