21

"Keep driving," I said into the radio Wednesday afternoon. "Let us take the lead and follow."

"We sensed the vamp in there as well, we got you, Chief," one of the ancients responded.

I told Harris to pull out in front of the others and where to go park a few blocks away. There was a deep-dish pizza place right there, and that should be enough cover given Higgins was a busy street in Chicago and the suburbs. The vamp wouldn't probably pay attention to us just driving by.

The vamp that wasn't from Chicago and at the hotel we were going to sneak into this meeting for.

Awesome.

We all pulled in and got out, several of us sharing looks and trying to squash our annoyance.

"It fits," Sander muttered. "It's a newer vamp. Maybe a couple of years."

One of the other ancients snorted. "He's so new he barely registers as a vamp."

"Which is how he was sneaking around Chicago, darting in and out for whatever, and we didn't notice an outsider was here," I accepted. But this changed everything. "We've got video in there, right?"

"Yeah, we have the hotel's cameras, Chief," the agent in charge of the tech van assured me.

I glanced around at the humans I had with me and focused on one of the newer agents. She would work perfectly. I went over to her and didn't even bother trying to give her a smile or assure her.

She wasn't going to like this.

"You're going in," I told her.

Her eyes went bug wide. "Me?"

"Yes, we want to try and get as much as we can, and we don't have audio. We want more of the people there—we're going to try, okay? If you get blown or tossed, it happens, and we're there in seconds." I waited for her to nod and realize this was really happening. "You're going to go with a few of the other humans and take over their security office.

"Tell them nothing important, but basically we have a situation, and if they try to warn anyone, we're outside ready to add them to the arrest. Make it clear you're in charge because you are. You can do this." I saw in her eyes she didn't think she could. "If Greg Camara is a vamp, he's going to catch you in the lie."

"Then I'm dead and—"

"You're not dead when he's a baby vamp," I promised her. "Your training is stellar. Plus, this guy has been smart. If he thinks he's blown, he'll run. The ancients and I can move fast, and we got you." I moved my hand on her shoulder. "We got you. You bail if you think it's a problem and we'll swoop in. This is just extra icing to make the cake."

"And it'll get you some damn good experience for your resume," the SAiC added, not seeing a reason to deny it.

I nodded as well. "So you're going to be a worker there trying to sneak in. It's invite-only, but when he or his guys say anything, you hint you caught onto what the thing is and it can't hurt for you to listen a few minutes. He will hear your heart. You would be nervous in that situation if you were a worker. That covers you."

"And keep the lie vague," Sander said. "Say that you're in that position and your boss won't mind you listening in. He'll assume the lie is your boss won't mind. Of course, your boss won't like it. Hell, he'll probably enjoy that and think you've got a chance to bail on that place and make him money. And you won't be a problem knowing what they're doing there."

"Right. Say less. If anything, bitch about the job that is stuff we all bitch about the FBI," I added. "You're tired. Your boss asks you things she shouldn't. Don't say the hotel as you say it. Say your job. It's not a lie then. It's all about framing. It's why we circle back again and again when we interrogate."

"Okay, I can do this," she whispered.

"You can, but if not, the world will not end and we've still got them. That should chill you some. It's not all on you. We just want that extra sweet icing for the AG." I smiled when she nodded. "Now, keep your phone in your hand so they don't see you recording or taking pictures."

"Right, I can't wear a wire around supes," she muttered.

"No, but you're going to take my phone in on a call with Sera," Sander said. "It will be on mute and just in your pocket, so we need a vest or outfit where she could hide it. She wouldn't have her purse on her at work."

"Chief, the hotel staff who are not maids are wearing black suits," the tech called over. "White shirts just like you guys do."

Except what she was wearing now was an outfit for breaching since she wasn't supposed to be sneaking in with us… And I was dressed to go in as someone else we were going to scoop up and use the magical lip gloss to change my appearance.

"I'm seriously a good friend," Sander said as he went over to one of my security SUVs. "I picked up our huge dry cleaning order after lunch. You've got two suits like that in here. One is a skirt I think."

"That still works," the tech told us.

I checked out the agent. "We're the same size but yeah, do the skirt. You're gorgeous, and that distracts pompous men. Leave another button open too." I shrugged. I used to wear very little on my undercover assignments all of the time.

Good memories.

We got everything set, and I was glad Sander recommended his phone because he had maybe the smallest phone available. He hated the bulk of most smartphones, so he went for the thinnest and smallest option as his choice always.

"I can see it in the jacket pocket with her breasts," I argued when they tried it there.

