Chapter Five” Dirty Games and Dangerous Truths
Selene Rusk looked exactly like the kind of woman who could ruin a life and sleep well after.
She stood across the street near the rusted warehouse corner, wrapped in a gray coat that moved softly in the wind.
Her hair was sleek and black, tucked behind one ear.
Her face was smooth, almost pretty, but pretty in a way that made Makayla think of locked doors, quiet courtrooms, and paperwork that made victims look like problems.
Makayla kept her hand around the panic button in her pocket.
Recording.
Alerting.
Breathing.
That was the only plan she had time to make.
Selene smiled like she could see every one of those thoughts and found them childish.
“I wondered when we would meet properly,” Selene said.
Makayla stepped away from Jarvis’s SUV, leaving the door open behind her. “Properly? You mean without you hiding behind fake files and scared men?”
Selene’s smile did not move. “Careful, Makayla. Sharp mouths make deep graves.”
Makayla laughed once. “I see you still writing lines for villains.”
“You always did have too much personality.”
The words hit wrong.
Old.
Too familiar.
Makayla’s stomach tightened. “You don’t know me.”
“I knew enough.” Selene tilted her head. “Sixteen years old. Angry eyes. Cheap lip gloss. Sitting behind your mother at every meeting like you wanted to jump across the table and bite somebody.”
Makayla’s fingers tightened around the device.
The recording was catching this.
It had to be.
“You remembered me?” Makayla asked.
“Some girls are forgettable.” Selene’s eyes sharpened. “You weren’t. I told them back then you would grow into trouble.”
Makayla smiled, slow and cold. “Looks like you were right.”
Selene watched her with quiet amusement. “Trouble is only useful when it knows where to point itself. You built that little page and thought you were holding the powerful accountable. Sweet idea. Messy execution.”
“You scared of my messy execution?”
“I’m annoyed by it.”
“No,” Makayla said. “You’re scared. If you were only annoyed, you would’ve ignored me. Instead, you built a whole folder with my last name on it.”
For the first time, Selene’s eyes flickered.
Not fear.
Interest.
Makayla clocked it.
Selene liked being seen as smart. That was the door.
Makayla kept going. “You made fake payment drafts. Fake captions. Fake screenshots. You used Calia’s event hall, Renzo’s greed, and Vasha’s desperation. That wasn’t annoyance. That was labor.”
Selene’s smile thinned. “You found the flash drive.”
“You planted it sloppy.”
“No, baby.” Selene took one slow step closer from across the street. “I planted it where Jarvis would feel clever for finding it.”
Makayla’s chest tightened.
Behind her, down the block, there was no sign of Jarvis, Trevon, or the guards. The warehouse district had swallowed them whole.
Makayla forced herself to stay still.
“You wanted him chasing Calia,” she said.
“I wanted him chasing what he already hates.” Selene’s voice stayed calm. “Calia is loud. Greedy. Emotional. Easy to frame because she always thinks she is the smartest woman in the room.”
“And you?”
“I prefer to own the room.”
A gust of wind pushed river smell between them.
Salt.
Oil.
Rust.
Makayla kept her voice steady. “Where is Renzo?”
Selene sighed softly, like his name bored her. “Renzo made an unfortunate habit of speaking before collecting payment.”
“Is he alive?”
“For now.”
Makayla’s heart knocked against her ribs.
For now meant close.
For now meant useful.
For now meant bait with a pulse.
Selene’s gaze dropped to Makayla’s pocket.
Makayla froze inside but not outside.
Selene smiled wider. “Recording me?”
Makayla pulled the device from her pocket and held it up. “You want to say hi?”
Selene laughed.
The sound was soft, almost warm. That made it worse.
“Makayla, I was winning cases before you learned how to make a password. You think I walked up to you without assuming Jarvis gave you a toy?”
Makayla’s stomach sank.
Selene lifted her hand and showed a small black jammer between two fingers. “Panic signal is dead. Recording might catch static if it catches anything at all.”
Makayla stared at the device in her own hand.
The little light still blinked red.
But blinking did not mean help was coming.
Blinking did not mean anybody heard.
Selene’s eyes shined. “That face. That’s the moment I like most.”
“What moment?”
“When a woman realizes proof is only powerful if somebody lets it live.”
For one second, Makayla was sixteen again.
Sitting in a chair too hard for her body.
Watching her sister shake.
Watching Selene Rusk slide papers across a table and turn pain into a debate.
Watching adults agree that proof had rules, proof had deadlines, proof had questions, proof had little holes big enough for powerful men to crawl through.
Makayla swallowed the memory like glass.
Then she smiled.
Selene’s eyebrow lifted.
“What’s funny?”
“You,” Makayla said. “All these years and you still think taking the proof means taking the truth.”
Selene’s face cooled.
Makayla stepped into the street, closing some of the distance between them. “You don’t scare me like you used to.”
