The Blue Recruit. Nikolai Drew, #1

Nikolai Drew came from a long line of lawmen - six generations deep. But legacy didn't open any doors. If anything, it slammed a few shut. People told him he'd never make it. Too blunt. Too intense. Too unwilling to play the politics. He heard it all: "You're not what departments are looking for." "You don't check the right boxes." Still, he put himself through the academy, scraping by on part-time jobs and sheer grit.
Because deep down, he knew he wasn't just born to wear the badge - he earned it. It wasn't easy. He got passed over more than once, left to watch less qualified candidates rise ahead of him in the name of optics and policy. Affirmative action, they said. Timing, they said. But Nikolai knew what it was. And he waited. Watched. Endured. Then the break came. LAPD. Patrol Division. South Bureau. It wasn't glamorous, but it was real.
Boots on the pavement, nights that didn't end, calls that made your stomach turn. He loved it - until it all changed in an instant. A routine stop. A suspect with nothing to lose. A flash of movement, a gun, and then. impact. The bullet struck center mass. His vest took the brunt, but the force cracked his sternum and drove the breath from his lungs. Pain blurred his vision, but he returned fire - instinct, training, survival.
He lived. Barely. But something in him had changed. The badge didn't just mean service anymore. It meant risk. Sacrifice. And truth - the kind no academy teaches. As he healed, Nikolai realized this was only the beginning. The real battle wasn't just on the streets - it was inside the system. And Nikolai Drew had just stepped onto the front lines.