Chapter 16 · The Exam Table Takes Him Again

"You brought me an envelope." Nash didn't look up from the suture tray.

"That's cute." Levi Grant set it on the exam table anyway, right on top of the sterile pad, like the money outranked the wound underneath it.

"Ten grand. You misplace the panel, I make sure your license stays clean through the next cycle."

"You mean the panel that's already in the federal file."

"I mean the copy. The one nobody's seen yet." Levi's jaw ticked.

"There's still a copy, Ortega. You know there is." Nash finally looked at him. Isolation hold, four walls, one door that still wouldn't magnetize shut right, camera blinking red in the corner like it always did now, like it never planned on blinking off again. Levi's shirt sleeve was cuffed back from the stitches Nash had ripped into him two nights ago, the ones that were healing wrong because Levi kept flexing his hand like a threat.

"Put the envelope away," Nash said, "before I make you eat it."

"I've got a name for your seat if you don't play," Levi said.