“Nope,” he said, locking his fingers together across his stomach and leaning back in the chair. “I’m footloose and fancy free.”
“You’ve got your cop face on,” I said. “I don’t believe you. You know I’ll find out who she is.”
Martinez just smiled.
Colburn came in next. He was tall, broad through the shoulders, and narrow through the hips. He was in his mid-fifties, his brown hair was going gray at the temples, and his hazel eyes were already working the room the way a veteran cop’s eyes always worked a room, checking exits and reading faces. He’d been promoted to lieutenant a while back, and I hardly ever saw him anymore. I knew the promotion had caused some friction between him and the other guys, but it was more of a sense whenever he walked into a room. But Jack had called him in on this, which meant Jack trusted him completely.
Chen arrived next, her black hair pulled back under her department cap. She took the chair in the corner. Riley took the seat next to her, folding his lanky frame into the seat so he could stretch his legs out. Plank sat beside him, looking nervous about being included in something he didn’t understand yet.
Hops arrived with Cheek a step behind her. She looked like cotton candy, all soft edges and pink-cheeked sweetness, and God help anyone stupid enough to underestimate her because of it. I’d watched her clothesline a woman twice her size and have her facedown in cuffs before anyone else in the room had finished blinking. Cheek dropped into the chair beside her looking vaguely queasy, which was just his default setting.
Walters came last, the youngest person in the room. He was homegrown King George, and a deputy who was perfectly content running patrol and making traffic stops. He had no ambition beyond doing his job well and going home in one piece. Jack had picked him for a reason, and Walters was smart enough not to ask what it was.
Eight people. Phones already buzzing and chirping in pockets and on belts, the ambient noise of lives being interrupted on a Saturday afternoon for reasons nobody in the room knew yet.
Then the door opened one more time. The man who walked in wasn’t someone I’d seen before, and in a department this size that meant he was SWAT. He was late thirties or early forties, with a shaved head, a sharp jaw, and a build that came from decades of going through doors first. He wore tactical pants, boots, and a department polo stretched tight across his chest, and the scars on his forearms told the rest of the story.
“Lt. Frank Danforth,” Jack said. “Head of our tactical unit for those of you who have never been introduced. Frank, take a seat.”
Danforth nodded once and took the chair closest to the door.
Jack closed the door and locked it.
“Phones on the table,” Jack said. “All of them. Personal and department issued.”
Nobody argued. Phones landed on the conference table in a pile that Jack swept to the far end, out of reach. Martinez raised an eyebrow but didn’t comment. Colburn didn’t blink.
“What I’m about to tell you doesn’t leave this room,” Jack said. “Not tonight, not tomorrow, not until it comes out of your mouth in a courtroom under oath.” He looked at each of them. Not quickly. Slowly, face by face, the way a man looks at people he’s about to lead somewhere dangerous. “You’re the only people in this department I trust with what I’m about to show you. I chose every one of you for a reason.”
The air-conditioning hummed. Nobody moved.
Jack pulled up the first image on the wall-mounted screen. Dre’s photographs. The tunnels. The ring. The crowd.
“We have an underground fighting operation running beneath the dock district,” Jack said. “It’s been active for years. Illegal bouts, high-stakes gambling, hundreds of thousands of dollars moving through shell companies and offshore accounts. The operation is managed by Victor Caruso through Iron House Gym and financed by Nikolai Stavros. Stavros is the big fish. He’s who we want.”
He walked them through it the way he’d walked me through crime scenes for years, methodical, precise, building the picture one detail at a time. Dre’s murder. T-Bone’s execution. Cole’s shooting as a distraction. The notebook. The shell companies. The tunnel network beneath properties Stavros controlled. Each piece of evidence clicked into the next like rounds being loaded into a magazine.
The room absorbed it in silence. Martinez’s easy charm had gone still, replaced by the sharp focus that made him one of the best detectives Jack had ever hired. Chen was leaning forward with her elbows on her knees. Colburn’s face hadn’t changed, but his eyes had gone to ice.
Jack clicked to the photograph of Stavros standing over Joaquin Melendez’s body.
“This is Nikolai Stavros committing murder,” Jack said. “The victim is a fighter named Joaquin Melendez from Richmond. Andre Washington photographed it and hid the evidence in a safe deposit box in Colonial Beach. We opened it this morning.”
Hops let out a slow breath. Walters was staring at the screen like he’d forgotten how to blink. Even Danforth shifted in his chair, a movement so small it barely registered, but from a man that controlled it spoke volumes.
“There’s something else,” Jack said.
He clicked to the photograph of Beckwith. Full uniform. Badge visible. Standing guard in the tunnels.
The room changed. It was like watching the temperature drop—the same people, the same chairs, the same humming fluorescent lights, but the air itself seemed to contract around the image on the screen. A cop in uniform, working for the other side.
“Beckwith,” Riley said. His voice was flat.
“Deputy Ryan Beckwith has been providing security for the fight operation on fight nights,” Jack said. “His department-issued phone has been moving in tandem with a burner phone on nine documented occasions. He was on duty during the fights. He was assigned to the protection detail on Terrance James, aka T-Bone.” Jack paused, and the pause carried weight. “He’s the deputy who lost T-Bone in traffic yesterday morning. Six hours later, T-Bone was dead.”
Martinez’s jaw tightened. Hops closed her eyes briefly. Cheek looked like he might be sick, but for once it had nothing to do with a weak stomach.
“If the pattern holds,” Jack said, “Beckwith will be in those tunnels tonight. Standing guard in uniform while the fights are running.”
