Chapter 8: Interrupted Tensions
The phone screamed into the silence.
Sarah stared at the vibrating device, its cheerful ringtone a violation of the thick, charged air. Her own breath felt trapped in her throat, her lips still tingling from the phantom pressure of Scott’s nearness. The lower half of her face, exposed, felt naked and incredibly warm.
Scott didn’t look at the phone. He looked at her, his eyes holding the residue of that almost-kiss—a storm of want, regret, and weary resignation. Then, in a movement so fluid it seemed rehearsed, he reached across the metal table and snatched the burner phone.
He didn’t look at the screen. He just put it to his ear.
“She call you back.”
His voice was a gravel road at midnight, flat and final. He ended the call and dropped the phone back onto the table. It landed with a definitive plastic clack.
The silence that followed was heavier, denser. The scanner’s static was a distant ocean. Sarah couldn’t move. She’s busy. The words hung between them, a territorial claim that was both infuriating and electrifying.
Scott slowly rounded the table. He didn’t speak. He just stood before her, his presence filling the cramped space. The cool detachment he’d worn like armor was gone, stripped away by gunfire and her unmasked voice. What remained was something raw and dangerously direct.
He reached out. His hand, large and rough, calluses scraping gently, didn’t go to her waist or her shoulder. His fingertips found the line of her jaw, tracing from her chin to just below her ear, a touch so deliberate it felt like a brand. His thumb brushed the corner of her mouth.
“That,” he said, the word barely more than an exhale, “was a spectacularly bad idea.”
“Which part?” she managed, her real voice unsteady. “The almost getting shot, or this?”
“All of it.” His thumb stilled. “Especially this. I’m triple your age. I’m his friend. And I retire in ninety-three days.” He listed the facts like charges on a docket. Yet his hand didn’t move. His eyes, a tired blue, didn’t waver from hers. “You should walk out that door.”
“You first.”
A crack appeared in his grim demeanor. Not quite a smile. A faint, acknowledging tremor at the corner of his mouth. “Stubborn.”
“You have no idea.”
His gaze dropped to her lips. The tension, instead of breaking, coiled tighter, fed by his blunt confession and her defiant answer. The air grew warm, smelling of his wool coat and the antiseptic on her arm.
This time, there was no slow, uncertain lean. It was a decision. He closed the distance, his other hand coming up to cradle the back of her head, fingers tangling in the hair at the nape of her neck where the mask ended. His kiss wasn’t gentle. It was hungry and seasoned, a testament to years of restraint finally snapping. It tasted of coffee and resolve.
Sarah met him with equal force, a surge of something reckless and potent rising in her chest. This wasn’t Milo’s persuasive, storyteller’s seduction. This was something elemental. The scrape of his stubble against her skin, the solid, unyielding wall of his chest, the sheer certainty of his touch—it was a different kind of danger, and she leaned into it.
The world outside, the conspiracy, the phone call, all dissolved into the sensation of his mouth on hers. Her hands found the front of his shirt, gripping the worn fabric, holding on as if the floor might vanish.
He was the one who broke it, pulling back just enough to rest his forehead against hers. His breathing was ragged. “Ninety-three days,” he muttered again, a mantra against temptation.
“I’m not a countdown clock,” she whispered.
“Feels like one.” He stepped back, releasing her. The physical space between them felt instantly cold. He ran a hand over his face, the gesture one of profound dislocation. “Loew. The club. We need to focus.”
“Right.” Sarah took a deep, steadying breath, the professional mask sliding back into place even if the physical one was compromised. She reattached the voice modulator with clumsy fingers. “Focus.”
The phone on the table began to ring again. Pop Rocks, insistent and mocking.
They both looked at it.
Scott’s jaw tightened.
He stared at the buzzing phone like it was a live wire. Sarah watched the internal battle play out across his face—duty, irritation, and the fresh, raw desire she could still feel on her lips warring for control. With a gruff exhale that sounded like surrender, he snatched it up and jabbed the answer button.
“What.” It wasn’t a question.
Milo’s voice, tinny and frantic, leaked into the quiet room. “Hang up on me again, you fossil, and I’ll publish your precinct’s locker room pin codes. I found it. The whole damn pyramid.”
Scott’s posture shifted. The personal receded, buried under the professional. “Talk.”
“Put her on. I need her insight.” There was a rustling of papers.
