His jaw tightened, but he nodded once.
“I came to talk to you about Kane,” I said.
That got his full attention.
“I don’t know what your connection is to him...”
“Old military,” he said immediately. “Black ops, technically. He was the one they sent in when things got too messy for the rulebook.”
I hesitated, then said, “He came to see me.”
Harlan went still. Taller. His gaze flicked over me like he was assessing for damage. “Are you okay?” he asked, voice low and lethal. “I told him you and Remi were off-limits.”
I nodded. “He didn’t hurt me. But he left me a message.”
Harlan’s shoulders stiffened, but he didn’t interrupt.
“He asked me why Erin’s targeting us so hard,” I continued. “And it got me thinking. What if this isn’t about us at all... not really anyway.”
His brows drew together. “Then what?”
“Remi and I have both pissed off our fair share of men with fragile egos,” I said. “What if this is personal? Not for her, for someone she’s protecting. A relative, a partner, somebody with power or pull.”
I watched as the idea landed.
“You think she’s covering for someone,” he said slowly.
“I think she’s going scorched earth for someone,” I corrected. “You need to have Gray dig into her history, family, relationships, old cases, everything. Start from the year we opened the clinic and go back from there. If something we did touched someone close to her, it explainswhyshe’s this obsessed. There has to be a reason, Harlan. People don’t go this far without one.”
For the first time since I watched him cuff Remi, I saw it, the shift. The way his shoulders squared, the way his eyes sharpened.
He heard me. Really heard me.
“Will you talk to her?” I asked softly. “Remi. See if she remembers anything off. Any case that stands out from those first months.”
“I will,” he said, steady. “I swear, Ava. I’m going to make this right.”
I studied him for a long moment, memorizing the cracks in hisvoice when he said my name, the lines around his mouth from carrying too much for too long.
I nodded once, sharp and deliberate.
“Then do it,” I said. “Because this time, I need you to be who I thought you were. Ineedyou, Harlan.”
And then I walked away.
Because I still didn’t know if I could forgive him for everything.
But for the first time in weeks, I believed I might be ready to let him try.
CHAPTER 54
HARLAN - FLEX OF POWER
The precinct felt like a ticking bomb.
Every sound was too loud: every slammed door, every ringing phone, every muffled voice echoing down concrete halls. It all vibrated under my skin. The press hadn’t let up. Bureau agents were crawling the building like vultures, picking apart files and statements. Internal Affairs had started running background checks on my entire team, and it felt like every hour, another name got flagged.
And Erin Voss?
