Chapter Two #2
“Chief?” she said, uncharacteristically fidgety. “Fairchild just finished a press conference. Red Ridge is being reopened. A whistleblower came forward, and between the journalist and the oversight committee, he can’t put a lid on it.”
I pounded the side of my fist on my desk. “Are you fucking kidding me? Just now? He didn’t think to check with us first?”
“The journalist… is Allison Beggs.”
“Why am I not surprised? Is she ever not a thorn in our fucking side?”
“She’s young, ambitious, and refused to sit on it.
He was cornered. The whistleblower came forward late last night.
Beggs dropped a stack of documentation directly into the Governor’s Office—emails, recordings, financials.
Enough to resurrect every corpse in that scandal. ” She placed her tablet on my desk.
I scrolled through the files she’d pulled up. Familiar names. Familiar bank accounts. “I don’t buy it. He could have just buried it. Why now?”
“He tried,” she said. “But Beggs had already given it to a federal oversight committee. They’re in contact with Fairchild’s office. He can’t suppress evidence that substantial without walking himself into an obstruction charge. They’d crucify him.”
I exhaled slowly. “So… Red Ridge comes back from the dead.”
“More like it clawed out of its grave.” Constance folded her arms. “The whistleblower’s evidence contradicts the sealed narrative.
Proves the Carlisi shell companies laundered millions.
Ties two sitting legislators directly to criminal enterprises.
And”—she reached over, tapping the screen—“implicates a Department of Interior liaison who fast-tracked the environmental paperwork.”
“That’ll detonate half the Capitol,” I murmured.
She nodded. “And the DOJ.”
I skimmed the ledger entries, the offshore transfers, and the routing patterns. “This looks like the Carlisis never actually abandoned Red Ridge.”
“They didn’t,” she said. “The whistleblower confirmed ongoing financial activity. Quiet, but active. They’re still trying to build their trafficking corridor. Or… they were.”
I leaned back, jaw tightening. “Fairchild knew this. He had to fucking know.”
“He suspected,” she corrected. “But suspicion isn’t evidence. Now he has evidence. And under state and federal law, once that material hit his desk, he had no discretion. He had to act.”
I stared at the data. “He can’t be that na?ve.
They killed a teenage girl—his granddaughter—for less.
They learned Olive’s identity and that she was living next door to my father, letting the Carlisis kill two birds with one stone.
Now Fairchild holds a press conference, blows up their land deal, humiliates them in front of the entire country, and thinks they’ll just take it lying down?
Falyn is his daughter, she’s married to my brother, and I’ve been investigating them for years.
She’s the first one they’ll go after. How can he think she won’t be caught in the fallout? ”
Constance’s expression flickered, a hint of sympathy followed by the annoyance she preferred to show instead.
“He believes his daughter is safe. The Carlisis have been quiet for two and a half years. Leadership fractured after Benny. No direct threats. Nothing overt since, and there weren’t many Carlisis left after. ”
“Monsters don’t sleep,” I said. “They regroup.”
Constance didn’t disagree. “He’s miscalculated.
Again.” She took a breath. “But the bottom line? He can’t survive politically if he doesn’t act.
The reporter already had pieces of the story.
The oversight committee is circling. If he ignores the whistleblower, he goes down with the corrupt officials—and he knows it.
So, he’s making the only move available to him. ”
“Don’t defend him, this is…” I exhaled, disgusted.
“I’m not defending him. I’m giving you the why. It’s up to you what you do with it, especially with—”
“I know!” My volume surprised even me. I exhaled, leveled out. “I know.” I tapped the tablet, highlighting a contract. “This deal involved half the state legislature and foreign criminal organizations. Reopening it is a death wish.”
“He doesn’t have the luxury of pretending anymore,” she said. “And he probably thinks federal cooperation will protect his family.”
“He’s wrong.”
“Yes,” she said quietly. “He is.”
I pinched the bridge of my nose. “Denver’s going to light up.”
