“I’m not worried,” he defended. “My friend… well… this Mitchell owed a lot of people a lot of money, and with him gone, my friend’s money is gone. I mean, the money for the charities is gone.”
Lassiter was covering his bases in case the investigation revealed a connection to him. He tapped his glass. “Or not. I mean, who knows.” I held my body still, every nerve pulled taut. “My friend’s friend,” he said again, a bit too deliberately, “would appreciate anything your investigation could turn up. Purely informally, of course. There would be a payment involved, and no mention from me about your passing information to a defense team.”
“Which I didn’t do,” I lied.
He nodded. “Of course. But I wouldn’t want people to think this was true.”
He leaned back in the booth, smiling again. But something had shifted if he had to resort to subtle blackmailing. The crack in the surface was there if you knew where to look—just a hairline fracture, a flicker in the way his fingers tightened around theglass. Maybe he wasn’t unraveling. Not yet. But he was watching the ground shift beneath his feet, and wondering who else knew, so perhaps Jamie setting the fire had been a good thing. Go figure.
A server set two plates in front of us and disappeared as quickly as he came, leaving behind the subtle scent of garlic and perfectly seared meat.
I glanced at the plate—a thick slice of steak glossy with jus. It had been plated with care, garnished like something out of a magazine, but the sight of it turned my stomach. I hadn’t eaten all day, but I wouldn’t start now. Not with him watching.
Lassiter picked up his silverware with ease, his posture open and actions unhurried. He looked every bit the seasoned public servant—affable, experienced, confident in the quiet power of a life spent shaking hands in closed-door rooms. He cut into the rare steak on his plate, blood oozing from inside, and took a bite, chewing slowly, deliberately, as though the world could wait and what he was asking me wasn’t as crucial as fuck to him.
I reached for my glass of water, took a measured sip, and set it back down. My hands were steady, but inside I was wound tight. The calm I projected was just the outer shell. Beneath it, my thoughts were moving too fast—calculating every word he’d said,every pause, every sideways glance and any too-casual phrase.
He glanced up, fork midair. “You’re not eating?”
“I had a huge business brunch with a client,” I lied, using the same smile I employed in court when I needed to appear relaxed but unbothered. “I might have to leave this.” I reached for my wallet, but he stopped me.
“Put that away, you know it’s on me whether you eat it or not.” He chuckled, that rough-edged smoker’s laugh that had probably once been charming in courtrooms and at donor dinners.
I met his eyes and held them a beat too long before I looked down at my plate again, feigning interest in the food I wasn’t going to touch.
He took another bite, slower this time, then wiped his mouth with a crisply folded napkin. “You understand discretion.”
I offered a polite smile. “I try.”
“Good, good,” His voice became more conversational, as if we were buddies. “In the process of this deep dive formy friend, should you stumble across something incriminating that doesn’t quite make sense at first glance… I would advise you to bring it to me directly. Let me clarify before you jump to conclusions or speak out of turn and ruin what could be an excellent relationship in the future.”
“We’ll treadverycarefully and run everything we find through you first.” I lied again, and leaned back slightly, folded my hands on the table’s edge, and gave him what he wanted.
Attention.
Interest.
And enough smiling to keep him talking.
I didn’t let any of my feelings show, not even the chill working through my chest, or the quiet fury low in my gut. I kept my expression neutral, the corners of my mouth twisted into something polite and unreadable. I nodded once, not too fast, and offered Lassiter a thin smile that could be read as gratitude if you didn’t know better.
Across the table, Lassiter eased back in his seat, lifting his wineglass with the comfortable satisfaction of a man who believed he was putting something in place to help him.
I let the conversation drift, letting him carry it away from danger, back toward safe, meaningless territory—state funding updates, judiciary reshuffles, a retiring judge. I responded where needed, matched his rhythm, and said just enough to keep the illusion alive.
But behind the performance, my mind was already shifting gears.
This recording would go straight to Caleb as soon as I was clear. Sonya would run audio pulls, check stress patterns, analyze the pacing, and dig through every gesture and inflection. Caleb would comb through Lassiter’s phrasing, match it to chatter inside the data he’d collated, pull up metadata on the nonprofits we knew were laundering money. We’d triangulate everything—locations, bank flows, digital signatures. All of it.
Lassiter was panicking, and that made him all the more dangerous. It also made him predictable.
I picked up my fork and cut a bite of steak, finally, chewing as he moved on to small talk. I nodded where appropriate, even laughed once, all while something inside me shifted into place. The play was clear now. Let him keep talking. Let him think I was a man who would take his calls, shake his hand, and report to him. Let him believe I hadn’t already begun to dismantle everything he’d built. Because when the time came, when we had enough—morethan enough—he’d never see the blade coming. I looked him in the eye as he talked, matching his tone, body language, and false warmth.
“…opportunity, with Lyric-Night investments.”
The name caught my attention. “Sorry, could you repeat? I was considering dessert.”
He chuckled, swirling the wine in his glass as if we were old friends instead of circling predators. “Investments,” he said smoothly. “A collective of business-minded philanthropists. We specialize in urban revitalization—gentrifying old neighborhoods, converting forgotten corners into profitable opportunities.”
