"Good. Give it here."
I hadn’t even cracked the folder when the radio squawked.
"All units... respond to a reported assault, possible DOA. 73 Millstone Lane. Repeat, 7-3 Millstone. Caller identified as Ava Sinclair."
I didn’t process the rest. My heart stilled.
“Millstone?” Remi’s voice cut across the station. She’d been waiting with her arms crossed, eyes sharp, a storm building ever since she shared with me some hard truths. “That’s Sofia’s aunt’s address. Where she was supposed to be safe.”
Safe.
I looked at the junior officer manning the front. "Let her go," I said.
Remi was already moving.
So was I.
I was in the cruiser before the dispatcher finished repeating the call. Tires screamed as I peeled out of the lot, lights on, sirens on. The sun was barely visible, a smear of blood across the horizon. My knuckles clenched white on the wheel.
Don’t let it be bad, not like that. Not like she warned.
But even as I thought it, I knew. In the same way, Ava must’ve known.
When she asked me to send a cruiser to check... the look on her face when she decided she was going alone...Fuck.
The house sat at the end of a gravel drive, old siding gone gray with weather, porch light flickering like a warning. No unit on scene yet. No sound but the cold wind and the whisper of my boots on the crushed rock.
The front door hung open.
My weapon was drawn before I crossed the threshold. The smell hit me first. Copper. Fucking copper...
Furniture was overturned. Glass crunched beneath my boots. A blood trail smeared across the floor toward the kitchen.
I moved fast.
And then I saw her.
Ava Sinclair.
Her tiny frame on the floor, her cardigan balled up against an older woman’s temple, both of them stained in blood. Her eyes were wide but focused. Her hands were trembling, but she was holding steady.
She looked up at me, and she met my eyes, and the look she wore... God, what had we done?
“She’s in the guest room,” she said softly.
And I felt something in me break.
The way she said it...
My steps were fast, heavy, barely aware of the room as I moved down the hallway.
I came to an ajar door. One hinge hanging.
I knew what I would find before I saw it. But I still wasn't prepared.
Sofia.
Crumpled beside the bed. Skin mottled, bruises black against gray. No breath. No pulse.
