The hum of the C-Sec cruiser was steady, smooth.

This wasn't like patrolling the Lower Wards – no detours through tight alleyways, no constant calls for domestic disputes, thefts, or fights spilling out of bars. This was a high-security district. The kind of place where crimes didn't happen.

Or at least, the kind where crime didn't get seen.

Jace sat in the driver's seat, one hand on the wheel, the other resting against the door. Cassian was in the passenger seat, upright, scanning the street with unshakable discipline. Leila lounged in the back seat, boots up on the edge of the console between them, fiddling with her omni-tool like she wasn't even paying attention.

They had been rolling through the district for close to an hour. Nothing. Not even a suspicious loiterer.

Jace exhaled, flicking his eyes to the rearview mirror. "Tell me again why we got stuck patrolling the neighborhood with the richest assholes on the Citadel outside the Presidium?"

Cassian didn't look away from his scan. "Because everyone here has enough credits to make sure security works."

Leila scoffed. "Security works if you're a resident. They don't do shit for anyone else."

Cassian glanced back at her. "You got experience with that?"

Leila just smirked. "Maybe."

Jace sighed, adjusting his grip on the wheel. "Yeah, well. I'd rather be anywhere else. Feels like a waste of a patrol."

Cassian arched a brow. "Bored, Wilcox?"

Jace scoffed. "No. Just saying, we're not gonna see action in a place like this."

Leila grinned. "Careful. You'll jinx it."

Then the radio crackled. "All units, all units – shots fired, body down in Skyward Plaza. Suspect unknown, high-priority response requested."

For half a second, no one moved.

Then Jace's hand shot to the sirens. Red and blue flashed across the polished high-rises as he took a sharp turn, hitting the throttle. Leila was already reaching for the radio. "Dispatch, this is Unit 218, responding. We're on-site in two." She dropped the radio, smirking at Jace. "You just had to say something, didn't you, soldier boy?"

He shrugged. "I know you didn't want a quiet day anyway, Dawes."

She rolled her eyes, but couldn't help the hint of a smile from crossing her face.

They were the first cruiser on-scene. Jace killed the sirens the moment they hit the edge of Skyward Plaza. No point in announcing themselves any louder than necessary.

Not that it mattered.

People were already watching. High-rise residents, wrapped in silk robes and expensive caution, peered out from behind reinforced glass balconies. A few of them had already called their lawyers. Because here, a murder was bad for property values.

Jace brought the cruiser to a stop, and the three of them stepped out, weapons holstered but ready.

The scene was pristine. Too pristine.

A volus lay sprawled on the polished walkway, a single wound in his chest. No blood splatter. No sign of a struggle. Just one clean shot. Security, shockingly, was still intact.

Jace's gut twisted immediately.

Cassian was already scanning the perimeter. "No forced entry."

Leila shrugged. "Somebody knew their way in."

Cassian frowned, his omni-tool pulling up the security logs. "They shouldn't have. This place is locked down. Private-sector security, top-tier system integration. Nobody gets in or out without leaving a trail."

Leila exhaled slowly, taking in the body like it wasn't the first time she'd seen a corpse laid out in an expensive neighborhood. "Somebody got in. And got out."

Jace crouched, scanning the angles.

The kill shot was clean. No hesitation. And the casing? Left behind deliberately.

Jace's jaw tightened.

This wasn't messy. This wasn't a warning. This was surgical.

His military instincts started screaming. "This wasn't just an assassination. This was a test run."

Leila snorted. "It's a hit, Wilcox. Somebody wanted him dead. Somebody paid for it. That's the end of the story."

Jace glanced up at her. "That what your gut's telling you? Or just what you want it to be?"

Leila's smirk didn't fade. "Same thing."

Cassian was still reviewing security logs, scanning angles, running calculations. None of it made sense. Because this wasn't a pattern. This was a ghost.

"No breaches. No access logs. No exits." Cassian muttered, more to himself than anyone else. "So where the hell did the shot come from?"

Their speculation was cut short as an unmarked skycar pulled up, flanked by three more C-Sec cruisers. And out stepped what was about to become Jace's newest headache.

The moment Detective Andre Jasso stepped onto the scene, the energy shifted.

Not in a way that was obvious to civilians. Not in a way that made any noise.

But Jace felt it immediately. The way the uniformed officers adjusted their posture. The way conversations lowered. The way nobody questioned his presence.