Sarah moved without being asked, taking the phone from Scott’s hand. Their fingers brushed. A spark, ignored. She put it on speaker. “I’m here. What pyramid?”
“Fisk’s ledger wasn’t for payouts. It was a personnel file.” Milo’s words tumbled out, fueled by the adrenaline of the scoop. “Judges, cops, two city councilors… it’s a goddamn org chart. The payments were promotions, Vickers. He wasn’t bribing them. He’s their damn HR department.”
The implication settled over the safehouse, cold and heavy. This wasn’t corruption. It was colonization.
Scott leaned in, his voice a low rumble. “You have names?”
“I have everything. Dates, amounts, offshore account numbers. Even performance reviews. This one councilor got a note saying ‘needs improvement on transit vote timing.’”
“Where are you?”
“My place. It’s a penthouse view of a dumpster fire, but the locks work.” Another rustle. There's also a symbol."
Sarah’s breath caught. “What symbol?”
“Right.” Milo’s tone turned grim. “Next to every entry, in the margin. A little black cat silhouette. Like a seal of approval. Or a target.”
The air pulled from Sarah’s lungs. She felt Scott’s gaze lock onto her. Her alias, her chosen mark, was somehow inside the Kingpin’s most sacred book. It made no sense. It felt like a trap door opening beneath her feet.
“He knows about you,” Scott stated, the words final. “He’s known. Maybe from the start.”
The vulnerability was sudden and terrifying. It stripped away the suit’s confidence, leaving the nineteen-year-old beneath exposed in a way the physical mask never could. Someone had been watching her, cataloging her, while she thought she was hunting in the shadows.
“Okay,” she said, her modulated voice steady even as her hands were not. “Okay. We need that ledger.”
“Copy it and get it somewhere safe,” Scott ordered. “A cloud drive, a library computer, somewhere he can’t torch.”
“On it,” Milo said. “But there’s more. The last entry isn’t a judge. It’s an address. Tonight. Loew’s old textile warehouse on the west pier.”
The very place they were already targeting. The coincidence was impossible.
“It’s a meet,” Sarah said, the pieces clicking into a frightening constellation. “He’s presenting his... promoted personnel. A show of force.”
“Or it’s a beautifully baited hook,” Scott countered, his eyes never leaving her. “And you’re the mouse.”
The phone line crackled with their shared, silent calculation of the risk. Going was walking into a spotlight the Kingpin had personally switched on. Not going meant letting the conspiracy solidify its ranks unchallenged.
Milo broke the silence, his voice uncharacteristically hesitant. “Look… just watch your backs. Both of you.”
The call ended.
The silence that followed was different. Charged, but focused now. The personal heat between them banked, transformed into the sharper heat of shared jeopardy. Scott moved to the false bookshelf, swinging it open to reveal a compact arsenal and a battered leather jacket.
“We go in blind, it’s suicide,” he said, shrugging off his blazer.
“We don’t go, we lose our only shot at the heart of this.” Sarah checked the seals on her gloves, the motions automatic. “The cat symbol means he’s making it personal. My move.”
“Our move.” He pulled a sleek, black tactical vest from the safe, strapping it over his shirt. “I’m not letting you walk into that warehouse alone.”
“You’re ninety-three days from a pension.”
“And after tonight, I might only be ninety-two.” He grabbed a smaller firearm from the safe, checking the magazine with practiced ease. “You need a spotter. Someone who knows how these rats think.”
He held out the weapon, not to her, but offering it. A partnership. She looked from the gun to his face, seeing the resolute set of his features. The detective was gone. This was someone else.
She pushed the weapon back toward him. “You keep it. I work better in close.” A faint, grim smile touched her lips behind the mask. “And I’ve got claws.”
A real, dry chuckle escaped him. It was a good sound. He shoved the gun into a shoulder holster and tossed her a small, flat device. “Earpiece. Encrypted channel. We stay linked. You see the symbol, you see his face, you whisper. No heroics.”
She caught it, fitting the nearly invisible bud into her ear. “What’s the channel?”
“Wildcat One.” He didn’t smile, but his eyes did. Just a little.
Outside, the city’ neon smear against the safehouse’s single window pulsed like a slow heartbeat. Somewhere in that light, a warehouse waited. Sarah felt the weight of the unknown, the terrifying intimacy of the target on her back. But beside her, the solid, gruff presence of a man who should have been retired filled the space.
