"You excited to start school again Jade?" I ask her as I drive her to the elementary school. Conveniently it's the same school Victoria and Charlotte work at so I'll at least be seeing some familiar faces. 

"Yeah, I'm so excited about my math class," she says, her eyes lighting up at the mention of the subject. I'm the complete opposite of her. If there was a class I enjoyed when I was a kid and teenager it'd be history or the sciences. "Are we visiting my mom after school?" 

"We are, either Nash or myself will pick you up at the end of the day and we'll go to see your mom," I tell her as I turn my car and park in front of the school. "Jade, do you know Ms. Dawson or Ms. Marshall?" I ask her.

"I do, Ms. Dawson teaches grade two and Ms. Marshall is the school nurse," she answers. 

"Well both teachers are my friends and if you need anything, you can trust them to help, just like your own teacher," I say turning around in my seat to face her.

"Okay, my teacher is super nice. Oh, she's right there," she says pointing out the window at a woman exiting her car. I narrow my eyes for a moment before chuckling. Wow what a small fucking world. I've met her a couple of times through Victoria but I didn't know that she was Jade's teacher. I open my door and step out of the car as I wave to the woman.

"Camryn!" I call out to her. Her head snaps up and she looks up in surprise when she sees me.

"Natalia? What are you doing here?" she asks in confusion as she walks up to my car. 

"Dropping off my new charge to school," I tell her as Jade steps out. Her eyes widen when she sees and she looks back at me for confirmation as I nod my head. 

"I'll talk to her at lunch and see how she's doing, I'm sure it was a shock for her to see her mom like that. I got an email from the principal over what happened during the weekend," she tells me in a sombre voice.

"Yeah, me and Nash were the ones that found her mom in their apartment but she was with me outside the apartment when she heard her mom being attacked," I reply as Jade walks up to us.

"That's horrible, I'll make sure that while she's here she can forget about what happened for a bit and be a kid," she tells me before plastering a smile on her face for Jade. "Jade, it's good to see you again."

"You too Ms. Valencia, I finished all my homework from the break," Jade says in a proud voice.

"I'd be shocked if you didn't, you're always on time for everything and I love that. We should head inside before the bell rings," Camryn tells her. "I'll probably see you later," she says turning to face me.

"Either me or Nash will be coming to pick her up," I tell her and her smile curls into a smirk.

"So Nash has custody too? Are you two parenting together? And have you guys finally gotten your acts together because I've seen the way you two look at one another," she teases with laughter and I roll my eyes as I step back into my car. From what Victoria and Charlotte told me, Camryn she's still working on her personality since it was shitty before but I don't mind the ribbing.

"I'll see you Camryn," I tell her as her laughter gets louder. "Jade, I'll see you after school but if you need anything you know my phone number and Nash's so use the school phone to call us." She nods her head and waves to me as I drive away from them. I hope Camryn can distract her during the day. She didn't sleep properly Saturday night or last night, the worry of her mom plaguing her thoughts. The loud ringtone from my phone fills up in my car and I glance over at it, my thumb swiping on the screen when I see Nash's name on the screen.

"What do you need? I'll be at the precinct in fifteen minutes," I tell him as I slow down at a traffic light.

"We're moving in to arrest Riccardo, Jason put out a warrant for him and Leo yesterday evening plus late last night and it was approved just now," he tells me. "We're going to get Ricardo and Jason assigned two others to get Leo."

"Did the officers who were tailing him see him do anything suspicious?" I ask him.

"No, they said that he didn't go anywhere yesterday but considering the situation we're in, we don't have time to watch him slip up," he explains. "I'm texting you the address now, see you in a bit." The light turns green and I press my foot on the gas before reaching for my phone and looking over at the address before making a sharp turn in the new direction I'm going to.

It's a twenty-minute drive to Ricardo's house. It looks to be in a quiet neighbourhood, houses just line up in the streets. I look at the number of the house, counting them silently in my head before stopping in front of number forty-five. It doesn't take long for Nash to show up with Aurora in tow. 