“They already have. Moore is patching them through.” She hesitated at the door. “Chief… you know this, but it needs to be said. The Carlisis won’t let this go. Red Ridge was their largest expansion. Losing it cost them millions. Losing it again—publicly—shames them.”
“They’ll retaliate.”
“And if they ever figure out their first retaliation didn’t hit the mark…”
I shut the file, annoyed. “Then Fairchild’s press conference just handed them the justification to go scorched earth.”
She nodded once. “Which means Deacon’s about to have his hands full. And you”—her gaze sharpened—“are about to be pulled directly into this.”
My pulse stayed even, but my stomach sank. “Liis will be pulled into the Yakuza angle.”
“She’s the best linguist and analyst they have,” Constance said.
“And the Bureau doesn’t care that this is a political nightmare wrapped in a grieving grandfather’s hubris.
And your household… your family…” She waited for me to say something, and when I didn’t, she continued, keeping her voice low. “Our plan could blow up in our faces.”
I nodded once. “Red Ridge should have stayed buried.”
The phone on my desk rang, and Constance stayed in place as I picked up the receiver.
“Maddox… I’m aware, put Denver through.” As Moore spoke, I rubbed my forehead, trying to absorb the intel while my mind raced. Once I hung up, I strained to retain all the information I’d been given.
“Are they moving?” Constance asked.
“Not yet.”
“Fairchild challenged the Carlisis, Thomas. In front of the world.”
“Just the Carlisis who are left.”
“You’re in denial. You know they’re worse than Benny ever was, and they’ve had two and a half years to rebuild.
They may not be as organized or as disciplined, and yes, that makes them prone to mistakes, but they’ve also shown indifference to consequence, which makes them more dangerous.
They’ve sunk almost everything into pushing to expand, to grow beyond smuggling and juice lending, and their work with the Yakuza gives us every reason to suspect they’ll begin mirroring their brutal tactics. ”
I rolled my favorite pen between my thumb and index finger. “Noted.”
“Don’t brush me off, and don’t let Denver fool you. I don’t want to overstep—”
“Since when?” I said, a bit harsher than I’d meant to.
She hesitated, which was a rare occurrence. “You’re in a reactive posture, and I know why. You don’t want a domino effect. But doesn’t this require a more proactive approach?”
“What more would you have me do, Constance? We have to keep this quiet for as long as we can.”
“You might want to check in with Liis.”
“Why?”
“Because if there’s movement in Colorado, if it’s headed our way, someone in Counterintelligence will feel the tremor before we do.”
“She’d tell me.”
“Not if she’s sitting on it for the same reason you are.” Constance was being careful, her tone borderline pleading.
I stood, keeping one hand braced on my desk. “I’ll keep an eye on it.”
She held her tongue. “Copy that.”
After a beat, I forced myself to add a question to appease her. “Do we still have eyes on their one remaining target?”
As predicted, her shoulders relaxed. “On Falyn like glue from what I understand. You know when Deacon’s assigned…”
“It’s handled,” I finished for her. “He’s more special ops than agent from what I hear.”
“He…” she began, but there was a knock at the door. She rushed over, taking a peek before fully opening it.
Agent Evans, one of my unit leads, stood in the doorway, his expression too carefully neutral.
“Sir,” he said nodding to Constance. “Apologies, Constance. Denver’s back on the line. They’re asking for you directly.”
Constance and I exchanged a single glance—a silent calculus we’d developed years ago, equal parts trust and triage.
“Patch it through,” I said.
Evans nodded and disappeared.
Constance set her tablet on the desk again. “I’ll stay.”
“Of course you will.”
She didn’t smile, but her eyes were flickering with a combination of relief and apprehension, as if whatever waited on the other end might be unwelcome but would at least force me to move in the direction she’d been nudging.
Beneath that, a quieter truth: Fairchild’s press conference had rattled the wrong cage, and whatever feral beast was behind those bars was just given a reason to draw blood.