"Put a notebook in there, and if they check her for that and find it, they'll let it go," someone suggested.

I nodded that it was a good one and then had her put it in her back pocket since the jacket would cover. "Don't take a seat and stay near the door like you'd need to sneak away if your boss calls you. When we raid, be the guy's friend and try and sneak him out of there and bring him right to the ancients so we don't have problems." I slipped her a small taser just to be safe.

"I paid attention and saw how these don't work on supes, Chief," she mumbled, giving me a curious look.

"This vamp is so new he's still mostly human. I promise, that matters a lot. I make the point of how it doesn't work on shifters and makes the situation worse or tickles ancients. I swear to you that what I sensed was this guy is a vamp maybe a few years. That's like preteen you versus even teenage you and we're all adults."

She took in a deep breath and let it out. "I trust you, Chief. Thanks for giving me this chance."

I gave her a serious look and moved us off to the side as I lowered my voice. "You got it because circumstances changed and that's life. Your SAiC is right that you should do the best you can with it and make your mark that you're here for the job and can do this better than others." I waited for her to nod. "But don't be stupid.

"Don't have the boys club egos and push. You're smarter than that. I've bailed a lot and assholes chewed me later, but they weren't there, and I lived . That is always the most important part of any undercover op. You live. You make sure your people live, and we can always get them another way. So take this chance you were given and show you can handle it and be smart."

I was impressed she digested the "pep talk" well and then was off with the human team.

They did great. They remembered how well vampires could hear and talked to the hotel manager as they should have, their shoulder cams showing us everything.

She did even better. Agent Cindy Fisher had a promising career in undercover. She did better than I could have my first op. Yeah, mine was a deep cover and way more complicated, but she was smooth . She snapped into character and played those guys like several fucking instruments.

And I beamed like a proud older sister the whole damn time.

"She's good," Sander muttered. "You're pulling her and getting her trained for undercover, right?"

"If she wants it, yeah," I confirmed, ignoring the reactions around me. "And getting her into acting classes. She's better than I was my first jump in. I wasn't remotely that smooth, but luckily being cold and awkward worked for my assignment. She's damn good."

Honestly, good was an understatement for her first time. She totally rocked it.

We got everyone in who was attending and the presentation started by the attorney who was helping with all of this fraud… While other teams were raiding his law firm. They were all dirty as shit and it was a huge bust. We already took the doctor's office, and after this I had plans with a bunch of cops in DeKalb.

Brian was backing us up there as a training exercise for the supe trainees even if it was a human thing. He wanted the extra attention and shame brought to the dirty cops.

Plus, we were going to have a huge fucking mess at the trailer park from what we knew of the situation there. We couldn't get all of the names of the people living there because deeds and titles took a bit to record. And we expected some to be empty as they were flipped for the next victim.

I hurried to text Brian that the head guy was a vampire, so this was going to be a cleaner case from the top. I texted my councilwoman friend saying I had a turn in a case and the suspect was a vamp that we needed a ton of information from. If she could make my month and send out an interrogator to work with my kiddies at training, I would send her presents.

Lots of them.

She was a bit confused why I would want it for one case and training, but when I replied it was massive and corruption and more, she understood. She promised she'd find someone available and have them out by the morning… And she would love some seafood for her cat and the iced apple wine from Hestia's pack because it was yummy.

Done and done.

When it was time, our teams went in and Cindy had played her part well. The moment we saw she'd convinced Greg to hurry to follow her—the attorney and a few of his guys joining her—we took off.

So we were right there at the employees entrance of the hotel when they exited.

"Yeah, I have a bunch of questions for you, and it's not going to be fun," I taunted the vamp. "You fucking came into my territory and committed crimes. I'm going to make it hurt ."

He went to lash out and tried to hurt Agent Fisher to get away. I could have made it in time. I knew Sander and the other ancients would have as well.

But we let her have her chance.

She easily grabbed his wrist and twisted it behind his back. "Bitch, please, I'm FBI, and you're not some centuries-old badass. You're a guppy swimming with us sharks."

"She's you five years ago," Sander chuckled as he walked over with cuffs in his hand.

Yeah, she was. Seven years I was pretty sure since she went to Quantico right out of college but yeah, she was a brunette me in a way.

"You did excellent," I told her under my breath before giving out the orders when more vehicles arrived. Then I went back to her. "Which means you need to decide fast if you're interested in undercover work."

"Really?" she whispered, her eyes wide.

