Chapter 21: Back on the Clock

Six months after the port raid that took down Carter and Alonzo, Mace and Emily were still carried on the Jacksonville PD roster as undercover officers. The transfer to Narcotics had been quiet. New handlers, new case numbers, weekly reports that never mentioned the storage unit or the cash still locked inside it. On paper they were clean. On the street they worked the way they always had.

Their current target was a loose network of mid-level dealers moving weight through the north-side apartments, the after-hours clubs on the Avenue, and the parking lots behind shuttered auto shops. The official goal was simple: identify suppliers, document the flow, build a case that would stand up. Unofficially, Mace bought product himself—small packs at first, then larger—so the dealers would treat him like a customer instead of a cop. He paid in cash, never haggled too hard on the first two meets, and let them set the tone. The extra money he skimmed stayed off the books. The department saw controlled buys. The dealers saw a man who showed up on time and didn’t bring problems.

Emily’s part of the cover was her body.

She went in as his woman—thirty-five, curvy in the way that still turned heads in a dark club or a dim apartment stairwell, full breasts, soft hips, the kind of ass that filled out jeans or a short skirt. When a dealer wanted more than cash to loosen his tongue or to hand over a better price, Mace let her give it. Not just her mouth. Her pussy. Her ass. Whatever closed the gap and kept the information coming.

The first real test came on a Thursday night behind a closed tire shop two blocks off the Avenue. The dealer was a runner for a guy named Dre—early thirties, nervous eyes, a pistol tucked in his waistband that he kept touching like it made him taller. Mace had bought from him once already. Small pack. Cash only. Tonight the runner wanted to talk about stepping up, but he kept glancing at Emily in the passenger seat of Mace’s SUV and licking his lips.