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I ’m not one for rules.

They’re almost always moronic, put in place by someone who’s so completely out of touch, they don’t realize how hard they make it for the people who have to follow them. Or…maybe they do, and that’s the whole point. The sadists of the world grew up and became lawmakers who use their rules to inflict the most torture possible by creating ridiculous laws.

I mean, it makes sense, because why else would someone make it illegal in one state to catch a fish with your bare hands? Or in another, restrict anyone from running for public office if they’ve ever been in a duel. Or my favorite: not being allowed to walk backward after sunset.

It might be that reason alone why I make it a point to sneakily break as many stupid laws as possible, whenever possible. Call it a rebellious fuck you to the long-dead and gone lawmakers or just for the fact I’m petty spaghetti, but it’s a physical need at this point.

You know, because rules are meant to be broken.

I’m pretty sure that’s a saying. Just as much as I’m pretty sure if I got a gold star for all the rules I’ve shattered, I’d look like Midas touched me. Which is ironic as hell considering my job, but also kind of sad. Guess that’s why?—

“ Frances .” My boss’s stern tone cuts through my internal ramblings and forces my eyes on him.

Well, I’m already staring at him, so I guess more like focus —a weaker trait of mine, I admit. It’s always been an area of improvement for me. There’s just too much going on to ever really concentrate on a singular thing. It makes me envy those who have tunnel vision. Perhaps if I were capable of something similar, I wouldn’t feel as though I’ve been chasing my tail for the past couple years trying to catch the same guy. A guy who should have been in jail ten times over if it wasn’t for his lawyer. The hot lawyer with a shady past and amazing jawline.

Steeling my voice, I shift in my seat, the uncomfortable cushion sliding with my ass. “Sir?”

The stoic man across from me sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose with his oversized mitt of a hand while shaking his head. “This is it. Your last warning.”

I try to stop the smirk that curls one side of my lips— I really do —but it slips through regardless, as do my next string of words that I immediately regret. Kind of. Okay, not really. “Like the same last straw from three weeks ago or a month before that? Chide me all you want, sir, but we both know you want this guy as much as I do.”

Agent James slams a tight fist against his chipped oak desk, but when it only produces a dull thud, he narrows me with a look I’m supposed to respect as a warning. That , however, is hard to do when he’s given me that same expression since I was seven and he tried denying me a third chocolate chip cookie his wife, my aunt Shelley, had just baked.

“Frances. This”— he gestures around the sad beige room filled with decrepit federal manuals, discarded stacks of files, and his three decades’ worth of notoriety hanging in plaques on his wall—“is not the mob you’re so hell-bent on tearing down. If you’d simply glance at the badge you enjoy flashing at poor evidence guards, you’d remember you are a federal agent . There are rules to follow and paperwork that has to be done.”

I bite into my bottom lip.

There’s that word again.

Rules. Fucking words on paper that stop any actual work from getting done. The bullshit bureaucratic tape that has us all stuck to our goddamn desks while the douchebags of the world taunt us just out of reach.

“Not to mention, unless you’re brought on to a case, there is no justifiable reason for you to be involved.”

I sit up straighter. “Right, but as the department forensic psychologist who was asked to join in on Julio Jua?—”

The mention of the late mayor causes my throat to suddenly dry, the memory of him and his… death, slamming into my chest and forcing my lips closed.

“Look,” my uncle sighs, his fist unfurling to allow his fingers to rake through his salt-and-pepper strands. “ Everyone wants the Babin family put away, but it has to be done the right way. Trust me, I’ve been doing this longer than you’ve been walking. If this isn’t done by the book, nothing will hold up in court and it will only end with them back on the streets and harder to catch.”

“That’s why I borrowed the evidence?—”

“Stealing, Frances. You stole evidence.” His voice lowers, his weary eyes flashing to the closed blinds behind me as if worried someone passing by could overhear. “If you were anyone else…”

“But I’m not.”

“And that right there is the problem. At some point, you have to realize you are not above the law, and the connections that keep you from being locked up with the same criminals you put away, won’t last.”

“Uncle—”

He shakes his head, cutting off my protest. “That’s not fair. You’re using me.”

Frustration, and something close to an adult tantrum, whirl in my sternum like a hundred little workers throwing over desks and ripping up paper.

I’m not trying to actively use him, but it would be a lie to say I’m not taking advantage of our familial ties. Nevertheless, he should understand. He should want me to pursue this asshat by any means, at any cost. Guess his determination has limits. Or perhaps it could simply be because his reasoning isn’t as deeply embedded as mine.

Either way, I can’t give up. Not now when I’m closer than ever.

“Alright.” I push myself from the raggedy chair the bureau clearly doesn’t have the funds to fix. “Point taken. From now on, I’ll put in the correct paperwork and wait for your approval.”

I imagine my promise to be so sugary sweet that he can’t detect the lie smothered beneath. And it must work, because after a brief pause, he gives me a curt nod, and I have to stop myself from doing a triumphant air fist pump.

“I was able to expedite the paperwork, so no harm was done, but I won’t cover for you anymore. Everything from here on out is done on the up and up.”

I hold up my left hand and make a cross over my heart with my right. “Promise.”

He rolls his eyes as I spin on my heels and sashay to the door, but when my fingers curl around the rough handle, he stops me. “Aside from that promise, though, I wanted you to know you’ve been assigned a trainee.”

The room becomes a blur as I whirl around to face him. “What?”

