Part II-A: The Cage Lena’s fingers flew across the keyboard inside the SUV. Briggs never looked away from the building. “I found Naomi King,” she said. Briggs turned. “Where?” Lena stared at the screen. “She aged out of foster care at eighteen. Changed her name two years later. No social media. No driver’s license for almost three years. Then she resurfaced.” “As who?” Lena swallowed. “Denise Holloway.” Briggs slowly looked back toward the building. “The operations manager.”

Everybody wants to believe they have a code. Criminals especially. They sit in dark rooms, count dirty money, shake hands they don’t mean, and convince themselves they’re different from the next man because they got rules. Don’t touch family. Don’t talk to police. Don’t steal from the crew. Don’t lie unless you have to. Don’t kill unless there’s no other way. They call it honor. But honor is easy when the money is small. Honor is easy when everybody eats. Honor is easy when n