Chapter 1
Nicole
Special Agent Nicole Haught drummed her fingers on the table impatiently. She checked her watch and sighed. Dolls was fifteen minutes late, and Nicole didn't have time for this. She reached for her coffee and pushed her chair back, ready to get back in the field and back to work. As she stood, the door to the conference room opened and a very agitated Xavier Dolls strode in.
"Jesus, Dolls, what happened to your face?" Nicole took in the bruising on his cheek, the laceration to his lip and the blood on his shirt collar where her friend and training officer must have wiped his face.
"I ran into some Girl Scouts selling cookies on the corner of Main Street. Let's just say they wouldn't take 'no' for an answer," he said, tossing a thick manila folder on the table and collapsing into one of the rolling chairs around the table.
Nicole raised her eyebrows. "You're joking, right?" She sat down across from him, pulling the file towards her.
He looked at her pointedly. "Let's get to business, shall we? I've got a new case I need you on. Take a look."
Nicole opened the folder and began scanning the cover page. She took in the major points: Drug possession, armed robbery, assault with a deadly weapon, suspected murder. She flipped the page and saw a series of photos. The first was a white male, mid-20s, tattooed but baby-faced. Looks like a pretty boy, Nicole thought.
"Who's the guy?" she asked, continuing to read. Champ Hardy. Champ? What a name. Nicole snickered as she continued to scan Champ's rap sheet.
"Champ Hardy. He may look like a low level douchebag, but the kid has connections. He's been arrested multiple times, most recently for drug possession, and his father is none other than Brent Hardy."
"Brent Hardy, as in drug trafficking, alleged murderer, millionaire Brent Hardy?" Nicole was genuinely surprised. She had worked on cases centered around Brent Hardy before, and no one had ever mentioned him having a son. "I didn't know he had a kid."
"Most people don't," Dolls said. "He keeps it quiet on purpose, doesn't want people using the kid against him. It's been easy over the last decade, Champ was living overseas on daddy's dime, came back to the States about a year ago and has kept a pretty low profile. That is, until he got brought in on possession of an illegal firearm charge a few months back, got tagged with drugs shortly after that, and two weeks ago was brought in for a DUI, which of course wasn't enough to keep him locked up for long."
She looked harder at the picture of the Hardy boy, memorizing his face, his eyes, his tattoos. Nicole never forgot a face, especially not when it was the face of someone who she would need to get close to. She knew Dolls too well.
"So you want me to get close to this guy? Use him to get to the father, try and infiltrate the trafficking ring. When do we start?" Nicole was always up for a challenge, and undercover work was her specialty.
"Not exactly," Dolls said. "I do want you to infiltrate the crew, but not through him." He gestured for Nicole to turn the page.
She stopped breathing when she saw the photo behind the one of Champ. Nicole would know that face anywhere, no matter how many years had passed. The photo must be recent, because she looked older, much older than the last time Nicole had seen her. It had been almost ten years ago now. Waverly Earp. Shit.
Waverly
Waverly sat on the plush white couch in Champ Hardy's living room, scrolling through Instagram and trying not to roll her eyes while listening to Champ and one of his idiot friends yell at the TV for the hundredth time in an hour. Boy-men and their sports, she thought, pausing on a photo of a cute necklace her friend had made and hitting the heart icon.
"Babe, can you get us some more beers?" Champ said through a mouthful of nachos, not taking his eyes off the screen when he addressed her.
This time Waverly did roll her eyes as she got up from the couch, plastering her best fake smile on as she went towards the kitchen. "Sure, honey." I live to serve. Honestly it was a relief to get out of that room for a few minutes. She took her time in the kitchen, pulling two beers from the fridge and setting them on the counter as she made herself a cup of coffee.
Waverly was exhausted. The case wasn't progressing as she'd hoped, with Champ giving her basically zero worthwhile information and handling all of his business in secret, keeping Waverly around only when he was at home or going out for drinks with his buddies. She would never admit this out loud, especially to Special Agent Xavier Dolls who was heading up this assignment, but she needed help, a new angle to go at Hardy with, and she needed it fast before she lost her mind waiting around for something to happen. She put her fake smile back on and walked back to the living room with beers in hand.