Shield

“This is unacceptable, Officer!”

Commander Lockhart was known for his impatience in the NYPD, especially when it came to Reyna Burns. Once Detective, she’d been demoted back down to the rank of Officer, one step at a time. She was a good cop. Too good. And often times threatened the operations he took on for high-profile politicians, operations that involved lots of money. Dirty money. Money he shared with his nephew, William, who she was now going to aide. He watched her, those dark brown eyes under the long wavy black hair, waited for a temper outburst. He needed to keep her down on her knees. It wasn’t easy to get her there.

“Sir, everything I did was according to the book! The homicide scene was never compromised-” Reyna began.

“That’s not what I have on record,” he interrupted.

“But-”

Then he held up his hand in protest and she bit back her temper. She’d been here before, and knew just how savage Lockhart’s temper could be.

The record. Of course. The record. Reyna was tired. So very tired of fighting a losing battle in the NYPD. When Commander Freeman was still in charge, she never had to go through so much red tape to do a job. Now it seemed she was being incriminated left, right and center. And she could scarcely blink in the wrong way or she’d end up exactly where she was now. Her protests didn’t matter. He had evidence of her misconduct. Or so he claimed. Maybe Lockhart even wanted it so. And his nephew, Primary Investigator William Lockhart was all too happy to provide the evidence that would smear her name. Especially after what happened the night before, when he pinned her and raped her in a dirty alley ripe with the smell of drug heads, alcoholics and god knows what else. She’d resisted. He always got back at her when she resisted.

“You will go with William and do exactly, and I mean exactly, what he says. Do you understand, Officer Burns? If he tells you to jump, you ask how high. If not, I will have you permanently dismissed.”

Her heart leapt into her throat. Dismissed? This job was all she had. And she didn’t even choose it. There was simply no other option. As an abused child, she’d been fed into the system, a system she now knew was broken and wracked with dirty cops.

Thanks to William, Reyna made it through Police Academy. Even then he had influence over her every move. She owed him, he’d said, owed him everything she was. And she still owed him today - with blood, with her body, and with her dignity. She worked herself to exhaustion, and never had enough money for anything else but the very bare necessities. She didn’t have a cent saved up. Once, Reyna believed in justice. That’s how she made Detective. But that no longer existed in the system.

And there was nowhere else she could go. So she’d keep her mouth shut. And do as she was told. And work with William. It made her skin crawl, but she had little choice. How would she survive without this job? Risking her life, for nothing.

“Yes sir.” Her voice was softer than she wanted it to be.

“Get back to work.”

Reyna stared at the lanky man with his thin face and grey hair. His suit was pressed perfectly, everything neat and in order. His eyes grey, cold, ruthless.

Memories of her father flooded her mind. Cold, heartless, abusive. He’d killed her mother. And then someone had killed him too. She was orphaned, but she would never forget his beatings, or how he’d raped her as a girl of eight.

Reyna swallowed the memories down, then she simply nodded, and left to go to her office. She shared this one with Anton, Daryll and Victoria. Once, she had her own. The beige walls and grey carpet was the only thing that their office had in common with the Commander’s. Here the cabinets were so worn that the drawers struggled to open, the computers all but smoked from age, and the desks and chairs were chipped cheap wood and creaky. There was no window, and no air-conditioning. And the officers working here weren’t the neatest of the bunch. Cigarette buds lay everywhere on chain-smoker Victoria’s desk, as well as on the floor. The smell of cheap tobacco was thick in the air.

Daryll and Victoria were both in their early thirties. Reyna had never had outright trouble with the Digital Detectives. But the way they looked at Reyna alone was enough to make her feel small. Their gazes were filled with silent insults.

You don’t belong here. You’re dirty. Old news.

Anton was entirely different. The old man had never once looked at her the wrong way. He was in his late fifties with a buzz cut of grey hair, a grey beard and roundish face. He also had a shake to his right hand, and to his voice. Some kind of brain defect, she recalled. But it didn’t affect his job of Data Entry one bit.

