But I've seen her break tonight. Seen past all the professional armor to the woman underneath, someone who still feels everything despite years of learning to hide it.
Someone who loves deeply enough to shatter when the people she cares about are threatened.
It changes everything about how I understand her, how I understand us, how I understand what I'm willing to do to protect what we're building together.
Casey Holbrook's killer just made the biggest mistake of their life.
They hurt someone Lila loves.
Now they'll learn exactly what that costs.
Chapter 23 - Lila
I reconstruct Dr. Lila North piece by piece in the bathroom mirror, hands steady despite the way they want to shake. Foundation to cover the evidence of tears. Concealer for the shadows under my eyes that speak to sleepless nights and emotional devastation. Lipstick the color of dried blood, because if I'm going to view my friend's corpse, I might as well look like someone who belongs in a morgue.
The woman staring back at me is a masterpiece of controlled composure, every detail calculated to project professional competence. No one looking at her would suspect she spent the night sobbing against a killer's chest, or that she can still feel where his hands marked her body, or that she's about to view evidence of her own moral failure arranged with surgical precision.
Perfect.
"You're not coming inside," I tell Kent as he follows me toward the BMW, his presence a constant reminder of everything that's gone wrong. "Stay in the car."
"Like hell I'm staying in the car while you walk into—"
"This isn't a discussion." My voice carries the authority of someone who's learned to establish boundaries and enforce them without negotiation. "You don't exist in my professional life. You can't be seen at a crime scene, can't have your face captured on security cameras, can't risk any connection between Kent Shepherd and Dr. Lila North."
He stops walking, and I can see him processing the logistics of what I'm saying. The careful separation between our worlds that's kept us both functional, kept us both alive.
"Fine," he says finally. "But if you're not back in thirty minutes, I'm coming in whether it compromises your cover or not."
The protective edge in his voice sends something warm through my chest despite everything. Because underneath all the power games and psychological warfare, he still sees me as someone worth protecting. Someone whose safety matters more than operational security.
It's more than I had nine years ago, when he walked away rather than risk the complications of staying.
The drive to the morgue passes in silence, Kent's presence beside me like a live wire I can't quite touch. Every few minutes, I catch him studying my profile, cataloging the small tells that reveal how close to the edge I'm operating. The way my hands grip the steering wheel. The shallow breathing I can't quite regulate. The careful composure that's held together by sheer force of will.
He knows I'm barely holding it together. The knowledge should make me feel vulnerable, exposed. Instead, it feels like relief—someone who sees through the professional mask to the woman underneath, someone who understands the cost of maintaining control when everything inside is screaming.
The Metro Morgue rises from the morning mist like a monument to systematic death, all concrete and steel and the kind of institutional brutality that makes people grateful they're still breathing. I park in the designated consultant space and sit for a moment, gathering whatever internal resources I'll need to view Casey's body without completely falling apart.
"Thirty minutes," Kent reminds me, his voice carrying concern he doesn't try to hide.
I nod and step out into air that tastes like antiseptic and old grief, forcing one foot in front of the other toward whatever horror is waiting inside.
Detective Finch meets me at the security checkpoint, his tired eyes noting details about my appearance that I hope read as professional composure rather than barely controlled devastation. He's younger than I expected when I first met him—maybe forty-five, with graying temples and the kind of weary authority that comes from seeing too much violence.
"Dr. North," he says, shaking hands with the firm grip of someone who's learned to read people through touch. "I'm sorry about Casey. I know you two were close."
The understatement hits like a physical blow, because close doesn't begin to describe what Casey meant to me. She was the closest thing I've had to normal human friendship since building this life, someone who brought light and warmth and genuine caring into my carefully controlled world.
Someone who died because she trusted me with information she shouldn't have shared.
"She was a good person," I manage, forcing steadiness into my voice. "She didn't deserve this."
"No, she didn't." Finch leads me through corridors that smell like industrial disinfectant and something else—something organic and final that makes my stomach clench. "The scene is…difficult. Are you sure you're prepared for this?"
I want to tell him that nothing could prepare someone to view their friend's mutilated corpse. That no amount of professional training makes it easier to see someone you care about reduced to evidence in someone else's psychological game. That I've spent the last twelve hours processing the reality thatmy poor choices have consequences that extend far beyond my own life.
Instead, I nod and follow him deeper into the building's sterile heart.