"Really," I said, several echoing me. "I don't want you in the press for any of this and even duck away so fewer put your face to this." I nodded when she frowned. "It sucks. It totally sucks, and I lived it for years. It's one of the hardest parts of being undercover. Everyone else is celebrating the win and getting the praise and you fade into the background.

"But that's the job. So for this one, do it and think about if it's what you want. If it's not, you have my word I will tell Director Galvin myself how you brought this home so well and make sure you get the pat on the back you deserve. Also, know you'll have a big boss who did undercover for years. That will make all the difference for you. I would have killed for that."

Her eyes went wide and she nodded, knowing I wasn't picking on Havers, but… Sort of. And he wasn't my division chief the whole time.

I also didn't say it to hurt him but to help her.

"I might want to," she muttered. "I don't know. I never thought about it in training, but it felt…"

I chuckled and clapped her shoulder. "Yeah, I remember that feeling. Duck in the tech van and borrow someone's hoodie. We'll talk more later about your questions and what comes next. For one, we'll need to change your hair and makeup style." I shrugged when she shot me a confused look. "I knew I was going undercover, so I was excluded from stuff from the beginning."

"And I wasn't. Right, smart. Okay, Chief." She went to go and then glanced back at me. "Thanks. Really."

I nodded and got back to it. I really smiled about an hour later when I rolled up to interrupt the top dirty officer in DeKalb who was involved. The chief of police was clean from what we knew—so far—but he'd been turning a blind eye on too much for this to all be going on under his nose.

So if he didn't end up in prison, I suspected he'd be retiring soon.

Good.

Oh, and I was arresting this asshole at his son's baseball game.

Yeah, I was vicious like that.

I went right for him, saying loudly that he was under arrest and why.

"Have some professional courtesy and don't do this with cuffs like this in front of my family," he hissed at me.

"‘Professional courtesy?'" I mocked. "We're not colleagues." I snorted when his eyes went wide. "You're trash that dirtied the badge I love. You abused your badge to toss elderly people out onto the street to line your pockets. You should be embarrassed and exposed more than other criminals because you gave an oath to protect and serve.

"You protected no one and served yourself. If it was up to me, you'd be paraded down every major street in DeKalb like that woman in Game of Thrones to let every citizen you swore to protect and failed throw fruit and crap at you." I let him see it in my eyes that I meant it and wished for it. "This is why people really hate me. Because I'm never on your side."

"They hate you because you're a hypocrite, Thomas. Don't kid yourself. You're a whore who acts like she's good. You sold yourself for money and then killed the guy, using your badge to commit murder for pay and then walk around like you're better than all of us. Your day will come, and I hope you're treated just as badly when it does."

"If I do ever actually break the law, I will accept it," I purred. "But IA cleared me, and you have no clue what you're talking about and weren't there. And the last person I'm going to hear a lecture on ethics from is the guy who made elderly people homeless for money. I did my job on an order of execution. I just also happened to be one of the victims. That's not murder."

I was done with him trying to shame me and change the narrative of our audience. I cuffed him and read him his rights as we walked off.

A woman I assumed to be his wife tried to grab me while screaming I was a dog and should die.

"You will be in the cell next to him if you don't remember yourself," one of the other agents said loudly, blocking me from her. "We're doing our jobs. Your husband should have done his."

Damn straight.

The guards at the trailer park were rounded up when I arrived, and the trainees were seeing firsthand how horrible the world could be. They were taking statements from the people in the trailers and getting all the information we needed.

I glanced at my watch and sighed. "I've got a meeting with CPD for what's next and…" I trailed off as I saw a chopper landing in the distance.

"I called it," Brian confirmed. "Use the damn FBI chopper more, Sera. I did. When it's all these moving parts like this and you're jumping from scene to scene to make sure it all goes down right, use the damn chopper."

"I like coming in under budget," I mumbled, nodding when he sighed. Fine, I had cut a lot of waste already, but I felt like a spoiled priss using the chopper.

But he was right. The big boss of the big office needed to not waste time in the middle of huge busts like this.

I gave him a quick kiss on the cheek in thanks and went to leave.

He grabbed my arm and pulled me towards him, tucking my hair behind my ear. "Are you okay? You haven't even talked to him, have you?"

"Not the time, Bri," I chastised.

"I know, but I haven't been able to catch you and I'm worried." He kissed my cheek this time. "And I haven't even been able to tell you that I didn't know they got that close. She reported feeding him blood since he'd needed it and forgot bags in the cooler. And he was going to help her on the firing range in return. I thought it was just that. That's allowed."

"Debatable given how intimate blood drinking can be but yeah, nothing like what I found and was smelling on him." I sighed when he wasn't going to let it go. "I'm doing my best. That's all I have. I gotta get back to work."

