Page 193 of Fall Before Her Throne

“That’s not exactly conclusive evidence,” I pointed out.

“No,” she replied. “But the FBI taught me to follow my instincts. They were screaming at me.”

“And what were your instincts saying?”

“That the mysterious messages were right,” she said. “And if those messages were right, then I needed to follow this trail. So when the orders went through to prepare for a mafia attack on a municipal building in Lower Manhattan, I paid attention. I got one more secure message, telling me to wait in the parking garage, at the northwest corner.”

I huffed a breath and smiled softly. Obi really had everything planned to a tee.

“But why help me?” I asked, turning to her. “You know who I am.”

She sniffed, jaw ticking as she stared at the road. “I’m not sure that I do. I think everything I thought I knew was wrong.”

“So you decided to aid and abet a criminal?”

She shrugged with a crooked smile. “I’m improvising. Trying to listen to my gut.”

“What would Special Agent Greer say about your gut?”

She snorted. “He’d tell my gut to go fuck itself.”

“I don’t like him.” Not like her. I’d always felt a good vibe from Badawi.

“I don’t like him either, but he’s my partner. He’s an asshole, I’ll give you that, but he’s a good agent. Most of the time.”

Ciel and I had briefly looked into both Badawi and Greer and had come up with nothing more serious than a few parking tickets and questionable social media posts. I might dislike Greer, but he seemed to be a perfectly acceptable agent.

“What about your case?” I asked. “You’re still going after Max. One of my men, by the way.”

I knew what I was saying to her. What I was admitting. But Max was ours now, and if he went down, we went down with him.

She pressed her lips together. “I don’t know. Maybe I’ll decide to turn the car around.” When I stiffened, she laughed softly and then sighed. “I won’t, but that doesn’t mean I won’t keep coming after you later. My case makes New York a safer place. I’m not giving that goal up. I’m in pursuit of the truth, and all I knew was that the orders to arrest a group of killers at a municipal building after the mayor had condemned the mafia was not the complete truth.”

I sank deeper into the passenger seat while trying to process. Badawi was a good agent. I’d always felt that. Obi had placed her here, with me, on purpose.

“Quite frankly,” she continued, “I mostly just thought you were smarter than that. The Shadows would never perpetrate such an obvious attack in broad daylight. It felt like something else was going on.”

Exactly. We were fucking smarter than that.

“You know Greco’s worse than us,” I said, glancing at her out of the corner of my eye. “That is the truth.”

Badawi turned on her blinker and changed lanes. “The only truth that’s certain right now is that you’re both criminals. Organized crime is a scourge on New York City.”

Well, I couldn’t argue with that. “Your bosses are cashing in on a terrible deal, and you’ll be the one who has to clean up the mess. Greco will be the scourge you fear. Things will get worse than they’ve ever been. If you’re familiar with organized crime at all, then you know what they’ve done in Italy. You know the control they have. At least my men and I have been trying to fix things and mind our own business while we’re at it.”

The leather on the steering wheel creaked with her tightened grip. “Did you get rid of the Vokshi Clan?” she asked. “And the Alacrán cartel?”

“That’s a conversation you should have with my lawyer. Samuel would be more than happy to answer your questions.”

“Miss Vero,” she said. Something about the soft tone of her voice made me look. Her eyebrows drew together, and her mouth formed a tight frown. It was a genuine question, not a trap. “If I wanted to arrest you, I’d drive back to Manhattan.”

After a moment, I gave her a brief nod. “My men and I have been fixing my father’s mistakes.” I touched gentle fingers to my cheek, and my voice went quiet. “The Albanians gave me this scar.”

She exhaled. “I thought so.”

“You are pursuing truth and justice,” I said. “Maybe I’m doing the same thing, just from the other side of the fence.”

“Perhaps,” she said softly. “Maybe we have more in common than we think.”