Caleb hesitated. “Levi, if he’s got people in there?—”
“I’m not going to kick the door in,” I lied. “I just want eyes on.”
And if I got to see Alejandro, then that was a win.
Within an hour,I was parked half a block away from The Harrow House—white stone, mirrored glass, electric gates humming with wealth. The kind of place that oozes security and silence. Manicured hedges, imported palms, two expensive cars in the driveway. I should’ve logged the sighting, let OrganizedCrime handle it, and followed the rules meant to keep me out of trouble.
But I could already hear the whispers if I did.
Levi Rosen fucking a key character in this play.
Another Rosen is entangled in another cartel/MC case.
I didn’t know where the line was anymore—but I knew I was going to cross it again.
“Not this time,” I muttered to myself, fingers drumming on the steering wheel. I wasn’t handing this over to a system that had let my father pretend nothing was wrong. If there was a pipeline running through this house—through Doc—then I was going to rip it open, even if it took my badge with it.
A van had arrived fifteen minutes ago, gate opening long enough for me to catch a glimpse of a woman standing on the porch, a kid’s bike leaning against the wall behind her. The van hadn’t left, and no one got out.
“Heads up.” Caleb’s voice crackled through my earpiece, sharper now. A black Mercedes SUV rolled into view, slowing to a crawl. The gates slid open, but they didn’t close. I caught movement—Alejandro stepping through, sunlight cutting across his face. He stopped at the end of the drive, arms folded, gaze locked on me as if he’d known exactly where I was all along. No surprise, no hesitation. Just a quiet challenge.
He didn’t move until I shifted the car out of park. Then, with that same deliberate calm he always had, he turned and walked back inside the property, waiting for me to follow. My pulse kicked up, instincts yelling one thing while curiosity whispered another.
I drove the short distance, eased through the gates after him, and watched them shut behind me in my rearview mirror.
The driveway curved past manicured hedges and an ornamental fountain, too peaceful for what I knew about him. The van’s driver was someone I recognized—Alejandro’s cleanerwith the blade. He stared at me, and I stared back. He wasn’t why I was here, but I filed away his presence as I headed for Doc, pausing for me at the top of the steps, the front door open behind him. He looked as if he’d been expecting me for days.
“Detective,” he said. Calm, pretending to be bored. His voice carried, smooth as ever. That was a far cry from “Fuck me harder, Levi,” but everything had shifted.
I didn’t bother pretending I was here to shoot the breeze. “You want to tell me why your name’s tied to offshore money movements that date back to a cartel massacre?”
Alejandro’s gaze flicked to the holster, then back up. “You need to go.”
“Not a chance.” I took a step closer, hand hovering near my gun. “You’ve got two choices—tell me what’s really going on, or I start making noise until someone else comes looking.”
He sighed, almost amused. “You don’t scare me.”
“Liar,” I said.
That earned a spark—something dark behind his eyes. The shift was immediate, the calm peeling back enough to show teeth. He closed the distance between us, slow and measured, until he was close enough that I could smell antiseptic and the faint coppery edge of blood under his cologne.
“You don’t know what you’re walking into,” he said quietly. “This isn’tyourkind of case.”
“Maybe not. But a killer is sitting in a van in your front yard, so I’m not leaving.”
Alejandro hesitated, jaw tightening. Then he said, almost casually, “Can you be bought, Detective? Because I’ve got money to pay you off.” His tone was soft, dangerous, and worse, he pulled out a knife and gestured with it. I went straight for my gun, instincts sparking before thought. He watched me with that same unnerving calm, as though he’d been waiting for me to draw my weapon.
His hand shot up, catching my wrist as it rested on my gun. Reflex took over; I twisted, breaking his grip, and shoved him back against his car. The movement jolted him, but he didn’t fight. Not at first. Then he did—hard, trained, dangerous. My shoulder slammed the door; his palm came up to my throat, pressure enough to warn, not choke. This wasn’t the man who’d curled into my side and stroked my skin. His expression was hard, arrogant, almost.
We froze there, locked in something that wasn’t quite violence. His pulse beat under my fingers.
I took a breath, steadying my hand on the gun, ignoring his touch. “Answer the question, Alejandro,” I said. “What do you know about the Águilas Cartel money? How many pieces of your victims did you cut out and sell so you could buy a life in the US?”
Alejandro’s expression shuttered, all that lazy overconfidence gone in an instant. His pupils blew wide, a flicker of something like fear crossing his face before he smoothed it out, a split-second falter that told me I’d stepped on something real.
He held up a hand to stop me. “That’s enough.”
“Where is your sister?” I asked.
