Page 3 of Jax (The Kansas City Reapers #3)

“Ma’am, it is of the utmost importance that you come with me right now. We’ll talk at the station.”

My stomach dropped through the floor. My brain scrambled, calculating options—run, scream, lie, faint, comply—but my feet had already turned toward him, traitorous and slow, moving me in his direction like the decision had been made without me.

“Am I in trouble?” I asked, too late and too softly.

“We’ll talk in the car.”

His tone didn’t shift, but something about it landed wrong. Not dangerous, just off. Practiced. Like he was reading from a script.

I followed him back out into the lobby and out the front door to his waiting vehicle, because there was no other option. Because if I hesitated, I didn’t know who might step in next. Because whatever game this was, I wasn’t the one dealing.

The car door closed with a soft thunk—muted, final, too quiet for the voices still howling in my skull.

I didn’t know what I’d expected. Sirens.

Flashing lights. A badge, barked orders, the bite of cold metal.

But there was none of that. Just an engine humming to life, a turn of the wheel, the rhythmic tick of a blinker as Detective Mercado merged into traffic like we were two strangers running errands on a weekday morning.

He didn’t speak for a few long minutes. Neither did I.

The silence wasn’t just awkward. It was calculated. Dense. Like a breath held just a moment too long. A test I hadn’t studied for, hadn’t even known I was taking.

I kept my spine straight, hands locked in my lap, nails biting crescents into my palms. My gaze drifted to the window, tracking every street sign, every intersection, every coffee shop and bus stop like a lifeline.

I needed something to anchor to, something real, untouched by blood or fear or strangers who didn’t ask permission.

My body hadn’t stopped bracing since I sat down.

The seatbelt dug into my shoulder, bruises flaring to life with every bump.

My throat clenched around a panic I hadn’t earned the right to release.

My tongue felt dry, heavy. I waited for him to speak, for something to break the tension, but he drove as if this was routine. Calm. Controlled. Unbothered.

At the next red light, without looking at me, he spoke.

“I’m sorry for the formality. Back in the courthouse.”

His voice was steady, like a man commenting on the weather. Still, the words landed like a slap. I turned my head toward him slowly, uncertain whether the spike in my chest was fear or fury. “What?”

“I needed it to look like you were being brought in when I marched you through the lobby,” he said, keeping his gaze on the road. “In case someone was watching.”

My stomach twisted. I blinked once, hard, then looked back out the window. “You think someone was?”

His left hand tightened slightly on the steering wheel.

“I can’t be sure, if I’m being completely honest. But you deserve the truth, so here is what I do know.

The people who took you are part of a crime organization called the Dom Krovi.

They’ve been operating quietly in Kansas City for years, but recently they have begun to increase their activity. ”

He paused and glanced at me to make sure I was following before he continued.

“They went to the trouble of setting up a legitimate, albeit coerced, transfer of your property to a shell company, and probably gave you detailed instructions as to what they expected. At least, that’s the theory I’m working with.

I’ll let you tell me how accurate I am. Either way, they’re not the kind of people who leave things to chance. ”

I let the weight of that settle in my chest like concrete. So this wasn’t over. It was just monitored. Measured.

“So… what does that mean?” I asked, trying to keep my voice even. “Am I under arrest?”

“No,” he said after a pause.

“Then what am I?”

His fingers tapped once on the steering wheel, then stilled. “Right now? You’re the thread that just might help us unravel a very careful web.”

I didn’t answer. Leaned back against the seat, but my spine never touched leather. Couldn’t relax. Not even close.

“You’re not in trouble, as such. Not with the police, anyway,” he said, glancing over his shoulder.

I scoffed—dry, brittle. “You think that’s what I’m afraid of?”

His eyes narrowed, not in offense, but in assessment. “No. I think you know you’re in a lot of danger.”

The words hit harder than they should have.

Maybe because they were true. Maybe because he said them like they were self-evident.

I turned toward him, studying the line of his jaw.

“I didn’t know who they were. I didn’t recognize the name on the form.

