Page 16 of Fallen Rook

This is intended for my not-so-secret admirer. Here’s your sign to do more than stalking

#comegetme #idontbite #unlessyouwantmeto

The little shit knew I was checking his profile.

That, in itself, didn’t bother me. It was just work. But he was egging on a federal agent. Unacceptable.

Despite all my functioning brain cells telling me not to open the comments section, I did anyway.

The internet, as always, didn’t disappoint.

Nikki2013: big fan of whatever’s happening in this picture. Lol

Audrey_baby: who’s dumb enough not to jump your bones???

CourtneyS:

Swaggybaggy: if she won’t have you, I gladly will. Just sayin’

A knock on the door made me minimize the window and lurch back like a teenager caught with his hand in his pants. Jesus Christ, I needed to get a hold of myself. I wasn’t doing anything wrong—just following leads for my case.

“Yeah?” I cleared my throat, folding my legs to hide the evidence of my newfound idiocy.

Zeke, my superior, popped his head through the gap between the door and the frame.

Deputy Director Ezekiel “Zeke” Maddox was the only person I considered a true friend in this world, and even that was reluctantly. The bastard never gave up when others did. He’d been my commander once upon a time, when I was first deployed, and as soon as I got discharged, he knocked on my door with a Cornell leaflet for a master’s degree that’d fast-track me to a desirable FBI position.

“Rothwell. Conference room. Two minutes.” He slanted his shiny bald head toward the hallway.

I nodded. He was about to leave, then stopped, working his jaw back and forth. “Oh, and bring the Ferrante file.”

My interest was piqued. “Sully’s here?”

“Don’t act so surprised; he’s still on my payroll.”

I didn’t like his tone. Then again, I didn’t like most of everything. Grabbing the thick file on my desk, I pushed to my feet and followed him into the conference room. To my surprise, Sully was seated and even looked half alive. I checked my watch. It was just shy of nine o’clock. He usually didn’t grace us with his presence before ten, and was never fully awake before eleven.

Gene Sullivan was in his early sixties. A portly, old-school Irish New Yorker, with salt-and-pepper hair, red suspenders, and a don’t-bullshit-me scowl wedged so deeply between his bushy eyebrows you could tuck nickels into it and they’d hold. He lived off caffeine, alcohol, and sheer grit. Even though he was a lazy bastard, I liked working with him well enough, since he wasn’t into small talk, and let me lead the investigation on account of him eyeing an early retirement and not giving too much of a shit.

“What’s going on?” I sank into a chair at the oval table, my gaze flickering between them.

Zeke fell to the seat at the head of the table, grabbing the file, mindlessly flipping through it. “We’re at a standstill with the Ferrante case. It’s going nowhere, fast. Headquarters said we’ve got more pressing issues to tend to.”

“More pressing than catching bad guys who flood the streets with drugs, prostitution, and violence?” I sneered.

Even though Zeke and I were friends, we had little in common. He was a Black man in his fifties, married with four kids, an amateur chef, enthusiastic marathon runner, and a standing member of a professional poker league. I was single, actively avoided people, content in my carefully constructed bubble, and had lived off the same three meals on rotation for two decades now.

“Too many resources have been poured into this project, with no real progress.” Zeke shoved the file back to me, folding his muscular arms over his chest. “This is an order from above, Rothwell. My hands are tied.”

He had to be fucking kidding me.

The Ferrantes needed to be stopped. For the sake of this city—and humanity as a whole. Beyond this family of psychopaths living their best, murderous lives as free people, I had extra skin in the game.

Nailing this case would put me at a point of advantage in the FBI where I could cherry-pick my next position. I wanted to switch to counterterrorism. I was fucking done chasing sleazy men with too much hair product who popped kneecaps as a hobby.

“You okay with this shit?” I eyeballed Sully, the pulsating vein in my neck throbbing.

He shrugged. “Zeke’s right. Besides, I don’t think I’ll get to see us wrap the case up before I retire. The Ferrantes have too much money and hold too much power for us to lock them away.”