A Brief History of Noimoire, by Chris Zinn: After the Demon’s Massacre in Italy in 1921, when the National Fascist Party attacked Conclave City and stole the tens of thousands of Infernal and Elder cards from beneath Uriel’s Cathedral, America underwent the Divine Renewal, in which the vast majority of the country—with a population almost eighty percent a member of one of the thirty-nine Divine churches, or their spinoffs—decided to add Infernal and Elder cards to the prohibition against alcohol. When the courts upheld individual rights to own these cards over state and federal legislation, the states passed the 19th amendment, banning ownership.

Wolfe hated police stations.

Most people would assume it was because he had spent twenty years as a criminal, but they would be wrong. He had never been taken in, although he had spent a few hours in the back of police cars from time to time.

No, it was from the huge amount of time he had spent in them as a child, the first time after his dad had beaten the shit out of him, and the second after Wolfe had killed his father. Neither had ended well, and the police had all been on the take. They had taken the money of his father’s patrons—Wolfe still didn’t know who—and allowed the young boy Wolfe had once been to suffer injustice. It still rankled, over two decades later.

Wolfe wasn’t that great at “letting go.”

Despite it being over twenty years—and a different city, since this was Joliet Police and not Noimoire—this police station didn’t look much different than the one he remembered. It brought back unpleasant memories. Wolfe saw the same cheap-ass, hard, plastic benches bolted to the floor, the same faded, torn posters advertising various charity organizations like the David Torres Homeless Shelter, and the same bulletproof glass protecting overweight police officers with stained shirts who were so far past their prime they were calling into question whether or not said prime had even existed.

“Let go of me, pig!” a struggling junkie screamed as he was walked into the back.

Wolfe glanced at the loser being manhandled. The same skid-row vibe of the involuntary inhabitants.

One of the massive, metal doors in the wall opened, and an extremely cute woman, less than five feet tall with caramel skin and long, black hair, came into the room. She was dressed in the pencil-skirt version of a police uniform.

The lady glanced down at her clipboard, all frowns, then glanced up again. “Is there a William here? William?”

No one answered, and she glanced down again. “William Madison?”

Oh, right, that’s me now, Wolfe thought and he stood easily.

The woman glanced over at Wolfe and raised an eyebrow. Wolfe cut an unusual picture—he was six-foot-two-inches, two hundred thirty pounds of nothing but muscle. But his brown hair was disheveled and he was sporting a couple-days’ fuzz on his cheeks, and his clothing was scuffed and torn.

Wolfe almost laughed. She looks like she’s trying to decide if I’m a bodybuilder or a vagabond.

Wolfe walked over, limping slightly, to tower over the tiny woman by more than a foot.

She glanced up at him. “You’re William Madison?”

“That’s what my license says,” Wolfe responded.

“Right, right… Well, if you’ll come with me, please. Lieutenant Rhett Walker would like to talk to you.”

Where is Shel? Wolfe pinched the bridge of his nose. “Yeah, sure, take me to him.”

He would rather have shot himself in the foot, but you couldn’t really say ‘no’ to the police when you were possibly a suspect in an investigation.

The lady frowned again but motioned Wolfe through the door.

Wolfe walked back through a ton of cubicles and a few offices until he arrived at a brown, wooden door at the back, which a sliding nameplate proudly proclaimed as the domain of Lieutenant Rhett Walker. Wolfe opened the door without knocking and strode in.

“Ah, Cara, is…” The man behind the desk trailed off as he glanced up. Then he stood.

The lady—presumably Cara—hurried past. “Sorry, Lieutenant, he just walked in! I didn’t tell him to do that.”

Wolfe almost laughed at the desperation in her voice—he presumed a need to have the lieutenant’s approval.

The man’s ice-blue eyes flickered over Wolfe, noting his walk and stance first, then meeting his eyes, then going across his clothing. The man’s brow furrowed ever so slightly, as if something didn’t sit right with what he saw, but Wolfe wasn’t sure what.

