Judge Bao

The story so far

The Envelope on the Table (chapters 1-10)

Bianca Yates gets into places that are locked. She is copying a ledger in Port Mercy's municipal contracting warehouse, minutes before it can be purged, when the Public Integrity Unit raids early and she lands on the roof face to face with investigator Zach Zane. Below, on a live camera, Director Bennett Bao refuses a contractor's cash envelope, and the city starts calling him Blue Sky Bao. Bianca's copy holds 418 entries; the official seizure holds 403. Fifteen records have vanished, a witness is beaten in his home, and Rowan Pike, a contractor's hired man, is hunting anyone who knows too much. Zach believes in procedure, even when it is slow. Bianca thinks his procedure gets people hurt. And the unit is out of time: without six council votes by August 31, it ceases to exist.

The Request on the Bridge (chapters 11-20)

The money behind the envelope leads to MCS-441, a contractor billing code that reaches police commander Victor Vale, and to a stolen packet that marks a woman named Liana Quinn and her two children. Witness Mateo Silva is still exposed, the lawful route to Rowan Pike's phone could take months, and on a rising lift bridge Zach makes the worst choice of his career: he asks Bianca to break into the contractor portal for him. The break-in may poison the case, and the unit walls Zach off from everything it touches. When Rowan comes to the hospital, the cost arrives in full. Then comes a race through the flood channels for Vale's evidence, the oath of Bianca's crew, the Rats, and a memorial where mayoral candidate Simon Chen turns grief into a campaign weapon.

Glass and Counterweight (chapters 21-29)

A new witness walks in with her children and a marriage record, and the case aims higher than anyone at the unit planned. The council will fund the PIU, at the price of an audit that could expose its secret sources, and someone close to the case has been leaking where the witnesses are.

Her Own Hands (chapters 30-48)

The trail leads to Simon Chen, the polished mayoral candidate engaged to a developer's daughter. The developer offers the unit permanent funding to walk away, Simon's lawyer is very good, and Bianca and Zach can no longer pretend there is nothing between them.

Tide Doors (chapters 49-66)

Bianca makes her own deal, and for a while the case and the romance both move forward, until Rowan Pike strikes at the Rats' boat shop, and the hunt for a lost dispatch recording ends on a retired ferry with six workers trapped as the water rises.

The Last Stair Down (chapters 67-81)

With the unit's charter days from expiring, Zach takes the stand, Bennett faces an offer built to be impossible to refuse, and a king tide rises over the old Low Quay dry dock, where the case has one last secret to give up.

Chapters 21+ unlock with coins or Unlimited.