My daughter's MMA boyfriend bragged about putting her in the ER, completely unaware that everything he just said was being recorded.

By two in the morning, Marcy had finally fallen into a deep, medicated sleep. Agent Lin had stationed two armed federal marshals directly outside Room 412, giving Elena enough peace of mind to rest her head against the foot of the mattress.

I walked down to the hospital lobby to get a cup of black coffee from the vending machine. The physical strain of the last six hours was beginning to settle into my joints. My bruised knuckles ached, and the cold chill of the November air seeped through the glass automatic doors.

"You should get some sleep, Mark," Agent Lin’s voice came from the row of plastic chairs near the cafeteria. She was holding a tablet, flipping through dozens of financial spreadsheets.

"Sleep can wait," I said, taking a sip of the bitter, scalding liquid. "Thorne isn't the type to pack his bags and flee. He’s going to strike while Dustin is still holding out in processing."

Lin sighed, running a hand over her tired eyes. "Dustin hasn't said a word to interrogators. He’s terrified of his uncle. But the audio from the gym gave us what we needed to unseal search warrants for the docks. We hit Thorne’s primary shipping warehouse at five this morning."

"It won't be that simple, Sarah," I cautioned, sitting down across from her. "Sal Thorne doesn't keep his real records in the warehouse. Men like him keep two sets of books. The fake ones for the feds in the filing cabinet, and the real ones close to their chest."

Lin looked up, her brow furrowing. "What do you know?"

"Before he left Marcy's room, he looked at his signet ring three times. Nervous tic. Dustin had the exact same ring—a custom gold seal with a falcon crest. Dustin bragged to Marcy once that the family crest was commissioned by an artisan in Montreal who embeds microscopic encrypted flash storage inside the setting."

Lin stared at me, her eyes widening. "You're telling me Thorne carries his off-book ledgers on his finger?"

"Dustin had his on when you cuffed him. Check his intake inventory at the precinct. If his has a drive, Thorne’s does too. That’s your RICO evidence, Sarah. Human trafficking routes, payoff lists for local judges, shell company routing numbers."

Lin scrambled to her feet, tapping rapidly on her phone. "If this is true, Mark, this isn't just a domestic battery case anymore. This breaks the entire Thorne syndicate wide open."

She sprinted toward the exit, barking orders into her receiver.

I finished my coffee and walked out toward the designated smoking area to clear my head. The parking lot was nearly empty, illuminated only by a few flickering sodium-vapor lamps. A thin layer of fog drifted across the asphalt.

Suddenly, the unmistakable sound of a heavy diesel engine revved at the far edge of the lot.

I turned my head. A blacked-out SUV, headlights switched off, was idling near my pickup truck. Its windows were tinted pitch black, the tailpipe spewing white exhaust into the freezing air.

As I watched, the driver's side door clicked open an inch.