Those eyes were what Wolfe noticed first, but the rest of the man was impressive as well. He was of a height with Wolfe—six-foot-two—and even more muscled, something Wolfe rarely encountered. His shirt was pressed, and his hair was in a perfect military cut. His face was smooth shaven, but for a small mustache, which Wolfe thought of as the police standard-issue mustache.

Okay, I get why she wants his approval. Wolfe disliked the lieutenant almost immediately. He was too perfect. Something had to be wrong with him.

Rhett’s brow smoothed. “You’re William? The William who was at the train station tonight?”

“That’s what they tell me,” Wolfe said.

Rhett raised an eyebrow at his flippant answer. “Have a seat, please.”

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“Do you want some coffee, Rhett?” Cara asked, her previous frown now a glorious smile, and her voice falsely cheery.

“That would be great, thanks.”

“I’ll get it for you, Rhett,” Cara said, then she walked out of the office with a bounce in her step.

While they were talking, Wolfe’s eyes flicked around the room. He saw multiple commendations and awards, including a certificate from the Elite Card Police Academy, but no pictures of family or friends—just multiple pictures of police functions and clippings from newspapers about lives saved.

There was also a huge article on the wall that read “Chief of Police Charleston drops Noimoire crime to lowest level in fifty years.” Wolfe wondered why a Joliet detective had an article about the chief of police from a neighboring town on his wall, but turned his attention elsewhere.

The man’s desk was absolutely covered in files. The chair behind the desk was large, but not ostentatious. The one for Wolfe to sit in was a thin, cheap metal one, however.

“So, are you banging her, or do her fingers smell of her own frustration?” Wolfe asked as he pulled the chair out and flipped it around, then sat on it facing Rhett.

Rhett frowned, an expression that sat easily on his face. “That is a very improper way to speak about a fellow human. Also, I would never sleep with a subordinate. It is deeply improper and unethical.”

“Huh, your loss. She looks like she’d be fun in bed.”

Rhett’s frown deepened. “Also, do you have to sit in the chair that way?”

Wolfe gave the cheap chair a slap. “The ol’ baby is tough. She’ll hold together.”

There was a brief pause before Rhett sat in his own chair and pulled out a pad of legal yellow paper from a drawer. “I wanted to ask you about your participation in tonight’s events.”

“You’d be better off asking Emmett—I was just hired to help him investigate a possible criminal site. He didn’t tell me what we were doing beforehand, and I have no idea what that was about.”

“Well, tell me your side of it, please,” Rhett said. “Besides, after the barest of questioning, the EMTs ended up taking Emmett, and he’s out cold at the moment.”

Fuck. Even if he did get me in this mess, I hope the guy makes it. He’s the kinda guy who feels as if life already took a sledgehammer to his knees.

“I already gave my statement to the officer at the scene, once they realized I wasn’t a bad guy and took their pistol out of my ear,” Wolfe said.

Rhett smiled at his description. “Standard police procedure when we don’t know what’s happening on a scene—sorry about that. But about that statement—I’d like to ask some clarifying questions. Because a few details don’t add up.”

Wolfe tensed slightly, although everything he’d said had been the absolute truth. “Whatever gets your rocks off.”

Rhett rolled his eyes. “Right. According to Emmett, you basically saved his life. Five thugs, one of whom was a deckbearer, attacked you guys when you found them engaged in human trafficking.”

“That’s pretty much how it happened,” Wolfe said. “So, I’m the good guy, then? I can go?”

“Where did you learn to fight so well that on almost no notice, with a handgun that wasn’t yours, you managed to kill two of them, deeply wound a third to the point his life is hanging in the balance as we speak, cripple a fourth, and drive the deckbearer off?”

Wolfe tensed. “I’ve been to the gun range.”

Rhett smiled and opened a file with the name “Madison, William,” on it. He glanced into it and then stared at Wolfe. “Come now, don’t be modest. That was one of the most… complete, I guess, victories I have ever seen.”

“Meh.”

Rhett glanced up. “You told Emmett you worked at the lumber mill here in Joliet before you became a private investigator?”