He gave her a wave of an index finger when she strode back into the office and carefully sank down into her creaky, unstable chair. She gave him a faded smile. His brow knitted slightly, as if silently asking her what was wrong. It made her heart swell, the way he looked at her. Closest thing to a father she’d ever had, she mused, and she had no idea why they still kept him around.

Data Entry wasn’t even a real job in the NYPD, well, it wasn’t one that every officer couldn’t do himself. But Anton kept all the masses of data and paperwork in order and filed correctly. Maybe they kept him out of pity, or because he never made a squeak. Never asked questions. Unlike Reyna. She was being punished for past sins. And too tired to attempt to stop it. The strong woman she once was, was now beaten and broken. A victim. Again. With no way out.

“Have you had lunch?” Anton asked with a voice that shook so it sounded like it belonged to a ninety-six year old. Some days the shakes were worse than others.

Reyna shook her head.

He pursed his lips. She looked pale as death and thin. The eyes hollowed in, the cheeks gaunt. His Moonlily with her ivory skin. “You didn’t have breakfast either. How about I get you some coffee?”

Reyna ran her fingers through her hair and sighed. She was behind on her rent. So extra money went to her excuse for a flat this month, money that usually went towards food. She spent so much time and energy on chasing leads, on chasing away her nightmares that she rarely had time to worry about food. Or the appetite for it.

“Sure.” She said at length.

Anton nodded and went into the little kitchenette around the corner, with a hasty William nearly running him out of the way.

Panic had her by the throat when she saw him.

“I think I’ve got something,” he said to Daryll, without so much as looking in her direction. “Run info on Mikhailovich Volcov. See if he owns the building in which the victim was killed. He may know our murderer.”

Daryll raised an eyebrow. “Volcov, huh? You mean the guy whose barely past thirty, owns half the globe and is 15th on Forbes List of the world’s richest men?”

“Wasn’t he connected to the Russian mafia at one point?” Victoria asked, chewing on her Chinese Pad Thai.

Daryll started typing away. Reyna watched them passively. She shifted in her seat and tried to not look so out of place in the department she’d worked in for most her life.

“Yeah,” Daryll said as he narrowed his eyes at the screen. “Full name Mikhailovich Sergei Volcov. Multi-billionaire. Very successful business man. There have been numerous attempts to connect the Volcov’s to the Russian mafia and other criminal activity. No one ever found anything conclusive.”

Victoria scoffed. “Probably bought his innocence.”

“Probably, and he’s the world’s most eligible bachelor.”

“I don’t give a flying fuck who he is. Does he own the building?” William asked heatedly.

Reyna hated when he sounded like that, like he’d explode any minute. She’d been in his blast range way too often.

“Hah. He owns just slightly more than half of New York. Including the Empire Gardens apartment complex, yes.”

“Set up a meeting this instant. I want to question him. Fucking dick better give me the information I need. Move!” William yelled, then pointed to Reyna. “You. With me. We’re going on a little trip to see Mr. Volcov.”

Reyna wiped her sweaty palms on her trousers, then got up. Her mouth had gone bone dry and there was a headache pressuring behind her eyeballs. Probably hunger. Or exhaustion. She followed William, hiding her reluctance well. She passed Anton just as he brought the coffee she would never drink, felt his eyes on her back as she left the building with her Primary.

“W-where is s-she going?” Anton asked Daryll, his left eye twitched a bit. Completely normal for Anton for that to happen from time to time.

He gave the old man a once-over. “They’re going to see Mikhailovich Volcov.”

“Why?” Daryll hadn’t looked at him long enough to see him stiffen slightly.

“Might have information about the murderer.”

“Volcov,” Victoria scoffed. “Stupid Russians. What kind of a name is that?”

A ghostly smile tugged at Anton’s lips. But they missed it, they missed many things. That’s how he preferred it. “It means wolf. Alpha wolf, if you’d like.”

Daryll frowned and glanced up at him, saw he was barely managing to hold onto his coffee cup with his shaking hand, while he sipped. He lightly shook his head. The old guy was near useless. He should have been on disability. Poor turd. “A guy like that must have a huge ego.”

Anton shrugged as he started keying in the data on his desk with his good hand. “Or the reputation to go with it.”