I slammed my hand on the desk.
"Reroute the van. Now."
Hayes hesitated.
Aiden was already on his phone.
"Marshal. Halloran, AUSA Mass. Reroute prisoner Sokolov off I-93. Pull her into the nearest state barracks. Now."
The voice on the other end said something I couldn't hear.
Aiden's face shifted.
"You can't reach the lead vehicle?"
I yanked the laptop and pulled up the Telegram channel.
The bounty post was being updated by anonymous accounts. Plate numbers. Mile-marker pings off scraped ALPR feeds. A photograph through the rear window — Lena's silhouette, head down.
She didn't know yet she was prey.
Hayes finally moved.
"Tech team. Trace the channel admins."
I laughed.
"By the time you trace, she's bleeding out."
Hayes glared.
"Then you do it."
I held up the cuffed wrist.
She hit the cuff with the key.
Aiden moved up behind me.
"Iris. Don't cross the line."
My fingers were already on the keys.
"Counselor. Now's a fun time to talk lines. Coffin's gonna be cold by then."
I couldn't attack. I couldn't penetrate. I could only push fake leads, manufacture congestion, route their hounds the wrong way, buy the van time.
Every step was on the wire.
Hayes watched the screen, sweat beading at her hairline.
"We've got the van!"
The phone went on speaker.
The engine of the transport van roared.
"Two civilian vehicles boxed us in at the Storrow exit!"
Aiden shouted.
"Cut over! Take the shoulder. Hit the breakdown lane and exit at Kneeland."
"Shoulder's blocked too!"
I watched the channel post a new image.
Black F-150, mag-mount strobes, alongside the van's right rear quarter.
They were tight on her.
I reached for an interface I hadn't touched in two years.
Boston Outdoor Media. The ad-tech firm I worked for legitimately had bought programmatic billboard inventory on every digital sign on I-93 between Wood Island and the Tip O'Neill tunnel for a Q2 sneaker launch. The OAuth token sat in my keychain.
I pushed an Amber Alert template — the layout was on file because we'd run a real one for the state in 2023 as a pro-bono gig — to every billboard between Sullivan and South Station.
AMBER ALERT — ABDUCTION IN PROGRESS — BLACK F-150 RAPTOR, MA TAG 7T2-K9X — DO NOT APPROACH — CALL 911
This wasn't hacking. This was a credential I'd legally been issued. The legality of the content was a separate question, and one I'd answer later.
I-93 northbound went into a horn-blowing, brake-tapping panic.
The Raptor got pinned by a delivery truck and a Kia Soul.
The transport van punched out through the lane.
The radio said: "We shook one. There's still another tail."
Aiden grabbed his keys off the counter.
"I'm going."
Hayes blocked him.
"Halloran. You're under review."
He shoved past her.
"Discipline me later."
I grabbed my coat.
Hayes barked: "Halloran stays!"
I didn't stop.
"You arrest me, or you save the witness."
She swore and waved an agent to follow us.
We took Aiden's car up the on-ramp at Albany. The rain came down in handfuls.
The transport van was five hundred meters ahead, pinned again — by a flatbed this time.
A black motorcycle slid up against the rear door of the van.
The rider raised something steel.
A hammer.
Aiden cut the wheel hard.
The Camry slid sideways across two lanes and clipped the bike.
Bang.
The bike spun.
I hit the seatbelt with my chest. The pain was deep and clean.
Aiden was out of the car. He had the rider down on the wet asphalt with a knee to the back of the neck before I'd registered we'd stopped.
The flatbed driver tried to back up to flee.
I came around the cab. I got the driver's-side door open.
The man behind the wheel was Zach Doyle.
He saw me. He smiled. The smile was indecent.
"K. Long time."
I drove a heel into his shin.
He howled.
"You hit me? Everything you ever wiped, I kept a copy. You're done. Your husband's done."
I grabbed his collar.
"Where's Lena's microSD."
He spat blood pink onto the hi-vis vest.
"Burned."
I drove the heel in again.
Aiden caught my arm.
"That's enough."
I shook him off.
"How many people did he kill, Aiden? How many is enough?"
Zach laughed.
"Counselor. Your wife's got some temper. She was real soft when she scrubbed my file in '22."
I went still.
The rear of the transport van had opened.
Lena Sokolov was helped down onto the wet shoulder, hands in front of her, ankles in chains.
She heard him say it.
She lifted her head.
Her face went the color of skim milk.
It was raining harder. The thing pressing onto my shoulders was heavier than rain.
She asked me,
"You helped him before?"
I opened my mouth.
No sound.
Zach laughed louder.
"Yeah, Lena. Your husband got to do what he did to you for so long thanks to K."
Lena lurched forward and slapped me across the face, open hand, full weight, in front of two Marshals on the I-93 shoulder in the rain.
The sound was loud.
I didn't move.
She was screaming.
"I begged you to save me, you'd already helped him —"
Aiden stepped between us.
She kept screaming.
"Move! She's not a savior, she's a blade!"
Water was running off my hair into my collar.
I looked at Lena.
"I'm sorry."
The three words were too small.
The Marshals walked her back to the van. She didn't look at me again.
Zach was being walked to a state cruiser. He twisted at the shoulder and yelled at me as they ducked his head into the back seat.
