“What do you mean you let him go?”

I stare at Captain’s reddening face and wish I could turn and run. He's been screaming at me for the last ten minutes, demanding answers without giving me a chance to explain.

“I just don’t understand why he wasn’t cuffed the second you found him. You know the procedure. All bodies are restrained and removed from the building. Drake should have been the first guy out. His safety was the number one priority.”

I don’t know what he wants me to say so I just stay quiet. When he’s like this, anything I say will be the wrong thing and it will set him off again. What he doesn’t realise is that no matter how angry he gets with me, he can’t match how pissed off I am at myself.

Captain takes a deep breath before letting out a sigh. “I'm sorry, Grant, but I have no option here. I need you to clear your locker and go home. You’re officially on leave until an investigation of the incident has been conducted.”

I sit across the desk from him and stare in confusion. This can’t be happening. “I'm fired?”

“Suspended with pay.”

“Well, that’s so much fucking better. I can’t believe you're doing this, Captain. I wasn’t the only one there that day. This wasn’t just my fuck-up.” I’m shouting by the time I’ve finished speaking, my anger building the more I think about what’s happening.

“No you weren’t, but the fact remains that you are the one who let Drake walk away after you located him. Your orders were clear. Find Drake and extract him. You failed to do that, and now we have a missing officer.”

I can’t believe that they are still classing Drake as missing. There isn’t one part of me that buys that for a second. I was the one that spoke to him, and he didn’t look in fear for his life. He actually looked more worried that we were there, that he needed to get away before something else happened. There was something in his eyes when we hugged and only after the whole thing went to shit did I realise he was saying goodbye. As the minutes ticked on, I knew he wasn’t coming back, but it wasn’t because someone had taken him. No, he walked away from his life here one hundred percent of his own volition. “We both know that he wasn’t kidnapped or hurt. He left with the guys who were holding him. He wanted to go with them for some fucking reason.”

“That hasn’t been determined yet.”

I stand up from my chair and lean my hands on Captain’s desk. My anger is rising because no one will admit the truth of what might have happened. We didn’t lose an officer that day, he walked away. “We both know that’s shit. He’s gone, and it wasn’t through force.” I turn my back on him and head towards the door.

“Get your arse back here, Grant. We’re not finished.”

I pause before reaching the door, but I don’t return like I was ordered to.

When Captain realises that I won’t be moving, he continues talking. “This is just temporary. I have your back, and I will get you reinstated as quickly as possible. Use this time as an unplanned holiday. Go relax, take up a new hobby or something. My hands are tied, but I will fight until I get you back here.”

He almost looks like he believes that he’ll be able to help me keep my job, but we both know it’s a lie. The Force is looking for someone to blame, and I'm in the perfect position to take the fall. I’ll admit I went against protocol with Drake, but he's a fellow officer and my best friend. I thought I could trust him to keep his word. Who would have ever imagined that the second he went around that corner I would never see him again? There’s no way that I could have known that he would vanish into thin air along with the gang of criminals that sold him for sex.

That’s the crazy reality of the situation, and now we have no evidence of Blue Diamond, the escort agency that was the front for the prostitution ring, or any of the players involved. Even the men we arrested at the compound have been silent in defence of the man they worked for. It’s unusual to see that sort of loyalty from hired goons, especially when their freedom is at risk. It makes me wonder what kind of man ran the company if they’re scared to rat him out even now he’s gone.

I’ve been driving myself crazy thinking about that since Drake vanished. Did he understand the danger he could be putting himself in by leaving? I want to believe he didn’t, but he must known. He worked the case before going undercover. He saw what this group was capable of. He’d also been hurt while with them, I saw the bruises on him when we stormed the compound. Had they tortured him until he agreed to anything? Had they broken his mind and made him believe he needed them? All that scares the shit out of me, wondering what they did to him in the time they had him, how much he suffered. But there is also another thought niggling at the back of my brain. Did he go to protect someone, or was there some vital piece of evidence that he still needed to get? I don’t have any of the answers I crave, and I wish Drake had told me more before he walked away.

I turn in place, finally facing Captain. “We both know all the blame is going to be put on me, Captain. I was in charge. I was also the one who had Drake and let him go. I won’t let anyone else take the fall for my mistake. The higher-ups need someone to blame, and it’s going to be me. The force has to be shown to be taking this seriously. I'm not getting my job back, and there’s no point pretending otherwise.”

“I won’t let them push you out over this, Grant. You are a bloody good officer and you can’t lose everything over this one thing. The whole undercover operation was a cluster fuck right from the beginning, and that’s on me.”

I let out a humourless laugh. I appreciate that he's trying to set me at ease but I'm not stupid about how all this works. “And there’s no way that they’re going to hold you accountable for the whole thing. How many officers have lost their jobs over mistakes made by their superiors? Shit rolls downwards. I just I got hit this time.” Silence grows between us and I'm happy he's at least giving me the respect of not trying to bullshit me. He just sits behind his desk and looks more uncomfortable than I've ever seen him. Captain is a good guy, a fair man, but I know that in the long run, he won’t actually have any say on what happens to me. The force is going to put me on leave for just long enough to be useful to them. Once I'm no longer needed, they will dismiss me and I’ll be left with nothing.

A sudden thought enters my mind and it makes my heart race. It’s not something I've thought of because the police force is my life and I couldn’t imagine not doing this job, but now it seems like the perfect solution to everything. I refuse to be their scapegoat and at least this way I control the outcome. My anger fades and is quickly replaced with determination. I look at the Captain and meet him head-on with my sudden confidence. “I quit.”

His eyes widen in surprise but I don’t give him a chance to reply before I turn on my heels and leave his office.

I don’t know where Drake is or how to even begin looking for him, but I make a promise to myself as I start to empty out my locker. As long as I have breath left in my body, I will search for him. I will spend the rest of my life looking for Drake, and I will find him.