After Ali let slip her little comment about Levi and his brother, Nero and I put two and two together. Levi sells drugs out of his house on Hudson Ave. But he makes them in his brother’s basement.

While Evan has been squandering his inheritance in Ibiza, Levi’s been using his house. Now that big brother is coming home, Levi’s pissed because he’s got to find a new location for his lab.

Nero and I confirmed all this by doing a little spying of our own. Taking a page out of Schultz’s book, we tracked Levi to the Mohawk Street house, which he apparently visits every Thursday night to pick up the product for the week. Or I should say, his trusty bodyguard Sione picks it up, while Levi makes sure he never carries so much as a single pill on his person.

But he does come to the house. And that’s where I’ve got to meet him. If I have any hope of Schultz getting rid of my unwanted “boss” once and for all.

I knock on the door, bouncing nervously on the balls of my feet while I wait for someone to answer. I can feel the microphone between my breasts. I’m sweating a little, and I’m afraid the tape might come loose. I try to hold still, so I don’t jostle it any more than necessary.

At last the door cracks. I have to look up to meet Sione’s stern, unsmiling gaze.

“I need to see Levi,” I tell him.

He stares at me, like he’s thinking about slamming the door in my face. Then he cracks it just wide enough for me to pass.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” Levi demands, the second I step inside. He’s standing there with Pauly, Sione, and a guy I don’t know. All four of them look tense and irritated. Nobody is laying around smoking weed here—the Hudson Street house may be for partying, but Mohawk is all business.

“Who the fuck told you about this place?” Levi shouts.

“Nero sent me,” I say, quickly.

“What?” Levi says, narrowing his eyes.

“He wants to make a deal with you.”

“What kind of deal?”

“He wants product. A lot of it.”

Levi casts a swift glance at Sione. I think I see his huge shoulders lift and lower in a near-imperceptible shrug.

“Why did he send you?” Levi says.

“I’m his girlfriend.”

“His girlfriend?” Levi hoots.

Pauly mutters something to Levi, maybe confirming what I’ve said. Levi’s face changes in an instant, becoming much more respectful.

“I didn’t know that,” he says.

“He wants me to check out the lab. If he likes what I tell him, his family will place an order.”

“This ain’t McDonald’s,” Levi says, frowning. “I don’t usually manufacture for anybody else.”

“Fine,” I say, coldly. “I’ll tell the Gallos what you said.”

“What, like . . . all of them?” Levi says, looking nervously from me to his men.

“Yeah, all of them,” I say. “Enzo’s been letting you run your little operation in his neighborhood. I would think you’d want to stay on friendly terms with the Gallos. But don’t let me tell you how to run your business.”

Levi licks his lips, irritated by but not quite bold enough to lip off about the Gallos.

“Fine,” he says, shortly. “Let’s go down.”

I already told Schultz I was going to use the Gallos as a cover story. Still, I hope he doesn’t get any bright ideas about using that part of the tape as evidence.

I follow Levi down the creaking wooden stairs to the basement.

It’s about twenty degrees hotter down here. I was already flushed and overheated from the stress of lying to a bunch of tightly-wound drug dealers. Now my skin starts to sweat worse than ever. I wipe my forehead with the back of my hand, not wanting Levi to notice.

“Don’t you have AC?” I ask.

Levi shrugs. “It’s hot in the kitchen,” he says.

The basement is large, but low-ceilinged. Only tiny windows set high in the walls lead to the outside. The space is totally unfinished—bare concrete floors and exposed struts. Still, there really is an industrial “kitchen” of sorts, with vats, a distillery, and a hood that vents into the backyard.

The three “cooks” are dressed in boxer shorts, leather aprons, heavy-duty gloves, and rain boots. They’re all wearing face-masks. Sweat drips down their exposed skin.

I have no idea what they’re doing. I can see various stages of drug-making in process, but I don’t know what any of it means.

“So where do you get your ingredients?” I ask Levi.

“The precursor ingredients come from China,” he says. “You start with safrole. Then you make methylamine hydrochloride from formaldehyde and ammonium chloride.”

I nod my head like I know what any of that means. Vic would understand. Hopefully Schultz does too, on the other end of the wire.

Levi continues his explanation, pointing out the various stages of drug-making. I keep nodding and egging him on, hoping this is enough “incriminating evidence” for Schultz to bust down the door. In fact, I expect to hear the cops breaking in any second.

I sneak a quick glance at my watch. It’s twenty to eleven. Not only do I need to get Schultz in here, I also need to get out myself. I’m supposed to pick up Nero and the others at 11:05 precisely.

“Then you crystallize the MDMA oil by combining it with hydrochloric acid and isopropyl alcohol,” Levi finishes.

“Sounds like a lot of work,” I say, weakly.

“Yeah, it’s a shit-ton of work,” Levi says. “And don’t touch anything ‘cause there’s mercury fucking everywhere.”

Great. I’m probably taking a week off my life every minute I spend down here.

“Satisfied?” Levi sneers. “Gonna give me a good report to Nero?”

“Yeah,” I say. “It all looks . . . great.”

“What the fuck is that?” Pauly says, pointing to my stomach.

In slow motion, I look down. Without me even noticing, the tape peeled off my sweat-soaked skin, and the microphone fell out of my shirt. It’s now dangling by my crotch, hanging at the end of its wire.

Quicker than I can blink, Levi pulls a knife and slashes the front of my shirt. He rips it open, revealing the loose tape, the microphone, and the battery pack. He rips it off of me, throwing it to the ground and stomping on it until it’s a mess of broken plastic.

“You’re a fucking rat,” he says, blue eyes alight with fury.

“Yeah, and the cops will be here any second, so don’t even think about using that,” I say, eyeing the switchblade in his hand.

To my shock and dismay, Levi just laughs.

“I don’t think so,” he spits. “I have a signal jammer in every corner of this house. The cops didn’t hear shit from that recording. Which means nobody’s coming to save you.”

He jerks his head at Sione.

“Get rid of her,” he says.

Sione seizes me by the arm and starts dragging me up the stairs.

“No!” I shriek. “You don’t want to do this!”

“I absolutely do,” Levi says, carelessly.

Sione is dragging me like I’m a rag doll. It takes zero effort for him to pull me back up to the main floor, and into the actual kitchen.