Chapter 2 Sadie
SADIE
Another slide showed on the screen, and I did my best to hide a yawn.
“And if you look at this map…”
I blinked rapidly, willing my eyes not to go cross-eyed at the cluttered image that told me nothing I needed to know.
We were an hour into this meeting, and I wasn’t sure how much more patience I had in me.
This could’ve been a freaking email…
Emailing confidential information was something we did carefully here at the FBI.
Even still, all the details they were covering in this dull, white-walled room didn’t count as news-breaking material.
The news has already broken about this particular topic my supervisor droned on about.
Reporters and analysts were already covering this episode of fighting crime.
All the prime channels were spreading word about this takedown. It was out there.
So… let’s wrap it up.
A briefing was a serious matter. It really was. I didn’t possess an ounce of indifference about my career. Being an agent was my life’s mission. Ordinarily, I was all ears, diligent to absorbing information pertinent to my cases. Whatever it took to solve them and catch the bad guys.
However.
There were so many branches and teams and crews and agents and coalitions.
Being an agent meant I was one little cog in a huge organization, almost to the point that sometimes it was hard to feel significant or in the loop.
At this rate, it more resembled a franchise with the growing doubts and skepticism of outside forces interfering with our work.
Can’t this be a need-to-know sort of thing?
Because I didn’t need to listen to all this.
This briefing felt less like a recap or heads up or what was going on in the department.
No. This struck me more as a chance for the others to brag.
I was trapped in this room, listening to my direct supervisor, Special Agent Hufford, go on and on about Agent Davis and Agent Jeffries.
About how they met all their recent mission priorities.
How they achieved every one of their operational goals.
And how they’d ultimately taken the bad guys into custody.
Arresting a few minor players in a Romanian crime family based in Chicago was good news. But it wasn’t anything like a record. If anyone were to ask me, it seemed more like Davis and Jeffries stumbled upon the targets and happened to make the arrest because Chicago PD was there to assist.
Don’t be bitter. Don’t downplay what they did. We’re all on the same team.
I hated to be tempted into feelings of envy or resentment, but the more years I spent working as an agent, I had to wonder if we really were on the same team. Some days, the sexism and jokes and criticism hit too hard. The lack of backup and support wasn’t conducive for morale.
This briefing did matter. I would celebrate any win we got, regardless of how little it seemed like they’d “worked” for their success.
Yet, with the recent disappointment I was suffering from my efforts to hunt down the prime target in my case, hearing Hufford rave about Davis and Jeffries was annoying.
Come on, don’t be like that. Jealousy isn’t becoming.
I wasn’t merely envious. It was the general distaste of how unfair life could be that dragged my mood down too. Having to prove myself as a woman in a male-dominated workplace sucked.
I busted my ass on my cases and I was never praised like this. I worked hard as a solo agent, all on my own. And they were the ones to get pats on their backs just for happening upon some low-level thugs on a minor wanted list.
I wasn’t in it for the recognition, but dammit, this good-old-boys’ network was suffocating like this.
You’re in this to do good. To make the world a better and safer place. Remember?
Reminding myself of my purpose didn’t lessen the torture of sitting through this meeting, though.
I’m wasting time here, people.
My caseload wasn’t being chipped away like this. My productivity was shot. Enduring this meeting was nothing but an obstacle to trying to catch a member of the Dubinin Family.
You can’t evade me forever, Emil Dubinin.
Crossing my arms, I stared straight ahead and tuned out Hufford, Davis, and Jeffries. I narrowed my eyes as I thought back to the assassin I attempted to capture at the airport—again. The same handsome, cocky, smirking asshole who’d noticed me and given me the slip—again.
Even though I was a member in a task case that focused on organized crime and a new network of mobsters forming a “club” of alliances, I had been expected to bring in a member of the Dubinin Bratva for almost a year now.
I had files upon files on the Italians, too, the Rivera Mafia Family. Then more intel collected and analyzed on the Vipers Cartel. Other prominent syndicates were on my radar too. But for as powerful and secretive as the Dubinins were, they were the top targets.
The most elusive targets.
Don’t give up.
I shook my head as I thought back again.
Just a few days ago, Emil Dubinin had shown up at the airport in San Diego where I’d expected to cross paths with him.
Blending in and relying on my short stature to weave through crowds or hide among others, I tailed him through the airport.
I’d even managed to convince staff to get me a last-minute seat on a different flight, all to hunt him down.
