"You can't promise that."
"I can, and I am." I step closer to his desk, meeting his eyes with all the conviction I've got. "She's under my protection. That means I'll die before I let anything happen to her."
Vulture’s quiet for a long moment, studying me like he's trying to solve a puzzle. Then he sighs and runs a hand through his hair. "You're in deep already, aren't you?"
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"Yes, you do. But we'll pretend you don't because that's easier than admitting you're falling for a woman who could destroy everything we've built." He stands, coming around the desk. "Fine. She stays. You protect her. But the second this becomes a liability to the club, it ends. Understood?"
"Understood."
"Good. Now get her files and let's see what we're actually dealing with. If she's got solid evidence against the Reapers, we need to move fast before they figure out where she is."
I head back upstairs, knocking on Ava's door. She opens it almost immediately. She’s changed into fresh clothes from her bag, and her hair is still damp from a shower. The bruises on her face look worse in the daylight, with purple and yellow blooming across her cheekbone.
"Vulture wants to see what you've got," I tell her. "Bring everything."
She grabs her messenger bag and laptop, and follows me back down to the office. Vulture’s cleared space on his desk, and we spread out her files like we're planning a military operation. Because in a way, we are.
Knox appears in the doorway like he was summoned by the wordbruises. He doesn’t say much, just looks Ava over with clinical eyes. “Concussion symptoms?” he asks, like he’s asking the weather.
Ava stiffens. “I’m fine.”
“No one’s fine,” Knox replies, and tosses me a small packet. “Ice for swelling. And don’t let her sleep if she starts slurring.”
He’s gone as quickly as he arrived.
Photos of the Reapers' clubhouse, supply routes mapped on printed maps, names scrawled in her handwriting with question marks next to ones she hasn't verified. The USB drive contains recordings, conversations she'd captured before they caught her, voices discussing shipments and pickups and girls being moved through a pipeline that stretches from Louisiana to Canada.
"This is good," Falcon says, scrolling through the audio files. I didn’t even notice him coming into the room. "It’s better than good. This is prosecutable evidence if we can tie it to specific names."
"I've been trying," Ava says, pointing to her notes. "But they use code names. The Collector is mentioned repeatedly, but I haven't been able to identify who that is. Same with the buyers. They're careful."
"Not careful enough." Falcon pulls up one of the photos, zooming in on a license plate visible in the background. "We can run this, see who it belongs to. And these shell companies you've tracked, we've got contacts who can dig deeper."
"Contacts?" Ava asks, suspicion creeping into her voice.
"People who owe us favors. People who move in circles we don't." Vulture glances at me. "Mason, call Condor. Tell him we need a deep dive on these corporate structures."
I pull out my phone, stepping aside to make the call. Condor's our inside man, works at a tech firm downtown and has access to databases most people don't even know exist. He answers on the third ring.
"What's up, Ice Pick?"
"Need you to run some companies for me. Shell corporations, probably laundering money. Can you do it quietly?"
"Can a bear shit in the woods? Send me the names."
“And keep it clean,” I add. “If Vulture hears the wordleak, he’ll shut this whole city down until we find it.”
I text him screenshots of Ava's notes, waiting while he pulls them up on his end. The silence stretches long enough that I start to worry, then he whistles low.
"These are connected to some heavy hitters, brother. I'm talking political donors, real estate moguls, a few names I recognize from the society pages. If they're involved in something dirty, it goes deep."
"How deep?"
"Deep enough that you're going to need more than muscle to take them down. You're going to need someone who can navigate the legal system without getting buried under it."
I glance at Ava, who's watching me with those sharp eyes. "We might have someone like that."
