The 4th Precinct didn’t look like a place of justice. From the sidewalk, it looked like a fortress built to keep the community out, not to keep them safe. The brick was stained with decades of city soot, and the windows were barred, reflecting the grey morning sky like unblinking, indifferent eyes.
I adjusted the collar of my navy blazer. It was a cheap thing, bought off the rack at a department store two towns over. My jeans were worn at the knees. I wore no makeup, and my hair was pulled back in a messy bun. I didn’t look like Maya Johnson, top of her class at the Academy, former FBI analyst, and the newly appointed Police Chief of a city on the brink of collapse.
I looked like a “nobody.” And that was exactly the point.
My father used to tell me, “If you want to know a man, watch how he treats the waiter. If you want to know a department, watch how they treat the desperate.”
I walked through the double doors. The air inside was thick, smelling of floor wax, stale coffee, and aggressive apathy. The fluorescent lights buzzed with a headache-inducing hum.
Behind the high front desk sat Officer Torres. I knew his file by heart. Fifteen years on the force. Twenty-two excessive force complaints. Zero disciplinary actions. He sat like a king on a throne, boots up on the counter, scrolling through his phone while a violently loud video played.
I approached the desk. “Excuse me.”
I kept my voice low, trembling slightly on purpose. I wanted to see the predator response.
Torres didn’t look up. He swiped his thumb across the screen, chuckling at a video.
“Excuse me, Officer,” I said, a little louder. “I need to speak with someone. It’s urgent.”
Torres finally deigned to lower his phone. He didn’t look at my face. He looked at my clothes. He looked at my hands. Then he looked at my skin. The sneer that curled his lip wasn’t just annoyance; it was a practiced, comfortable hatred.
“Mayor’s busy. Captain’s busy. I’m busy,” he muttered, returning to his phone. “Beat it.”
“I have an appointment,” I lied. “With the Mayor. Here.”
“The Mayor doesn’t meet with street trash in the lobby,” Torres spat. “Security!”
He didn’t wait for an answer. “Get this woman out of here. She’s soliciting.”
Two uniformed officers by the coffee machine straightened up. They looked bored, their hands resting lazily on their belts, dangerously close to their batons. They started walking toward me, heavy-footed and intimidating.
I didn’t step back. I planted my feet.
“Officer Torres,” I said, dropping the tremble from my voice. The steel entered my tone. “I am asking you one last time to check your roster.”
Torres froze. Something in my voice—the command, the lack of fear—confused him. But confusion in men like Torres quickly turns to aggression. He stood up, towering over the desk.
“You listen to me,” he growled, leaning over so his spit hit the glass partition. “I don’t know what kind of drugs you’re on, but you need to drag your ass out that door before I throw you in a holding cell for resisting arrest.”
“I am not resisting,” I said calmly. I reached into my jacket pocket.
“GUN!” Torres screamed, his hand flying to his holster.
The two officers drew their weapons.
“It’s a letter,” I said, moving with agonizing slowness, pulling out the folded piece of parchment. “Signed by Mayor Richardson.”
Torres snatched the paper from my hand before I could unfold it. He didn’t read it. He didn’t even look at the seal. He tore it in half. Then into quarters. With a theatrical flourish, he threw the confetti pieces into my face.
“You know what that is?” he laughed, playing to his audience of snickering officers. “That’s littering. That’s another charge.”
He came around the desk. He was big, smelling of tobacco and sweat. He invaded my personal space, using his chest to bump me back.
“You disrespect me? You disrespect my house?”
“This isn’t your house, Officer,” I said, my eyes locking onto his. “It belongs to the people of this city.”
His face went purple. “You little—”
He raised his hand.
It happened in slow motion. I saw the intent in his eyes. I could have blocked it. I knew Krav Maga; I could have dropped him to his knees in three seconds. But I didn’t. I needed them to see this. I needed the cameras to see this.
Thwack.
The slap echoed through the lobby like a gunshot. It was heavy, wet, and stinging. My head snapped to the side. The taste of copper filled my mouth.
Silence fell over the room. Even the buzzing lights seemed to quiet down.
I didn’t fall. I didn’t cry.
I slowly turned my head back to face him. I tasted the blood on my lip and smiled. A cold, terrifying smile.
“Are you done?” I asked.
Torres blinked. He looked at his hand, then at me. He expected fear. He expected tears. He didn’t know what to do with the predator who didn’t run.
“Cuff her!” he shrieked, panic creeping into his voice. “Assaulting an officer! Break her legs if you have to!”
The guards grabbed my arms.
“GET YOUR HANDS OFF HER!”
The voice boomed from the stairwell, shaking the dust off the rafters.
Mayor Richardson stood on the landing. Behind him were the City Council President and the District Attorney. They had been there for a tour. They had seen everything.
The guards dropped my arms as if they were made of burning coal.
Torres spun around, his face draining of color faster than water down a drain. “M-Mr. Mayor! I… this woman… she was erratic… she reached for a weapon…”
“I saw what she reached for, Torres,” the Mayor said, descending the stairs with the fury of a storm. “She reached for her credentials.”
Torres looked back at me, confused. “Credentials?”
I brushed the torn paper off my blazer. I reached into my back pocket and pulled out the gold shield. The light caught it, shining brightly in the gloom of the lobby.
“Badge number 001,” I said softly.
Torres’s eyes bulged. He looked at the badge. He looked at the Mayor. He looked at the torn paper on the floor.
“Chief… Johnson?” he whispered. The air left his lungs. His knees actually knocked together.
“That’s Chief to you,” I said. “Actually, to you, it’s nothing. You don’t speak to me anymore.”
I walked past him, stepping up to the desk he had treated like a throne. I picked up the precinct phone and dialed the PA system.
“This is Chief Maya Johnson,” my voice boomed through every room, every holding cell, every office in the building. “Lock the doors. Nobody leaves the building. We are initiating an internal review immediately.”
I slammed the phone down and turned to Torres. He was shaking.
“I… I didn’t know,” he stammered. “It was a mistake.”
“The mistake,” I said, leaning in close so only he could hear, “was thinking that your badge gave you the right to be a tyrant. The slap? That was just the evidence.”
I gestured to the two guards who were now looking at the floor. “Cuff him. Assault on a superior officer. Destruction of federal property. And… let’s add disorderly conduct, just for fun.”
As they clicked the cuffs onto Torres’s wrists, I saw Officer Amy Parker standing by the water cooler. She was holding her phone up. She had recorded the whole thing.
“Send that to me,” I said to her.
“Yes, Chief,” she said, her voice filled with awe.
They thought the slap was the climax. They were wrong.
We locked the building down for 48 hours. I brought in my own team—people I trusted from the FBI. We tore that precinct apart.
In Torres’s desk, we didn’t just find dirty magazines. We found a ledger. A literal “Blue Book” of bribes, protection money from local gangs, and a list of evidence that had been “lost” over the last decade.
The slap was just the key that opened the door to twenty years of darkness.
By the time the sun rose two days later, Torres wasn’t the only one in cuffs. Twelve officers, including the Captain who had been “too busy” to come downstairs, were arrested.
I stood on the precinct steps, the media flashing their cameras in a blinding wall of light. My cheek was still bruised, a purple mark of the battle.
A reporter shouted, “Chief Johnson! Chief Johnson! Do you regret coming in undercover? You were assaulted!”
I touched the bruise on my cheek. It throbbed, but the pain felt like victory.
“I regret nothing,” I told the cameras. “Because now, the people of this city know that when they walk through these doors, the monsters are gone. And if any new ones try to crawl in…” I looked directly into the lens. “…I’ll be waiting.”