But still, he got away.
He was too fast. Sneaky. Deceptive. Cunning.
Too damn good.
That asshole was playing games with me. He had to be, because there was no other explanation for how he moved around through the airport, leading me to believe he was flying to Alaska with a connector to Moscow, but then never showed up.
Being duped like that was embarrassing, but I refused to let it set me back. I’d get him. I would so get him, and then I’d be the one with that smug smile from beating him at this tireless cat-and-mouse bullshit he was insisting on playing with me. And then—
“Langer.”
I almost flinched. Turning to face Special Agent Hufford after he’d jarred me from my thoughts about Emil Dubinin and how capturing him was proving more difficult than I wanted it to be, I tipped my chin up in a silent question.
I was used to his barking surnames, but the indignant and cocky look in his eyes peeved me.
“You done daydreaming over there, staring into space?”
You can’t actually expect me to be sitting here listening to this sham of a briefing, can you?
I didn’t reply. His condescending question didn’t warrant one.
Even though he was my supervisor, I’d learned the hard way to never, ever back down.
I wouldn’t be a rebel and defy him, but dammit, I’d earn my respect here if it was the last thing I did.
I was short and petite, but I was not a pushover or weakling.
“What’s going on with your case?” He crossed his thick arms, muscled from protein shakes and steroids and time at the gym, not actual combat.
“I’m getting closer to arresting one of the Dubinins—”
“Closer?” Davis, now seated instead of standing up at the front with Hufford, laughed cruelly. “You’re getting closer? I thought I heard that he threw you off course and sent you to Alaska while he flew home.”
I pressed my lips together, refusing to show him any anger or frustration.
“You wanna get close to one of the Dubinins,” Jeffries said with a sleazy expression as he stared at my chest, “all you gotta do is put some work into it. Shouldn’t be too hard with a rack like that.”
Hufford’s reaction to the blatant sexism was to roll his eyes.
I didn’t react. I refused to. They could all act like morons and be dicks. I’d have the last word when I showed up with Emil Dubinin in custody. As soon as that was done, I’d go after another thug. Then another.
Ignore them all. Focus.
“That’s not a bad idea,” Davis said, joining in with Jeffries’ line of suggestion. “Use what you got.”
“You can practice on me,” another agent near the back of the room said.
More laughter followed.
As the only woman in the room, I wasn’t counting on support.
“Yeah. If you wanna practice seducing a man, I’ll volunteer as tribute,” another said.
I maintained eye contact with Hufford while they all had their fun teasing me.
“Do I need to reassign this case to someone else?” our supervisor asked.
“No.” I furrowed my brow, irked that he’d be this pushy about it.
I worked and researched and stalked and spied.
Stakeouts were my life now. He couldn’t seriously be considering removing me from this case because it was taking me a while.
Arresting a member of the Dubinin Family would be challenging for any of the agents in this room.
They were simply that protected, that secretive.
That good at hiding from the law and getting away with whatever they wanted—like murders and thefts and corruption.
Emil Dubinin was the most mobile high-ranking member of the family, the son of the Pakhan, Luka Dubinin. Because of how mobile Emil was, he was my best bet for a capture. It was just a matter of playing this game better than he could.
And I would. I would get him. I would win and bring him in.
“No?” Hufford asked, arching one bushy gray brow. His handlebar moustache turned down, almost hiding his frown, but I knew it was there. I felt the loathing and doubt in his stare.
“No. You have no need to remove me from this case. I am committed to capturing and questioning the targets we’ve identified as potential members of the new Obsidian Eye alliance that is supposed to form.”
Crime lords were wicked enough on their own. But if this new secret “club” of them formed, more crimes and evils would be expected to follow. Maybe even wars. They surely funded some, but we had to stop this group from creating more chaos in an organized effort.
“Then fine-tune your commitment to bringing that Dubinin in.” Hufford rolled his eyes, like I was a pathetic waste of his attention. “It’s been taking you long enough, hasn’t it?”
I nodded once, in the barest acknowledgement he deserved. Other agents had tried and failed to capture a high-ranking Dubinin before. Simply put, my boss was expecting me to pull off something others had dubbed impossible.
Not impossible. Just… tricky.
But nothing would ever stop me from trying to make the world a safer place. Not even an elusive and smart-ass assassin who thought he could sneak away from me.
I’m coming for you, Emil Dubinin. Just you watch.