Page 102 of Collateral Love
Joel nodded.
I pointed at Xavier.
“Start the arrests-by-proxy. Find the ones around him who have warrants waiting. Have our friends in blue make them disappear into paperwork.”
Xavier’s mouth curved into something almost like a smile. “I got you.”
I looked at Channy.
“And you,” I said, voice lower, “we protect your law license like it’s a child.The system gon’ try you. And I need you standing.”
Miles cleared his throat softly.
“There’s something else,” he said.
I looked at him.
He slid an envelope onto the table like he’d been holding it too long.
Channy grabbed it first, ripping it open.
Her eyes scanned.
Then her face changed in disgust.
“They served me,” she said quietly.
Xavier leaned in. “Served you with what?”
Channy lifted the paper, voice tight.
“Subpoena. Notice of potential testimony. They’re calling me as a material witness in connection with what happened in the alleyway twenty years ago.”
Her eyes flicked to Xavier, then to me. I stepped closer.
Everybody in this room had ghosts.
But that alleyway ghost was different.
That one was a case that never fully died.
That one was the reason men came after Xavier later at the arcade, and he lost years.
That one was the thing the city had always wanted to drag back into the light.
Xavier’s face didn’t change, but his hands tightened into fists at his sides.
Miles spoke softly. “They’re reopening it,” he said. “Which means someone pushed paper.”
Xavier turned to him with a slow, sharp look.
“And you know that how?” Xavier asked.
Miles didn’t blink. “Because I have contacts.”
Xavier’s gaze didn’t soften.
“I got contacts too,” he said. “And none of them told me shit.”
