William Carter stepped into the ICU hallway, the sound of muffled sobs meeting him before he even reached the doorway. The dim light glinted off the polished badge on his chest, but his face was shadowed, heavy with the news he carried.
Carol Hayes looked up from where she stood beside Evelyn, her arm still resting protectively on the widow's shoulder. William stopped a few steps away.
"Miss Hayes," he said, his voice low but grim. "All nine of the injured troopers have passed away."
Carol's eyes widened, her body going still. "All… all nine?" She stared at him, disbelief flickering into shock.
William gave a slow nod, his jaw tightening.
His gaze shifted toward Evelyn, who sat hunched in a chair, her hands clenched in her lap, eyes red and unfocused. Turning back to Carol, he said quietly, "She's an incredibly strong woman. But I'm worried about little Tommy… he was his daddy's boy. I don't know how we handle this." He hesitated, lowering his voice further. "And… Eve and Daniel's marriage was very strained. She told me last Christmas they weren't sharing a bed anymore."
Carol blinked hard, the words catching her off guard. "Daniel never told me this. Not once. He told me everything." Her voice softened. "We were basically siblings, Will. We trained together and enlisted together. Ate together every day." She looked away for a moment, and her next words were almost swallowed by a tightening throat. "I—I can't believe he didn't say anything."
William's expression softened, but he didn't push. "Miss Hayes… there's something else that's been bothering me. One thing I find so strange."
Carol straightened slightly, wiping at her eyes. "What's that?"
"Why is it that every trooper who got hit… was an officer or a detective?"
Her brow furrowed. "I don't know. I was stationed as backup on the front road. We were completely outnumbered. Someone either gave us wrong intel, or…" She hesitated. "Or we had a traitor on the inside who caused this."
William's voice dropped. "You think someone in our own ranks set them up?"
Carol shook her head slowly. "I don't know what to think. But even after all this—nine dead, Daniel included—we didn't kill any major member of Blackwood. Every high-ranking target escaped."
William's jaw tightened. "Who did we get?"
"Three bodies," Carol said flatly. "New recruits. From an associated gang, not even Blackwood's inner circle."
"That's it?" William's voice was bitter now.
"That's it," Carol replied. She looked back toward Evelyn, whose gaze was fixed somewhere far beyond the sterile walls of the ICU. "All that blood… for nothing."
William exhaled heavily. "Then we've got more than grief on our hands. We've got a problem to solve."
Carol's voice hardened. "And I'll find out who caused it. One way or another."
Evelyn stood slowly, the chair scraping faintly against the floor. Without a word to anyone, she turned and walked toward the hospital's front entrance. The doors slid open, letting in the damp scent of rain.
Outside, the drizzle fell in fine, silver threads, pattering softly on the pavement. She stepped under the awning, pulled a cigarette from her coat pocket, and lit it with a small metallic click. The first deep draw burned her lungs in a way that felt almost grounding.
She exhaled slowly, watching the smoke mingle with the misty air. Her mind felt hollow, as if everything that had been holding her up inside had quietly slipped away.
From the corner of her eye, she noticed a tall man crossing the parking lot. Even through the rain, she recognized him—Ron Delaney. Daniel's former senior officer, the one who'd left the force a few years ago to start his own detective agency. His coat was dark and damp at the shoulders, and his stride carried the quiet confidence she remembered.
"Miss Morris," he greeted, his voice low and respectful as he stopped a few feet away.
She nodded, flicking ash into a nearby tray. "Ron."
For a moment, they just listened to the rain.
"I heard," he said finally. "I'm… sorry."
Evelyn's gaze stayed on the cigarette between her fingers. "Thank you."
He shifted slightly, his eyes scanning her face. "How's Tommy holding up?"
Her lips pressed into a thin line. "He doesn't know yet. My parents are with him. I… I don't even know how I'm going to say it."
Ron nodded slowly. "He worshipped his dad. Always tagging along whenever Daniel brought him by the station."
A faint, sad smile touched her lips. "Yeah. He'd put on that little toy badge and follow him around like he was on patrol."
Ron's eyes softened. "Tommy's going to need you more than ever now."
Evelyn took another long drag, the ember glowing in the drizzle. "I'm not sure I have anything left to give right now."
"You will," Ron said simply. "Daniel would've expected that."
