The cup of coffee in Detective Ramos Fuentes’ hand had long since gone cold. He stood behind the two-way mirror, looking through the glass at the young man sitting in the interview room. To be fair, he wasn’t really that young. He was probably roughly the same age as Ramos, but he was pretty and clearly took care to look well groomed at all times.

Right now, he was a bit disheveled but a night in a police holding cell would do that to a man. His lovely blue eyes had dark circles under them, and the top few buttons of his dress shirt had been undone. The end result was a beautiful mess of a man, who sat behind the interview table with an expression that said he clearly knew how good he looked.

Ramos shook his head and rolled his eyes. Overconfident, cocky little thing had gotten scooped up with the rest of the garbage during the raid on Julio Romero’s bar. It wasn’t clear yet whether or not the man sitting in the other room had actually been involved in the drug smuggling activities or not. Either way, this was currently just one of what had been an endless procession of interviews he’d had to perform since the raid.

“I’ve got the file,” Ignacio Pescado, Ramos’ long-time friend and partner, said as he entered the viewing room. Nacho, as he was called by his friends, was a stocky man who generally kept quiet unless absolutely necessary. He was thoughtful and tended to not let things bother him. After working together for nearly ten years, Ramos couldn’t imagine partnering with anyone else on Catalejo Island’s small police force.

“Thanks.” Ramos nodded to his partner as he took the yellow folder and flipped it open. “So...” his eyes skimmed over the page as he began absorbing details, “Logan Morales, thirty-two years-old...hmm...there...yeah, I knew I recognized the name. He’s been in and out of here a lot over the past several years. Petty crimes; pick pocketing, bootleg DVDs, counterfeit club passes, and event tickets. Looks like he’s some small time thug caught up in a net meant for bigger fish.”

“Mmhmm...” Ignacio rocked back on his heels and peered through the window with a thoughtful expression on his face.

“How many more of these guys are there?” Ramos asked, pinching the bridge of his nose as he closed the folder. He could feel a headache coming on. He lifted his coffee cup to his lips and jerked it away reflexively as soon as the cold liquid touched him. Coffee splashed out of the cup and down his shirt.

Ramos swore. This mess just kept getting worse.

Ignacio watched without saying a word as Ramos set his cup down on the nearby table and retrieved several napkins. He angrily patted himself down and examined the brown splash that had stained the front of his shirt.

“You should go change into your spare,” said Ignacio, stifling a yawn. “He can wait a bit longer.”

“This is my spare,” growled Ramos as he ineffectively battled to mop the stain out of his shirt. “The other one got blood on it when I broke up that fist fight earlier.”

Ignacio shook his head and ran a hand back through his hair. It was a classic Ignacio move that could mean everything from, “damn, that sucks,” to, “you’re such a moron.” In this instance Ramos couldn’t help but feel like it was a combination of the two.

“I guess there’s no point in holding off now,” muttered Ramos, tossing the dirty napkins into the trash can by the door. “Might as well see if we can get this guy to squirm a little.”

The hallway outside of the viewing room was lined with several benches. Most of them were full of handcuffed thugs dressed in party clothes, that had been picked up in the raid. All of the biggest, most dangerous, individuals had been picked out and separated already. Now it was just a matter of sorting through the small fry and figuring out who to keep and who to toss back.

Nearly all of them had been low ranking members of Julio’s operations. None of them knew anything really important. At least, none of them had thus far. Ramos was willing to bet that interviewing the rest of these clownfish was going to be a monumental waste of his time.

He wanted to be going after the sharks. Facing off, toe to toe, with the Julio Romero himself. Trying to get that piece of criminal scum to give up something incriminating. That honor, however, had been reserved by the anti-drug task force and their rising star Lacey Aguado.

The very sound of her name made Ramos glare in disgust. She was barely out of her teens, yet somehow she’d managed to become one of the senior members of the anti-drug task force and swing a full pardon for her brother’s involvement in Julio’s organization. Rumors were floating around now that Lacey would be transferring to the main police force now that Julio had been removed from the equation. Chances were high that she’d make detective within a year.

