From a vantage point atop a hill overlooking the warehouse, Brandon knelt low behind a thicket of overgrown shrubs, his body pressed against the cold earth as if he could somehow merge with the ground and disappear. He had earlier stepped on a twig which had announced his presence. But he was lucky enough to escape before being caught. His breathing still haggard in his chest. The dampness seeped through his jeans like ice water, but he barely noticed—his entire being was focused on the scene unfolding below. His breath came in short, controlled puffs that he fought to keep silent, each exhale a potential betrayal of his position.
The high-powered camera in his hands whirred as he adjusted the zoom, the sound audible but deafening to his paranoid ears. Through a narrow gap in the rusted wall where a section of metal had peeled away like a wound in the building's skin, he could see inside the safehouse. His breath fogged the eyepiece, forcing him to wipe it clean every few seconds with fingers that had gone numb from more than just the cold.
"Come on, give me something," he whispered to himself, the words lost in the night air but echoed in his own mind. His hands were steady despite the adrenaline coursing through his veins like liquid fire.
He had captured frame after frame of the cartons being moved, positioned, opened. The men handled them with a care that spoke of valuable contraband, but from his distance he couldn't make out the contents. Then one of the figures moved into the light, and Brandon adjusted his focus, bringing the man's face into sharp relief.
The face was angular, scarred, with eyes that seemed to glitter with malevolent intelligence even through the camera lens. Brandon studied it, committing every detail to memory, but couldn't place it.
Then Sean stepped into the light.
Brandon's breath caught in his throat. His heart slammed against his ribs like a caged animal desperate for escape. The camera slipped from his nerveless fingers. There was no mistaking that posture, that profile, that way of carrying himself that Brandon had observed. 
But Sean Carter wasn't standing like a cop investigating a crime scene. He wasn't positioned like law enforcement ready to make arrests. His body language spoke of comfort, familiarity, belonging. He was part of this. Not just witnessing it, not just investigating it—participating in it.
"Shit," Brandon muttered.
His mind raced as he continued shooting. How long had this been going on? How many cases had been compromised? How many victims had been betrayed by the very person who'd sworn to seek justice for them?
He lowered the camera, disbelief clawing at his gut like a physical pain that radiated through his entire body. With trembling fingers—fingers that shook now with rage as much as cold—he tapped a quick encrypted note into his phone. The screen's glow lit up in the darkness, a beacon that might give him away, so he toggled the brightness down to its lowest setting and shut it off.
Every instinct screamed at him to get out. Now. Before whatever was happening down there concluded and those men started looking for witnesses. He'd stumbled onto something that could get him killed—something that already had gotten people killed, he was certain of that now.
He slid backward on his stomach, moving with agonizing slowness through brambles that caught at his clothes and scratched at his exposed skin. Every twig that snapped under his weight sounded like a gunshot. Every rustle of fabric against brush sounded like an alarm. He moved with the desperate care of a man who understood that discovery meant death.
The shrubs gave way to gravel, and he low-crawled the remaining distance to where his navy sedan waited behind an old, peeling billboard. The advertisement was for a shopping mall that had closed five years ago—another casualty of the city's slow decay, another monument to broken promises and abandoned dreams.
He moved fast now but still silent. His hands shook as he unlocked the door and slipped inside, the familiar smell of his car's interior comforting after the cold horror of what he'd witnessed. He inserted the key and started the engine, killing the headlights before they could give him away.
One last glance over his shoulder before he pulled away. The safehouse loomed in the fog like a mausoleum, still and silent once more, its secrets temporarily contained within walls that had witnessed too many crimes to count. But the secrets wouldn't stay contained. Not now. Not after what he'd seen.
He drove, fighting every instinct that told him to floor the accelerator and race away from this nightmare. But drawing attention now would be suicide. He forced himself to drive like a man with nothing to hide, even as his mind raced with the implications of what he'd discovered.
He didn't know the full story yet. Didn't know how deep this corruption went or how many others were involved. Was this just Sean, or were there others in the department? How high up did it go? How long had it been happening?
But he knew one thing for sure, and that knowledge burned in his chest like acid:
Sean Carter—Detective Sean Carter, Kendra's colleague, might not be who they thought he was. 
And Kendra needed to know. She needed to know that her partner, the man she trusted with her life every day, wasn't someone she could trust.
The realization became certain to him that Kendra might be in danger if she continues to trust Sean. 
Brandon pressed harder on the accelerator, his careful driving giving way to urgency. The photos on his camera were evidence that could bring down a corrupt cop. But first he had to survive long enough to deliver them.
Behind him, the warehouse disappeared into the fog, but its shadow would follow him forever. He'd crossed a line tonight—the line between ignorance and knowledge.
There was no going back now.