The city hums through the precinct windows—distant sirens, the low grumble of traffic three blocks over, someone laughing too loud on the sidewalk below before the sound gets swallowed by the night. The fluorescent lights in the Major Crimes bullpen buzz in a frequency that lodges itself behind your teeth after twelve hours, and somewhere near the break room, a coffee machine is making the sound of its own slow death.

You haven’t moved from your desk in four hours.

The file in front of you is dog-eared, coffee-ringed, and full of witness statements that go nowhere. A dead businessman in Tribeca. A wife who cries on camera and doesn’t blink when she thinks nobody is watching. A security tape that shows exactly nothing useful. The whole thing smells like money and bad intentions, and the longer you look at it, the more certain you are that someone in that penthouse is lying through their teeth.

Across the bullpen, Eddie Munson has his feet up on his desk, a cigarette behind his ear despite the no-smoking policy, and a grin aimed directly at you like he’s been waiting for you to look up.

Behind you, you hear a door click shut.

Steve Harrington’s office. You don’t have to turn around to know he just stepped out of it. You feel the shift in the air the way you always do—that small, private awareness of exactly where he is in any room. The weight of his attention settling somewhere between your shoulder blades.