Chapter 17: Undercover Authority

The club’s back room sat behind a reinforced door that stayed locked during business hours. After midnight the music from the main floor was only a low pulse through the walls. Alonzo had cleared the space—two of his enforcers, a single metal table, and a hard chair bolted to the floor. Carter waited outside in the alley, phone dark, making sure no patrol rolled through the block.

Emily stepped inside already dressed in the old tactical uniform: dark navy shirt stretched across her chest, matching pants, duty belt cinched at her waist, boots laced tight. The fabric still fit, though it pulled differently now across her hips and thighs. The badge was gone. Everything else was real. The second the door closed behind her, the weight of it settled—familiar weight, familiar restriction, the same belt she used to wear when she walked into rooms exactly like this one ten years ago.

Alonzo looked her over once, slow. “Interrogation drill,” he said. “You play the cop. We play the ones who don’t answer. You follow every order you’re given. He watches.” He nodded at Mace, who stood against the far wall in street clothes, arms crossed. “If either of you breaks the scene, we stop trusting you. Understood?”

Emily’s jaw tightened. She nodded once.

They started with her standing. One enforcer sat in the chair. The other stayed behind her. Alonzo gave the orders in a flat voice. She was told to unbuckle the duty belt and set it on the table. Then the shirt. Then the pants. She did it piece by piece, folding each item the way she had been trained, until she stood in just the thin black undershirt and nothing else, boots still on. The air in the room was cool against her skin. Her breathing had already gone shallow.