Remi’s lips parted just enough to land the killing blow:
“Didn’t know when you said you had my back, you meant you’d be standing there cuffing me.”
No yelling. No theatrics.
Just quiet devastation.
I walked her out because my legs knew how to move even when my lungs didn’t know how to breathe. I read her rights while patients watched like I’d grown horns. Like the badge on my chest confirmed the betrayal they were seeing with their own eyes.
Ava screamed her name.
And I didn’t turn around.
Because if I did, I’d fall apart where everyone could see it.
I didn’t stop driving until the clinic was miles behind me.
Didn’t stop shaking until I pulled off the road and sat there, forehead pressed to the steering wheel, breath coming in jagged bursts.
Then I puked into the dirt.
Kept going until there was nothing left.
When I finally stopped, my hands still wouldn’t steady.
I called Kane.
He picked up on the first ring. “Kane?”
“You okay?”
“No.” My voice cracked on the word.
“Talk to me.”
I stared at the horizon, vision blurred, tasting bile and regret.
“I did what you told me. I played along. I didn’t blow the op.” My voice was low, rough, stripped raw. “But if we don’t burn this from the inside soon, Kane, I’m gonna lose them.”
“You said this needed to be clean.”
“Yeah. But tell me how clean looks when the woman I...” I stopped myself, jaw clenching hard. “When Ava looked at me like I was the fucking enemy.”
“She still alive?” Kane asked.
“What the fuck kind of question...”
“Answer it.”
“Yes,” I snapped.
“Then shut up and stay the course. Gray lands in twenty.”
I scrubbed my hands down my face, bile burning my throat. “That’s not enough. Send more.”
There was silence on the other end, and I knew Kane was hearing everything I wasn’t saying.
“I don't know if I can come back from this,” I whispered. “Not with Ava. Not with Remi.”