"You ready for this?" I ask him as I step out, my gun in hand. 

"Let's do this, he's the first person we have a connection to all this," he answers as he walks up to me. Aurora eyes me quietly for a couple of seconds before turning to Nash. 

"What do you want me doing ?" she asks him.

"You'll be shadowing me in the house and if we come across the pills, you're going to bag them as evidence," he tells her as we walk up to the house. We reach the front door and alarm bells go off in my head when I see the door is open just a crack. I nudge Nash, nodding my head at it and he frowns when he sees it. I cautiously push it open, walking straight into the living room as Nash and Aurora head to another part of the house. 

"Living room clear," I call out.

"Bedroom clear," he calls out from upstairs.

"Kitchen clear," I say back to him. We spend the next minute going through each room yelling clear to one another and the final door I open leads to a set of stairs. The last place to check now is the basement. I turn on the light as I descend the stairs and immediately there's a stench of decay that assaults my nose. I reach the last step and in the middle of the basement lies Ricardo. I look around the rest of the basement checking to see if anyone is still lingering but when I see no one I pocket my gun away and walk back to Ricardo.

"Natalia, where are you? We found some of the pills," I hear Nash yell out as I press my fingers to Ricardo's neck.

"I'm in the basement, you might want to call forensics," I yell back to him.

"Fuck don't tell me." Loud footsteps come down the stairs and Nash stops when he sees me and Ricardo with Aurora looking over his shoulder. "We were too late, shit."

"Yeah, whoever did this most probably did it last night, a single gunshot to the chest and it still looks fresh," I tell him as I look at the single bullet hole on his shirt. 

"We need to call Jason and see if the other team found Leo," I tell him. 

"You do that and we'll call forensics," he tells me. The three of us trek back upstairs and I move to the living room pulling out my phone to call Jason.

"Is he in cuffs?" is the first thing he asks when he picks up.

"No, he's dead. We found him lying in the basement, a single bullet wound to the chest," I tell him. "What about Leo?"

"Fuck, you have got to be kidding me, he was our biggest lead right now but I guess we'll have to rely on Felix plus forensics to search through his computer and phone. The other team arrested Leo but they didn't find anything in his home," he tells me.

"Well, Nash and Aurora happened to find somethings upstairs, they should be able to fill you in better when we come back to the precinct," I say to him as Nash walks over to me.

"Alright, when you get back I'm going to leave questioning Leo to you," he tells me and I start chuckling.

"He's definitely going to be surprised to see me," I say in between chuckles remembering our encounter last week Friday.

"Yeah, yeah, laugh it up. I'll see you two later," he says before hanging up.

"Let's head back to the precinct. Aurora is staying here with the forensics team so there's no need for us to be here," Nash tells me.

"Yeah, Felix is going to work with forensics in looking into whatever tech he has around the house," I tell him as we walk out of the house and past officers going to the crime scene. "They're bringing Leo in and I'll be questioning him."

"Do what you usually do and you'll get something out of him," he tells me, his hand giving mine a quick squeeze as he walks past me to his car. He gets inside driving off as I start up mine. Yeah, this will be interesting, questioning the target that I seduced and clearly wanted to fuck me. 

✘✘

"You're from last week Friday, you're a fucking cop," is the first thing that comes out of Leo's mouth when I walk into the interrogation room. My lips curl into a smirk as I sit across from him while he looks at me in fury.

"You weren't expecting that were you?" I reply cooly.

"I should have fucking known," he scoffs and I roll my eyes. "You going to tell me your real name now?"

"Yeah, but you didn't and now we're here and surely you know why right? As for my name it's Natalia but we have more important things to talk about. Tell me everything you know about these," I say opening the file I have in my hand and pulling out a picture of the pack of pills I took last week.

"I don't know anything," he says turning his head away from mine.

