Damian's POV
"Lay it on me," I rolled my sleeves up my forearms and palmed the table in front of me. "I need to give names to these faces."
"Nine to start, Sir." Jenks' dark hand pointed around the spiderweb-designed linkages we put up in our 'board room.' Windowless with a lockable door, the room housed one wall-sized cork board for old-school, i.e., non-hackable, suspect boards.
Jenks and I were also the only ones who didn't use NYPD's digital case mapping tool in extreme or high-profile cases. Missing office security video footage was, by definition, an extreme case.
To Jenks' annoyance, I swapped the key for every case that required the room for brainstorming, warrant attainment, and raid planning. At the risk of a lot of busted Vice egos, only he and I were allowed in.
In the middle of our board sat Santino's smugass mugshot from when he was arrested in Bronx. From the angle of his lifted chin, his narrowed eyes looked down his nose.
Even with the comfort of him being in prison, I hated that fucking picture. He taunted me, plotting under our radar, withholding something I didn't know, and smirking the whole damn time.
Not for long. We're so close, I can fucking taste it.
Above him were the other bordering mara leaders Vice's undercovers tracked, with links between Santino and Luiz Amaya, our friend from the 34th in Inwood and previously arrested accomplice, and their known associates from the Baker Row case. New players included the circle of Rodrigo Lopez's supporters within Bronx and Ramon Samantiego. Thirty-six potential perps splayed across our board, each one's suspected rap sheet earning a cell in Rikers.
MS-13 had layers of membership, associated with their level of involvement. At the lowest level, informants, kids as young as thirteen, served in loose affiliation positions ranging from ad hoc tip-off informants to lookouts for police. Menial but more routine tasks, including extortion, were performed by more regularly involved members. As a person sank deeper into the organization, his finance and special op activities became more illegal and hands became bloodier.
Our highest level of investigation focused on clique leaders operating in specific Inwood and Bronx neighborhoods. Santino and Amaya aligned themselves both as clique leaders in the 34th. Beyond them, cross-state and even international players came into scope. Spanning outside Vice's reach, we turned that pile of suspects over to the feds.
With the new links discovered, my undercover detectives' assignments doubled. Their intel trickled in slowly, inconsistently, but recent mara meeting reports from the Gang division's undercover detectives unearthed upcoming operations that trapped me and Jenks in this room until we set all the board's pieces. To narrow our focus on the puppet string pullers, I funneled the drug and weapons trafficking raids over to the Narcotics and Gang divisions.
Leaving us to do what Vice does best: focus on the sicko assholes exploiting high school girls, in this case.
After weeks of inconsistent reports, Jenks dug up Samantiego's details. They were grim. The twenty-six-year-old fronted as a bodega worker. To most in his neighborhood, he flashed a perfect citizen image. He served food and swept floors with a charming smile and a fluent, bilingual vocabulary. Most of his time was spent as a go-between, laundering money and pulling connections that spanned four precinct lines.
"Personal preference puts him on our radar," Jenks muttered, crossing his arms. "Money control isn't all he's interested in."
Intel rumors of Samantiego's voyeurism fetish churned my stomach, because that was our suspected link between him and the Amaya-Santino sex trafficking operations. Expansions were expensive. On-site cash collection was efficient. A higher risk of being caught was outweighed by a lower chance of interception and quicker access to the funds.
"We're still two short." I glanced at the black silhouette heads below Santino's right. "At least two below him. Low-level players but still key components. At least one internal."
Jenk's expressions darkened as my accusation sank in. "One internal?"
"My fear." A quiet sigh left me as I passed him my phone, with one of June and my blackmail pictures pulled up. "Only Hernandez has seen these."
"Fuck..." I appreciated the anger that burned his eyes, his knuckles gripping the edges of the folder as he flipped through them. "Tell me that you have -"
"Upgraded security, yeah." I skimmed over the list of his eight persons of interest. They ranged from convicted gang members to a gas station attendant. "You're sure on these eight?"
"One thousand percent." He handed my phone back with a shake of his head. "We've corroborated the intel using three sources. It's not warrant-level precision but it's clean."
"Alright then." With a tight nod, I led Jenks out of the room and locked it behind us. "You work on those unknowns. I'll see if I can spark up some community support."
His palm cupped my shoulder. "Your boy Bryson has a real Superman complex."
"He's not my boy." A low chuckle echoed my chest. "But put him in the raid unit. He won't disappoint."
For the seventh time, I stood behind the NYPD press podium. The same faces appeared, white flashes in my face, and nosy questions. The experience was as horrible as its six predecessors.
This time, I directed the words spread out before me. I wrote them. Officer Dawes stamped her approval and gave me an encouraging smile from her back seat. Hernandez stood behind me and a few steps to the side, with a lot more confidence in his eyes.
"I'm here today to release the names of eight persons of interest to the public. All eight are expected to have connections within MS-Thirteen, Mara Salvatrucha, within the Thirty-fourth and spill over into other precincts."
I purposely left off which precincts, to lead the question vultures to the obvious first question.
Apparently, I can learn.
