"I'm twenty-two, asshole."
Twenty-two. Still too young. I was thirty-two, a decade older, a lifetime of violence older. She was barely out of college age, probably still got carded at bars, still had that mix of defiance and vulnerability that meant she hadn't been completely broken by the world yet.
Which meant I definitely needed to search her and get this over with before my thoughts went anywhere more dangerous.
"Stay still," I ordered, though the zip ties didn't exactly give her a choice.
"Don't fucking touch me."
"I'm searching you for weapons, not copping a feel," I said, though the distinction was getting blurrier than I liked.
I used the back of my hand, doing everything I could to make her feel comfortable—if that was even possible. My hands moved professionally over her clothes, ignoring the way she flinched atevery contact, the rapid rise and fall of her chest that pressed against the thin fabric of her shirt. She was hiding something—people who fought this hard always were. In her jacket pockets, I found the expected: seventy-three dollars in small bills, probably picked from different marks throughout the day. A bobby pin bent into a lock pick. A small knife, barely two inches, but sharp enough to matter.
"That's mine," she said when I pocketed the knife. I was surprised she hadn’t used it on me.
"Was yours," I corrected, continuing the search.
Her front pockets held nothing but lint. But when I checked her back pocket, my fingers found something that changed everything.
It was small enough to miss if you weren't thorough: a USB drive.
I pulled it out, held it up to the light. Generic brand, 64 gigs, nothing special about it except for the fact that she'd hidden it so carefully.
"That's nothing," she said too quickly. "Just downloaded music."
"Right." I pocketed the drive, certain that she was lying.
She watched me pocket it with those mismatched eyes, and I saw her calculating whether to lie more or just stay quiet. She chose quiet, which told me she was smarter than most people in her position would be.
"Anything else I should know about?" I asked. "Any other little surprises hidden on you?"
"Yeah," she said, meeting my eyes with pure defiance. "I've got hepatitis C from sharing needles. Enjoy your infection from that bite."
I studied her for a moment, then smiled. "No, you don't. You're terrified of needles. I can tell by how you flinched when you said it."
Her mouth fell open slightly, caught in the lie, and something that might have been respect flashed across her face before the walls slammed back down.
"How the fuck would you know that?"
"Because I've been doing this longer than you've been alive, little one. I know when people are lying, when they're hiding something, and when they're about to do something stupid. You're currently doing all three."
She pulled against the zip ties again, futile but necessary for her pride. "Don't call me little one."
"Would you prefer baby girl?" I asked, and immediately wanted to take it back because of how her eyes widened, how her breath caught, how color flooded her cheeks in a way that had nothing to do with anger.
Fuck. This was getting complicated in ways I hadn't anticipated.
IpluggedtheUSBintomy laptop while Eva continued her creative cursing from the chair—something about my mother, a goat, and anatomically impossible acts. The girl had a vocabulary that would make dock workers blush, delivered with enough venom to strip paint. I'd have been impressed if I wasn't focused on what was about to appear on my screen.
The puppy had found his way over to her while I worked, dragging himself across the kitchen tiles despite his obvious exhaustion. He curled against her ankle, pressing his tiny body against the only comfort available to him. Even tied to a chair, even after everything, she tried to reach him with her foot, making soft shushing noises that were completely at odds with the threats she'd been spitting at me seconds before.
The USB loaded, and my blood went cold.
Financial records filled my screen—not just any records, but the entire money laundering operation the Morozovs had been running through the NYPD for the last three years. Account numbers, transaction dates, amounts that made even my eyes widen. Fifty thousand here, hundred thousand there, all funneled through pension funds and emergency discretionary accounts that nobody ever audited.
I scrolled down, and it got worse. Routes and schedules for drug shipments, detailed down to which officers would be on duty, which checkpoints would be conveniently unmanned. The Morozovs had been moving product through the city like it was their personal highway system, and here was the proof, all timestamped and verified.
Then the photos. Jesus Christ, the photos.
