Chapter 1

"Manager, it's her! I saw it with my own eyes! She stuffed that limited-edition necklace from the display case right into her clothes!”

The weekend mall was packed. Out of nowhere, a woman with that perfectly curated influencer look blocked my path and started yelling at the top of her lungs.

The crowd waiting in line for coffee instantly froze and turned to stare.

I blinked, caught off guard, and was just about to say something.

But she didn't give me a chance. She lunged forward and yanked hard at my work jacket.

A few brand-new gold necklaces, still with their tags on, hit the marble floor.

"Oh my God, you guys! The evidence is right there! Someone call the cops and get this woman arrested—ruin her life, send her straight to prison!”

People whipped out their phones to record. A couple of young guys even rolled up their sleeves, ready to play hero.

I looked down at the gold chains on the floor, then patted my pocket—where my plainclothes loss-prevention officer badge was sitting—and let out a dry, incredulous laugh.

This was the exact stash of stolen goods I'd confiscated just five minutes ago from a trash can in the women's restroom during an ongoing theft bust.

So how did she—a random shopper—know exactly where the evidence was on me?

And more than that, how did she manage to track me down and block my route to the security office with mall management in tow, all within a single minute?

Chapter 1

I was still turning it over in my mind when the man in the lead—slicked-back hair, a suit that fit too well for a department store salary—closed the distance between us in a single stride.

I knew him. Operations Manager Gary Walsh, according to the file.

He jabbed a finger an inch from my nose, spit flying with every word.

"Everybody, look at this piece of trash! He's been picking our jewelry counter clean for months!"

"Somebody help me hold him here—I'm calling the police right now!"

I froze, then looked up at him and let out a cold laugh.

"Manager Walsh, did you leave your brain at home this morning? A necklace falls out of my jacket, and that automatically makes me a thief? This is my loss prevention badge. Can't you read?"

Loss prevention officers were the store's invisible patrol—technically under the security department, tasked with watching quietly, gathering evidence, and stopping people from walking off with the merchandise.

I hadn't expected a store manager, of all people, to stand there in front of a crowd and lie through his teeth.

Walsh clearly hadn't expected some low-level loss prevention officer to talk back to him like that either. His face went red.

The woman beside him—the one with the influencer face, Mona Sutton—leaned into his arm on cue, shoulders trembling as she worked up a few tears.

"Manager Walsh, you have to get justice for us customers. People like this always carry fake IDs and lie without blinking. She didn't just steal from me—when I called her out, she tried to hit me!

"I'm just a girl, I was terrified. What if she's got a weapon on her too?"

The onlookers who'd gathered were already worked up.

An older woman jabbed a finger at me and started in. "Young people these days have no shame. Steal something and still act like the wronged party!"

The few young men who'd been itching to play hero pressed in closer, boxing me in.

"Don't waste your breath on scum like this. Grab her first, talk later!"

I looked at this crowd of well-meaning bystanders, being played like puppets without a clue, and almost laughed at how absurd it was.

Not worth the effort of arguing with them.

I reached straight into my inner pocket, ready to pull out my real credentials—the risk control inspector's badge, signed off by corporate headquarters itself.

My fingers had just brushed the stiff edge of the leather case when Mona's hand, nails painted a garish red, shot out.

Her ankle buckled. She collapsed against me like she had no bones left in her body, both hands clamping down hard on the wrist I'd been reaching into my jacket with.

"She's trying to kill me!"

Mona let out a piercing shriek.

Chapter 2

"She's got a knife in her pocket! I felt the handle! She's going to pull it on me!"

The moment those words left Mona's mouth, the crowd of onlookers shrieked and scrambled back, tripping over themselves to get away. The young men who'd been ready to play hero a moment ago backed off several more steps.

The whole scene dissolved into chaos. Someone's coffee spilled across the floor.

Walsh seized the opening and threw up a hand.

"Security! What are you standing around for? She's resisting arrest—rough her up if you have to!"

Four security guards, who'd clearly been staged nearby, closed in at once.

They didn't care whether I fought back or not—they twisted both my arms behind me. One of them drove a knee into the small of my back hard enough to force me to double over.

I turned my head and looked at Walsh.

"Manager Walsh, you're not even trying to sort out right from wrong. Have you thought about what happens after this?

