Man Down: An Everyday Heroes World Novel (The Everyday Heroes World) Read online

  Man Down

  An Everyday Heroes World Novel

  BJ Bentley

  Contents

  Introduction

  Chapter 1

  Vance

  Chapter 2

  Poppy

  Chapter 3

  Vance

  Chapter 4

  Poppy

  Chapter 5

  Vance

  Chapter 6

  Poppy

  Chapter 7

  Vance

  Chapter 8

  Poppy

  Chapter 9

  Vance

  Chapter 10

  Poppy

  Chapter 11

  Vance

  Chapter 12

  Poppy

  Chapter 13

  Vance

  Chapter 14

  Poppy

  Chapter 15

  Vance

  Chapter 16

  Poppy

  Chapter 17

  Vance

  Chapter 18

  Poppy

  Chapter 19

  Poppy

  Chapter 20

  Vance

  Chapter 21

  Poppy

  Chapter 22

  Poppy

  Chapter 23

  Poppy

  Chapter 24

  Vance

  Chapter 25

  Poppy

  Chapter 26

  Vance

  Chapter 27

  Vance

  Chapter 28

  Poppy

  Epilogue

  Want more?

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  ALSO BY BJ BENTLEY

  ALSO BY K. BROMBERG

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons living or dead are entirely coincidental.

  © 2021 JKB PUBLISHING, LLC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This book may not be re-sold or given away to other people.

  Published by JKB Publishing, LLC.

  Cover Design by: Desire Premade Covers

  Published in the United States of America

  Introduction

  Dear Reader,

  Welcome to the Everyday Heroes World!

  I’m so excited you’ve picked up this book! Man Down is a book based on the world I created in my USA Today bestselling Everyday Heroes Series. While I may be finished writing this series (for now), various authors have signed on to keep them going. They will be bringing you all-new stories in the world you know while allowing you to revisit the characters you love.

  This book is entirely the work of the author who wrote it. While I allowed them to use the world I created and may have assisted in some of the plotting, I took no part in the writing or editing of the story. All praise can be directed their way.

  I truly hope you enjoy Man Down. If you’re interested in finding more authors who have written in the KB Worlds, you can visit www.kbworlds.com.

  Thank you for supporting the writers in this project and me.

  Happy Reading,

  K. Bromberg

  I see you, I hear you, and I fight for you.

  1

  Vance

  Being alive sucked when you’d been hit by a Mack truck.

  The flask in the top drawer of the heap of scrap metal the Aspen Falls PD considered a desk called my name, promising sweet relief in the form of a little hair of the dog, and I was miserable enough to consider it.

  “Yo, Brody! Heard you had a wild night last night!”

  The marching band in my skull stomped all over the field, drums beating, cymbals crashing.

  Fuckin’ Chad Zanetti.

  Overcompensating douchebag with a taste for dipping into his victim pool. I couldn’t even say how many times I’d seen him get inappropriate with women who did not need someone in a position of authority, someone who was sworn to serve and protect, taking advantage of them, particularly when they were at their most vulnerable. He was a decent enough detective, but he was a shit man.

  And he was on my last nerve.

  The call of that flask, a gift from my dad marking ten years on the force, was turning into a siren’s song with each word out of Zanetti’s ignorant mouth.

  “Brody! What’s wrong, man? Can’t run with the big dogs anymore?”

  Christ, what was this? Animal House? “Zanetti, maybe if you were a little less frat boy and a little more cop, you’d close more cases,” I called across the bullpen.

  A chorus of “ooh” rose up at my dig. It was well-known department lore that I had the highest close rate in Aspen Falls PD history, particularly impressive for someone who had made detective rather young. It was also well known that Chad Zanetti was in some sort of juvenile competition with himself to beat my record. Not fuckin’ likely if he kept dicking around the way he did.

  “Drink this. You look like shit.” Colin, my best friend and instigator of last evening’s festivities, set one of two coffee cups on my desk.

  Strong and black by the smell of it.

  “Thanks,” I mumbled, wondering why he didn’t look as bad as I felt. “How the hell are you upright this morning?”

  “Bella.” He raised his cup in a salute before taking a sip of what was sure to be chewable, coffee-flavored sludge.

  “Meaning?”

  “Meaning, when you come home to a good woman after getting shitfaced at your best friend’s thirtieth birthday party, you don’t have to take care of yourself. Bella plied me with Tylenol and a gallon of water before she left me to sleep face down on the couch.”

  His shit-eating grin indicated he didn’t give two shits that he’d slept on the couch last night. Of course, that couch was the most comfortable piece of furniture my ass had ever touched, so if it had been me, I wouldn’t have cared either.

  “Lucky you.” I tore the lid off my to-go cup and tested the temperature before taking a tentative sip of desperately needed caffeine.

  “Fuck yeah, lucky me. I hear Zanetti’s giving you shit already this morning.”

