My daughter’s MMA boyfriend put her in the ER with broken ribs and a concussion, then looked me in the eye and said, “She needed to learn some respect.”

The rain began as I reached Marcy’s apartment complex on Elm Street—a cold, needle-thin drizzle that slicked the asphalt and blurred the amber reflections of the streetlights.

The building was a three-story brick structure from the 1940s, narrow, poorly lit, with an iron fire escape running down the alley like an exposed spine. Even from fifty yards away, I could see that the window on the second floor—Marcy’s living room—was dark.

Too dark.

A black sedan with tinted windows sat idling across the street, its exhaust plumes curling up into the damp air. Two men sat inside. The interior light flicked on briefly as the driver lit a cigarette: short hair, heavy leather jacket, eyes scanning the street. Vance’s cleanup crew was already in position. They weren't waiting for sunrise; they were waiting for the neighborhood to fall completely asleep.

I parked my truck two blocks away, out of sight of the vehicle’s mirrors.

I took my field kit from behind the passenger seat: a heavy-duty tactical flashlight with a strike bezel, a six-inch length of zip-ties, a small glass-breaker, and a pair of Kevlar-lined gloves. No firearms. A weapon introduces fatal variables in tight, residential quarters where drywall cannot stop a stray nine-millimeter round. In an apartment building full of sleeping families, hands and leverage are cleaner.

I entered through the alley, bypassing the front vestibule entirely. The fire escape ladder hung eight feet off the ground, locked in place by a rusted counterweight.

I jumped, caught the lower rung, and hoisted myself up without making a sound. My boots hit the wet iron grate of the second-floor landing.

The kitchen window was unlocked—Dustin had likely pried the latch days ago to keep tabs on her. I slid the sash up an inch at a time, listening to the wood groan against the frame, then slipped through the opening into the pitch-black kitchen.

The apartment smelled of broken plaster, cheap cologne, and copper.

On the floor of the hallway, a large, dark stain marked the carpet where Marcy had landed after Dustin threw her down the steps. The closet doors had been ripped off their tracks; clothes were strewn across the linoleum, ripped apart at the seams.

I didn't turn on the flashlight. I let my eyes adjust to the ambient amber light filtering through the blinds from the streetlamps.

I moved directly to the stove.

The cast-iron kettle was an old Griswold, heavy, seasoned black with decades of use. I tipped it over. The bottom plate was secured with a recessed machine screw—a crude modification Marcy must have made using the tools in my garage. I unscrewed it with the tip of my pocketknife.

Inside lay a black, military-grade SanDisk thumb drive, wrapped in electrical tape to prevent it from rattling.

I slipped it into my pocket.