Brian did not surrender all at once.
Men like him rarely do. His body moved toward surrender before his pride allowed the word. First, the grip on Frank loosened. Then Frank stumbled away from him, collapsing sideways into an armchair near the dining room wall. Ruiz moved just enough to block Frank without stepping into Brian’s space. Dana kept her hand raised, warning everyone to hold.
Brian still had the grenade.
But it was no longer raised.
His shoulders had fallen.
His eyes were fixed on the floor as if he could see the next ten years opening under him.
“Tell them to get Morris,” he said.
Dana did not move. “They already have him contained.”
“Contained isn’t arrested.”
“No.”
“Then you still don’t understand.”
“Help me understand.”
He laughed once. “Now you want my help.”
“I want Frank alive.”
Frank coughed from the chair, one hand at his throat.
Brian looked at him.
The look was complicated. Anger, resentment, and something that might have been regret if it had arrived years earlier. Then he looked back at Dana.
“Morris approved the Birch entry before the warrant was signed.”
Dana stayed still.
Brian continued, voice low. “He sent me in through the basement. Said the owner had a safe with cash from a dealer. Said it was dirty money. Said it would never be reported.”
Frank whispered, “It was inheritance money.”
Brian closed his eyes briefly.
Dana said, “Who else?”
He opened them.
“If I say it here, I don’t make it to booking.”
“You’re on camera.”
“That doesn’t stop accidents.”
“You know I won’t let that happen.”
He looked at her with exhausted contempt. “You don’t know what you can stop.”
Dana did not argue. He was right in ways she hated. She could control the room. She could not control every hallway after it.
So she gave him the only thing that mattered in that moment.
“Then stay alive long enough to make them afraid of what you wrote down.”
Brian stared at her.
There it was again.
Reports.
Records.
The thing dirty cops use and fear.
He slowly bent his knees.
“Everyone back,” Dana said.
The officers held position.
Brian placed the grenade on the floor.
He did not explain how it worked. He did not touch it again. He simply placed it down and pushed it away with two fingers, then raised both hands.
The room stayed frozen until the explosive device was secured.
Only then did officers move.
They took Brian down hard but controlled. No one celebrated. No one cursed. No one treated him like a stranger. That was the ugliest part. He had worn the same badge. Walked the same halls. Used the same language. Knew the same procedures.
As they cuffed him, he turned his head toward Dana.
“Morris isn’t the top,” he said.
Dana leaned closer.
“Then give me the next name.”
Brian smiled faintly through the blood on his lip.
“The file already did.”