I have no idea why they want my art studio.

It’s just a building in the Northeast Industrial District, a few blocks from my house, and a small one at that.

Stinks to high heaven sometimes, but you can’t beat the rent. ”

I was rambling. Why was I talking about the fucking smell , of all things? He didn’t speak. Just watched. Listening not to what I said, but to how I said it. Watching for the flinch.

“But you were going to give it to them anyway,” he said at last. Not a judgment. Just a fact.

My throat tightened. “Because they took me, okay? Threatened me.”

He stiffened. Barely. A shift in his jaw. The stilling of his hand on the wheel.

“They took me,” I repeated, my voice thinner now.

The words came spilling out like a dam had burst inside me.

I couldn’t hold them back. Someone had to know the truth.

“I don’t know how long I was gone—two nights, maybe three.

I woke up zip-tied to a chair in a basement or warehouse or something.

Blindfolded. Gagged. They… they hit me, some. Roughed me up, I guess you could say.”

I took a deep breath, memories flooding back. “There were no demands at first. No yelling. Just... silence. Until a man crouched beside me and explained what they wanted me to do.”

The detective didn’t speak. He just kept driving.

“They wanted my business, although you probably already know that, if you looked at the paperwork. 2901 Lorene Street. Told me to go to the Recorder of Deeds and hand it over like it belonged to them. Five days to comply. And if I didn’t…

” The breath stuttered. “He said they’d take it, anyway. Then they’d take me apart.”

Still, nothing.

“They didn’t beat me any more after that,” I murmured. “They didn’t have to. Just the gag. The restraints. The silence. And the voice. Then they drugged me again, I think. Because next thing I remember, I was home.”

He glanced over his shoulder at that. Slower this time.

“In clean clothes,” I added. “Hair washed. Hands scrubbed. Kitchen wiped down. Like I was a doll someone put back on a shelf.”

A long pause.

“The paperwork was just sitting there on the counter.” I reached into my bag, my fingers cold and stiff, and handed him a torn slip of yellow paper, folded and refolded until it barely held shape.

“Inside was the completed transfer. The signature line was waiting for me. A company I’ve never heard of. And this.”

You’ve got five days, sweetheart.

He took it, unfolded it with one hand while steering, eyes flicking over the line. Then he refolded it and slid it into the console.

“Recognize the handwriting?”

“No,” I said quietly. “But I’ll never forget the voice.”

The detective exhaled through his nose, an unreadable sound. Agreement, frustration, recognition. Maybe all three.

“So, here’s what I can tell you, Ms. Evans. That company on your form?” he said. “It’s tied to two dozen properties across five states. Shell corporations. Money laundering. Real estate takeovers. Quiet. Efficient. We’ve been chasing them for months.”

My stomach turned. “So I’m not the first.”

“No,” he said. “But you’re the first we’ve found before they vanished.”

I swallowed hard. “I… I didn’t go to the police, because one of them looked like a cop. Or at least wore a uniform like one. If they’ve got badges, how am I supposed to know who’s safe?”

He nodded, more to himself than to me. “We think there are people in the department on their payroll. One confirmed. Two suspected. That’s why we’re talking like this, you know? Off-books.”

“I thought if I stayed quiet, if I did what they asked, they’d forget me. I thought maybe they’d leave me with something.”

“You did what you had to do to stay alive,” he said. “That’s not weakness.”

“It doesn’t feel like survival,” I whispered. “It feels like complicity.”

He glanced over, really looked, and something shifted. Not pity. Not judgment. Just... understanding.

“You’re not complicit,” he said. “You’re a target. And soon, if you’re willing, you could testify and help us bring these fuckers to justice.”

I stared ahead, voice barely audible. “I’m not a witness.”

His jaw tightened, then eased. “You are now.”

I didn’t notice the downtown skyline growing ahead of us until we were almost in the middle of it, glass monoliths rising all around us, hemming me in like a different kind of blindfold.

Block by block, the world pressed in tighter, and my pulse got louder.

This wasn’t the direction of safety. This wasn’t what protection was supposed to feel like.

