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“Yes, it does.”

I looked up.

Nik’s face was calm.

“You fixed it?”

“I erased the active suspension and every flag it pushed to the City. If some ambitious clerk goes hunting, they’ll find an amended-filing problem and a supervisor’s note telling them not to touch it until corrected documents are uploaded.”

I stared at him.

He picked up his coffee. “Xyst can sell alcohol tonight.”

A slow smile pulled at my mouth.

“Don’t look at me like that,” he said.

“Like what?”

“Like I just handed you a loaded gun and a woman arrogant enough to stand in front of it.”

I tapped the folder against my palm.

He sighed. “You’re going to enjoy this.”

“Oh, you know I will.”

I glanced at one of the monitors. Her professional headshot stared back from the corner of the personnel file, long black hair framing big brown eyes.

The pretty attorney had picked the wrong club to fuck with.

Nik’s voice cut through the thought.

“Review these. Then go put Assistant Corporation Counsel Isabella Delgado in her place.”

I tucked the folder under my arm.

“With pleasure.”

Chapter two

By midmorning, a shower and clean clothes had done what they could for the outside of me, but my temper was still boiling.

Nik’s man inside the Office of Special Enforcement didn’t ask why I needed private access to a city attorney on a Monday morning. Smart men on mafia payrolls knew better than to confuse curiosity with survival.

He gave me a visitor badge, a floor number, and a hallway that would stay empty long enough for me to make my point.

Assistant Corporation Counsel Isabella Delgado was about to learn the difference between walking into my club with cops at her back and standing alone in her office with me.

The hallway to her office looked like the city had stopped trying decades ago. Dull gray paint covered the walls, fluorescent lights hummed overhead, and scuffed floors ran past closed doors with cheap nameplates. The air smelled like copier toner, old coffee, and stale air.

There were no marble floors or polished wood. Nothing built to impress.

Just bureaucracy with bad lighting and too much power.

Her office sat at the far end, smaller than I’d expected and tucked into a quiet corner.

I stopped outside her door.