"Captain Rivera?" My index finger, not the one I wished to give these nosy reporters, pointed at a young man in the first row. "Which other precincts are impacted?"
I started with our eastern neighbors. "Forty-six, fifty-two," I said. "Also, forty-four and forty-two."
As his hand raised, I continued. "NYPD's media sites will highlight the impact zones shortly after the conclusion of this press conference. I encourage all members of the media to follow those updates. We're asking everyone within these communities, from Washington Heights to South Bronx, if they have any information, any suspicions or any fears, to please come forward."
I paused for a breath, my eyes scanning the room. "The hotline numbers are shown behind me, along with social media and our anonymous crime report portal. We've also listed the NCO contacts for these neighborhoods and encourage anyone with any information to come forward. All suspects are considered dangerous to their communities."
As expected, question after question was fired at me. Less tension knotted up in my shoulders as I fielded them. Under the bright glare of the overhead lights, sweat beaded up under my hat. My forearms and biceps strained from my gripping the sides of the podium. Relief est in when Hernandez stepped forward and concluded the press release.
After my office door shut and the office fell into peaceful silence, his hand slapped my back. "Much better, Damian."
"I doubt it," I replied in a dry, flat tone. "We might need to renegotiate this part of my job description."
A full, slow breath filled my lungs when I stepped into Vice's office space. I exhaled all of it out at the annoyance that scrunched Shirley's face into a brown-skinned accordion. Fists on wide hips, her chin tilted to the side and her best eye daggers were on fire.
Of course, they were aimed at me.
Hernandez's chuckle hit my ear. "Good luck."
"Sir!" Shirley chirped out, the annoyance in her voice cutting through the air. "I need a word with you!"
"I'm assuming it's more than one word," I teased and stopped at her desk station, which was occupied by a young woman with black hair and eyes so wide that white surrounded her dark brown irises.
"You must be... Maria?" My right hand extended to the girl before she gave her notice to quit. "Acting Captain Rivera. Welcome to Vice."
Her lower lip quivered as she whispered, "Thank you, Sir." Cold and clammy, her palm met hot and sweaty in mine.
The silence that followed, with the exception of Shirley's huffed exhale, thickened the longer it lingered. My eyes flicked to her. "What's wrong?"
Her nostrils flared. "Why wasn't I informed that my replacement is here?"
"I didn't know myself," I admitted with an apologetic smile at Maria, who wanted to slither under the desk. "Maybe if you arrived earlier than thirty seconds before your shift, Shirley, then we could have sorted out who's sitting where before I had the press conference."
"We both know that's not going to happen," Shirley shot back and shoved a stack of papers into my chest. "I need a new chair, Sir."
"Fine." I walked down the cubicle aisle, snagged Jenks' abandoned chair, and wheeled it back to her. "Here you go."
"Sir?" Across the room, where Jenks was refilling his coffee cup, he shot me a glare. "Do you know how long I've been carving out that ass grove?"
Shirley screeched out her unsolicited opinion, "I can't sit there!"
My eyes rolled. "You can today. I'll order you a replacement one."
"No..." Shirley one-upped me by pushing her chair to my closed and locked office door. She bumped the edge of the chair into it, then turned and shot me an, 'I'm waiting,' look.
My head shook so fast that the irritation on her face almost blurred. Almost. "Absolutely not. Shirley, you are not working in my office today."
Her shoulders shuddered at the thought. "Not your office. I want your chair."
"I'm not sitting in Jenks' ass grove." Rolling my lips inward, I bit back a smile.
Maria's wide eyes peered over the desk at me. Poor girl probably assumed we were either crazy or the most unproductive staff she'd ever worked with. "Sir?"
"One moment." I reached around Shirley, opened my office, pulled her chair inside, and closed the door behind her. "What is it really? If it's about -"
"It's not about a damn chair," she muttered and pointed a knobby finger out the door. "I don't like her."
"You don't like anyone," I reminded her and settled behind my desk.
Shirley's lips pursed. "She's... odd. Checks her phone every minute, Sir."
My eyes blinked. "So do you."
"Those are Sherman's love notes!" Her fingers wrenched into her wig. Today's version was a schoolteacher out of my deepest nightmares, straight and blunt to her shoulders. "Not those dirty messages you send, Sir. She's waiting for instructions."
Puffing a loud breath, I dragged one hand down my face. Ignoring the possibility that Shirley knew anything about my private phone's private messages to June, I focused on what she said last. "Maybe she's waiting for instructions from you? Since you are training her."
Shirley's nostrils flared again, this time accompanied by a faint pink flush on her brown cheeks. "For the record, Sir, I don't like her."
A headache formed compulsory beats between my eyebrows... starting five minutes ago.
"Note made, thank you. If you see anything suspicious, you know where to find me," I mumbled and clicked my mouse over the desk furniture options. The standard, no-frills option screamed unhappy Shirley, so I went upgraded to an executive assistant model. "New chair will be here tomorrow."
Shirley left with one more huff, dragging Jenks' chair behind her on two wheels. He stood outside the door, his fist poised for a knock. His eyes brightened at his chair, until she ran over one of his boots with a thud.
"Work it out between you." I chuckled at the banter that followed.
