However.
There were so many branches and teams and crews and agents and coalitions. Being an agent meant I was one little cog in a huge organization, almost to the point that sometimes it was hard to feel significant or in the loop. At this rate, it more resembled a franchise with the growing doubts and skepticism of outside forces interfering with our work.
Can’t this be a need-to-know sort of thing?
Because I didn’t need to listen to all this. This briefing felt less like a recap or heads up or what was going on in the department. No. This struck me more as a chance for the others to brag. I was trapped in this room, listening to my direct supervisor, Special Agent Hufford, go on and on about Agent Davis and Agent Jeffries. About how they met all their recent mission priorities. How they achieved every one of their operational goals. And how they’d ultimately taken the bad guys into custody.
Arresting a few minor players in a Romanian crime family based in Chicagowasgood news. But it wasn’t anything like a record. If anyone were to ask me, it seemed more like Davis and Jeffries stumbled upon the targets and happened to make the arrest because Chicago PD was there to assist.
Don’t be bitter. Don’t downplay what they did. We’re all on the same team.
I hated to be tempted into feelings of envy or resentment, but the more years I spent working as an agent, I had to wonder if we really were on the same team. Some days, the sexism and jokes and criticism hit too hard. The lack of backup and support wasn’t conducive for morale.
This briefing did matter. I would celebrate any win we got, regardless of how little it seemed like they’d “worked” for their success. Yet, with the recent disappointment I was suffering from my efforts to hunt down the prime target in my case, hearing Hufford rave about Davis and Jeffries was annoying.
Come on, don’t be like that. Jealousy isn’t becoming.
I wasn’t merely envious. It was the general distaste of how unfair life could be that dragged my mood down too. Having to prove myself as a woman in a male-dominated workplace sucked.
I busted my ass on my cases and I was never praised like this. I worked hard as a solo agent, all on my own. And they were the ones to get pats on their backs just for happening upon some low-level thugs on a minor wanted list.
I wasn’t in it for the recognition, but dammit, this good-old-boys’ network was suffocating like this.
You’re in this to do good. To make the world a better and safer place. Remember?
Reminding myself of my purpose didn’t lessen the torture of sitting through this meeting, though.
I’m wasting time here, people.
My caseload wasn’t being chipped away like this. My productivity was shot. Enduring this meeting was nothing but an obstacle to trying to catch a member of the Dubinin Family.
You can’t evade me forever, Emil Dubinin.
Crossing my arms, I stared straight ahead and tuned out Hufford, Davis, and Jeffries. I narrowed my eyes as I thought back to the assassin I attempted to capture at the airport—again. The same handsome, cocky, smirking asshole who’d noticed me and given me the slip—again.
Even though I was a member in a task case that focused on organized crime and a new network of mobsters forming a “club” of alliances, I had been expected to bring in a member of the Dubinin Bratva for almost a year now.
I had files upon files on the Italians, too, the Rivera Mafia Family. Then more intel collected and analyzed on the Vipers Cartel. Other prominent syndicates were on my radar too. But for as powerful and secretive as the Dubinins were, they were the top targets.
The most elusive targets.
Don’t give up.
I shook my head as I thought back again. Just a few days ago, Emil Dubinin had shown up at the airport in San Diego where I’d expected to cross paths with him. Blending in and relying on my short stature to weave through crowds or hide among others, I tailed him through the airport. I’d even managed to convince staff to get me a last-minute seat on a different flight, all to hunt him down.
But still, he got away.
He was too fast. Sneaky. Deceptive. Cunning.
Too damn good.
That asshole was playing games with me. He had to be, because there was no other explanation for how he moved around through the airport, leading me to believe he was flying to Alaska with a connector to Moscow, but then never showed up.
Being duped like that was embarrassing, but I refused to let it set me back. I’d get him. I wouldsoget him, and then I’d be the one with that smug smile from beating him at this tireless cat-and-mouse bullshit he was insisting on playing with me. And then?—
“Langer.”
I almost flinched. Turning to face Special Agent Hufford after he’d jarred me from my thoughts about Emil Dubinin and how capturing him was proving more difficult than I wanted it to be, I tipped my chin up in a silent question. I was used to his barking surnames, but the indignant and cocky look in his eyes peeved me.