"K! The card's gone, Lena's done, the one you wanted to save you'll send into a courtroom yourself —"
Aiden looked at me.
I pulled the burner out of my pocket.
"The card might be gone. Somebody else has the originals."
"Who."
I stared at the L marker on the Atelier dashboard.
"The client."
After Zach was booked, L went silent.
The arraignment got moved up.
The press caught fire.
AUSA's wife tied to evidence-tampering ring.
Female hacker scrubbed wife-killer's tracks for cash.
Domestic violence is no excuse for murder.
Brennan posted a thread of every photo of me she had on her phone, including one of me at her brother's swearing-in ceremony three years ago, and tagged the Boston Globe and the Herald on every one.
Maureen sat for an interview with a reporter from WBZ.
She said, on camera, with her hand at her chest:
"My family is also a victim. This girl spent five years lying to us."
The reporter asked if Aiden had known.
Maureen said immediately:
"My son is the most upright man you'll meet. He would never cover for her."
The comments under the clip were brutal.
A black floral arrangement showed up at our building. A package wrapped in brown paper showed up at the USAO mail drop with a black bouquet inside, razor blades wrapped into the stems.
I was out on a quarter-million bond. Liam parked me in a furnished one-bedroom in the Seaport that he kept on retainer for clients who couldn't go home.
There was a guy outside the building most days. DoorDash drivers refused to come to the floor.
Liam dropped a bag of frozen Mrs. T's pierogi into my freezer.
"You're not allowed to die before opening arguments. Eat carbs."
I asked him,
"How's Lena."
"Won't see you."
I nodded.
"That's right."
Liam flipped through his binder.
"Doyle's sticking to the burned-card story. The chain-of-custody video from the FBI tech room is, conveniently, unavailable for the relevant ninety seconds. Hayes has been suspended. Internal review is going nowhere."
"Aiden?"
"Under review."
My hand stalled.
Liam looked up.
"Possibly disciplined. Could mean removal."
I laughed once.
"His mother's gonna love that."
"You still care?"
"No."
The buzzer went off and I jumped anyway.
Liam buzzed her up.
Maureen came in carrying a folder. She slammed it against my chest.
"Sign."
A new divorce complaint, more aggressive than the first. This one had me admitting marital fraud and personally agreeing to a three-hundred-thousand-dollar civil settlement to compensate Aiden for damage to his professional reputation.
Brennan was over her shoulder, phone up, recording.
Liam stepped between Brennan and the camera.
"Recording on private property without consent. I'll happily file the suit."
Brennan flinched.
"You're threatening me? She's a criminal —"
Maureen sank.
I didn't expect it.
She went down to her knees on my borrowed kitchen tile and grabbed my wrist with both hands.
"Iris. I'm begging you. Let go of him."
I tried to step back. She held.
"He never had it easy. His father went down on a stairwell when he was sixteen. I worked doubles for years. We did not raise that boy so a girl could drag him under after a single bad night."
I looked down at her.
Her hand on my wrist was warm and shaking and smelled faintly of nicotine and dish soap.
"You serve your time, you serve it, but don't drag him with you. If you ever loved him, you sign."
It was worse than her shouting.
Brennan went in for the kill.
"Aiden's already suspended, you know. You happy? He spent half his life building it and you broke it."
I picked up the pen.
Liam said, "Halloran."
I didn't look at him.
The pen touched the paper.
"Don't sign."
Aiden was at the door. The same shirt as the night before, with new stains under one elbow.
Maureen scrambled up.
"Aiden!"
Brennan rushed him.
"Aidy, she was about to — "
He came through both of them, took the divorce packet out of my hand, and tore it down the spine.
Maureen screamed.
"Have you lost your mind? She destroyed you!"
He dropped the pieces in the trash can under the kitchen island.
"Ma. My career is not your responsibility."
She slapped him.
He didn't move with it.
The print of her hand bloomed across his cheekbone.
I came up.
"Aiden. Go home."
"No."
"You stay any longer, the discipline gets worse."
"It's already worse."
Brennan was crying.
"Aidy. Listen to yourself. She's not worth it!"
He turned to her.
"Brennan. Did you hand the Border Street address to Doyle's people?"
Brennan went white.
Maureen froze.
"What address?"
He pulled out his phone and played a recording.
Brennan's voice came out small.
"Zach. Look. The girl gets put away, my brother gets a clean break. You promised me the wellness deal. Don't forget."
The room died.
Brennan went for the phone.
"It's fake. Aidy, that's edited, it's fake — "
He pulled his arm back, easy.
"It's already with OPR."
Maureen took two steps backward.
"Brennan. You know Doyle?"
Brennan was sobbing.
"I just wanted you to be free of her, I didn't know he was going to hurt the kid — "
I looked at her.
"You handed him Lena's daughter's address."
Brennan shrieked.
"It wasn't me! It was Ma!"
Maureen turned to ice.
Aiden swiveled, slow.
"Ma."
Maureen's lips trembled.
"I just — asked someone where she lived. I wanted to know. I didn't think — "
He cut her off.
"Who'd you ask?"
Maureen couldn't speak.
I said it for her.
"Pavel's lawyer. Howard Chen."
Aiden looked at me.
I turned the laptop toward him.
A new line had popped on the Atelier feed.
L was online.
Want the originals? Tonight. Ten p.m. The old Allston wedding studio. Iris alone.