A door knock drew my attention off the piles of reports Shirley now wanted shoved down my throat. Bryson's frown made me raise my eyebrows.
What now? This better not be about hazing. I told them to quit that office newbie shit.
"Come in." I gestured, offering my own frown when he closed the door. "How are you, Bryson? Team assimilating you alright? I told Jenks -"
"I'm not here about Jenks." He plopped into one of my desk-facing chairs. The leather groaned under his weight as he folded one ankle over the opposite knee. "It's Anander."
My eyebrows almost shot off my forehead. "Cerrato?"
The idea that Bryson had a beef with the pin drop-quiet one the team kept the frown on my face. Cupping my chin, Bryson had my full attention.
His blonde-haired head nodded. He interlocked his fingers and hugged his knee. "I don't like the guy. He's not friendly."
"He's quiet..." I didn't disagree but I was the last person to judge friendliness. Petty squabbles only impeded our never ending shitpile of cases. I couldn't care if my team hated each other if they got their fucking work done, which today seemed a challenge. "Evidence guys sometimes take a while to-"
"He's not quiet with Maria," he interrupted with a scowl.
Fuck, I babysit adults some days.
"Bryson..." My hand rubbed my chin, and I sat back with a sigh. "What are your concerns?"
"I'm a friendly guy. He won't say two shits to me, not even on shared case work." Bryson scowled.
"And..." I left open the invitation to get to the fucking point.
"Maria's been here two hours and he's spent over an hour of it at her desk, chatting up."
"Maybe they know each other?" I shrugged. "Or... hate to break this to you, Bryson, but she's a young girl. You might not be his type."
"Not that!" he groaned and rolled his top ankle. "I don't trust the guy. He slams his laptop shut every time I look over at it. He's hiding something. It's sneaky."
The pads of my fingers rubbed at my throbbing headache because the last time this situation was described, it was inappropriate content on a work computer. Due to employee privacy, I was unable to inform Bryson that Cerrato's six-month review period was up next week. A desk audit request was possible, purely for work review reasons.
I marked my calendar to schedule an appointment for an IT desk audit. In the meantime, I had a bruised detective's ego that needed pacifying. "I hear you, Bryson. The kid's quiet but if you see anything suspicious, keep it to yourself. Don't act, but bring it to my attention, alright?"
"Don't act," he mumbled with a nod. "Yes, sir."
"Thank you, Bryson." I pointed at my closed door. "Go, before Jenks steals your chair."
Six desk chairs swapped, a lot of mistrust radiated from Shirley and Bryson, and fourteen reports filed later, my desk phone rang. The last call that I fielded today was personal. Recognizing the number as Nick, my half-guardian angel, half-sounding board of a mental parole officer brought up mixed emotions in me.
Nick was a retired sergeant and volunteer at the Police Organization Peer Association group, a volunteer organization who helped active working officers with stress relief. While my stint in their Resiliency Support Program ended three months ago, Nick and I stayed in touch.
Until now, I assumed.
"Hey, Nick." My stiff back leaned back in my seat.
Static crackled in my ear with his sigh. "Damian -"
"We're past the one-year mark, I know." The corners of my mouth tugged down and tension squeezed my forehead. "Unless it's -"
"Liz is fine," he interrupted. "I'm calling to let you know my five years are up. We're moving."
"So, you're really doing it?" I wasn't sure whether to be impressed or call him insane.
His voice was strained with exhaustion. "Signed off two hours ago."
Nick and his wife Liz, a retired teacher with a soft heart for animals, had lofty retirement plans June would've swooned over. They bought acres in the middle of nowhere in Pennsylvania, with plans to open a dog rescue that trained eligible candidates for search and rescue.
Liz was the rescue side, selecting breeds like beagles and labs from ASPCA or kill shelters. On the training side, Nick had enough contacts from work to donate animals to police districts and the Port Authority.
"My one-year ended months ago," I conceded. "Good luck, I mean it."
Nick barked out a laugh. "I was planning to say we could offer you a spot here, but we're not expecting to run any profits for a while. Probably not until the end of next year, if I'm realistic."
"Thanks." I chuckled because my knowledge of K-9 units stopped at their worth to NYPD. "I'm good here. I'd offer to visit but I'm worried June will take half your dogs home."
I have enough being a professional babysitter of adults. Don't get me started on that damn snake lingering.
The thought drew my attention to the unusually quiet office space. I said goodbye to Nick, then stopped by Jenks' desk. "Any leads?"
"Several," he groaned, then bounced on a -
"Jenks?" I eyed the large, light green rubber ball sandwiched between his ass and the back of his knees. "What are you sitting on?"
"Pilates ball, Sir." he offered with a bounce that flexed his tree stump-sized thighs. "It's supposed to be better for posture, according to Shirley."
Adult children. I supervise adult children.
"Whatever." My end of the day hands threw up. "You need OT to comb through the leads, take it."
"Already planning on it, Sir." He shot me a thumbs up, shifting back to his screen with a groan of rubber erupting behind the back of his thighs.
All I could do was shake my head on the way out and pray he broke through our intel roadblock.
More than for my sake... for June's.