Chapter 6 Jennifer
JENNIFER
The gala left me humming, not in a pleasant way but in the way a taut wire hums before it snaps.
I return to the office the next morning with my spine straight, coffee clutched like a weapon, and a determination that feels bone-deep.
Malek Thorne is not just another wealthy bastard who hides blood under contracts.
He is something else, and the only way I will find out what that something is will be the way I’ve always handled men like him: dig deeper, pull threads, and ignore the voices telling me to stop.
Marcy greets me the second I push through the glass doors. She’s already mid-sentence, which means she hasn’t slept either.
“I’ve been cross-referencing the Luxembourg shipment with the Panama records.
There’s overlap: three shell companies funneling through the same trust, but the trust doesn’t exist on paper.
I called in a favor with a guy at Interpol, and he says the registration numbers tie to an offshore clinic that doesn’t officially operate anymore. ”
I set my bag down and look at her over the rim of my cup. “And unofficially?”
“Unofficially, it’s moving money faster than anything else in our files. Biotech, mostly. But it doesn’t look like medical research.”
“Arms.”
“And something worse.”
I motion her into my office. We close the door, the noise of the bullpen dropping into silence. She spreads the documents out across my desk, line after line of carefully layered deception.
“See here?” she says, pointing to one faded receipt with numbers that don’t match. “This batch was supposed to be replacement parts for medical ventilators. Except the weight listed on the cargo manifest is triple what it should be. And if you dig into the invoices, the suppliers don’t even exist.”
“Classic laundering,” I say.
She nods. “But it’s the biotech angle that worries me. These transfers aren’t just to war zones. Some of them are to private labs in Eastern Europe, South America, even stateside. And if I had to guess, they’re experimenting.”
I lean back, pinching the bridge of my nose. The office lights hum faintly overhead, a reminder of how many nights I’ve stared at files exactly like this. But none of them ever smelled quite so rotten.
Before I can answer, my phone buzzes with a secure line notification. Not many people have that number. I pick up.
“Callahan,” I say.
The voice on the other end is low, distorted by a filter, male but untraceable. “You don’t know me, but I know you’ve been looking at Thorne’s records.”
I don’t react outwardly. “That depends on who’s asking.”
“You can call me Vega,” the voice replies. “I used to work for one of his subsidiaries before I learned what was really happening behind the doors. If you’re smart, you’ll stop. But if you’re stubborn, you’ll want to hear this.”
“I’m listening.”
“There’s a facility in Zurich,” he says. “Officially, it doesn’t exist. Unofficially, it’s where they send anyone who sees too much. Not employees or whistleblowers. Others. Not human.”
The line clicks off before I can respond.
I stare at the phone for a long moment, letting the words settle. Not human.
Marcy studies me, cautious. “What did they say?”
“They gave me a location,” I answer. “And a warning.”
She frowns. “Jennifer—”
“I know.”
“No, you don’t. This isn’t just another case. I don’t like the way this feels.”
“That makes two of us.”
She waits, arms folded, eyes sharp. She knows me well enough to see that my mind is already racing past the conversation, already locking into the next step.
“You’re going, aren’t you?” she says finally.
“Yes.”
“Then I’m coming with you.”
“No.”
“Don’t argue with me.”
I set the coffee down and meet her eyes directly. “I need you here, Marcy. I need someone to cover the ground if things go sideways. If I vanish for more than forty-eight hours, you hit every channel we’ve got. DOJ, Interpol, press leaks if you have to. Don’t try to save me. Burn the house down.”
She stares at me, breathing hard, then finally nods once. “Fine. But if you don’t check in, I’m not waiting forty-eight.”
“Fair enough.”
I pull the Zurich file closer, flip through the fake invoices again, and circle the address embedded in the third page. It’s subtle, buried as a routing code, but it’s there. My heart thumps once, heavy.
“I’ll book the flight tonight,” I say.
By the time the office empties, the night sky is pressing heavy against the windows, the city below a scatter of lights that look more like stars than the real ones ever do.
I stay until the halls are silent, until the cleaning crew stops bothering to knock, until my eyes blur from staring at lines of text.
Then I finally gather my things, slip on the jacket, and step into the night.
Home is a glass box overlooking Dupont, clean lines and too much empty space. I don’t cook, I don’t decorate, I barely sleep. I live in files and flights and borrowed hours. The apartment is just where I set my shoes down long enough to remember I’m not made of steel.
I leave the bag by the door and walk directly to the balcony, city air washing over me. It smells of rain, ozone, and something faintly metallic. I hold onto the railing until my knuckles ache, then let go, pour a large glass of wine, and force myself to sit.
I should be writing notes, securing contacts, building the skeleton of the Zurich trip.
But exhaustion pulls heavier than discipline tonight.
I strip out of the dress from the gala and change into cotton shorts and a tank, leaving the glass half-finished on the nightstand when I finally fall into bed.
Sleep doesn’t come soft. It’s violent.
I dream of fire. Not the kind that burns buildings, but the kind that tears through forests, hungry and bright, devouring oxygen and silence until there’s nothing left but heat.
The flames lick across the edges of my vision, and within them I see claws. Not neat, not human, not anything I can explain. They tear through shadows, scrape against stone, drip with something too dark to be anything but blood.
There’s a roar, low and guttural, the kind of sound that reverberates through bone, not ears. It shakes me to my knees.
And then there are eyes. Gold, furious, too close.
I wake gasping, sheets tangled, skin slick with sweat, the city outside still dark and silent. My chest undulates in sharp bursts as I press my palms against the mattress, trying to steady myself.
I don’t believe in visions. I don’t believe in warnings that come wrapped in dreams.
But the sound of that roar lingers in the room even as my breathing evens, and no matter how much I tell myself it’s just stress, just exhaustion, I can’t shake the way it felt like something had looked straight at me.