A man steps forward, taller than the rest, his vest marked with a name: Special Agent S. Rodriguez. His eyes pin me in place as the others move through the apartment.
“Where is he?” Rodriguez demands, his tone harder than anything I’ve heard so far. “Where are you hiding him?”
I swallow, confused and shaking my head. “I have no idea what you’re talking about. I’m not hiding anyone.”
He narrows his eyes. “Don’t act like that. We can have an arrest warrant in your name drawn up in an hour. You think we don’t know who you are? You lied to us before.”
Behind him, another agent rifles through my purse, papers scattered. Rodriguez leans closer, lowering his voice just enough to sound almost personal. “We know you’re not as innocent as you pretend. You’re not the nobody that you claimed to be. You’re the president’s girlfriend.”
“Ex-girlfriend,” I say shakily.
He straightens, his expression colder than before. “You’re too close to all of this, Carrie. You can’t just walk away clean. Whether you knew everything or not, you’re in it. The only choice you’ve got left is how much you help yourself.”
His words sink in, heavy as stone. I realize then that it doesn’t matter what I say or how hard I try to explain. They’ve already decided I’m guilty of something. I can see it in his eyes.
“What do you want?” My voice barely comes out, raw and thin.
Rodriguez smirks, nodding a little, almost like he’s pleased. “Smart girl. Straight to the point.”
He steps in, his presence filling the narrow space between us. “I want information, and you’re going to give it to us.”
I swallow, my mind racing, searching for a way out. “What do you mean? What kind of information?”
Rodriguez’s jaw tightens as he paces the room, frustration leaking into every step. “The men won’t break easy, that much I’ve understood,” he mutters, glancing over his shoulder at me.
“They won’t,” I say quietly, holding his stare. “Because they didn’t do anything wrong.”
He turns on me, anger sharp in his eyes. “That’s for us to decide, not you.”
I don’t argue, but deep down I know who’s really responsible for all of this. Jinn set them up. The thought burns in my chest, but I bite it back, unwilling to give Rodriguez more ammunition.
“What do you want me to do?” I ask, voice flat. “I don’t have any information.”
Rodriguez sits on the edge of a chair, folding his hands and studying me for a moment. “You want a way out of this, Carrie? Then you’re going to help us. We need eyes and ears on the inside, someone who can tell us what’s really going on in there. You want to help your friends, clear your own name? That’s how you do it.”
His words settle over me like a net, every instinct telling me this is a trap. But I can feel my options slipping away, one by one.
10
BLADE
They finally let me out of the interrogation room, the bright lights burning behind my eyelids as I shuffle down the hallway. My wrists are raw from the cuffs and my whole body aches from sitting too long in a chair that felt like punishment. I haven’t slept. My mouth tastes like old metal, and the coffee they gave me at the station was so bad it barely cut through the fog in my head.
A tired-looking deputy leads me through a maze of worn linoleum hallways, his keys rattling with every step. He pushes open a battered steel door and waves me inside. Levi and Jace are already in there.
The second they look up, I can feel my anger rising all over again. I want to break something. I want to breakhim. “If I ever get my hands on Jinn,” I mutter, pacing the length between our bunk beds, “I swear to God, I’ll kill him with my bare hands.”
The rage won’t leave me. I can’t just wait around. I’ve never been the one to stand still, not since I was a kid.
It’s always been this way. When Levi and I were growing up, there were nights the old man would stumble home, stink of cheap whiskey thick in the air. He’d find any excuse to raisea hand, but I was the first to swing back. I remember Levi grabbing my arm, hissing at me to keep my head down, but I wouldn’t. I took a beating for it, but I’d do it again. That night, when blood ran from my nose and my knuckles were split, I told Levi I was done. He didn’t argue. We left that night, no plan except freedom, just two bruised kids under a broken streetlight.
I thought the club was finally finding a place where all that anger, all that loyalty, meant something. Jinn gave me a home, a brotherhood, something to hold on to in the dark. I gave him everything—my fists, my trust, my word.
Now all I feel is betrayal, sharp and cold as the cuffs digging into my skin. I want to hurt him like he hurt us. I want to make him pay for every lie, every time he called me family and left me with nothing but broken promises and blood in my mouth.
I know I need to stay calm, for Levi and Jace. We need to survive this. But my rage is a living thing. It sits behind my eyes, restless, already counting down the days until I can look Jinn in the face and settle the debt for good.
William Decker arrives to talk to the three of us, tells us things aren’t looking good. “The indictment lists three counts: federal firearms trafficking, conspiracy to distribute illegal weapons, and possession of unregistered automatic firearms. The feds are also hinting at an ‘organized crime enhancement,’ which is bullshit but dangerous if it sticks. But right now, a lot of it is noise—an implied threat. They want to scare you, push you to make mistakes, maybe even get one of you to turn on the others. It’s an old play.”
