Tension rippled through every muscle in Jack’s body as the door to Lenny’s apartment opened. For a moment, he considered the possibility that he’d been fed false information about his one-time bounty; that Lenny might have skipped town, and someone else had moved into the apartment. After all, after the debacle with his drug arrest and the way things had gone down with Laura, it would have been smart for a man like Lenny to find a new place to live, even if it meant starting over.

The sight of the man who shuffled through the door, looking at his feet and wiping them on the doormat as he came in didn’t help Jack’s anxiety. There was no way that the man in front of him could possibly be the well-dressed, fit but heavy drug lord; he was emaciated, his skin covered in sores, pale and sickly-looking, wearing clothes that looked more thrift store than the designer showroom.

When the man looked up and staggered back against the closing door, Jack was momentarily convinced that he would have to diffuse the situation with a stranger—and somehow hope that the man hadn’t heard about the notorious fugitive who was now standing in his living room. When the figure at the door met his gaze, however, Jack saw the small brown eyes staring back into his, and he knew: it was Lenny. He was certain of it.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

Lenny stared at Jack, and Jack felt his heart starting to slow down in his chest.

Lenny’s eyes lit up with recognition. Jack sensed Cassandra shifting to the side, out from behind him, and the drug baron glanced at her briefly before looking back at Jack.

“You. I should’ve known. I heard about you on the news, Hardy.”

Jack’s arm shot out instinctively, pushing Cassandra back as Lenny reached into a pocket of his jacket and took out a knife.

“I don’t know who this bitch is, but I’ve been waiting to run into you.”

Jack fell into a fighting stance, hands ready and body slightly hunkered down. Lenny stared at him intently, hand tightening and relaxing on the hilt of his knife. He let out a guttural-sounding growl and rushed towards Jack, brandishing the knife in his shaking, unsteady hand.

He’s in bad shape, Jack thought, evaluating his opponent as he rushed forward. He remembered the man he had squared off against in a tiny little suburb outside of Newark, back when he’d hunted Lenny down the first time. The drug baron had been quick back then—and he had owned a much sharper-looking knife.

In the corner of his vision, Jack saw Cassandra stumble back. He moved forward, meeting Lenny’s rush towards him. He dodged the swipe and the stab that the decrepit drug dealer made at him, ducking and sidestepping. Years of training and experience came to the fore of Jack’s mind, and he shifted into automatic. He brought the edge of his hand down on Lenny’s knife arm, just above his wrist.

The dealer shouted, dropping the knife. Jack took advantage of the distraction to grab his arm and twist it around, stepping behind the other man and pinning the wrist to the small of his back.

In moments, Jack had him subdued. Lenny twisted and struggled, but with his arms pinned behind him, there was nowhere for him to go.

Jack glanced at Cassandra; her cheeks were flushed and her eyes were wide, but she looked as though she was physically okay. Jack frog-marched the man to the only piece of furniture he could find in the sprawling penthouse apartment: the dirty, tumbled-around mattress. He threw Lenny down, face-first, and held him there until the man stopped struggling underneath him. Cassandra followed in their wake; Jack thought to himself that while she didn’t exactly look comfortable with what she was witnessing, at least she wasn’t screaming.

Jack held Lenny’s wrists against the small of his back with one hand and grabbed at the hair at the back of his skull with the other, lifting the other man’s head off of the mattress.

Lenny shrieked and gasped for breath.

“Fine—fine! What do you want? What do you want from me? You can take it.”

“Information,” Jack said, pushing Lenny’s arms up at the wrist, increasing the pressure on the man’s elbows and shoulders.

“Whatever you want! Whatever you want. I swear.”

“Tell me, Lenny old pal, what have you been up to since I hauled your ass back to jail?” Jack’s grip tightened on the man’s hair as he remembered the time he’d spent in prison for the past three months. “What does your piece of shit life look like these days?”

“I’ll tell you, I’ll tell you. Just…just let up on me a little. I can’t think like this.”

Jack held his grip for a moment longer before relenting just a fraction, glancing at Cassandra.

“Start talking, you rat,” Jack said, his knee pressing into Lenny’s thighs.

“So obviously you caught up to me after they arrested me. You know what that shit was for? Selling dope to some UC bastard. Not even a lot—a gram or two, max. They got a warrant to search my trap based on that bullshit—hauled my car in and found two kilos.”

“What kind of an asshole keeps two kilos on hand when he knows the torch is on him?”

“I had a business to take care of, man!” Lenny yelped when Jack twisted his arm once more. “God—fuck, you been lifting the weights hard, haven’t you bro?”

“Harder than you, that’s for damn sure. What happened after I took you in, Lenny? That’s what I want to know. Tell me, and maybe you get out of this.”

“It was Laura who took me into custody. And after all I done for her, she flips on me like a goddamn light switch. Acts like she’s never even seen me before, pretending like she needs to look at the file to learn my damn name. That’s when I worked out that she must have been the one who set me up. Folks kept slapping her on the back, saying well done for taking down one of the biggest dealers in the city. Think she got a medal out of it, that bitch.”

“That why you killed her, Lenny? Come on, talk to me you piece of shit.”

His grip tightened on the man’s arm, his nails beginning to dig into the loose flesh. He could feel the anger building up inside of him; it was too easy to imagine Lenny dying by his hands, to imagine watching the light leave the man’s eyes.

Jack took a shaking breath and told himself to cool down. He needed to know what had happened, and Lenny wouldn’t be able to tell him anything if he was unconscious.

“Tell me, you asshole. Tell me what you did.”