The world, which I’d finally put back on track, spun wildly out of control.
And I knew—before I even packed my bag—that nothing would ever be the same again.
Chapter12
Nita
Iknew something was wrong the moment the email alert popped up on my phone.
I was three hours into paperwork hell in my DC office—cold coffee, fluorescent lights buzzing, my jacket draped over the chair because I hadn’t bothered going home the night before—when the alert hit my inbox.
I told myself I was taking this shit off my phone.I was going to learn to unwind, have balance.No need to read every work email as soon as it came in.Prioritize my personal time.Yet here I was on overtime and checking every ping that came through.
SUBJECT:Hampton Stanley Status Update
Person of interest currently unaccounted for.Local authorities reporting disappearance.Further coordination pending.
I stared at the screen like it might blink first.
Unaccounted for.
That was bureaucratic speak for someone fucked up.
My stomach dropped hard enough that I had to brace my palm on the desk.Hampton Stanley wasn’t supposed to disappear.He was supposed to be arraigned.Charged.Prosecuted.Sentenced.I had spent weeks tracing money, favors, shell accounts, kickbacks tied to disaster relief funds meant for families who had lost everything.I had followed the paper trail clean and quiet, the way you do when you know the man at the end of it has friends who like shadows.
And I had done it right.In the ways that would stick.
I brought the warrant personally to North Carolina.I’d made damn sure every “i” was dotted, every “t” crossed, every piece of evidence sealed so tight even the dirtiest defense attorney couldn’t wriggle him free.
Stanley was going to prison.
That was the deal.
Now he was gone.
I didn’t bother calling my supervisor.Not yet.I already knew what they would say,You were the last federal agent embedded in that file.You were the one with personal history there.You were the one tied to—the Saint’s Outlaws Motorcycle Club
Yes, I was guilty even if I didn’t want to be.
In my research on Hampton Stanley, I had learned a lot about the tiny town of Dreadnought, North Carolina.It was a town, not a city.Cities have life, and Dreadnought had Saint’s Outlaws, some mountains, a lot of trees, period.Every bit of the place was controlled by them.And because of him, I was tied to them.
Dante Verdone.
Once a cop, now an outlaw.
And he was the only way I could get the answers to save my job.I shut my laptop, grabbed my coat, and walked out without another word.
In a few hours, I was packed with a short term rental books on my way south.Dreadnought, NC was one of those places that never changed.
Same cracked highways cutting through pine and rust.Same low-slung buildings with peeling paint and stubborn pride.Same air that smelled like woods, crisp and clean, not a bit of smog or city scents around.Fresh.
Thirteen years had hardened me in ways this town couldn’t touch, that Dante couldn’t touch.I wasn’t the same Juanita Banks he left trying to sort where it all went wrong.I was a woman who refused to simply survive, I was determined to thrive.
DC had taught me how to smile while dismantling men twice my size.How to stay calm while careers burned down around me.How to hold my temper until the right moment—and then use it like a scalpel.The moment I crossed into town, my phone buzzed.
I ignored it.
I already knew where I was going.
