When Riley walks in, she’s not wearing her port blazer or her company badge. Her hair is tied back, but not in a way that hides the curve of her neck. She wears black pants that fit her too well and a shirt that highlights every curve. I nod toward the seat across from mine.
“You’ve been here one day,” I say.
“Yes.”
“You’ve logged seventeen mismatches and flagged a scheduling pattern no one else noticed in six months.”
“I did,” she says.
Her voice is even, her expression calm. I look at her hands. They don’t shake.
“You’re not an analyst,” I say.
“I am,” she answers. “I’m just a better one than you expected.”
That tone again—flat, confident, not impressed by power and not afraid of being wrong. Most people soften when they sit across from me, but she leans forward instead, picks up her coffee, and drinks without waiting for permission.
“You saw something in the whiskey lane timing,” I say. “Tell me.”
She sets her cup down. “Three shipments from the Spanish corridor arrived a day early in the last two weeks. The drivers were different, the companies were different, but the amendment requests came from the same clerk in our Vigo office. That clerk—Luis Gutierrez—filed changes under different regional tags but reused the same contact number each time.”
I blink once, then lean back. “How do you know?”
“I called the number pretending to confirm a customs delay. He answered with the wrong company name.”
I nod.
“He’s laundering mislabeled containers through multiple carriers,” she says. “My guess is he’s being paid to blend high-value product into legitimate runs. If that’s true, it’s not just money we’re losing.”
“Go on.”
“If he’s working with medical-grade distributors off-books, it explains how clean loads keep getting flagged late in transit. He’s sliding synthetic opioids in under neutral labels—antivirals, hormone injectables, even prenatal supplements.”
I raise a brow and cock my head at her. “Fentanyl?” I ask.
“Too early to say. But if it’s not that, it’s something close.”
I stare at her. She holds still. I haven’t had a woman sit across from me like this in five years. Not since Eva. “You know the problem with fentanyl,” I say.
Riley nods. “It moves fast, pays well, and ruins everything.”
I study her face. There’s no fear in it, only focus. I don’t know who trained her to speak like this or why she’s really here, but every word she gives me is something I can use. That makes her valuable, but also dangerous.
“You’ve been in ports before,” I say.
“I told you that.”
“Where else?”
“Rotterdam. Antwerp. Hamburg. A little time in Lisbon.”
I wait. She doesn’t fill the silence. She doesn’t explain more than I asked. Most people do. She doesn’t flinch and she doesn’t flirt, but something in the way she looks at me is charged.
I’ve fucked enough women since Eva to know what I like. Most were easy to forget. None of them worked my brain while making my cock stand to attention. Riley Quinn talks like every sentence is a hand around my throat, and I’m starting to think she knows exactly what she’s doing.
“You don’t want promotions?” I ask as I lean back in my chair and drum my fingers on the table.
She takes another sip of her coffee and lets her green eyes settle directly on me. “I want control over what matters.”