"Wrong, I think you do know, no I know you do. When we went up the v.i.p section of the club, you were excited to take this from your friend Ricardo. Yes, we already found out his name, don't make that stupid face at me," I demand as he looks at me in shock. "Whatever information you have on this I want to know everything. Who's making this, who's supplying it, and when did it start circulating around the clubs? I want to know all of that."

"I want a lawyer," he says firmly, his face pinched in anger. I look up at the camera in the room for a moment before looking back at Leo.

"Fine, that's your right as a citizen," I tell him as I slide the picture back into the file. "But let me tell you this before I go. This drug has already killed someone, someone who thought this was fun and wanted to test it out. We will charge you for drug possession but if you cooperate in our investigation so no one else has to die, we can try to get it lowered even more but of course, that's all up to you." I stand up and walk out of the room closing the door behind me.

I go into the next room where Jason, Nash, and two other officers are watching Leo. It's not the first time we've used a tactic like this. Tell them what is most likely going to happen to them and wait to see if they'll crack and give us the information we need. It's a hit or miss kind of thing, you can never know if they'll go for the bait or not. Five minutes pass and Leo starts asking for me to come back in.

"You're ready to talk?" I ask as I open the door.

"I'll agree to help if it'll keep me from staying in jail for so long," he says begrudgingly. "I don't know who's making this shit and the only person I knew who was selling was Ricardo. I can tell you that this came out last month, right before the holidays. There was some rumour going around about how there was something new on the scene, something that would give you the best high. I was going to try it for the first time on Friday with you."

"It's a good thing I stopped you and I took it with me, who knows if we'd be even having this conversation right now,"  I tell him, my face blank.

"Yeah, thanks. Other than that I can't tell you anything else," he says with a shrug of the shoulders. 

"Okay, there's something I want you to do for me since we'll now be working together. We're going to set you up with twenty-four-hour surveillance and an ankle monitor. I want you to be our inside person in all this, as in I want you to ask around, see what you can dig up and bring it back to us. The ankle monitor will be set to be turned on twenty-four seven but will alert us plus you at exactly ten at night we want you in your home. Can you do that for me?" I ask him with a polite smile.

"What do I get in return, surely you have something you can offer," he says with a smirk, his eyes scanning me. The interrogation room door slams open and Nash walks in, the glare on his face focused on Leo. Leo looks at him for a couple of seconds before chuckling and putting his cuffed hands in the air. "My bad, I know when to back off. I'll do the job for you Natalia."

"Perfect, someone will be in here to get you released, have a good day Leo," I tell him as I walk out of the room and pull Nash with me once we're out of the room. When we reach a different section of the precinct I drop my hand from his arm and cross my arms over my chest, my face unamused.

"Really?" I ask in a deadpan voice.

"Hey I didn't do anything," he says innocently though his lips are curled up into a smirk. "I just remembered last week, I know it was an assignment but that didn't mean I liked seeing it with my own eyes." I think back for a second to what he's talking about and then remember the two of us on the dance floor, Nash watching us. I drop my arms as laughter escapes from me.

"It's cute you're jealous but you should know by now what I want," I say stepping up to him my hands on my chest. "Don't do it again."

"Yes ma'am," he replies as he wraps his arms around me, kissing the top of my head.

"Alright, let's get back to work. You know the one thing I don't get is why Ricardo was killed," I tell him as I push him back a bit. "Was whoever he was dealing with watching him and knew what happened last week? Did they know we were coming?"

"Who's to say but now that's something new we'll have to look into," he muses. I feel like we're just falling into the rabbit hole, and right now the other side is nowhere in sight.

✘✘

A/N Happy Saturday everyone! I know you all have been waiting for an update, I know but I've been going through T.E.C and editing the chapters because I sent in the story for the Wattys. I didn't send it last year because obviously it wasn't done but since I completed it this year I thought why not. So good luck to anyone that's sending in their stories, myself included.

The ending with Natalia and Nash, I personally like when people fight their own battles but know when to ask for help and in this case, our badass didn't need help. And was someone watching Ricardo, was someone one step ahead of the police? be sure to leave your thoughts of the chapter in the comments.