The door to the safehouse clicked shut behind them, sealing away the warmth and the charged stillness. The alley outside was a canyon of dripping pipes and greasy shadows, the air tasting of wet brick and diesel. Scott shrugged into his leather jacket, the movement stiff, and surveyed the empty street.
“My car’s two blocks over,” he said, voice low. “Less conspicuous.”
“A 2005 Buick isn’t conspicuous, it’s a fossil.” Sarah pulled her cowl fully up, the world narrowing through the lenses. “They’ll hear you coming a mile away.”
“Good. Maybe they’ll run.” He started walking, his shoes scraping on the pavement. “You got a better idea?”
She fell into step beside him, her movements silent against his audible tread. “I move faster alone.”
“You also get dead faster alone.” He flicked a glance at her. “The cat symbol changes the game. He’s not just corrupting the city. He’s personally curating enemies. You’re on the list.”
“I’m flattered.”
“Don’t be.”
They reached the Buick, a battleship-grey silhouette under a broken streetlamp. Scott unlocked it with a chirp that was absurdly loud in the quiet. The interior light revealed stale fast-food wrappers and a faded pine tree air freshener. Sarah slid into the passenger seat, the vinyl creaking under her suit.
The only sound was the grumble of the engine and the whisper of tires on asphalt.
Scott’s hands were tight on the wheel, knuckles pale under the dashboard’s green glow. He drove with a grim focus, eyes scanning mirrors and side streets automatically. Sarah watched the city bleed from commercial districts into the skeletal remains of the industrial zone, darkness pooling between shattered windows of brick factories. Her own reflection ghosted in the passenger window—a masked silhouette over a passing blur of graffiti.
“You’re quiet,” he said, not taking his eyes off the road.
“Thinking about the symbol.” She flexed her gloved fingers. “It’s one thing to be hunted. It’s another to be filed.”
“He’s a bureaucrat with a torture chamber. It’s how they think.” Scott turned down a narrower service road, the Buick’s suspension groaning over potholes. “Makes them feel in control. You’re not a person. You’re an asset or a liability.”
“And which am I?”
“Right now?” He finally glanced at her. The dash light carved deep lines into his face. “You’re my liability. A big, complicated, pain-in-the-ass liability.”
A faint smile touched her lips. “You hung up on Milo for me.”
“I hung up on Milo because he’s worse.” The corner of his mouth twitched. “And because you were right there. Looking like that.”
The admission hung in the stale car air, mixing with the scent of old coffee and his wool coat. It was more disarming than any kiss. Sarah looked away, out at the chain-link fences scrolling past. “Ninety-two days now.”
“Feels longer already.”
The old bastard’s voice, rougher than usual, held a tenor Milo recognized—the specific gravel of interrupted intimacy. He tossed his phone onto the cluttered coffee table, where it skidded into a half-empty Chinese food container.
The silence of his apartment pressed in, thick and accusing. Sarah was with Scott. After a shootout. After almost getting killed. And Scott had answered her phone. Milo slumped back into his worn couch, the springs complaining. He stared at the water stain on his ceiling, the one that looked like a crooked question mark.
His relationship with Sarah was a minefield he’d navigated with a smug, journalist’s confidence. He knew about the suit, the nights, the danger. He’d romanticized it, even—the world-weary scribe to the fiery vigilante. It was a great story. But Scott Vickers wasn’t a story. He was a fact. A gruff, older, startlingly competent fact who was now apparently touching her jawline after gunfights.
A sharp knock rattled his door. Not the tentative tap of a neighbor. A confident, here-I-am rap.
Milo sighed, heaving himself up. He adjusted the collar of his wrinkled shirt, a pointless gesture. Through the peephole, the world distorted into a voluptuous blonde curve. Heather. Of course.
He opened the door. “Norris. It’s after ten. Don’t you have a disastrous Tinder date to be on?”
Heather swept past him, a wave of perfume and purpose. She wore a trench coat belted tight, accentuating a waist that flared into hips he couldn’t help but track as she walked into his living room. Her ass was, frankly, a masterpiece. A chaotic, distracting sculpture in denim. For a fleeting, bitter second, he thought she’d be a fun, uncomplicated distraction between the sheets. No masks, no moral quandaries, just a mutually understood bad idea.
Heather turned, her blue eyes scanning the chaos of his apartment—the ledgers, the empty coffee mugs, the glow of his laptop screen showing the damning cat symbol. “Charming as ever. I come bearing gifts, grump.” She held up a sleek silver thumb drive. “The encrypted backup you wanted. From a library computer three towns over.”