Jasso didn't just walk onto a crime scene. He owned it.

Leila noticed, too.

Jasso was calm, unreadable, his movements deliberate as he scanned the body. He wasn't hesitating. Wasn't checking notes or asking for a rundown.

He was just taking the scene in, absorbing details, already piecing it together.

Leila had seen plenty of C-Sec officers try to act like they had control. Jasso actually had it. And she had to admit, that was interesting.

Jasso turned to the nearest uniformed officer. "Who was first on the scene?"

Jace squared his shoulders. "We were."

Jasso's gaze flicked to him, then past him to Leila and Cassian. He nodded once. "You secure the perimeter?"

"Yeah."

"Did you clear–"

"Yes."

Jasso arched a brow, like he wasn't used to being cut off.

Jace didn't care.

Jasso's eyes lingered on him for just a second longer before he moved on. He was already looking at the body, already calculating. Like this was just another problem to solve.

Leila crossed her arms, watching him work. "You think it was a professional hit?"

Jasso didn't hesitate. "I think it was a demonstration."

Cassian frowned. "Demonstration of what?"

Jasso tilted his head slightly, still studying the body. "That they could do it."

Leila's brow lifted slightly. Jasso finally looked at her directly. And for the first time, she got the sense that he had already sized her up before they even spoke. "Dawes, right?"

Leila nodded. "Yeah."

Jasso gave the barest hint of a smirk. "You've got good instincts. Keep using them."

Jace's jaw ticked. Something about the way Leila's expression shifted, just slightly, set his nerves on edge.

Jace huffed. "Guy looks like a recruiting poster," he muttered under his breath

Cassian smirked. "You're jealous."

Jace glared. "Shut up, Solvaris."

The precinct briefing room was too small for this much tension. The squad sat around the central table, but no one looked comfortable. Jasso stood at the front, his presence commanding but unreadable. His stillness wasn't passive – it was strategic. Like he was waiting for someone to challenge him just so he could win.

Bailey leaned against the wall, arms crossed, expression unreadable.

The holo-display of the Volus politician's body flickered between reports and surveillance data, but it had no answers – only more questions.

Jace sat stiffly, arms crossed, watching Jasso with thinly veiled distrust. Leila leaned back in her chair, twirling a stylus between her fingers like she wasn't paying attention, but her eyes flicked up every time Jasso spoke. Cassian was reviewing the security layouts, silent, focused, but visibly frustrated. Selyna, barely concealing her impatience, drummed her fingers against the table, while Nyxara scrolled through encrypted logs on her omni-tool, completely absorbed in her own work. It wasn't a debrief – it was a room full of people waiting to see who would crack first.

When Selyna and Nyxara were dismissed to dive into the tech evidence, the Asari couldn't have been happier to be out of that room. Now, however, she was growing restless.

Nyxara's fingers flew over the holo-interface, scanning feeds, bypassing access restrictions, and decrypting security logs like it was second nature.

Because for her, it was.

She had hacked better systems with worse hardware. But this? This was clean. Too clean. The system hadn't been shut down. There wasn't a power failure. There wasn't even a glitch. It was deliberate.

Selyna sat on the edge of a nearby desk, bouncing a small data chit off the back of her knuckles, over and over. The repetitive motion was the only thing keeping her from pacing. From moving. From doing something.

And right now, they were just watching screens. And waiting.

She hated waiting.

"We gonna keep sitting here and waiting for a miracle, or we actually gonna chase something down?"

Nyxara glanced at her, expression unreadable. "You gonna start kicking down doors in high-security offices, or you wanna do this the smart way?"

Selyna grinned. "Can't we do both?"

Nyxara just sighed, turning back to the screen.

Selyna grabbed her jacket. She had no intention of sitting still much longer.

"If I find something before you do," she called over her shoulder, "I'm kicking the door anyway."

The precinct was always busiest just before midnight.

Leila had learned that early – there was always a backlog of reports, officers coming in from the late patrols, and cases that refused to sleep just because the people investigating them needed to. It wasn't until after the first shift change, when the noise settled and the caffeine started wearing off, that things started to quiet down.

And that was exactly when Andre Jasso worked best.

She hadn't expected to be the one working this case with him. She wasn't the most experienced. Wasn't the most by-the-book. Jace had more tactical training. Cassian had a better record. Even Selyna had a past that should've made her useful for chasing down leads in the underworld.

