27. Tiia
“We’ve got nothing!” Agent Dickerson—his name applies in more ways than one—slams a file to the boardroom table in downtown Manhattan, and presses his hands down beside it, standing over me and sneering. “Nothing, Hale!”
“My cover was blown.” I sit back to steal a little space, refusing to breathe his coffee-breath this late in the afternoon. Not today. “I was careful, sir. The Malones ran a deeper background check on me.”
“Your cover was solid!”
“My cover was blown by someone with better IT skills than those hired by the FBI. Micah Malone ran his prelim checks via his first computer guy, and everything came up fine. Then he went to someone else, I guess, and it all came crashing down.”
And the fact that he got a second opinion stings a little. The fact that he was claiming love one minute, and checking up on me the next, devastates.
But those are feelings, and I’ve decided I have no room for such frivolities.
“I did nothing to expose myself, sir. It was our documentation.”
“Couldn’t be that you literally exposed yourself, huh?” He shoves up straight and looks over my shoulder at Roscoe, who sits stony faced on my left. “You got soft,” he presses, his eyes flickering back to me. “Got intimate with a target. Things sounded pretty damn cozy to me. Maybe you chickened out and told him what you are.”
“Easy now,” Roscoe growls. “You’re making it personal, Dickerson. Back up.”
“She made it personal!” The prick points straight between my eyes, almost touching my forehead. A threat, in any language, any time. And one I like to think Micah himself would murder for. “She cozied up with the fuckin’ mafia after we had an in with the family. And now?—”
“I am the in!” I bite back. I know I shouldn’t. Insubordination. Insolence. Blah, blah, blah. But I’m done being disrespected, and I’m doubly done with him shouting in my already tender ears. “I didn’t blow your in, sir. I was the in. Me. My hard work.”
“Your ability to lie on your back?—”
“Hey!” Roscoe pushes up from his chair and goes toe to toe with our boss, risking his job. Because of me. Because of my actions.
“Stop,” I groan. I set my elbows on the table, then my face in my hands. “Roscoe, sit down.”
“You’ve taken your swipes,” Roscoe snarls anyway. “You’ve said your piece and expressed your frustration at an op gone bad. But now you’re done.”
“Sit down, Agent.”
“You’re done!” he snaps. “You’re sprinting from work and sliding head-first into harassment. I will go over your head on this.”
“Roscoe!” I grab his belt loop and tug him back. “I said enough.” I look at Dickerson, then to the dozen other agents surrounding our table—yeah, we have an audience to my humiliation and twelve sets of eyes morbidly thrilled to have a front-row seat to a discussion where my sex life and work life collide.
Releasing Roscoe and a deep breath, all in sync and stuff, I look across at Agent Jazmine Collier—Jazzy, of course—and know we were this close to her being the one sent to CeCe’s to lure the formidable and terrifying Micah to his knees, and me being the ditzy, slutty friend who drew focus everywhere she went.
She allows a small, soft smile now. A look of support. Though she’s not so brazen as to battle our boss the way Roscoe does.
“The cover was blown,” I finally murmur, dragging my eyes back to a seething Dickerson. “I said nothing I shouldn’t have said. I did nothing I shouldn’t have done. The operation was exposed through no fault of my own. And the cold hard fact is, the identity manufactured by the Bureau had holes in it, so whether you sent me in, or Roscoe, or anyone else in this room, it was always gonna fall apart. Now we need to figure out our next steps. What are we gonna do about it?”
“What are we gonna do? Nothing! It took us twenty-three years to get an agent through their doors. Twenty-three! That’s how long it’s been since we last had someone in there for more than a second. Now they’ve been burnt, so they’re gonna be especially wary of unfamiliar faces.”
“So instead of telling us what we can’t do,” Roscoe growls, “why don’t you share with the class what we can do? It’s not Tiia’s fault her background check fell over. But it sure is the Bureau’s fault she was in danger. We know the Malones take lives. We know they could have taken hers, and it would have been because of an administration fuck up. Seems to me, instead of shouting at her for shit falling apart, you owe her an apology for the outcome that could have ended her life.”
“Roscoe—”
“An apology,” Dickerson sniggers. “A fuckin’ apology.”
I don’t think I’m getting an apology.
Sorry you got busted, Tiia.
Sorry you were taken to a torture hut in the middle of the forest and made to cry.
Sorry you had to sit in someone else’s blood and a seat that no doubt has been coated in urine before.
Sorry your heart hurts and the dark scares you.
And sorry the man you love hates you.
“Where are we up to with Wilkes?” Jazzy inserts, stealing attention as though we’re still working a mark, and saving me from the beady, heated stare of people I don’t even like. “Where to next?”
“Wilkes is getting cocky,” Dickerson finally grumbles, stepping away from an incensed Roscoe and moving to the massive screen on the wall. He faces away from me, which muffles his words. “He was kjbkaubdfkh kfksef wdkfsfdg.”