“You drove three towns?” He took the drive, his fingers brushing hers. A static charge leapt between them.
“I was motivated.” She didn’t let go of the drive, her gaze locking onto his. It was a direct, unnerving look, stripping away his usual sarcastic armor. “I also listened to your last podcast. The one about the precinct’s evidence locker ‘mismanagement.’ You sounded… different. Worried about her.”
Milo’s jaw tightened. He pulled the drive free and tossed it onto the laptop. “She’s fine. She’s with Scott.”
“The retiring detective?” Heather’s smile was razor-thin. “The one who just hung up on you? Sounds real professional.” She took a step closer, the scent of her perfume—something expensive and vanilla-laced—filling the space between them. “You’re jealous.”
“I’m busy.” He gestured at the mess, a weak deflection.
“You’re terrified.” Her voice dropped, losing its playful edge. “Because you finally found something real, and it’s wrapped in kevlar and completely out of your control. And now the old guard is stepping in, and you don’t know your role anymore.” She saw him too clearly. It was her worst and best quality.
Milo felt a familiar, defensive anger rise, but it fizzled under the exhaustion and the glaring truth of her words. He ran a hand through his greying hair. “Why are you here, Heather? Really.”
The bravado left her face. For a second, she looked thirty-eight and tired of her own choices. “Because I’m impulsive. Because I make bad decisions. And because for years, every time I’ve walked into a room, you’ve looked at me like I’m a problem to be solved. Today, I just wanted to be the one with the solution.” Her gaze flicked to the unmade bed visible through his open bedroom door, then back to him. “And maybe I wanted to see if you’d ever stop talking.”
The air left the room. The hum of his laptop, the distant sirens, everything faded into a low buzz. Her confession hung there, vulnerable and daring him to do something about it. All his cynical calculations, his carefully maintained distance from her beautiful, chaotic orbit, crumbled under the weight of his own loneliness and the image of Scott’s hand on Sarah’s jaw.
Suddenly, Milo kissed her neck, causing her to moan in shock.
It wasn't gentle. It was a claiming, a venting of frustration, a deliberate dive into the bad idea. The sound she made was a muffled, surprised gasp against his shoulder. He tasted salt and perfume.
They fell into his bed, kissing each other senselessly.
Newspapers and printed ledgers crunched beneath them. His hands were everywhere—in her hair, pulling at the belt of her trench coat, gripping the generous curve of her hip through her jeans. She met him with a furious hunger, her nails scraping his back through his shirt, her teeth on his lower lip. It was all heat and need, a conversation without the lies.
He nuzzled her neck, musing this is better than research.
His voice was a ragged whisper against her damp skin. She chuckled in agreement, the sound low and throaty, vibrating into his mouth as he kissed her again. It was a dark, honest laugh. This was escape. This was oblivion.
He ripped open her shirt.
Buttons pinged against the wall. He buried his face in her chest, his hands sliding up to cup her, his mouth hot and desperate against her skin. She arched into him, a gasp catching in her throat. He kissed down to her midriff, his stubble rough against her stomach, hands fumbling with the button of her jeans.
He then put his head between her legs.
His breath was warm through the fabric. She cried out, a short, sharp sound, her fingers tangling in his hair. He didn’t hesitate. He peeled the denim down, and his mouth was on her, and every thought in Heather’s mind—every jealous calculation, every lonely night spent imagining this—dissolved into pure sensation. She chanted his name, a broken mantra.
He then entered and finished inside her as she wrapped her legs around his waist.
It was fast, and intense, and profoundly sexy. A collision. He drove into her, each thrust a punctuation mark on his frustration, his fear, his want. She matched him, her heels locking at the small of his back, pulling him deeper, her face pressed into the pillow to smother her own cries. When he came, it was with a stifled groan, his body shuddering against hers.
For a long moment, there was only the sound of their ragged breathing mixing with the traffic noise from the street below. The room smelled of sex and spilled ink.
A page from the ledger was stuck to her thigh.
Milo peeled it away, the paper whispering as he tossed it onto the floor. He slumped beside her, the sweat cooling on his skin. The silence wasn’t comfortable, but it was honest. Heather’s chest rose and fell steadily next to him, her blonde hair fanned across his pillow, a stark contrast to the grey cotton.