Ramos had been on the force since he was eighteen years-old. He’d spent every single day since then doing everything in his power to be a good cop. It had taken him a long time to reach senior detective. Not because he wasn’t good at his job, but because there wasn’t a lot of room at the top of their small force. You couldn’t be promoted until someone else left. There were a lot of good cops on the force that were more than capable of serving as detectives. But they were going to put Lacey ahead of them all.

He hated it almost as much as he hated the thought of interviewing the smug little playboy in the other room.

Ramos was close behind as Ignacio entered the interview room.

“I was beginning to think you had forgotten about me.” Logan Morales had been tilting his chair back on two legs. Now, he rocked it forward and put both hands on the table in front of him. He wasn’t handcuffed, though he should have been.

“Nacho?” Ramos exchanged a knowing glance with his partner. He wasn’t sure how Ignacio managed it really, maybe some form of latent telepathy if that was at all possible. Or maybe they’d just been working together so long that they were in tune with what the other wanted. Either way, Ignacio picked up on Ramos’ intentions without a second’s hesitation.

Pulling out his own handcuffs, Ignacio approached Logan and began cuffing him to the table.

“Oye, fellas, you don’t have to do this,” protested Logan with a pout. He didn’t struggle in the slightest however, and there was a glint in his eyes that told Ramos he’d been expecting this. “I’m harmless, really.”

“Not really all that harmless though are you, Mister Morales?” asked Ramos as he moved to the table and sat down across from him.

“Logan, please, Mister Morales just sounds like some old fart,” insisted Logan, peering around Ignacio as the detective began patting him down and checking his pockets.

“Mister Morales,” Ramos continued. God, that cheeky grin was adorable. If his situation had been at all different, Ramos could almost imagine himself asking Logan for his phone number. “You’ve generated quite a lot of paper here.” Ramos smiled to himself as he flipped through the file again.

“Counterfeiting, fraud...”

A jingling sound, like car keys almost, drew Ramos’ attention. He watched silently as Ignacio dug a pair of handcuffs out of Logan’s inside coat pocket.

“Theft,” Ramos continued with a raised eyebrow as Ignacio circled back around the table.

“And…?” Logan shrugged and raised his eyebrows. “I did my time for those. I haven’t done anything else. I’m reformed now. So why don’t you just let me go and we can all go our separate ways. Maybe change into some clean shirts.”

Ramos ignored the dig. Logan’s flippant, carefree, attitude was cute but it didn’t mean he was innocent. Just like his long eyelashes and too perfect lips didn’t mean Ramos was going to hit on him either. He had a job to do. He wasn’t going to get distracted by some pretty, little omega that had a problem with authority.

“If you’re so reformed then why did we find you at Julio Romero’s bar last night?” challenged Ramos.

“It’s not a crime to go to a bar.”

“Except we know for a fact that Julio closed the bar. It was a private party he was throwing for his employees. We’ve got evidence connecting him to an illicit drug ring, and we’ve got enough evidence to take him and every single person in that bar last night, and lock them up for the rest of their lives.” Ramos kept his tone calm, even. He sat up straight and looked dead ahead, not quite locking eyes with Logan. He’d found that this sort of cold, calculating approach usually rattled most criminals enough to make them slip up.

Logan seemed to be considering something before he spoke again. “You’re bluffing,” he said at last.

“You wanna take that risk?” challenged Ramos. “Give me something or you’re going away with Julio and the others.”

Silence again. Ramos could almost see the gears turning in Logan’s head as he tried to think his way through the situation he was in. Give him the chance to think things over a little. The more time they had to think, the less rushed they were, the more likely they were to think they could be clever.

“I want immunity and protection,” said Logan, meeting Ramos’ eyes. Those blue eyes were clouded and stormy. His Spanish features, offset by the brightness of his eyes and the paleness of his hair, belied what was likely biracial parentage. There had been no mention of his parents in his file, just the orphanage he’d grown up in until he was sixteen.

