Authority.
The kind that doesn’t need Alpha biology to back it up.
I take a deep breath. Let it out. Then I turn to face the entire room.
“Listen carefully, because I’m going to say this once.”
Every head lifts. Every screen is forgotten. Even the Rubik’s cube stops clicking.
“I have asked every single one of you, individually, to complete specific tasks over the past week.” My voice carries without effort, the acoustics of the bullpen amplifying the kind of command tone that they teach at the academy but most officers never master. “Assignments calibrated to your respective roles and responsibilities. Tasks that were not unreasonable, not excessive, and not outside the scope of your job descriptions. And in return, I have received nothing. But. Excuses.”
I let the silence work.
“So here’s my question.” I cross my arms, feeling the pull of scar tissue beneath my sleeves, the old wounds tightening with the motion like they’re bracing for impact alongside me. “Should I disband the entire station?”
The reaction is instantaneous.
“Wait—”
“You can’t do that?—”
“That’s not?—”
Voices overlap, chairs scraping against linoleum as officers shift from complacent to alarmed with a speed that confirms they were never too lazy to move, just too comfortable to bother.
“Why not?”
Two words, delivered with the clinical precision of a scalpel opening a wound.
The protests die.
“I am the acting chief of this department.” I hold up one finger, counting authorities like charges. “Which gives me the power to not only review the current staff and their performanceover the last six months—” A second finger. “—but to determine if any of you are inadequate and wasting the government’s money.” Third finger. “And to recommend restructuring, reductions, or outright dissolution if the findings support it.”
I drop my hand.
“So I’ll ask again. Do youreallythink that Sweetwater Falls—a town with a crime rate so suspiciously low it practically qualifies as fiction—needs the lot of officers sitting in this room?” My gaze sweeps the bullpen like a searchlight, catching each face, holding each set of eyes long enough to brand the moment into memory. “Twiddling their thumbs. Giving me bullshit excuses. And playing on fucking?—”
My voice snaps to maximum volume on the last two words, a controlled detonation that I aim directly at Officer Caldwell in the back corner.
“RUBIK’S CUBES?!”
The cube hits the floor.
Caldwell’s hands jerk apart like the thing electrocuted him, the multicolored puzzle clattering against linoleum and rolling to a stop against the leg of his desk with a sound that, in the silence that follows, might as well be a gavel sentencing the entire department.
His face goes the color of raw dough. His eyes go wide. His mouth opens, closes, opens again—a fish on a dock, drowning in air.
Good.
The silence that descends is the purest I’ve experienced since arriving in Sweetwater Falls. No shuffling. No chair creaking. No clacking keyboards. Just the hum of the fluorescent lights and the distant sound of wind against the building’s exterior, as if even the weather has decided to shut up and listen.
I uncross my arms and plant my hands on my hips, letting my posture speak the language my words have already delivered.
“Let me make something crystal clear.” My voice returns to its lower register—steady, measured, the ice reforming after the controlled crack. “I am not some small-town chief who’s going to twiddle her thumbs and sweep shit under the rug. I’m not here to be your friend, your therapist, or your babysitter. I am here because I was assigned here, and I will do this job with the same standard I have applied to every position I have ever held—which, for reference, was the highest-performing department in the metropolitan district for three consecutive years.”
I let that land.
“You’ll get your previous chief back when I’m returned to the city where I clearly belong. But until that day comes, you have two options.” I hold up two fingers, and every eye in the room tracks the motion like I’m holding a detonator. “Option one: you actually work. Like how the government pays you. With effort, professionalism, and the basic fucking competence your badge demands.”