  I sat back, allowing the bitter magic bean water to do its thing, and grunted, disinclined to waste any more words on the topic.

  “I wish he’d get transferred already,” Colin muttered.

  Scuttlebutt was that Zanetti was up for some position in the Sacramento police department. I didn’t think an hour’s drive was far enough away, but at least he’d be out of my face if he got it. In which case, I wished him all the luck. “Yeah, well, don’t get ahead of yourself. He’s not the only one up for that job.”

  “True, but he’s the only one willing to suck dick to get there.”

  I snorted into my cup, barely missing my crotch when some of the coffee splashed over the lip. “You’re an asshole.”

  “Yeah, but I’m your asshole.”

  “I do not even want to know what you two are talking about.” Carol Ann, one of the department’s secretaries dropped a file on my desk as she let a shudder work through her. “No one needs to hear anything about anybody’s asshole. Not even yours, Brody. I don’t care how fine it is.”

  “Aww, Carol Ann, don’t be that way.” I winked. “You know I work hard to keep thi
s ass in tip-top shape.”

  “Don’t flash that bad boy smile at me. My panties aren’t droppin’ for you.”

  Colin and I laughed as she strode away, her orthopedic shoes squeaking on the worn tile floor. Carol Ann was seventy years old if she was a day. Still, I bet if I worked at it, she’d change her tune. A shudder of my own worked its way down my spine, and I shook my head clear of those thoughts before I made myself puke.

  “Christ, I bet she was fun back in the day,” Colin mused.

  “You should ask Cap. I heard they had a thing back then.”

  Colin scoffed. “No thanks, I’d like to live to see another day.”

  I hummed my agreement and picked up the case file Carol Ann had dropped in front of me. “Ahh, fuck,” I muttered, opening it and running my eyes over what was inside. Two days ago, we’d been called out to the scene of an overdose. A fourteen-year-old kid was lying half-clothed on the floor of an empty apartment. It appeared he’d been squatting. Empty soda bottles and fast-food wrappers littered the floor around him, and the stench of human waste permeated the air. I knew I’d be seeing that needle sticking out of his arm every time I closed my eyes for the next good, long while. I signed my name where the yellow tags indicated, finalizing my report, and slammed the folder closed.

  “Your turn.” I slid the file across the desk so my partner could sign off, corroborating my statement.

  Colin opened the folder, grimacing when he saw the same photo I just had. He hastily scrawled his name and slapped the folder shut faster than I had, knowing that image would be seared into his brain as much as it’d be in mine. “I’ll take this back down to Carol Ann,” he murmured, rising from where his ass had been planted on the side of my desk instead of his own goddamn chair, and took off across the bullpen.

  The mountain of paperwork on my desk was ever-growing. Papers stuck out of folders haphazardly stacked on top of one another in a seemingly careless manner, tossed down at the end of the day and laying wherever they landed. The truth was, nothing about it was careless. If anything, I cared too goddamn much, so between that and the amount of coffee I drank on the daily, it’d be a fucking miracle if I didn’t have an ulcer by my next birthday.

  “Brody! My office!”

  Here we go again. I didn’t even flinch anymore when the captain bellowed for me. If I wasn’t being reprimanded for one thing or another, was I even doing my job? I slugged back as much as I could stomach of the over-brewed coffee The Beat was known for, tossed the cup in the trash, and stood.

  “Ohhh, somebody’s in trouble!”

  “Shut the fuck up, Zanetti,” I called, not bothering to look at the overgrown man-child as I made my way to yet another lecture on ‘procedure’ and ‘policy’ and ‘ethics.’

  The sooner we got this over with, the sooner I could get back to real police work and doing whatever it takes to put the bad guys where they belong. Either behind bars or, on occasion, in the ground. I wouldn’t consider myself a vigilante, I just didn’t always color inside the lines. I also didn’t lose any sleep at night over the pedophiles, rapists, and murderers who increased their risk of meeting the reaper when they chose to put innocent lives at risk rather than doing their time.

  “Sit,” he ordered. Captain George Griffin. Forty year veteran of the force, all but two of those years served in Aspen Falls, and as by-the-book as they come, which didn’t bode well for me.

  I closed the door behind me and did as instructed, trying not to look too relaxed. I was used to Captain Griffin’s tongue-lashings, so I wasn’t concerned about the fallout, but I respected the man, so the last thing I wanted to do was adopt an air of apathy while he reamed me out. I stretched my legs out in front of me and took in his mottled face framed by white hair all the way around- bushy eyebrows, mustache, and mutton chop sideburns. His cheeks were a darker shade of crimson than usual, and I felt the first stirrings of unease as he opened his mouth.

  “That Leonard bastard filed assault charges this morning.”

  I blinked. “Okay…”

  Griffin rolled his eyes before huffing, “Against you, you dipshit!”