His mouth flattens into a hard line. “We all have to do our part, and we have some truly promising applicants the bureau wants trained here. One of whom is highly qualified in psychology.”

Something nauseatingly close to panic pricks my nerves. “Because you plan to replace me?”

As soon as I speak the thought, I relax. Honestly, I don’t think I would be too mad about it. I could sleep in, eat Pop-Tarts instead of downing a protein shake, catch a movie while it’s still in theaters. Hell, maybe I could even get a job using my skills in more interesting ways. Oh! Like a PI or a bounty hunter. I don’t think they have to follow the laws to a T, do they?

Agent James’ head falls almost completely horizontal as if he can read every syllable of my thoughts. “You’ve outgrown the work this small city has to offer. It won’t be long before they move you to the big metro.”

“Yeah, right,” I scoff, stopping myself from telling him that sounds worse than a broken pinky toe. “Erratic behavior, obsessive tendencies bordering on another diagnosis, unmedicated attention deficit hy?—”

“ Frances .” My uncle snaps upright, his face marred with concern. “You aren’t taking your medicine?”

“I’m kidding. Of course I am.” I wave him off, hoping the lie quickly dissolves in the air. “I’m just saying. There are too many reasons why they wouldn’t transfer me. Matter of fact, now that I think more on it, this actually feels like you’re giving me a babysitter.”

My uncle is quiet for a moment, and in the silence, I know I hit the nail on the head.

Annoyance rolls through me as I realize the many different ways this is going to fuck up my plans from now on. I’ll have to get more creative…

After a thick swallow and clearing of his throat, Agent James waves me away, effectively ending our conversation and pleading the fifth on my question. “Behave, Frances.”

I wink, opening the door. “Oh, Uncle. Never.”

With my laugh echoing behind me, I hurry into the hallway and make my way back to my desk.

When I was a kid, no part of me wanted to be in law enforcement, courtesy of the cops around my neighborhood being complete assholes. It always seemed as if they had a hard-on for making everyone toe the line twenty-four seven. Like the artsy kids who were caught painting on dilapidated buildings to spruce the place up ended up being ordered to complete two years of community service. And Willie Joe down the block, the guy who had the best parties, religiously got tickets for disturbing the peace even though the whole damn town was there. Then when our history teacher said he’d found Bigfoot and was planning to go hunting? Yep, you guessed it. Jail, because it’s illegal to hunt a mythical fucking creature.

Like I said, rules are stupid, and cops are, too. But there was one tiny, minuscule thing I thought was kinda cool. Just a little.

It was the action. The big boards with the pictures of suspects and red yarn running from here to there and back again. The final moment when they figured out who committed the heinous crime and went on a huge raid.

Busting down doors and throwing flash grenades sounded not only awesome, but right up my alley. At least, the movies made it seem like it was. But then my uncle told me it was all exacerbated for the big screen and there was more paperwork than car chases, and I decided… yeah, fuck that.

So how did I still end up working behind a desk, in between the bleakest of bleak walls with people who literally seem as if they might fall over from low blood pressure? Because I’m an idiot. An idiot who needs to take her damn Vyvanse and stop going off on life-changing tangents.

Something much bigger than a sigh works its way from my lungs as I walk down the long hallway from my uncle’s office and onto the working floor.

It’s almost identical to what I saw on TV as a kid. Desks run down long paths, piles of paperwork on each one, while a steady hum of conversation and old computers fills a room surrounded by dull tan walls. Unlike the shows, there are no conspiracy boards, no suited-up SWAT members, and absolutely no urgency in anything. I’m sure it varies at different locations—ones that have more big-city-level crime—but ours, being only a residency agency, not so much.

It’s funny to think back to the beginning when I wasn’t jaded and thought I knew what I wanted. Back when I had plans to move over to the main office in Atlanta.

But then, I met him , and ATL became way too far away from my favorite little criminal.

Alexi Babin.

The alleged leader of the Babin family and mafia outfit that runs out of a corrupt town in South Carolina.

The town, Noxus City, is so secluded in its little exclusive community, it reminds me of a private island, and Alexi owns the whole damn thing.

I know, I know. He’s in South Carolina while I’m in east Georgia, so I don’t necessarily have any real reasons to care about what goes on there without being called, and really, it shouldn’t be any of my business if the state wants to let him run around like a king waving his drug-laced pocket knife with more DNA on it than the glory hole down on 5th street, but my vendetta runs deep.

A woman scorned and all that.

Well that, and because of my weird obsession with obsessive personalities. And yes, I see the irony, but it’s the whole reason I even work here.

Having a psychology degree and working in the field for the past eight years taught me I am absolutely fascinated with the human psyche—particularly the ones that society deems abnormal. Unique. Deranged .

I love diving into their minds and discovering what they’re motivated or influenced by—why they make the often moral-less choices they do. It’s also incredibly intriguing to me how very little influence is needed for a completely sane person to turn downright…diabolical. It’s a study I’ve never grown tired of.

“Drinks at The Four?”

My eyes flash to Jenna, a field agent and really, my only friend, as she sidles up to my desk. Her onyx locks are confined in a low bun, slicked in place by military-grade gel I once bet her was so strong it could plug up a hole in a boat—though she wouldn’t let me test the theory—while her pale face is tighter than normal, features drawn back as tight as her hair.

“Long day?” I ask, already grabbing my bag from the bottom drawer of my desk.

“Nope.”

“Liar.” I smile, needing neither convincing nor further details. “Let’s go.”