RietteRoux
The body of a teenage girl washes up near a jetty in South Beach, soaked, silent... and wrong. There are no bruises, no signs of struggle, and no ID. But when Dr. Alexx Woods performs the autopsy, she finds something horrifying: tiny incisions in the abdomen, and inside, several encrypted microchips surgically hidden in her digestive tract.
Horatio Caine immediately senses this isn't a local crime. It's the start of something bigger-something global.
As Calleigh Duquesne investigates the origin of the chips, she discovers they're not just storage devices... they're carriers of highly classified data-military-grade software, dark web intel, and black-market financial keys. Eric Delko tracks the chips to a tech firm shut down for trafficking in illegal surveillance systems, while Ryan Wolfe identifies a disturbing pattern: other missing teens, all from underfunded outreach programs across Miami, vanished without a trace.
Natalia Boa Vista connects the case to a cyber-crime broker known only as Ghostline-a faceless digital entity selling secrets to the highest bidder, using teenagers as human couriers to avoid detection.
As the team races against time to find the next potential victim, federal agencies begin circling the case, pressuring Horatio to stand down. But Horatio's never been one to bow to bureaucracy-especially not when innocent lives are on the line.
Haunted by the weight of the girl Alexx couldn't save, the team is more determined than ever to stop the next dead drop before the body count rises. But the closer they get, the clearer it becomes: someone on the inside is feeding information to the enemy... and no one is truly safe.
> "Secrets die hard in Miami. But justice dies harder."