1. Chapter 1 #3
“Whitaker has become my number-one focus,” he said. “Every time I pull one thread, a thousand more come with it.”
He took a slow drink from the coffee, rubbing the edge of the cup across his bottom lip and studying the information.
“And now Sarah Farris, our surprise assault victim, leads to him.”
“She’s being paid to frame Xyst,” I barked.
“Paid, pressured, handled…who knows? Maybe all three.” Nik sent several files to the printer. “But she is not random.”
Paper began spitting out of the machine.
I stood because sitting had become impossible, then paced across the office.
“What about the woman who came to the club with all this cooked-up bullshit?” I asked.
Nik shifted screens, and I moved to stand behind him, arms crossed over my chest.
“Let’s see who Miss Delgado really is.” The keyboard clattered away as he typed faster.
A city personnel file opened, followed by a résumé, a bar record, and a university transcript.
“Isabella Delgado,” he read. “Twenty-six. Born and raised in San Antonio, with an undergraduate degree from the University of Texas at Austin. Top of her class. Law review. Then a summer associate at Harrington Shaw & Pierce, doing white-collar and regulatory work. She was admitted to the New York bar and hired by the City’s Law Department less than three months ago. ”
“Sounds shiny.”
“Very.”
“Too shiny?”
“Not fake shiny.” He kept reading. “That’s what bothers me.”
“You’re telling me the woman who walked into our club is legitimate?”
“I’m telling you her credentials are.”
“That’s comforting.”
“She’s well-educated, polished, and credentialed enough to know exactly which statute to quote when she wants a business owner nervous.”
“Why the hell would a woman with that résumé trade private-law money for working in city enforcement?”
Nik glanced over his shoulder at me.
“Exactly the question to ask.”
I shook my head. “That wasn’t an answer.”
“It was the answer.” He leaned back in his chair. “Most people take the background check at face value. They see legitimacy and stop looking. We don’t. We play poker,” he said. “Everyone has a tell. So does a file. The résumé isn’t the lie.”
“The placement is.”
His mouth curved. “Now you’re awake.”
“Don’t push it.”
Nik tapped the hiring record on the screen. “She joined the City a few weeks after I settled in Manhattan permanently. A few weeks after Hayes and Delgado realized I wasn’t going to stay in my lane. I doubt that’s a coincidence.”
I let out a low hum. “Amazing how many people are keeping their eyes on you.”
Nik didn’t blink. “No shit.”
I rubbed a hand over the back of my neck. “Ciro seems good at creating identities.”
Nik’s eyes lifted to mine.
“Kind of like you,” I added.
He huffed once. “No one is as good as I am.”
“There’s the humility we all admire.”
“But yes,” he said, ignoring me. “Delgado has enough money, corrupt officials, and terrified people willing to stamp whatever he puts in front of them. But this doesn’t look like a woman invented from nothing. It looks worse.”
“Worse how?”
“She’s a real woman. Real credentials. Real access.” His gaze cut back to the personnel file. “Someone placed her exactly where Delgado, Hayes, or Whitaker needed her.”
I pictured Isabella Delgado standing in Xyst with two uniforms and a smile too calm for the room she’d entered. She’d been pretty, polished, and entirely untroubled.
Maybe she was innocent.
Maybe not.
“And if she’s exactly who she says she is?” I asked.
“Then we need to find out why she chose to become useful to the wrong men.”
The printer clicked again.
Nik pulled out the fresh stack of documents, skimmed the first page, and tucked them into the same folder Isabella had shoved at me.
“Farris, the corporate trail, and everything I found on Miss Delgado.” He held it out to me. “It’s all there.”
I took it as one last page slid into the tray.
Nik pulled it free, glanced down, and smirked.
“What’s that?”
“The liquor-license suspension.”
I took it from him and frowned at the page. “This says terminated.”
“Yes, it does.”
I looked up.
Nik’s face was calm.
“You fixed it?”
“I erased the active suspension and every flag it pushed to the City. If some ambitious clerk goes hunting, they’ll find an amended-filing problem and a supervisor’s note telling them not to touch it until corrected documents are uploaded.”
I stared at him.
He picked up his coffee. “Xyst can sell alcohol tonight.”
A slow smile pulled at my mouth.
“Don’t look at me like that,” he said.
“Like what?”
“Like I just handed you a loaded gun and a woman arrogant enough to stand in front of it.”
I tapped the folder against my palm.
He sighed. “You’re going to enjoy this.”
“Oh, you know I will.”
I glanced at one of the monitors. Her professional headshot stared back from the corner of the personnel file, long black hair framing big brown eyes.
The pretty attorney had picked the wrong club to fuck with.
Nik’s voice cut through the thought.
“Review these. Then go put Assistant Corporation Counsel Isabella Delgado in her place.”
I tucked the folder under my arm.
“With pleasure.”