“That’s what it says in my file, right?” Wolfe asked. “Why do you have that, anyway? You keep files on all your citizens?”

“It was a formality, created when you applied to become a private investigator. But it does have your answers to the questionnaire here. It must have been hard.”

“The questionnaire?” Wolfe asked, not sure where Rhett was going.

“Being unemployed for nearly a decade, since the last lumber mill here closed seven years ago.”

Wolfe cussed in the safety of his own mind. They had needed to generate a backstory fast and loose when first getting Wolfe his fake I.D., social security number, and birth certificate—things he’d needed when he’d purchased a house, even with cash.

Before he could formulate some plausible-sounding story, the door opened, admitting the sound of yelling. “They need you in Interrogation A, Rhett,” Cara said.

Rhett nodded and stood. “Don’t go anywhere, Mr. Madison. We still have things to discuss. I’ll be back in just a few minutes.”

Wolfe nodded and Rhett left the room, following Cara.

He reached across and opened his file. It was almost entirely incomplete. It had his questionnaire from when he’d gotten his provisional private investigator license, and some faxed copies of his fake birth certificate, his driver’s license, and the death certificate for his fake parents. Nothing else.

Wolfe relaxed—nothing to connect his current life as “William Madison” to the head enforcer of the Grimm mob family, Ethan Madison Wolfe II. Perfect.

But as he let the file go, his eye flicked across the rest of the files on the table. Most of them were files for the Grimm family members—including ones for Damian and Piper… and Wolfe himself.

Wolfe reached across and gently opened the file, careful not to disturb its place. At the top was his death certificate, and opposite was a blurry photo from a police cam. It didn’t show him well, but…

Why is the good lieutenant looking at the file of a dead guy? Does he know, or suspect?

Wolfe closed the file and sat back. Just more shit to deal with. Gods damn, Emmett! I really don’t need the police looking into my backstory right now. Or ever.

Wolfe glanced at the files a second time. Why does he have the Grimm family files out? Miriam said all the money was tied up in legal proceedings, and that Damian wouldn’t be able to engage in any of the family activity… Has he found an alternative source of funding? Did he have money squirreled away from before?

Wolfe had a dark thought. An absolute ton of good cards were left in the Grimm family mansion when I blew it all to hell. If he collected most of them—and the little card-obsessed hobgoblin could actually stand to part with a few—he could have gotten some serious seed money.

Wolfe was so focused that he almost didn’t hear the turn of the knob, but the door creaked as it opened, and Wolfe dropped the file folder flap and leaned back in his chair just before Rhett entered again.

The man walked over, sat back in his chair, and opened “William Madison’s” file again. He read for a few moments before looking up, the folder flap held in his hand.

“Sorry about that, William. A couple of kids we removed from a car for excessive drunkenness were getting violent. Now, where were we?”

“You were about to tell me I was free to go?” Wolfe asked.

Rhett raised his eyebrow at him. “Worried I might look into your life?”

“Is this how you usually question people who just saved the lives of twenty near-kids?” Wolfe shot back.

Rhett frowned again. “I always check out all stories I don’t understand, at least where my jurisdiction is concerned.”

Wolfe wanted to ask about neighboring jurisdictions, like Noimoire, since the Grimm family had never had a presence in Joliet, but he held his tongue. That would have been a huge, red flag for lieutenant detective over there.

Before they could continue the repartee, there was a knock at the door.

Rhett blinked at the door and muttered, “Is it too much to ask for anyone else around here to handle something?”

Wolfe almost laughed—he could sympathize with the guy on that.

“Come in,” Rhett called.

The door opened, and a vision of feminine beauty walked in. Red hair framed a freckled, heart-shaped face with two near-emerald eyes on top of a five-foot-four, slim—but with a healthy amount of muscle underneath—frame. The vision was dressed in blue workout shorts showing off pale legs, and a T-shirt.

Before Wolfe could even greet Shel, Rhett asked, “Why are you here, Cadet Lyons?”