“Turn back around, sir.” I lift my hand like a good little schoolgirl, and fake a smile when his head swivels, exorcist style. “I can’t understand you when you’re not looking at me.”
My hearing loss is also from a fuck up on the job. His fuck up. And he knows it, so he turns, gritting his jaw so tight, I wonder how much his dentist dislikes him.
He forces his lips into an ugly smile, his patience wearing dangerously thin. “Joseph Wilkes’ associate attempted to smuggle girls into Mexico. Local authorities picked them up eight miles from the border and now they’re dealing with the fallout. Thirty-three females, and only a half dozen of them were adults. The associate, Gaines, is claiming to not know Wilkes at all.”
“Which would be the party line,” Jazzy inserts. “If he narcs, Wilkes slits his throat anyway.”
“Correct,” Dickerson agrees. “They have their stories prepared, always, and a stint in prison for Gaines would be far less painful than the outcome of snitching on Wilkes. However, a paper trail proves their connection, which will help us once we go to trial.”
“But in the meantime?” I press. “The guy is smuggling children into a life of forced sex work.”
“For now, we continue to build our case, and we hope to save the innocent before they disappear forever. We got lucky with this most recent truckload. Unfortunately for those girls, luck isn’t something we should count on.”
No shit.
“In addition to all that, Wilkes is getting ballsier. Word circulating underground is that he intends to carry out a drive-by at one of Malone’s clubs again, soon.”
My heart stumbles in my chest. Dickerson’s words, spoken so fucking easily, so casually, leave me with burning acid biting at the bottom of my throat.
“W-which club?” Roscoe turns back to study my face, but I ignore his probing stare. I refuse to meet his eyes. “When is he intending to hit it?”
“Doesn’t matter, Agent Hale. You have no part in the operation.”
“When is he attempting the drive-by?!” I shove up from my chair and picture in my mind, not the terrifying man who held me against my will and broke me—heart and soul, but I picture that same strong, broad body lying on the filthy concrete, his belly filled with bullets and his life, snuffed out long before he’s done living. “Our entire operation this past year has been about keeping the Malones alive! It’s been about saving New York from an open war that would spill onto the streets and spell endless bloodshed.”
“You don’t?—”
“If Wilkes swings by that club and kills either of those brothers, the other will stop at nothing to get revenge. If Felix is shot, there’s no telling what Micah will do. And if Micah is shot…” I draw a deep, shuddering breath, filling my lungs until bursting. Then I release it again, closing my eyes for a long, private beat. “If Micah is harmed, Felix will set the whole country on fire in retribution.” Slowly, I open my eyes again and try with all my heart and soul to push intruding images from my mind.
Blood on my hands. Blood seeping from a powerful man’s body. My brain tosses cruel images to the forefront; Micah lying in the street. His expensive suit jacket splayed open and his white shirt glowing crimson. I see his already mutilated hand, searching for his wounds. His fingers, probing for where steel pierced skin.
“Our entire existence inside this building was constructed upon keeping Felix Malone from instigating a war no one, not even he himself, will be able to contain once first blood has been drawn. There is nothing he won’t do for his brother, so if you think Joseph Wilkes shooting his club up is something we can accept, then you can also be the one to explain why our city has been burned to the ground.” I look at the board behind my boss, the massive eight feet by five feet of screen, taking up most of the wall. Wilkes’ image stares back at me. Felix’s. Even Micah’s. Though the latter, I try desperately to ignore. “When is Wilkes hitting the club?”
“Tonight.” Sighing, Dickerson drops his head and shoulders in defeat, though at the same time, mine come up. “But we can’t confirm which club, and we have no clue what time it’ll go down. Felix is making it more difficult to track his whereabouts until he’s already at his destination, and we don’t have enough agents to cover every place he could be.”
“So what do you intend to do?” I look at Roscoe, whose dark eyes burn into mine. Then to Jazz, who simply watches me the way one would watch a kicked puppy hobbling in the street. My colleagues consider me nothing but a screw up, two operations in a row, busted wide open in the most horrifying way. Yet, neither time was my fault.
I become an easy target because I’m young and female. But my placement inside Micah’s home was going fine until our paperwork went to shit.
Not my fault.
My involvement in last year’s clusterfuck, leading me to an abandoned warehouse, was on Dickerson’s orders.
I do the fucking job, and I give it my all.
If I was a man, I’d be celebrated for my dedication to the law. But being a woman, I become an easy joke and disposable asset.
It sure becomes difficult to dedicate my life and safety to a badge that wouldn’t—and hasn’t—had my back when I’ve needed it in the past.
“Dickerson?” I study his eyes. His inability, or refusal, to meet my stare. “What are you gonna do about Wilkes tonight?”
“I don’t have any room to move here, Hale.”
“What?”
“I don’t have enough bodies to place inside every club the guy owns across this city, let alone the clubs he doesn’t own, but still frequents. I don’t have enough human resources, and spreading my agents out so I have a badge inside each building just puts them at risk, too.”