At that, her gaze flicked to him, searching. "You knew him longer than I did. Did he… ever talk about us? About… me?"
Ron hesitated. "Not much. But he was proud of Tommy. That's the one thing he never stopped talking about."
Evelyn nodded faintly, flicking the last of the ash away. "Then that's what I'll hold on to."
Ron gave a small nod, the rain beading on his hair. "If you need anything—for you or for Tommy—you know where to find me."
She didn't answer right away, just took one last pull from the cigarette before crushing it out. "I'll keep that in mind."
Ron had just reached the hospital's front doors when Evelyn's voice cut through the soft rain.
"Ron."
He stopped, turned, his eyes meeting hers under the awning.
"Can I ask you one thing?" Her voice was low and heavy. "And be honest."
Ron's brow furrowed. "Go ahead."
She took a step toward him, rain misting the edge of her hair. "Who is responsible for this?"
He drew in a slow breath, exhaled, and reached into his coat pocket. A moment later, he pulled out a cigar, biting the end off with practiced ease before striking a match. The flare lit his features for a brief second.
"Miss Morris," he said, his voice steady but tired, "there isn't a single answer to that question."
Her gaze narrowed. "Was it the Blackwood gang?"
He gave a short nod. "Yes. But you need to understand something… the reason the Blackwood gang can keep operating—even after years of violence, robbery, murder, abduction, extortion, and worse—is because they're integrated into the system. Every police department in this state, and plenty in others… every politician with real pull… they're all eating from the same plate. They get a share of his crime empire."
Evelyn's brows drew together. "So they just… let him keep going?"
Ron took a slow puff from the cigar, the smoke curling in the damp air. "It's more than letting. It's protecting. Blackwood doesn't just pay off cops and politicians—he's got his hands in legitimate businesses too. Freight companies, shipping yards, construction firms, and even law offices. Every one of them is either directly owned by him or owes him enough that they follow orders without question."
She folded her arms. "You're saying every business is tangled up in this?"
"Somehow, yes," Ron replied. "Even the ones you think are clean. Sometimes it's money laundering, sometimes it's intimidation, sometimes it's just… partnerships no one talks about. And there's one man behind the curtain—Clive 'The Gentleman' Blackwood. He's the kind who can sit at a charity dinner and have half the city's elite shaking his hand, then order a hit on the way home."
Evelyn stared at him, her cigarette forgotten between her fingers. "Clive Blackwood…"
Ron's eyes held hers. "Even your employer, Richard Benson, is tied up in this. Works on Blackwood properties. Profits from them. That means your paycheck, indirectly, comes from his empire."
She blinked, taken aback. "Benson's company is… legitimate."
"It is," Ron said with a faint shrug. "And so are most of the others. That's how organized crime survives—it wraps itself around the legitimate world until you can't pull one free without tearing the other apart. The Blackwood operation isn't a gang on the streets anymore. It's a system. And systems… they're hard to kill."
Evelyn looked away, the rain tapping on the pavement, her mind spinning. "Then who's going to stop him?"
Ron's cigar flared as he took another drag. "Someone willing to burn the whole system down."
Ron took another slow drag from his cigar, the ember glowing faintly in the drizzle."Miss Morris… What do you think? You think just troopers died here?"
Evelyn shrugged faintly. "I don't know… maybe bad planning."
He shook his head immediately. "No. I worked twenty years in the PD. No raid or operation ever goes out with bad or half-assed planning. Someone either leaked the raid plan… or warned the Blackwood gang ahead of time."
Her eyes narrowed. "How so?"
Ron glanced toward the hospital entrance, lowering his voice. "It's not official, but the word is—they were meeting that day for a cash handoff from a recent bank robbery. The associated gang did the robbery, and after their cut, they were transferring the rest to Blackwood. It was a large sum, so naturally one of Blackwood's big guys should've been there."
He took another puff, letting the smoke curl between them. "But when the raid went down? Neither Blackwood's men nor the money was there. Someone tipped them. And to cover it, they sent a few associate-gang recruits to stand in—so it would look like a normal bust and avoid suspicion of a leak."
Evelyn's breath caught. "That means…" She stopped herself, the pieces clicking into place.
"I already told you," Ron said, flicking ash into the rain. "It's a system."
He turned, pulling his coat collar higher against the drizzle, and walked toward the parking lot without another word.