“Then make sure it’s worth it,” Kane said. “Or we all burn.”
I hung up without saying goodbye and sat there in the cab, badge on the seat beside me, the weight of it heavier than it had ever been.
I whispered into the empty truck: “Just survive this. Pray she forgives you in the end.”
But I didn’t believe it.
Not anymore.
Because somewhere along the way, I stopped being one of the good guys.
CHAPTER 46
AVA - SHE'S GONE
The clinic looked like a war zone.
The windows were still shattered, glass dust glittering across the floor like cruel little stars. A chair lay on its side, one leg bent at an angle that would never be right again. Someone’s notebook had been trampled into mud and coffee, pages smeared and illegible.
And Remi’s mug, the one with the chip in the rim and the stupid little cactus on the side, was smashed near the counter, splintered into five jagged pieces.
I hadn’t picked it up.
Couldn’t.
Not yet.
Instead, I swept around it.
Not because it helped.
But because it gave my hands something to do. Something to keep them from shaking.
The cops were long gone.
The press hadn’t arrived yet.
But the rumours? They were like wildfire.
Every buzz of my phone was another ember catching.
Emails. Texts. Questions I couldn’t answer.
The internet was already eating us alive, churning with words likefraud,illegal shelter,trafficking, and investigation.
None of it true.
All of it louder than I could silence on my own.
I closed my eyes for half a breath and let the weight of it settle on my shoulders, the wreckage, the whispers, the image of Remi’s wrists in cuffs and Harlan standing there, silent.
And then the door creaked.
I didn’t turn. “We’re closed.”
“Well, that’s unfortunate,” a familiar voice said. “Because I came all this way.”
I looked up.
