Angela Lopez had the wheel for afternoon patrol. When Jack offered to trade his homemade lunches for an hour of extra shooting practice after work, she didn't hesitate.
"Deal," she said. "And call me Angela. Drop the 'Officer Lopez' thing."
Jack sat back in the passenger seat, opening his system panel in his mind. A notification blinked — the arrest that morning had earned him five experience points.
Between the medals he'd picked up at graduation and his official commission, he'd banked four system coins. Add the two he'd saved during the academy, and that had been six. But an impulsive upgrade — pushing his healing skill to Mastery — had burned through five. Now he was back down to one lonely coin and forty-five points.
The math was clear: rookie patrol work barely scratched the surface. Minor arrests gave crumbs. If he wanted to grow stronger, he'd need to target the big fish — the kind of criminals who drove storylines.
His stats told the same story. After graduation, both Mental Strength and Physical Fitness had hit nineteen. The changes were real. His concentration sharpened, learning faster than ever. His body transformed — gone was the nearsighted, slightly frail man he'd once been. Years of bad habits erased.
He remembered when crossing ten points in fitness had cured his myopia overnight. With training, diet, and some healing on sore muscles, his growth had snowballed. But now both stats were stuck at nineteen. To push them past twenty, the system demanded coins — two per point.
Hence the deal with Angela. Until he saved enough, skill training had to be done the old-fashioned way.
Wilshire Division, basement range.
"Let me see what you've got first," Angela said.
Jack drew his station-issued Glock 22, pulled on goggles and earmuffs, and lined up on the ten-meter target. Holding his breath, he emptied the mag in one smooth burst.
Angela reeled in the paper. Her brows shot up.
"Half the officers in this building don't shoot this well," she said flatly, staring at the clustered holes around the bullseye. "So tell me… what do you need me for?"
Jack raised his hands defensively. "Hannah told me I'm only good on the range. She said real shootouts are different. I don't want to freeze up the first time I'm facing someone armed."
Angela studied him for a moment, then nodded. "Fair point. I can help with that. But you need to understand something. Until you've pulled the trigger for real, you don't know what it's like."
She tugged off his gear. "Forget what the academy drilled into you. No earmuffs, no goggles. We'll start from scratch."
By 6:30 that evening, Jack's ears were still ringing. Five magazines — seventy-five rounds — in an echoing basement had left him lightheaded.
But it was worth it. His instincts were sharpening. He was close to breaking through to Proficient.
He parked outside Hannah's house, still dizzy, and stepped inside.
On the couch, Hannah lounged in nothing but a long T-shirt, bare legs curled under her, chips in hand, eyes glued to the TV.
The moment she spotted him, she dropped the bag and leapt.
"Jack!" she squealed, landing on his back. "I'm starving. Sweet and sour pork ribs. And mapo tofu. Chop-chop!"
Jack staggered, laughing. Truth be told, Hannah's constant ambushes were half the reason his strength had been climbing so fast.
Since the day Zoe introduced them, the Texas farm girl had treated him like some prize stallion she'd discovered. Every chance she got, she was draped over him, roughhousing like a lioness testing her lion.
At first, Jack had assumed she was just an open, playful type. He'd tried to keep his distance. But then Zoe, half-teasing, half-serious, asked how he'd managed to get close to Hannah at all. Because Hannah, Zoe explained, hated men. She suffered from a quiet, deep-seated misogyny. She scrubbed her hands raw after any contact with male suspects or colleagues.
That revelation stunned Jack. Later, when he tested her gently, Hannah brushed it off with a vague "past experiences" and refused to elaborate. In America, pushing on someone's trauma was a quick way to lose them. So he let it lie.
And so their odd triangle continued. Hannah pretending not to notice the affection between him and Zoe. Zoe pretending not to see Hannah hanging on him. Jack stuck between the two — pained, but secretly enjoying it.
Dinner took forty minutes. Hannah ate like she was the one who'd cooked, grinning mischievously the whole time. She'd even renovated her kitchen for him — swapped the open plan for a closed one, installed a new stove and hood, and splurged on a massive Serbian-made refrigerator. All just to make sure her live-in chef had the tools he needed.
"Bar tonight?" Jack asked as he loaded dishes into the washer. "John and Lucy are meeting up."
"Sure," Hannah said brightly. She snagged her car keys and practically dragged him out the door.
Her ride was impossible to miss: a yellow-and-white striped Mustang, pure American muscle.
They rolled into the bar. John and Lucy were already at a corner table.
"John, you don't look so hot," Jack said, grabbing four Budweisers from the counter.
(End of Chapter 4)