“What are you?—”
“I’m assigning you all to Wilkes, instead,” he rumbles. “Cover the shooter rather than the target.”
“So you hang Malone out to dry?” I step around my chair and push it in until it slams against the table, ruffling feathers of most everyone else in this room. Though not Jazzy. Not Roscoe. “You’re leaving them open and hoping Wilkes misses?”
“We don’t know where Malone will be! It makes sense to follow the gun instead. He’ll lead us wherever we have to go.”
“And in the meantime, he’s already there! Already rolling past the club with his guns hanging out the window. At that point, it’s too late.”
“Agent Hale!”
I spin on my heels and stride to the door. “You’re a shit boss, Dickerson!” I know, I know. Insubordination. “You’re simply not good at what you do.” I swing the door wide but stop and glance back to meet his eyes. “Your daddy has worked for the bureau since before you were born, so you were grandfathered in. Nepotism is ugly when lives are in your hands and you’re too inept to do what’s right.”
“If you approach Malone or that club, you’re fired! If you impede our investigation, you’ll go to prison.”
“And if I stay, I’ll die on the job due to your incompetence, or I’ll witness my friends die for the same reason. I’d rather do neither. But feel free to snitch about my disobedience to your father; at least then I can get a seat at his table and an audience with someone who gives a shit about those he commands.”
I release the door and stalk into the bullpen filled to the brim with agents who pour over desks and paperwork. Phones ring. Fingers tap against keyboards. Noise, noise, so much noise buzzing at the back of my skull, yet, I can’t make out any specific words. People talk, but I don’t know what they say.
“Ipo!” Roscoe’s deep, powerful voice taps at the back of my skull. That word, at least, I know by heart. But I don’t particularly want to stop and chat with him, either. So I stalk toward the elevator and smack the call button. “Tiia!” He runs the distance from the boardroom to where I stand, his feet slapping the linoleum. “Ipo! I know you heard me.”
“I heard you.” I look up when the elevator opens, and step in when I find the interior blissfully empty. “I just don’t want to spend time with you right now.”
He grabs my arm and yanks me to a stop on the threshold. His fingers painfully wrapped around my wrist. And his eyes, when he pulls me around, fiery and serious. “I know you’re going to him.”
“I can’t leave him hanging.” I shake my arm free and back up to rest against the railing on the wall. “I won’t leave him to die.”
“He will slit your throat if you go to him.” He follows me into the elevator, allowing the doors to shut at his back. “He’s not playing around, Ipo. You’re lucky he let you live last time.”
“He’s lucky I didn’t hurt him back.”’ The longer I go without Micah Malone in my life, the easier it is for me to move from heartsick to simply pissed off. “He’s a prick, Roscoe. And if anyone should be worried about retribution at our next meeting, it’s him. I can slit a throat, too. I might even enjoy it.”
He scoffs. “You’ll lose your job.”
“I don’t want it anyway! The pay is shit, the conditions are dangerous, my direct supervisor is a narcissistic bitch baby who has his title because of his father, and the situations he places us in are not safe or suitable. I’d rather work for Jakeline—at least she owns the fact that she’s a bitch. She doesn’t pretend otherwise.”
“You’re gonna undo everything, Ipo!” The doors open at his back to the underground parking garage, but when I start forward to pass him, he grabs my wrist again. Right where Micah’s leather bonds bruised my flesh. “We worked so hard to be here, Tiia. Together.”
“This was your dream. I just came along for the ride because of you and Jazzy.”
“We promised to stick together,” he pleads. “The three of us.”
“We’re still together.” I shake my hand free, but to soften the blow of my rejection, I place my palm on his pounding chest and smile. “We’ll always be together, Roscoe. But maybe the future will look a little different, that’s all.”
“If you go to him…” he rasps. “If you want to be with him, you complicate our relationship beyond repair.”
“Because you’re my brother and you get possessive and jealous?” I tease. “Or because you’re a badge, and he’s a criminal?”
“Both?” He places his hand over mine and sighs. “He’s gonna get you killed, Ipo. And a future where you no longer exist scares the shit out of me.”
“Funny. Because I feel safe when he’s around, and yet, incredibly vulnerable when I’m near Dickerson. The world has been tossed on its head and up is no longer up.” I wiggle my hand from beneath his and duck under his arm to escape the elevator. “Micah Malone wants me dead, Roscoe.” I glance back and smile. “And he’d like to be the one holding the blade. But don’t worry, he’ll protect me from anyone else who tries.”
“Not comforting, Ipo!” He turns and follows me out. “Dammit, woman. You don’t even know which club he’ll be at.”
“That part is easy.” I continue walking, relieved knowing my big brother—by seven minutes and twelve inches—will support me no matter my choices. “Felix will be at CeCe’s.”
“How do you know?” He grabs my arm and yanks me around. “How, Tiia? How could you possibly know that?”
“Because Felix’s heart beats for Christabelle Cannon. He loves her more than life itself. Of course he’ll be at the club he named for her.”