"You're doing awesome, and Mauro is taking it all seriously from what I've heard. We'll figure this out. We always do."

I nodded and left, wondering how well we'd been figuring it out so far, and that was part of my problem. It had been over six months since our engagement and then blowup, and we were still… Not us.

I focused on what I needed to during the chopper ride over. Then I talked with CPD brass and gave them everything we had on the people we needed to find. We didn't know if they were all dropped to the same place Marie was, but it stood to reason that was their pattern. I also asked for their help in picking up the "kids" who had screwed over these poor people.

And there was a list of them. We knew of forty already from the evictions. I doubted that was the end of it.

Not even close.

Perez was in town for the moment and asked me what I needed, so I asked him to do the press conference. He was shocked, but I just couldn't handle the press on top of everything else.

And I didn't want my being a shifter or Alpha or the woman the First Lady was calling the Whore of Babylon to be reported on instead of this crime. He could give me credit or not.

I didn't care. I cared about getting people help and catching criminals.

Which apparently was something he said in his comments. I watched a clip someone sent to my phone from YouTube.

"This is a huge case of massive fraud, corruption, and more," he told the press. "We're using it as a training and teaching moment, there is so much to do and it's so layered. I asked Chief Thomas what I could help with, trying to take some of the load off of her because my title can get more things done at times. All she asked was I handle alerting the media.

"That was it. She didn't want the spotlight or people focused on the wrong thing instead of the victims who were hurt by all of this. I knew from working in DC that she wasn't a gloryhound like some accused and she didn't care about the credit, but working closely with her all of these months makes me a bit envious of her."

"How can you say that?" someone called out.

Perez gave a half shrug. "Even I like a pat on the back. We all do. We all need it. Thomas has had such a rough time in the FBI and in the media that all she wants is less crap. She wants less people talking down to her and asking her questions they shouldn't. She doesn't care about the pat on the back but hopes to stop getting kicked in the face for her hard work.

"And I'm ashamed as one of her bosses that she has to constantly worry about that. I'm ashamed as an American that someone who is so dedicated and hardworking is treated that way because she's a werewolf or woman—any of it. She never stops. She is an amazing leader, and that is why her wolves and the Chicago offices are so loyal to her.

"As a colleague I respect, I'm tired of the attacks on her. It's—people need to understand…" He sighed and shook his head before glancing at one of the agents on his detail. "How many times has she bought us meals?" He nodded when the guy snorted. "We stay late or it's the weekend and she orders food and gets some for whoever is working.

"Always. Her security is always bringing in something because she needs to eat more, or they do, and we're included. She's probably spent six figures so far this year just feeding people she has absolutely no responsibility to feed. And people are horrible to someone that nice. That's how she spends her money. She's always feeding someone.

"And she can't take the credit she should for juggling this huge mess and quarterbacking this case flawlessly to catch all the criminals after she put it together better than I could." He shrugged again when people seemed shocked. "She's a better agent and division chief than I was. I have no problem saying that.

"She isn't made for being the big boss of the FBI and the patience we have in DC and jumping through all the hoops. She knows that. She says it regularly. I'm better at that, but she is a better agent, SAiC, and division chief than I was. I have no problem saying that either. I hope people start hearing that instead of unhinged accusations and lies going forward."

"Oh boy, not sure he needed to take that shot against the First Lady or Galvin's ex-wife," I said with a groan.

"Yeah, I should have because I'm with you on this," Perez said as he came into my office. "And I heard you were the one who offered to let me have an office here in Chicago while Galvin tries to ruin my marriage."

I handed back the tablet to the agent and thanked him, making it clear it was time to duck out. I waited until he left and closed the door behind him. "I said you can have it in Brian's building because we know someone would make it about me needing supervision otherwise."

"Yeah, they really would," he sighed. "But you're good with it? Really?"

"Yeah, I'm good with it. If you want an apartment in one of my buildings so your wife is safe while you're traveling—whatever you need, okay?" I nodded that I wasn't kidding. "I know this is all important and matters to you, but don't blow your marriage. That woman is too fucking good for you."

He snorted. "I've known that and I was a lucky bastard from the moment she agreed to go out with me." He went to leave but then paused. "Thanks, Sera. Really."

"Yeah, yeah, stop telling the world I'm a damn softie."

He walked out laughing… But I was serious. He was going to get me invaded by another wolf. Idiots thought kindness was a weakness.

People thinking I was a bitch actually protected my people.

How fucked up was the world that we had to live our lives that way?