“Where are we going?” I asked, voice raw from silence and panic.

Detective Mercado’s hands stayed steady on the wheel. “The KCPD Annex building,” he said at last—flat, unreadable.

The word landed hard. It should’ve meant structure. Relief. But instead, it pulled something tight inside me until it snapped.

“The Annex?”

He nodded once, eyes on the road. “Yes. It’s where we handle economic crimes, among other things. It’s quieter than the main station. Secure. You’ll be safe there. We need to document what happened. Get ahead of it before the wrong people do.”

My laugh was small, humorless. “The wrong people already have me.”

We turned down a narrow street bordered by chain-link fences and alleyways swallowed in shadow. The city’s pulse didn’t reach here. There were no pedestrians. No shops. No sound but the whisper of tires over cracked pavement, and the occasional flicker of a streetlamp humming to life.

The building we pulled up to wasn’t marked, not in any way that counted. It was just a slab of brown bricks with narrow, tinted windows and a side door protected by a keycard entry. No signage I could see. No flags. No indication that anything good happened inside.

He parked in the back lot and shut off the engine. “This way.”

I stepped out and immediately felt the chill. It wasn’t the weather, it was the stillness. The way even the wind seemed reluctant to touch this place. The kind of quiet that lived under the skin.

He held the door open for me after swiping a badge I couldn’t see clearly. I walked past him, my entire body clenched against the unknown.

Inside, the air was sterile. Not clean, just scraped of anything familiar. It smelled like metal, tired fluorescent bulbs, and bureaucracy. There was no front desk. No chatter. Just a long, dim hallway lined with closed doors and too many questions.

Detective Mercado walked ahead of me without looking back, and I followed because that’s what people like me did.

People who didn’t have a plan. People who’d run out of fight.

People who’d learned the hard way that sometimes the villain didn’t announce himself with a gun, but with silence, stillness, and a clipboard full of decisions you didn’t get a say in.

He opened a door halfway down the hall and gestured inside. The room was small. Windowless. Two chairs, one table. One wall was covered by a mirror that likely hid another room on the other side. I’d seen detective shows, I knew an interrogation room when I saw one.

I stepped inside slowly, like the floor might give out. The walls pressed in close. The air was too still, the hum of electricity too loud in the absence of anything else. I sat down in the nearest chair, because standing any longer made my knees feel like glass.

The detective shut the door behind us and dropped into the chair across from me. He didn’t speak right away. He didn’t touch anything. Just folded his hands in front of him and studied me like I was a witness or a weapon, or maybe both.

“This is being recorded,” he said. “But it’s secure. You can talk here. No one else will hear this except for the Chief, and we can trust him.”

I stared at the tabletop. It had a long scratch running through the center, like someone had once tried to claw their way out. I cleared my throat, swallowed, and tried to hold what was left of my voice together.

“I don’t know what they want beyond my art studio.” I said, voice low and tight. “They didn’t ask questions. They didn’t need answers. They just told me what I was going to do.”

“Start from the beginning and tell me everything. Even the things you already mentioned in the car, so it’s all on record,” Quinn said.

So I did.

I told him everything. Every horrific detail. When I was finished, I felt sick to my stomach.

He didn’t interrupt. Not once. He let me pour it all out like blood into a basin, like a confession. When I finished, I was cold all over. Hollow. Like speaking the truth had cost something I hadn’t figured out yet.

He nodded once. Not disbelief. Not pity. Just confirmation.

“Like I said in the car, we’ve been tracking the company they wanted you to sign your business over to. It’s part of a network we believe is laundering more than just money. You’re not the first to be targeted. You’re just the first we found in time.”

I closed my eyes. That didn’t feel like a victory. It felt like I’d been left to drown and only now realized there were cameras recording it.

“What happens now?” I asked, barely able to hear myself.

The detective leaned back. His gaze never left mine.

“Now?” he said. “Now we get you somewhere they can’t reach.”

I didn’t answer. I wasn’t sure I believed in places like that anymore.

Not for women like me.