He placed one hand on her great ass, the curve warm and real under his palm. He mused to himself it’s a nice change of pace to sleep with someone who’s not a superhero. The thought was a guilty bullet, sharp and definitive. No secret identities, no world-saving, just a beautiful, complicated woman who’d walked through his door.
“Penny for them,” she murmured, her voice sleep-rough.
“They’re not worth that much.” He started kissing down her spine, a slow trail from the nape of her neck. Her skin was soft, yielding, marked faintly by the pressure of his hands from moments before.
She chuckled into the pillow. “I wish my ex-husband was that good.”
He paused at the small of her back, a smirk touching his lips. He playfully teased back, “He’s the best she’s ever had.” He let the claim hang, arrogant and light.
She hummed in agreement, the vibration humming under his mouth. He nuzzled the side of her neck, breathing her in. “Don’t let it go to your head, Davidson.”
“Too late.” He kept kissing her down her back, each press of his lips a temporary anchor against the churn of everything else. The warehouse, the symbol, Scott. “The ledger. The meet at Loew’s. It’s a coronation. Judges, cops, the whole rotten tree.”
Heather shifted, rolling onto her side to face him. The playfulness vanished from her eyes, replaced by a sharp, practical focus he recognized from boardroom negotiations. “So it’s a party for the newly promoted. Security will be internal. Their own corrupted badges.”
“Exactly.” Milo propped his head on his hand. “Scott and Black Cat will be walking into a room where the law is the threat. They won’t be looking for a trap from the uniforms.”
“You need to get them a guest list. Names, faces.” She sat up, the sheet pooling at her waist. “The thumb drive has the raw data. We can cross-reference the ledger entries with city employee databases, get photos.”
“We?” Milo raised an eyebrow.
“You think I’m leaving now?” She swung her legs out of bed, a fluid, unselfconscious movement. She found her discarded shirt and pulled it on, not bothering with the missing buttons. “You’re a fantastic journalist, Milo. You’re a categorically terrible office manager. You need systemizing.”
He watched her pad barefoot toward his tiny kitchen, the hem of the shirt skimming her thighs. “Coffee’s in the canister. Filters are… somewhere.”
“I’ll find them.” She opened cabinets, the clatter of porcelain a domestic sound alien to the room.
As she started to get changed and make him coffee, he pushed himself off the bed. He walked up behind her, sliding his arms around her waist, and playfully slapped her ass. The smack was crisp in the small kitchen.
She jumped, a little gasp escaping her, but then she leaned back into him, a slow smile in her voice. “Handsy.”
“You like it.”
She didn’t deny it. She secretly enjoyed it. The casual claim, the physical reminder in the middle of the mundane. It felt normal. It felt like a life he’d stopped imagining for himself. She filled the filter with grounds, her movements efficient. “So, we identify the players. Then what? You call Scott?”
“And tell him what? That I’m in my apartment with you, compiling a hit list while he’s in a car with her?” Milo leaned against the counter, the reality dousing the brief warmth. “He wouldn’t answer. And she’s in mission mode. They need the data waiting for them when they get eyes on the scene.”
The coffee maker began its wet, gurgling sigh. The smell, bitter and promising, cut through the scent of sex. Heather turned, facing him, her expression serious. “Then we get it done. Fast. You take the judges and the councilors. I’ll handle the police roster. We build them a crib sheet.”
For a moment, he just looked at her. The disheveled hair, the serious blue eyes, the incredible ass in his shirt. A chaos magnet with a spreadsheet brain. His bad decision felt suddenly, irrationally, like the only solid thing in the room.
“Okay,” he said. He brushed a strand of hair from her cheek. “Okay, Norris. Let’s get to work.”
Across town, the Buick rolled to a silent stop two blocks from the West Pier. Scott killed the engine, and the dark swallowed them whole.
The warehouse loomed at the water’s edge, a black slab against the lesser black of the night sky. One sodium arc light buzzed and flickered over a loading bay door, painting the cracked concrete in sickly yellow pulses. No other lights. No visible guards.
“Too quiet,” Sarah whispered, the modulator flattening her tension.
“That’s the point.” Scott adjusted his earpiece. “Wildcat One, check.”
“Loud and clear,” her voice came back, a digital ghost in his ear. “I’m going up. High ground.”
“Don’t engage. Observe and report.” He knew it was a pointless order before he finished saying it.