"Call corporate compliance right now. Or better yet, get the store manager, Arthur Chapman, down here to confirm who I am.

"One more minute of this nonsense, and you're going to be in serious trouble."

Walsh laughed like he'd just heard the joke of the century.

"Chapman? He's about to get transferred out of here anyway. I'm the highest authority in this building today. You're a thief who's now assaulting people with a weapon on top of it. There's no wriggling out of this one."

He swept his arm out.

"Take her downstairs."

…

The four security guards dragged me past the main shopping floor, avoiding the customer traffic, and shoved me through the staff-only fire exit.

We went down, and down, the light growing dimmer with every level.

I glanced at my phone screen. The signal bars turned flat the moment we hit the second basement level.

These people knew exactly what they were doing—they'd picked a dead zone with zero reception.

The second we were out of sight of the crowd, Mona's whole pitiful, trembling act vanished without a trace.

She stopped walking and turned to face me, her expression gone cold and flat.

Mona stalked toward me on four-inch heels.

"You've got some nerve, cutting in on my business. I'm going to skin you alive today, or my name isn't Mona Sutton."

Something clicked into place in my head the moment she said that.

I looked up at her and smiled, sharp with sarcasm.

"So that's how you got here so fast. This whole thing was a setup from the start—the thief crying thief.

"You hired people to stage a string of thefts in the store, and while everyone was distracted, you swapped the real gold and diamonds at the counter for knockoffs.

"The fakes stay on display to keep fleecing customers, and the real merchandise gets run through that trash can as a drop point and moved to the black market.

"Two birds, one stone—you launder the money and cover the hole in your shell company's books. Not bad, Mona, for someone with an entire influencer brand riding on this."

Mona blinked, caught off guard that a bottom-rung loss prevention officer had dug up that much of her operation.

But she recovered fast, and let out a brittle, mocking laugh.

"You actually figured out who I am? Not bad. Too bad the smart ones die fastest in this building.

"You think knowing the truth does you any good? Loss prevention, operations, security—every one of them is mine. You can scream your lungs out today and you're still walking out of here as the thief."

Every word out of her mouth wasn't just a confession—it was cracking the whole rotten network running through this store wide open.

Something in me lit up with satisfaction.

This little undercover errand had turned out to be worth it after all. I'd expected to catch a few corrupt middle managers. I hadn't expected to land a catch this big.

I turned my head toward Walsh, who'd been standing off to the side the whole time, not saying a word.

Chapter 3

"Manager Walsh, covering up money laundering for someone is a felony—three years minimum.

"You've got an aging mother and a kid at home. You really want to go down for someone else's crime?

"I'm giving you one last chance. Go get Chapman down here, and this can still be fixed."

Walsh clearly didn't believe me, but something in how sure I sounded made him glance at Mona, and his grip on the baton wavered.

Mona let out a scornful snort and played her trump card without missing a beat.

"Gary, why are you so scared? Chapman's getting shipped off to some dead-end post next week anyway. Whoever gets his job is entirely up to Sharpe.

"All you have to do today is get this girl to open her mouth and pin the whole theft ring on her.

"Sharpe already told me—if you play along, you're the official store manager by tomorrow's morning meeting."

The word "store manager" hit Walsh's bloodstream like a drug. Between his midlife panic and his hunger for power, whatever restraint he had left evaporated.

"You lying little—" Walsh yanked the baton from his belt.

He drove a hard kick into the back of my knee.

I stumbled forward, and the guards shoved me straight into the small, windowless room at the end of the hallway.

The metal door slammed shut and locked behind me.

…

I'd already seen the blueprints for this security-office interrogation room.

Four walls padded with soundproofing foam. The camera in the corner had its cable ripped out days ago.

No windows. The only light came from a single high-wattage interrogation lamp dead center in the ceiling.

Four guards blocked the door, each one gripping a solid rubber baton.

If this had happened to some ordinary female employee, she'd probably have been terrified out of her mind by now.

I just felt myself relax.

As a headquarters-trained inspector, a threat this amateur wasn't going to touch me.

I rubbed my aching wrist and walked over to the metal chair, unhurried. I pulled it out and sat down, arms crossed, waiting them out with a flat expression.

Walsh looked like he was about to burst a blood vessel over how unbothered I looked. He slammed a fist on the table.

