HONEY AND KNIVES

Debrief and damage control

The room smells like bleach and blood.

Not mine. His.

Dante sits across from me in an interrogation room that doesn’t officially exist. No camera. No two-way mirror. Just concrete walls, one metal table, and the sound of the air conditioning trying and failing to cover the drip from the ceiling.

My hands are cuffed to the table. Procedure. Protocol.

It’s a lie and we both know it.

Agent Reyes told me thirty minutes ago: “De Luca got hit during the extraction. He’s stable. You’re not in trouble. Yet.”

“Yet” is doing a lot of work.

Dante’s shoulder is wrapped in white gauze already turning pink. He didn’t go to a hospital. Of course he didn’t. Hospitals ask questions. Hospitals call the police.

Instead he came here. To me.

Because I was the one who pulled the trigger that got him shot.

“You look like hell,” I say. My voice is steady. I spent the entire ride here practicing that.

“You look like you followed protocol,” he answers. His voice is rough, like he swallowed glass. “Took a bullet for the team.”

“I took a bullet for _you_.”

The words hang between us. Too honest. Too dangerous.

He tilts his head. The light catches the scar on his jaw. The one I gave him three months ago when we were pretending to be enemies and failing badly at it. “Why?”

“Because if you died, the case died.”

“Lie.”

“Because Reyes would’ve buried me if you died.”

“Closer.”

“Because I couldn’t—” I stop. Because the door opens.

Reyes walks in. She doesn’t look at the cuffs. She doesn’t look at Dante’s shoulder. She looks at me.

“Agent Cole. Debrief. Now.”

She slaps a folder on the table. Photos spill out. The warehouse. The crates. The body of Marco Vitti with three bullets in his chest. My bullets.

“Walk me through it,” Reyes says.

So I do. I give her the version that’s true enough to pass a polygraph and clean enough to keep me out of prison.

“We tracked the shipment to Pier 17. Vitti was making the exchange. De Luca was there to buy. It went bad. Shots fired. I engaged. Vitti went down. De Luca was hit in the crossfire.”

“Crossfire,” Reyes repeats. She picks up a photo. Dante, on the ground, bleeding, my hands on his wound. “Funny kind of crossfire that only hits him.”

“I was aiming at Vitti.”

“And missed.”

“I don’t miss.”

The room goes quiet.

Dante laughs once. Low. It hurts him. I can see it in the way his jaw tightens. “She doesn’t miss, Reyes. Ask anyone.”

“Shut up,” Reyes snaps at him. “You’re not supposed to be here. You’re a suspect in three homicides and a RICO case.”

“And yet here I am,” Dante says. “Because she called me. Because she needed to know I was alive before she could do her job.”

Reyes turns to me. “Did you?”

Did I what. Call him. Need him.

“Yes.”

The word feels like a confession.

Reyes rubs her temples. “Jesus Christ, Zara. Do you have any idea what you’ve done? You compromised the entire operation. You fraternized with a target. You lied on three separate reports.”

“I did what I had to do to get close.”

“You got close enough to get shot at.”

“I got close enough to get the ledger.”

That shuts her up.

I nod to the folder. Under the photos is a USB drive. I took it off Vitti’s body before backup arrived. Before protocol. Before I was supposed to.

“It’s the entire De Luca network. Shipments. Payoffs. Names. Dates.” I look at Dante. “Including you.”

His eyes flick to mine. There’s something there. Hurt. Respect. Fear.

“You’re going to burn me,” he says. Soft.

“I’m going to burn all of you,” I answer. “That’s the job.”

Reyes picks up the USB like it’s a bomb. Which it is. “If this is real, we can take down half the East Coast.”

“It’s real,” Dante says. “And it’s also a death sentence. For me. For her.”

“Don’t talk for her.”

“I’m not,” Dante says. “I’m talking for both of us.”

Reyes leaves with the USB. She doesn’t uncuff me. She doesn’t tell me I’m free to go. She just says, “Stay here.”

The door closes.

It’s just me and Dante again.

The silence is worse than the interrogation.

“You shouldn’t have done that,” he says finally.

“Given them the ledger?”

“Given them me.”

“You gave them you when you walked into that warehouse.”

“I walked in because you asked me to.”

“I didn’t ask.”

“You didn’t have to.”

He shifts and winces. Blood seeps through the gauze.

“You’re bleeding,” I say.

“I’ve bled before.”

“Not on my watch.”

I stand. The cuffs clank against the table. I reach across and press my hand over his wound. Stupid. Against protocol. Against every instinct I have.

His skin is hot. His pulse is fast under my palm.

“Zara,” he says. My name in his mouth sounds like a warning and a prayer.

“Don’t,” I say. “Don’t say anything.”

“Then let me do this.”

He leans forward. The chains pull tight. He’s close enough that I can smell gunpowder and copper and the cologne he wore to the gala three weeks ago. The night we danced and lied and almost kissed in a room full of people who wanted us both dead.

His forehead touches mine.

“You’re going to have to arrest me,” he whispers.

“I know.”

“They’re going to ask you how you got the ledger.”

“I know.”

“They’re going to ask why you were there.”

“I know.”

“They’re going to ask if you love me.”

My breath catches. The room tilts.

“I don’t—”

“Lie to them,” he cuts me off. “Lie to everyone. But don’t lie to me. Not about that.”

I pull back. My hands are shaking. “Why are you making this harder?”

“Because you’re going to walk out of here and I’m going to be in a cell. And I need to know it meant something.”

It did. God help me, it did.

The door opens again. Two marshals. No Reyes.

“Hands,” one of them says to Dante.

They uncuff me first. Then they cuff him. Real cuffs. Not the prop ones.

Dante doesn’t look at me as they take him out. But right before the door closes, he says it. So quiet I almost miss it.

“Damage control, Zara. That’s what this is. Control the damage. Or it controls you.”

Then he’s gone.

Reyes comes back five minutes later. No USB. No smile.

“You did good,” she says. “The ledger checks out. We’re moving in 48 hours.”

“What about him?”

“He flips, he walks. He doesn’t, he rots.” She studies me. “You okay?”

“No.”

“Good. Agents who are okay after this don’t last.” She tosses me a new badge. Mine got confiscated as evidence. “Debrief is over. Damage control starts now.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means you go home. You sleep. You don’t call him. You don’t visit him. You don’t think about him.”

“And if I do?”

“Then you’re off the case. And maybe off the Bureau.”

I nod. I take the badge.

As I’m leaving, Reyes stops me.

“Zara. For what it’s worth... I would’ve done the same thing.”

I don’t answer. Because she’s wrong. She wouldn’t have. And that’s why she’s the boss and I’m the one with blood under her nails.

Outside, it’s raining. The city looks clean from far away. Up close, it’s still dirty.

My phone buzzes. Unknown number.

One text.

`They’ll come for you next. Burn the ledger copy. Trust no one. - D`

I delete it. I crush the phone in my hand until the screen cracks.

Damage control.

Right.

Because the worst part isn’t that I might love a criminal.

The worst part is that I’m not sure I want to stop.

---