“I’ve seen the media storm,” Jamie said and stood by Caleb’s desk, “Bank seizures. Arrests for the other people on the wall. When are we hitting Lassiter?”
Caleb, not even looking up from his screen, called out from across the room, “I have eyes on him—he’s at home, packing a bag, and has already emptied his safe. His wife is asleep, but she took pills, so she’s out.”
“Do you have the location ready?” I asked Jamie, and he just gave me a sharp nod, passing the piece of paper to Caleb, which seemed so old-school given the amount of tech we used. Caleb entered the details, and three camera views appeared on the screen. Warehouses, broken windows, no cars, and silence.
I gripped his hand, my fingers curling tight around his knuckles. “You’ve got this, right? You’ll stay safe? Promise me, Pr—Jamie.”
“It’s one of the properties on my list. I have surveillance; I’ve set it up, worked it out. This won’t be chaos, and Rio and Enzo will be there as well.”
“Not Robbie?”
“Never,” Jamie was adamant.
Caleb shot me a look—despite the wholemurdering thing, Caleb and Sonya had been quiet, and Levi refused to talk about it, claiming plausible deniability.
“So what happens now?” Jamie asked and crossed his arms over his chest. The burns on his hands were no longer raw, but still a harsh reminder. The scabs had mostly fallen away, leaving behind tender, pink skin and the shiny start of new healing. He kept them covered, more out of habit than need. I didn’t want to see burns on him again. The thought twisted in my chest, but deep down, I knew what I’d signed up for. Love didn’t erase compulsion or the past. It didn’t dull the urges or rewrite the wiring in his head. It wasn’t like my magic cock was going to reprogram him into someone else. That idea made me huff out a quiet, wry laugh at myself.
“What’s funny?” he asked with a frown.
“I was just thinking about my magic cock,” I deadpanned, and we might have gone on teasing, but my cell vibrated and, at eighteen minutes past midnight, the call we’d been expecting had come in, although I waited a full three rings before answering.
“McKendrick,” I said in my best approximation of someone who’d been woken up.
“Jesus Christ! Have you seen the news?” Lassiter burst out, his voice sharp and frayed at the edges. “They’re going to tie me to this, I know it—Jesus, the headlines, the timing—it looks bad. It wasn’t me, I had nothing to do with any of this. I didn’t know, but they’ll dig and twist and, suddenly, I’m at the center of this whole fucking mess and?—”
“Woah, woah. Slow down,” I cut in. “Start from the beginning.”
He inhaled, as though he was trying to drag himself back from the brink. “None of what is happening out there is to do with me,” he repeated, a little steadier now. “But I know it’s going to be linked to me. I need you to find out what the fuck is happening. I need a safe place to stay.”
No mention of his wife. So much for the strong family unit.
“I don’t understand?” I lied.
He was spiraling. I could hear it in the pitch of his voice—too fast, too panicked. He was usually slick, controlled, and measured to the point of arrogance. But now? He was unravelling as we expected.
“Fuck! Dran is a personal friend. And Senator Huxley? Fuck, we play golf. Jesus, Killian, help me.”
He was flailing, throwing names and half-formed connections at me as if I were the net that would catch them. As if he said enough things, one of them would make it all make sense. But what struck me more waswhat he wasn’t saying—any absolute acknowledgment that this washisdoing. He was acting like an outsider, like a bystander who happened to be caught in the blast radius.
And he didn’t believe that; he was desperate to pretend.
“You can’t come to me, I have cameras everywhere, home and office,” I said, keeping my tone calm, measured. I picked up the piece of paper with Jamie’s neat cursive, “There’s a satellite office I use in the warehouse district. Discreet. No cameras, no digital trail. I’ll drop you a pin. Meet me there in an hour. Come alone.”
“You can help me fix this, right?”
“Meet me and we’ll come up with something that looks like a plan,” I replied, voice dry. “But this won’t be clean, and it won’t be easy. You’re an ADA, apparently with friends in low places. If you want to avoid getting caught up in other people’s mess, show up and tell me everything. No more riddles, no more theatrics, no more blackmailing me to help. We fix it or we bury it, and you pay me. Those are your options.”
I hung up and sat there for a long moment, staring at my phone as though it might bite. Everything about that call had stunk of desperation, of self-preservation, of Lassiter trying to shift his weight before the floor gave out beneath him. He truly believed I was the guy who could fix this. Hell, he even wanted me to believe he was innocent, or ignorant, or one of the unlucky ones caught in the fallout.
Fuck him for what he’d done to Robbie—shattered him, used him. I could still see Robbie that first time we’d met—his body tense, eyes wide, flinching at every noise. The way he’d curled in on himself when Redcars tried to offer safety. The raw fear that bled out of him in waves. That damage had two names: Lassiter and Kessler.
We couldn’t get one, yet, but Lassiter was dead tonight.
Fuck him for the trafficking, for the lives stolen, for every scream muffled by money and power. Fuck him for the hypocrisy when he worked trafficking cases, the polished lies, the way he hid behind good suits and righteous speeches while he orchestrated nightmares in the dark. And fuck him most of all for thinking he could crawl to me and pretend he was innocent.
Jamie gripped my arm. “Killian?”
I placed a hand over his. “He’ll be there in an hour.”