But Andre hadn't picked any of them.

He'd picked her.

"You ever think about trying to make detective?"

The question had caught her off guard the first time he asked it. They had been standing over the crime scene, reviewing the layout of the impossible hit, and he had said it so casually, like it wasn't a big deal.

Leila had smirked. "What, you offering me a promotion?"

"I'm offering you experience."

She had known what that meant.

Andre wasn't bringing her onto the case because he needed extra hands. He was bringing her in because he thought she had the instincts for it. Because she had a knack for seeing the angles that other people didn't. And because, if she wanted to, this was the kind of case that could put her on the fast track to moving up.

That was the real test, wasn't it?

Andre was watching. Evaluating.

If she was smart, she'd do the same.

The first night, they had spent hours going through reports.

"No one saw anything," she muttered, frowning at the witness statements. "Nobody ever sees anything in places like this."

Andre leaned back in his chair, flipping through the holo-docs. "People see," he said. "They just don't always know what they're looking at."

Leila glanced up. That was a good answer.

By the second night, he had her reviewing political angles.

"A Volus politician this deep in corporate security," she said, scrolling through his financials. "And no enemies worth naming?"

"Not publicly," Andre corrected, tapping his omni-tool. "Someone wanted him gone badly enough to pull this off. We just have to find out who."

Leila had seen hits before. She knew how credits moved through back channels, how people with the right resources could pay to have problems erased. But this? This wasn't just a contract. This was surgical. Calculated.

And that meant someone had something bigger at stake than money.

By the third night, they knew each other's coffee orders.

Andre didn't ask if she needed another. He just set the cup down next to her as he passed, barely breaking stride. Leila blinked, looking up from the holo-display.

"Two shots of espresso, barely any cream. Right?"

She smirked, taking a sip. "You keep tracking my caffeine intake, you might just earn a promotion."

Andre didn't look up from his notes. "I like to think long-term."

By the fourth night, she was starting to see it. The cracks in the case. The parts that didn't make sense.

She dropped a report onto his desk, leaning against the table. "I don't get it. No breaches. No forced entry. The killer moved like they belonged there."

Andre exhaled, flipping through the files. "They did belong there."

Leila frowned. "You think it was an inside job?"

Andre tapped a highlighted section in the security logs. "I think there's no other way," he said. "And I think we're running out of time to prove it."

Andre never doubted her instincts. Never questioned her ambition. He saw her pushing forward, making connections, cutting through red tape that would've stopped someone else.

Leila was used to having to fight to be taken seriously. But Andre didn't hesitate to put her in the game. She wasn't sure if that was refreshing or dangerous.

Maybe both.

Jace wasn't paying attention to the case details anymore, at least not really.

Oh, he was still in the precinct, still reviewing files, still keeping track of what needed to be done. But his focus had started to shift. And he hated that. Because it didn't take long before his focus was on Leila.

More specifically, Leila and Jasso.

She was standing too close. Not in a way that would raise eyebrows – not in a way that was inappropriate or obvious. But she was leaning in when he spoke, nodding slightly when he pointed something out. She was listening.

And Jasso noticed. Every time she pieced something together, every time she asked the right question, Jasso gave her that small nod of approval. Like he was coaching her, molding her into something bigger.

Jace hated it.

And the worst part?

He didn't even know why.

Cassian had noticed the change in his demeanor. Of course he had. Jace wasn't exactly subtle when he was irritated.

So when Jasso leaned over Leila's desk, pointing something out on her holo-display, and she actually smiled – not one of her usual sharp-edged smirks, but something real – Cassian decided he'd had enough.

He leaned back in his chair, taking a sip of his coffee, and smirked. "You sure you don't have a problem with him?"

Jace didn't look at him. Just kept his arms crossed, eyes locked on whatever the hell Jasso and Leila were talking about. "He's too clean."

Cassian huffed a quiet chuckle. "Or maybe you just don't like that Leila likes him."

Jace's jaw tightened. "I couldn't give two shits who she likes."

Cassian just smirked wider. "Sure."

Jace turned, finally looking at him. "You got something better to do, Solvaris?"

Cassian shrugged. "Not really. Watching you stew over this is more entertaining than report logs."

Jace muttered a curse under his breath, shoving himself up from his chair. Cassian just grinned and took another sip of coffee. Because now he was even more sure.

Jace absolutely had a problem.