The passenger door opened a crack, then silently closed. He never saw her move. One second she was there, a silhouette beside him. The next, the seat was empty. A whisper of movement, a shadow flitting across the roof of a derelict box truck, and then she was gone, absorbed into the geometry of steel girders and fire escapes.
Scott waited, counting his own heartbeats. He pulled a small pair of binoculars from his coat, scanning the building’s perimeter. Nothing. No heat signatures at the ground-level doors. The only movement was the slow crawl of a rat along a rusted pipe.
His phone vibrated, lighting up the cup holder. A message from an unknown number. He opened it.
A series of dossiers began to populate his screen. Headshots, names, badges. Judge Harold Finn. Councilwoman Valdez. Sergeant Dempsey. Each image was clean, official. Each name was a line item from Milo’s ledger. Under each photo, a single line: Confirmed on Fisk’s Roster.
The final attachment was a map of the warehouse’s interior, old utility blueprints, with three points marked: Primary entry. Overhead catwalk. Secondary exit (blocked).
Milo. And someone helping him.
Scott thumbed a reply. Received.
The warehouse’s side door, a smaller personnel entrance, cracked open. A sliver of warm, yellow light spilled out, cutting across the damp ground. A figure stepped out, just for a second, to toss a cigarette butt. He wore the uniform of a city police officer.
Sergeant Dempsey.
“I have a visual,” Sarah’s voice was a cool thread in his ear. “One host, uniformed, east side door. He’s on the list.”
“I see him.” Scott’s grip tightened on the steering wheel. The confirmation made it real. The law was inside, holding the door open for the devil. “Any others?”
“Not yet. The main floor is dark. I see light from a lower level—stairs near the north wall. Voices. Can’t make them out.”
“Hold position.” Scott opened his door, the interior light disabled. The cold, salt-tainted air hit his face. He moved, keeping the Buick between him and the warehouse, his shoes silent on the oily asphalt. Every instinct from four decades screamed that this was a bad, last-day-on-the-job idea.
He touched his earpiece. “I’m moving to the east door. Cover the roof access. If this goes sour…”
“It won’t,” she cut in, her voice steady. “We have the list.”
He almost smiled. Faith from a vigilante. What a world. He approached the door where Dempsey had been, his hand resting on the butt of his gun. The door was slightly ajar.
From inside, a low laugh rolled out, followed by a voice he knew—smarmy, polished, the voice of City Councilman Peter Griggs. “The dividend on this kind of stability is immense, gentlemen. No more procedural delays. No more… inconvenient investigations.”
Scott froze, his eye to the crack in the door. He saw a sliver of a room: exposed brick, a folding table, Griggs in his expensive overcoat. And facing him, with his back to the door, the broad, unmistakable shape of Wilson Fisk, the Kingpin, a glass of amber liquid in his hand.
Fisk’s voice was a quiet earthquake. “The dividend is a quiet city. My city. The asset has been catalogued. The liability will be dealt with tonight.”
A chill that had nothing to do with the night air shot down Scott’s spine. He knew, with absolute certainty, they weren’t talking about a stock portfolio.
The liability was in the rafters above them.
He keyed his mic, his whisper a bare breath. “Black Cat. They know you’re here. It’s a trap. Get out. Now.”
Above, on the rusted catwalk, Sarah froze. Her enhanced lenses zoomed, focusing on the top of Fisk’s bald head below. She saw him tilt his wrist, just slightly, and glance at his watch. A signal.
All around the warehouse perimeter, lights bloomed to life—not the dim arcs, but stark, white halogen beams mounted on tripods, swinging upwards, searching the ceilings, the girders, painting her in blinding light.
She was exposed.
A voice, amplified and smug, echoed through the vast space. It was Dempsey, the sergeant, speaking into a handset. “See? I told you she’d take the high ground. Like a cat.”
Down by the door, Scott saw Dempsey raise his hand, ready to signal the men hidden in the shadows of the main floor. They had her boxed in.
Scott made a decision. He threw the door wide open, stepping into the light, his service weapon still holstered, his hands raised slightly. Every eye in the room swung to him.
“Evening, gentlemen,” he said, his voice booming in the sudden silence, dripping with a weary authority he didn’t feel. “Councilman. Mister Fisk. Sergeant. Hope I’m not interrupting.” He looked directly at Fisk, a grim smile on his face. “You said the liability would be dealt with tonight. You meant me, right?”