"Still playing games in here!"

Mona pulled two sheets of paper from her bag and threw them down on the metal table in front of me.

"Sign them."

I glanced down.

The top one was a pre-printed confession, spelling out in black and white that I was the mastermind behind an entire theft ring.

The one underneath was worse—a half-million-dollar settlement for damages to the store's reputation and the merchandise.

I rubbed my chin, eyebrows drawing together.

"And if I don't sign?"

"Then we beat you until you do," Walsh snarled, raising the baton.

I shook my head, my tone laced with mockery.

"Your little money-laundering operation is amateur hour. You really think ripping the camera out of this room means nobody's watching?"

I pointed up at the ceiling.

"There's a hidden wide-angle camera in the vent three feet to the right of the women's restroom, wired into the internal network. Pull that footage and everything's laid out in perfect detail. Exactly whose hand dropped the bag of real jewelry into that trash can first."

I looked straight into Mona's eyes as I said it.

At the words "hidden camera," the smile on Mona's face twitched, and her eyes darted away.

"You're full of it! There's no camera there!"

Walsh jumped in like a loyal attack dog defending his mistress.

Chapter 4

"You've got no real position here, no badge, nothing—what gives a pickpocket like you the right to pull the internal security feed?"

"I said you stole it, so you stole it!"

I let my expression go cold.

"Manager Walsh, thirty thousand dollars a month from Mona to look the other way. Does that money burn your hands yet? That's real blood money—hundreds of customers paying for real gold and getting garbage in return."

Walsh's face went bloodless. He had no idea how I'd gotten into his private account statements.

Mona had been hit right where it hurt, and her fear curled into a screeching, humiliated fury.

"Who do you think you are! You went digging through my accounts too?!"

"Break her wrist! I want to hear her scream something other than that smart mouth of hers!"

Mona jabbed a finger at me, shrieking.

The two guards closest to me raised their solid rubber batons and swung for my arm hard enough to shatter bone.

Just as the baton was about to land, there was a crash. A deafening bang.

The security office's metal door had been kicked open from outside.

The man who came barreling through the door was heavyset, dressed in a sharply tailored, expensive suit. It was Deputy General Manager Derek Sharpe.

The moment Walsh saw Sharpe, he tossed the baton aside and rushed over, face oozing with flattery.

"Mr. Sharpe! You came down here yourself?

"Don't worry, we already caught the inside thief who's been stealing the jewelry—she's being interrogated right now, just like you asked. She's about to sign the confession."

Sharpe was breathing hard, his eyes bloodshot.

He didn't even look at Walsh's fawning expression. He just raised a hand and slapped him across the face, hard.

The sound cracked through the room.

Walsh spun half a turn from the force of it, blood welling up at the corner of his mouth.

"Who the hell told you to go stirring up trouble right now?"

Mona saw the mood shift and hurried over, swaying her hips, trying to press her body against Sharpe's arm out of habit.

"Aw, Derek, honey, why are you so mad? It's just some petty little thief. Gary's just trying to clean up after us."

Sharpe shoved her away, hard.

"Petty thief? Do you two have any idea the sky is about to fall in on us?"

Sharpe pointed up at the ceiling, his finger shaking.

"Corporate headquarters just issued a red alert! The one they're calling the Hatchet—the risk control inspector sent down straight from headquarters to audit the books—walked into our store half an hour ago! Her signal's completely gone dark right now!"

The temperature in the room seemed to drop to freezing.

Walsh clutched his swollen face, his legs shaking like they'd give out under him.

"An... an inspector?"

Everyone in this store knew what the risk control division meant—they were the highest-tier operatives corporate sent down when heads needed to roll.

Sharpe yanked his collar open, popping two buttons.

"She's got veto power and the authority to fire anyone on the spot! If she finds so much as a dollar missing from the books, she'll pull every thread, and the entire store is going to be lined up for the unemployment office! Every regional executive is on their way here right now, and you two are down here causing a scene!"

Sharpe paced in a tight, frantic circle.

I was still sitting calmly in that metal chair.

Watching the three of them make fools of themselves, I couldn't help it—I burst out laughing.

I raised my right hand, unhurried.

"Mr. Sharpe, you can stop looking. That inspector you're talking about is sitting right here."