Chapter 13 - The Ghost of Federal Past
"You're alive," Nina whispered, her grip tightening on the pistol grip until her knuckles turned white.
"Your father was a good man, Nina," Agent Vance said calmly, taking a slow step forward despite the massive, scarred beast growling just feet away from her throat. "He stole financial data from the Castellanos to buy your family a way out. But Lorenzo caught him. We tried to pull him into witness protection, but we were twenty minutes too late."
"You abandoned us," Nina spat, venom dripping from every word. "You left us to rot in a two-room apartment while they hunted us like dogs."
"We didn't abandon you," Vance corrected softly, pulling a weathered manila folder from her coat and tossing it onto the table. "We watched you. We watched you struggle, we watched you suffer, and we watched you tear apart an entire criminal empire in sixty days using nothing more than grit and a stolen fighting dog."
Nina stared at the folder. Inside were photographs—not of her recent victories, but of her childhood, her father smiling, and photos of Grimm as a tiny, clumsy puppy.
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"Why are you here?" Nina asked, her voice trembling slightly with suppressed rage.
"Because the FBI doesn't want to run the underworld," Vance replied, meeting Nina's fierce gaze without flinching. "We want someone who can control it. And right now, the European cartels are mobilizing to fill the vacuum Lorenzo left. They’re coming for New York, Nina. And they don't care about rules, families, or mercy."