“I can’t give you either of those unless I know what you’ve got,” said Ramos, spreading his hands in front him apologetically and leaning back in his chair.

“You realize that if I give you anything then I’m a dead man, right?” Logan’s earlier smile was gone from his eyes. “You think you’ve picked up Julio’s entire organization? There’s still plenty of heavy hitters out there. He wouldn’t be so stupid as to bring every single person together at one time. He’s just not like that.”

Ramos frowned for a moment as a new thought began to percolate within his brain. “You’re an omega, aren’t you Logan?”

“What the hell does that have to do with anything?” Logan answered, perhaps a little too quickly.

“And Julio, he’s a pretty tough, well-connected, well-funded alpha. Who cares if he’s not that handsome, he’s got money and can offer you safety and shelter as long as you’re willing to get on your knees from time to time.” Ramos tilted his head slightly to the side and watched as Logan squirmed a little uncomfortably in his chair.

“That would explain your sudden ‘reformation,’” continued Ramos. “There’s no need to pick pockets when you’ve got a guy who’ll dress you up in silk shirts as long as you’re willing to bend over for him.”

Logan looked away. His entire body had become rigid and he seemed less willing to fight than he had been a moment ago. Was he ashamed?

“So, what’s it going to be, Logan?” Ramos prodded slightly. “Are you going to go to jail for your lover? Or are you going to save your own hide and have a shot at some sort of future outside of a prison cell?”

“I already told you,” said Logan after a long moment of silence. “They’ll kill me if I talk.” He looked back at Ramos. His expression had gone cold. His eyes were bloodshot from holding back tears. His effortlessly attractive aura had dissipated. He was tired, he was alone, and he was afraid for his life.

“Were you Julio Romero’s omega?” asked Ramos. He had once again adopted his straight backed, calm and steady, demeanor.

“It was just sex,” said Logan after a moment. “There was no relationship beyond that. He made sure I had what he needed, and I fucked him when he wanted. It worked for us.”

“Just answer the question,” Ramos coaxed him. The blue-eyed omega didn’t seem to realize that Ramos was trying to help him.

“Yeah, yeah I guess I was his ‘main squeeze’ if that’s what you mean,” said Logan.

“That’s all I needed,” said Ramos as he rose from the table. “Just wait here and don’t try to steal your handcuffs again.” He shot Logan a warning look. He needn’t have bothered, the some-time thief looked too unsettled to do much of anything.

Ignacio trailed after Ramos as he emerged from the interview room out into the hallway.

“This is it, Nacho, we’ve got the break in this case. That guy is the hook that’s going to reel in the shark once and for all. And he’s ours.” Ramos felt practically giddy as he stretched his arms out in front of him and straightened some of the kinks out his back. He was careful to keep his voice low enough that the thugs sitting nearby couldn’t overhear.

“You’re getting ahead of yourself,” muttered Ignacio.

“Look, we both know that they’re never going to get Julio to talk. They can’t offer him immunity, they could deport him, but they need to make an example out of him. Otherwise what’s the point of their whole stupid task force?” asked Ramos as he ducked back into the viewing room with Ignacio. Once they were safely sequestered, he continued, “I’m going home to shower and clean up. You do the same. Say hello to Margarita and the kids for me. Then we’ll meet back here and go to the chief about an immunity deal and protection.”

“Just because he said he’s Julio’s omega doesn’t mean...” Ignacio’s voice trailed off. He was either too lazy to finish the sentence or just assumed that Ramos knew where he was going with it.

“No, you’re right,” agreed Ramos. He’d long since stopped being bothered by Ignacio’s lazy speech patterns. It was the natural flow of their conversations now. “If the chief’s got a problem with it then I’ve got an idea of how to deal with that too. Until then, I think we continue as planned. Unless you’ve got any objections?”

Ignacio shook his head emphatically.

“Okay then, we’ll meet back here in three hours. We’ll have pretty boy tossed back in the holding tank until then.”