Poker Night Fallout for the Investigation

“Stolen?” Sinead wondered out loud, tapping her pen against her desk.

The night, overall, had been a disaster. Marc had surprised her with another undercover operation, even if what they did before that was pretty fantastic. She’d rubbed shoulders with escorts, sports celebrities, minor politicians and a bigger variety of criminals than she’d ever seen in one place other than behind bars.

Victor Barisha, no matter the fact that he was a slimeball weasel, was a lot better connected than she would have even guessed. She was… 90% sure he wasn’t le Français, but if she could nail him on a big enough charge he could probably sing about all sorts of interesting criminal enterprises for a big enough deal.

The key were the antiques. She and Marc hadn’t gotten a very good look at them, but they definitely hadn’t been North American, and her gut said they weren’t European either. North African, or maybe from somewhere in the Middle East. Her gut also said they were what was valuable, not something hidden inside them - if he’d been worried about ****, he wouldn’t care so much about some potential cosmetic damage.

So what antiques needed to be smuggled overseas, shipped down the St Lawrence and into the Great Lakes? From Lake Ontario and the Toronto ports, someone could ship stuff by boat and through the locks to Buffalo, Detroit, Chicago. Milwaukee. Toledo. Cleveland. The list went on and on, and that was just considering if they were the final stop and not just another leg to get deeper into the US.

For them to need to be smuggled, Sinead surmised, the antiques either had to be so valuable that someone didn’t want to pay taxes on their purchase, or there was something illegal about them. Sure, they could be made of an illegal substance like ivory, or maybe be some sort of an illegal object, but they were most likely stolen from someone, somewhere.

“You look like you’re a dog who caught a rabbit and doesn’t know what to do with it now,” Jules said as she came back into the empty ‘Financial Forensics’ office and set down the fresh cup of coffee on Sinead’s desk.

“Just… thinking,” Sinead said.

“How hard?” Jules smirked. “Am I going to start seeing steam come out of your ears?”

Sinead rolled her eyes. “Alright, hypothetical situation for now - I suspect someone is smuggling antique goods into the country, and I’m fairly certain I know the general how, but not the exact what. How do I get a warrant for the place I know they are at so I can get a proper look at them?”

Jules blew out a breath and shook her head as she sat down, kicking her feet up onto the edge of the desk she’d appropriated while she was working in the office. “Do you have any evidence?”

“Eyewitness testimony that it’s there, but not what,” Sinead said. “... And the testimony is from someone who might be considered compromised if it gets dug into.”

“Sinead, what the fuck did Marc do?” Jules asked.

“I- He- Nothing.”

Jules raised both eyebrows. “I-He-Nothing,” she mocked. “Did you go stake out that warehouse again, just with Marc this time?”

“... No,” Sinead said.

“Did you break in?”

“No!”

“But you went in,” Jules guessed.

Sinead gestured haphazardly, trying to find the words that could deflect the accusation but not finding them. “Victor invited Marc to a poker game,” she finally admitted. “Marc brought me as his ‘arm candy’ undercover.”

“And you didn’t tell me?” Jules scowled. “I could have been there as backup!”

“I didn’t know we were going there until we were already there,” Sinead said.

Jules narrowed her eyes suspiciously, and Sinead knew she’d put her foot in her own mouth. “What were you doing driving around with Marc before you knew?”

“I… would prefer not to say?”

“Sinead!” Jules said, sitting up and pounding the top of her desk. “He’s our fucking not-quite-a-CI! You can’t sleep with him!”

“We haven’t slept together,” Sinead said. “No sex has occurred.” Not that she hadn’t wanted it to. She’d been kind of expecting sex at the end of the Poker night. The fight had helped sober her quickly, but they’d stayed for another couple of drinks - she’d realised later that he’d only had one glass of wine to her two. At the end of the night, after the poker game had ended and Marc had been the talk of the bar for a few hours, Marc had quietly spoken with the hairy Italian guy and came to some sort of understanding as they shook hands. Victor had apologised again to Marc, promising to meet him in the morning. After that, Marc had driven her back to his place, but instead of escorting her up to his apartment, he’d called her a taxi.

That had been a kick in the cunt. Despite all his stupid decisions that night, she’d been fucking dripping for more of him. His stupid heroics, his stoic control, and even the way he interacted with the other poker players, had all been fucking hot. Even him reaching into his suit jacket pocket and finding a card with that blonde bimbo Rachel’s phone number on it, and casually making a threesome joke before tossing it away, had been hot. Sinead had been imagining him fucking her on every damn surface of his apartment. And instead, she was sent home cold, horny and full of more questions.

And she didn’t even complain about it, because he was in charge. That’s what she’d agreed to.

It was killing her, just a little bit, but also turning her on.

“Fuck, Sinead,” Jules said, burying her face in her hands. “Fuck, you want to, though.”

“Want is different than will,” she lied.

“God fucking damn it,” Jules groaned. She leaned back in her desk chair and looked up at the old, dirty drop ceiling tiles above them. “Is this why you don’t want Marc as an official CI?”

“No, that’s all him,” Sinead said. “You talked with him, you know he’s willing to help out but doesn’t want to ruin his business to do it. And it’s not like we had leverage on him.”

“Right,” Jules grunted. “OK, so what actually happened that night? Just between us. Then we can figure out what’s actually usable, and what we have to sit on like a fucking butt plug because your horny ass can’t just go get laid like a normal fucking person.”

So Sinead told her… most of it. About the ‘dates’ with Marc, and being undercover with Victor. About the poker game, and the fight, and the crates. She kept back the dirty stuff, though. The BDSM talks. The oral. The gifts - God, the gifts might have been the worst part, procedurally, since they could be considered bribes. She kept all of that to herself because it belonged to her. They were her choices.

And she was trying to choose both her work and Marc, because for once in her life she’d found something other than work that she wanted. And she was going to try and hold onto them both.

Breakthebar erotica is powered by Patreon, where early chapters are released ahead for all of my series. Le Francais is a Commissioned Work. PM if interested in helping fund the series, or if you are looking to commission a story of your own!