Chapter 2 #2
If you need access to your witness, coordinate through me.
I knew the protection detail was in place. I saw Remy start organizing it before I left Rapier Strategic this morning. But this text is different. This is Remy drawing a line, and the message is polite, professional, and unmistakable: she's behind their wall now, and I go through him to reach her.
It complicates things. My primary witness is under the protection of a private security firm run by former Special Forces operatives who took this on because their sister asked them to, not because NOPD requested it.
If I need Renata for follow-up questions, a formal interview, a scene walkthrough, I'm negotiating with Remy instead of picking up the phone.
But the fact that he's formalizing this tells me everything I need to know. Margot doesn't put her brothers' firm on a bartender because of a bad dream. She does it because she believes Renata. And Margot doesn't rattle.
I text Remy back:
Understood. I'll be at Dominion tonight. We should talk.
His response is immediate:
Come as a member. We'll figure the rest out.
I spend the afternoon working the edges.
I pull Lawrence Blanchard's financial records through official channels and find no unusual activity in the past month, no large withdrawals, no signs of someone preparing to disappear.
I contact his doctor's office and learn there are no health issues that would explain an unplanned absence.
I run his plates, and the car hasn't pinged any NOPD readers since last night.
Lawrence didn't run. Lawrence is dead, and someone with significant resources made sure nobody could prove it.
I arrive shortly after Dominion opens, through the member entrance, badge locked in my glovebox where it belongs. At the club, I'm not Detective Broussard. I'm Andy. I've been a member for a couple of years now, vetted like everyone else, subject to the same protocols.
I change in the men's locker room, trade the suit and tie for black leather pants and a white linen shirt that looks like it came from a Renaissance Fair shop, which it did, open at the collar with the sleeves rolled to the forearm.
The shift that happens when I pull the locker shut is more than wardrobe.
The detective stays in the locker with the suit.
The man who walks out onto the floor is someone the precinct has never seen.
I've tried to keep those two lives separate since I walked through these doors the first time, and the fact that they're about to collide over a murder case and a bartender with hazel eyes and a mouth I want to do things to that have nothing to do with police work is a complication I can't afford and can't avoid.
Remy finds me before I reach the main floor. He's leaning against the wall outside the locker corridor, arms crossed, waiting like a man who knew exactly how long it would take me to change.
"Walk with me," he says, and leads me into one of the small rooms off the hallway. He shuts the door and keeps it brief.
"Margot wants Rapier Strategic running protection and a parallel investigation. NOPD handles the official side. You handle the official side. We share what's useful, keep what's sensitive on our end."
"Then here's my first share. The parking garage cameras were remotely wiped. Professional-grade hack, timed around the killing. And Blanchard's family filed a missing persons report this morning."
Remy processes that without changing expression. "So she was right."
"She was right. And whoever did this has resources."
"Renata cooperates with you on her terms, not yours.
You don't push her, you don't corner her, and you don't pull rank with the badge when you're standing in my sister's club wearing leather.
" His tone is even but the line underneath it is clear.
"She's been through enough since her last shift ended. Earn her trust or you get nothing."
"I don't plan on pulling rank."
"Good." He opens the door. "Then we won't have a problem."
It's a leash, and he's not subtle about it. But it also tells me Remy respects the investigation enough to give me access at all, and that Margot trusts me not to drag the club and its members through the mud. I'll take the leash for now. It won't stay on forever.
The main floor is filling up for a Saturday night, the warm lighting and low music settling over the room along with the smell of good bourbon and leather and something floral I can never quite place.
I take my usual seat at the far end of the bar, back to the wall, with a full view of the floor and both exits.
The seat is habit from the job and preference from the lifestyle.
A Dom who can't see the whole room isn't paying attention.
Renata is working.
She has her hair pulled back in that tight ponytail, and the overhead light catches the dark auburn and turns it copper at the edges.
Her sleeves are rolled to the elbow, forearms taut as she reaches for bottles, and she moves through drink orders with a precision most people mistake for effortlessness.
I know better. That control is practiced and earned, built into every movement until it became native.
I've spent months studying this woman across this bar, and the view has never gotten easier to look away from.
It's not the face, though her face is worth the time.
A full mouth, hazel eyes that shift between green and brown depending on the light.
It's how she carries herself. She's athletic, curved in ways she doesn't try to emphasize but can't hide behind the bar, and she moves through her space with an awareness that goes beyond good bartending.
She tracks the room with a vigilance that reminds me of operators I've known, cataloging positions and exits like someone who learned a long time ago that knowing where the doors are keeps you alive.
A Dom approaches the bar. I've seen him here before, mid-forties, a regular. I've sat in on a couple of his scenes, impact play mostly. He leans on the rail and says something that makes Renata tilt her head, her mouth curving into that sharp smile she uses when she's about to take someone apart.
She responds. He laughs, leans closer, says something I can't hear over the music.
She builds his drink while she talks, hands never pausing, and I note how she gives him enough attention to feel welcome and not one fraction more.
She's polite. She's warm. And the warmth has a perimeter around it that could stop a freight train.
He lingers. He tries another line. She sets down his drink, says something short, and turns to the next order. He's been dismissed. He picks up his glass and retreats to a table, shoulders carrying the slump of a man who just realized he never had a chance.
I know the feeling. The difference is that I'm not done trying.
She spots me within minutes of my sitting down.
The recognition registers and leaves just as fast, replaced by the professional mask.
She finishes a pour, sets the glass on the bar, then moves to my end with deliberate nonchalance, taking her time and making me wait.
She knows I know what she's doing, and she does it anyway because bratting is breathing for Renata.
