Sandra gasped, her brain completely stalling in utter bewilderment as she threw her hands up. “Wait! What are you doing? Stop! She’s the victim! The man you just tackled was the one holding her hostage!” The uniformed sergeant didn’t look at Sandra. Instead, he stepped directly over to Chloe and pulled a pair of heavy steel handcuffs from his utility belt. “Drop the act, Miss Sterling. Your tears aren’t working here. We know exactly who you are.”
The fragile, helpless victim facade completely vanished from Chloe’s face in a single millisecond. Realizing the performance had failed, she violently tried to twist past the sergeant, making a desperate, wild sprint toward the sliding glass exit doors.
But the uniformed officers moved with practiced speed. They caught her by the shoulders, aggressively spinning her around against a concrete pillar, and smoothly snapped the handcuffs onto her slender wrists. Chloe didn’t look scared anymore; her green eyes had turned viciously, calculatedly cold as she snarled at the floor.