  I dropped my relaxed pose and sat forward, fuming. “What the fuck?” I hissed. Don Leonard was a mean son of a bitch when he was sober, but it was ten times worse when he was drunk. And he was often drunk. I didn’t have enough fingers and toes to count how many times Colin and I had dragged the bastard down to the station to dry out. Or how many women he’d beaten in his booze-fueled fits of rage. So, if we’d scuffled a bit during transport, that was on him.

  “Now,” Griffin halted my impending explosion, holding up a hand. “Before you go off, I’ve got to tell you: I’ve already gotten my orders from the chief. She was made aware of the situation as soon as it happened and has instructed me to deal with it. I can’t let you off with a verbal reprimand this time, Brody.”

  I clenched my jaw, my ire escalating by the second. So, I wasn’t a Boy Scout, and this wasn’t my first time in Cap’s office. Likely wouldn’t be the last either. But in this case, I hadn’t actually done anything wrong. It was widely known that I was wont to bend the rules time and again. Sometimes it was necessary to get the job done. I was sure I wasn’t the only one, but maybe I was the only one who was cavalier enough about it to get caught. Fortunately, I was lucky enough to have a captain who tolerated and oftentimes excused my behavior. Even if he was by-the-book, he couldn’t deny my results. Unfortunately, it looked like my luck had just run out.

  Still… “I didn’t do anything he didn’t deserve.”

  Griffin scowled at my low growl. “For your sake, I’m going to pretend I didn’t just hear that. Now, the chief didn’t give me any specifics on how to deal with your sorry ass, so here’s what we’re gonna do. You’ve got a choice; you can either take an unpaid leave of absence until the dust settles--”

  “Not happening.”

  “Or…you can take on a mentee.”

  I raised an eyebrow. I had not seen that coming, but there was no way I was taking unpaid leave. “A mentee? You want me to babysit some rookie?”

  Cap tipped his head. “Brand new to the force. Smart as a whip, but green in terms of experience. I think you’d learn a lot from each other.”

  Not likely, but whatever, as long as it kept me on the job. “Fine.”

  “Good. You start first thing tomorrow morning. In the meantime, keep your head down and try to keep your ass out of trouble.”

  Stay out of trouble for the next twenty-four hours? What was I, an amateur? “Yes, sir.”

  Griffin sighed. “Sometimes, you’re not worth the paperwork, Brody,” he muttered, sliding his reading glasses on so he could return to said paperwork and effectively dismissing me.

  “Yes, sir,” I repeated, this time solemnly, as I left his office.

  2

  Poppy

  “Buck up, Poppy, you can do this.”

  I checked my reflection for the seventeenth time.

  Uniform pressed. Makeup light and natural. Hair pulled sleekly back, my bun severe. No-nonsense attitude firmly in place. I inhaled sharply through my nose and blew it out through my mouth before snapping the sun visor back into place, stepping out of my car, and adjusting my duty belt.

  It was my first day on the job. Day one at Aspen Falls PD. I tucked my procedural manual under my arm and marched up the steps of the station, studying the way the sun glinted off the quartz in the granite and wishing my dad was there to see what I was about to do.

  “You’re really doing it, aren’t you?”

  I glanced up to see my big brother, one of Aspen Falls PD’s finest, leaning against the door he undoubtedly wanted to keep me from passing through.

  “Yes, Heath, I’m really doing this.” I ascended to the top step. “You gonna let me in?”

  His beleaguered sigh was so reminiscent of our father, that sharp ache in my chest that had dulled over time came back with a vengeance.

  He cracked a knuckle-- his tell when he was frustrated. “
Anybody gives you a hard time, you come to me.”

  I fought rolling my eyes. “I can handle myself, Heath.”

  The look he shot me suggested he thought otherwise, and didn’t that just get my hackles up?

  “This isn’t the academy, Pop. You’re not gonna be top dog here.” His warning was unnecessary. I knew exactly what I was walking into.

  The boys club.

  And it didn’t matter that I was Fred Leighton’s daughter or Heath Leighton’s sister. In fact, those two facts made it worse. I was female, and that was all they cared about. It wasn’t that they wouldn’t respect me. It wasn’t about that. But it was something almost as insulting.

  They wanted to protect me.

  “I know where I stand. I’ll be fine.”

  At the academy, I’d been top of my class. I was an overachiever by nature, it was just who I was. The drive to be better, smarter, stronger, faster was in my DNA. My father and brother were the same, but I put even their accomplishments to shame.

  And I was smart enough to know that the career path I’d chosen was not going to be paved with rainbows and butterflies. The path would not be clear. It would not be easy.

  I would not be welcome.

  “You know what being a Leighton means here, Pop,” he said carefully.

  “I’m well aware, Heath. Let me do this,” I all but begged. I was walking in there come what may, but I didn’t want to steamroll over my brother in the process. At least not on my first day.