"Woodford Reserve on the rocks?" she asks, already reaching for the bottle.
"Please."
She builds the drink without looking at me, pours with hands that are steadier than they were at four this morning, sets it on a napkin. Her fingers brush the glass as she slides it across, close enough to mine that I feel the warmth off her skin. She doesn't pull away fast. Neither do I.
"You look better than last time I saw you," I say.
"Last time you saw me, I'd watched someone get murdered and then got dismissed by NOPD. Not exactly a high point to improve on."
"I'm not the officer who dismissed you."
"You're still NOPD."
"I am. But I'm here, and they're not. How are you sleeping?"
"Like a baby. If the baby recently witnessed an execution and has two guys from Rapier Strategic parked outside her apartment building.
" She meets my eyes for the first time. The hazel is sharp and guarded, layered with an irritation that reads as dismissal and tastes like fear underneath.
"Did you come here to check on me, Detective? Because I'm working."
"I came here for a drink. The checking on you is a bonus."
"Lucky me." She starts to turn away.
"Renata."
She stops. Just my voice, just her name, and she stops. The effect of it runs through me in a way that has nothing to do with the badge and everything to do with the part of me that has spent months across this bar thinking: not with me, you wouldn't.
"What," she says, flat and final.
"That drink's heavy on the ice."
She looks at the glass. She looks back at me. The flash of irritation that crosses her face is genuine, not performed, because she knows I'm right and she hates that I noticed.
"You want me to remake it, or do you want to keep finding things to criticize so you have an excuse to stay at my bar?"
"I'll drink it as is. But you knew that before you poured it."
Her chin lifts and she turns away to work the rest of the bar. I drink my bourbon and keep my eyes on her and think about what I know and what I want.
What I know: she's scared, she's handling it with sarcasm, and she's holding back information that could break this case open.
The Rapier Strategic detail is visible if you know what to look for, two operators at separate tables, positioned to cover both exits, drinking water and scanning the room. They clocked me when I walked in.
What I want is less professional and more complicated.
I want her across a negotiation table in a private room, no bar between us, no badge.
Just her and me and the truth of whatever she's been hiding behind that bratty mouth.
I want to find out what happens when the comebacks run out.
What her breathing sounds like when she stops controlling it and lets someone else set the pace.
I've spent months observing her perform for other Doms, hitting every mark and holding back the one thing that would make it real.
I want to be the man who earns what she won't give anyone else.
That's not happening tonight, and probably not anytime soon. But patience is what I do, and Renata is worth the wait.
The club thins out over the next hour. Renata closes the bar with her usual ritual: bottles checked, register closed, station wiped clean. When she pulls off her apron and reaches for her bag, I stand.
She sees me coming and her spine straightens. "I'm off the clock."
"Good. So am I." I close the distance between us, stopping close enough that she has to angle her chin up and I can smell citrus from her garnish work mixed with clean soap and something underneath both that's just her, warm and sharp, settling in my chest and staying there.
"I have information you need to hear. You can hear it now, or I can show up at your apartment tomorrow with a formal request for a follow-up interview. Your call."
The mention of a formal interview does what I expected. She doesn't want detectives at her door in the Irish Channel where neighbors see and talk.
"Fine. Talk." She crosses her arms and leans against the bar, settling in on her terms.
I match her posture, lean against the bar rail beside her, angled so I can see the exits and the Rapier Strategic detail across the floor.
"The parking garage cameras were remotely wiped," I tell her. "Every camera, every level. Professional-grade hack. Based on what the building manager could tell me, it looks like the wipe happened in the same window as the killing. That's not a coincidence."
Her arms tighten across her chest but her face stays controlled. "So there's no footage."
"No footage. But a remote wipe is evidence in itself. It proves premeditation and serious technical resources. And it confirms that what you saw was real, because someone went to significant trouble to make sure it couldn't be verified."
"I already know what I saw was real. I don't need a camera wipe to tell me that."
"No. But the patrol unit that wrote you off as unreliable might." I let that land. "Lawrence's family filed a missing persons report this morning. He didn't come home. Phone's off. Car's unaccounted for."
Something shifts behind her eyes. The bratty front flickers, and what's underneath is grief for a man she served drinks to for years, mixed with the cold relief of being believed.
"So what happens now?" she asks, quieter than before.
"Now I work the case. My captain gave me a deadline to produce something solid or it gets buried."
"And you're telling me this because?"
"Because you're holding back, and we both know it.
" I turn to face her fully, closing the angle between us.
She doesn't step back, which means she's either too stubborn or too curious, and either one works for me.
"You gave me the outline last night and kept the details for yourself.
I don't know what you're protecting or why.
But whoever killed Lawrence cleaned that scene in minutes, wiped a commercial camera system remotely, and made a body disappear without a trace. That's not someone who stops at one."
Her mouth tightens. I can see her calculating, running the math on trust versus risk. Her defenses are still up, but the intelligence behind them is fully engaged. She's weighing options, not deflecting.
"I told you what I saw."
"You told me what you were willing to share. There's a gap between those two things, and someone's life might be sitting in it." I straighten from the bar and take a step back, giving her space. "When you're ready to close that gap, you know where to find me."
I hold her gaze for a beat. She holds it right back, chin set at an angle that says she's thinking hard about something she doesn't want to think about.
I turn and walk toward the exit, past the Rapier Strategic operators who track me with their eyes and do nothing else.
"This isn't over, Renata."
I say it over my shoulder without slowing down. The case, the investigation, the pull between us that I stopped pretending was professional somewhere around the second bourbon I nursed while memorizing the way she moves.