“I never tried to scare you.”
“You tried to erase us.”
Selene’s mouth curved again. “And yet here you are. Loud as ever.”
“Here I am,” Makayla said. “With your notes. Your name. Your old case strategy. Your fake media package. Your connection to Calia. Your money through a law office account. Your little gray coat standing at the west dock because you couldn’t resist watching.”
Selene clapped slowly.
Once.
Twice.
Three times.
“Better,” she said. “That is much better. I can see why Jarvis is distracted.”
Makayla’s jaw tightened.
Selene saw that too.
“Oh,” she said. “That’s still fresh.”
Makayla said nothing.
Selene’s smile became crueler. “Did he kiss you yet?”
Makayla’s skin heated with anger. “You watching bedrooms now too?”
“No. Just patterns. Jarvis has one. He collects wounded women who make him feel less like his father.”
Makayla’s pulse jumped.
That one hit because it carried the shape of truth, even if the hands holding it were dirty.
Selene leaned against the warehouse wall, graceful as if they were talking outside a courthouse. “He stands near damage and calls it protection. Then when the woman becomes too costly, he moves her out of the way.”
“You talking about Calia?”
“Calia was never wounded. She was hungry.” Selene tilted her head. “I’m talking about Maribelle.”
Makayla’s blood cooled.
There it was.
The last woman.
The name Calia had hinted at.
The name Jarvis had avoided.
Makayla refused to show how hard it landed. “I don’t know a Maribelle.”
“Of course you don’t. Jarvis keeps his ghosts in private rooms.”
“And you keep yours in folders.”
Selene laughed again. “Maribelle worked for his father first. Then for Jarvis. She thought he was different. Men love being thought different.”
Makayla kept her face still.
“And what happened to her?” she asked.
Selene’s smile faded just enough to make the lie she was building look serious. “She disappeared after giving Jarvis evidence against his father’s old partners. One day she was useful. The next day she was gone.”
Makayla’s heart knocked once, hard.
“Did he kill her?”
Selene looked at her with pity so perfect it had to be practiced. “Do you really think men like Jarvis kill with their own hands?”
Makayla heard Jarvis’s voice in her head.
Death paid me in advance.
She pushed it away.
No.
Selene wanted that sentence to land. She wanted Jarvis’s mystery to become her weapon.
Makayla took another step forward. “You got proof?”
Selene’s eyes glittered. “I have enough.”
“That’s lawyer talk for no.”
“It is survival talk.”
“No,” Makayla said. “It’s manipulation. You feed half a truth and let fear season the rest.”
Selene studied her.
For the first time, she looked less amused.
Good.
Makayla was learning the woman in real time. Selene did not mind insults. She expected rage. She enjoyed pain.
But being correctly read?
That bothered her.
Makayla stepped closer again. “You used Amira the same way. Half a truth. A witness here. A missing phone there. A torn strap turned into a rumor. A camera you knew existed but made everybody question.”
Selene’s face went still.
Makayla felt the ground shift.
There.
“That camera,” Makayla said softly. “You picked something up from the floor. What was it?”
Selene said nothing.
“What was it?” Makayla asked again.
The wind moved between them.
Selene’s eyes sharpened. “You should worry less about old footage and more about what happens next.”
“Old footage? That’s what you call it?”
“I call it evidence that sat useless for years because your family had no power.”
Makayla’s heartbeat thundered.
There it was.
Maybe not a confession clean enough for court.
But ugly enough to matter.
Makayla wished the device in her hand was recording more than static.
Selene looked at her pocket again. “Still hoping Jarvis hears you?”
Makayla lifted her chin. “I don’t need Jarvis to hear me.”
“Liar.”
Makayla smiled. “Takes one to know one.”
Selene’s face hardened.
A sound came from the warehouse behind Selene.
Low.
Muffled.
A man’s groan.
Makayla’s eyes moved before she could stop them.
Selene noticed and smiled again.
“See?” she said. “Still easy to aim.”
Makayla looked back at her. “Renzo?”
Selene pushed away from the wall. “He’s inside. He was going to trade me for forgiveness. Men like him always think confession is a coupon.”
“What did you do to him?”
“What everybody does to men who sell secrets.” Selene shrugged. “Collected the debt.”
Makayla glanced toward the street behind her.
Empty.
No Jarvis.
No Trevon.
No guards.
The jammer was working.
Selene lifted one hand.
Two men stepped from the shadowed side of the warehouse.
Both dressed plain.
Both large.
Both watching Makayla like she was cargo, not a woman.
Makayla’s stomach tightened, but she made her face bored.
“Really?” she said. “Muscle? That’s disappointing. I thought you were more creative.”
Selene’s smile returned. “Creativity is for people with time. I prefer efficiency.”
Makayla backed up half a step.
The men moved.
Not fast.