One

Ava

“Recently, we’ve seen an uptick in violence,” he said. “Mainly in certain pockets of the city. Anybody want to take a guess about what might be causing this spike?”

It was my first-day meeting with the Chicago Police Department, and from the looks on their faces, they weren’t happy about me being there. I wished they could get over the petty little pissing match over turf, but I could tell they weren’t. I knew the feds intruding on your work was like a slap in the face, a blatant disregard for the footwork you’d already put into the case. I remembered those days myself. So, I wasn’t without sympathy for them. But with the recent crimes we were investigating—it was time to bring in the experts.

Like it or not–and they obviously didn’t–they were going to have to suck it up and deal with me being there.

“It’s the damn cartels,” one of the officers spoke up. “They’ve been piping in their drugs for years. They started small, but now they’ve got some balls on ‘em. They’re trying to flood the streets and take over.”

I looked around the room and saw some heads nodding. Obviously, several others agreed with his assessment.

I walked over to where he was sitting to read the name on his tag. “Officer Vaughn, the drug cartels are an easy enough scapegoat, but I can assure you that’s not what we’re dealing with here.”

“Of course it is,” he sneered. “That coupled with the increase in gang activity—”

“Then why is it that most of the new crime is located primarily in white areas?” I asked. “Specifically, pockets known to be inhabited by the Irish and the Russians?”

“Crime is rampant all over this damn city, Agent Finley,” he replied, his expression openly hostile. “You can’t just pick out select pockets and link those crimes together when you have no idea if your theory actually holds water.”

“Oh, so crime is crime, is it?” I asked. “It doesn’t matter what type of crime it is?”

I flipped my presentation over to the next slide and heard an audible gasp resonating through the room. It’s the reaction I was hoping for. The photo in the slide showed a gruesome death by decapitation. The victim—male, mid-thirties, was brutally tortured for what I could only imagine to be days, prior to his departure. Blood stained every inch of his exposed skin, flesh peeled back from the bone due to third-degree burns. Ligature marks traced the girth of his neck, having been strangled to encourage him to talk. I can only assume his suffering ended once they decided he wouldn’t roll over on his boss. His head detached from his body, his lifeless, dismembered remains tossed out like yesterday’s trash. Loyalty ultimately cost him his life. I paused for a moment to let the magnitude of the imagery sink in.

“This is the work of a drug cartel,” I said. “And believe it or not, this crime did not take place in the city of Chicago. This was in El Cajon, California, where I studied several crime scenes, all very similar in nature. You see, it’s not just my job to study one or two different crime syndicates, Officer Vaughn, it’s my job to look for patterns.”

I stepped away and flipped to the next slide displaying Chicago’s crime statistics. Judging by some of the expressions of relief I saw on their pale faces, the officers were glad I had removed the gruesome picture. Along with the raw numbers on the screen, I spoke about the different types of crime committed.

“You see, over in Bridgeport, a known Irish enclave, the crimes are very different from the other parts of the city. The so-called ‘gang territory’ as you might call it, Officer Vaughn.”

If there was one thing that set me off, it was a man trying to talk over me. A man who had less education, less experience, and less knowledge on the subject at hand than I did, yet who felt the need to act like they somehow knew more than me.

I watched as Officer Vaughn rolled his eyes and shook his head, still not believing what I was saying. I sighed to myself. Some people had their biases and beliefs and wouldn’t budge from them. Even when you present some of them with facts, they still resisted. Why? Because I was a woman. And not just a woman, but a woman and a fed. Which made me doubly suspicious in the minds of people like Officer Vaughn.

Even though my title and experience should’ve been enough for them to trust that I knew what I was talking about, some of them continued to scoff. They believed they knew better than I did. Despite the fact that I was a special agent in charge of organized crime in our field office and knew this shit like the back of my hand. Idiots like Vaughn would rather cling to their preconceived notions and racist leanings, pretending that he knew more than me about the issues we were dealing with. All because he had a cock and I didn’t.

I’d gotten used to it over the years. It still bothered me, and I wanted nothing more than to walk over there and slap the shit out of him, but I resisted. Law enforcement was a notorious boys club, and women like me had to fight and claw for respect. Most of the time we didn’t get it. Didn’t even come close to getting it. But it came with the territory. We could either sit in the corner, pissing and moaning about it. Or we could suck it up, do our jobs, and let our records speak for themselves. We had to develop skin thicker than an elephant’s hide.

And over the course of my career, I’d been able to do just that. Ignorant, racist punks like Vaughn no longer got under my skin. Idiots like him were like water off a duck’s back to me.

Despite my urge to smack him upside the head, I managed to hold it together, for now. There was plenty of time to prove him wrong. And when I did, I’d be certain to make sure he knew about it–him and everybody else, for that matter. But for now, I needed to continue onward. There were criminals we needed to catch.

“Okay, now let’s talk about the Irish first,” I started. “Yes, their mob ties have been kept underground and have been less prominent for a very long time. But that doesn’t mean they’re not still around and active. In fact, with the illness of Donal O’Brien, there’s reason to believe that there is new leadership of the syndicate, and that would be O’Brien’s oldest son, Flynn. Word on the street is that Flynn is even more ruthless and brutal than his old man.

“We believe he may be aligning with the Russians. For what purpose, we’re not sure, but it wouldn’t bode well for any of us if true. A Russian/Irish alliance could be extremely dangerous, especially considering the fact that the Russians are aligned with a number of terrorist cells around the world. We’ve found AK-47s from our local Russian friends in the hands of terrorists, and with the backing and connections of the Irish and Flynn O’Brien, they’ll be even larger and more powerful than ever before. If we wait until it’s obvious, until they’ve been discovered and their alliance uncovered, it could be too late. It will be too late. And does Chicago truly want a terrorist attack on their hands?”

The room was so quiet, you could hear the proverbial pin drop. Not even Vaughn spoke up this time.

“I didn’t think so,” I said, looking over at Officer Vaughn with a smug grin. “And you see, that’s why I’m here. Because there’s no one–and I mean no one–who knows more about the Irish Mob than me.”

“Why? Because you’re a pretty, young Irish lass?” Vaughn cracked. No one laughed, and I had to smile about that.

“No, Officer Vaughn. Because unlike you and anyone else here—I was born on the inside.”