I chuckled. “You threatening me, Carter?”
She smiled sweetly. “I’m promising you.”
I nodded once. “Fair enough.”
She stood, gathering her things into a leather satchel that looked like it had already lived three lives. At the doorway, she paused, turning back to me.
“You’re not as old-school as you pretend to be,” she said.
“Is that a compliment?”
She shrugged. “Not sure yet. But you’re growing on me.”
And then she was gone, leaving me in the soft hum of the clinic. The smell of lavender disinfectant and bitter coffee lingered.
Two girls from the same storm, I thought. One building walls, one burning bridges. Both made of fire.
And me, standing amongst them, hoping like hell I wouldn’t be the one to burn.
CHAPTER 26
AVA - ALREADY DECIDED
Harlan Gray didn’t storm into your life.
He didn’t crash through walls or light fires or demand space.
He just showed up. Quiet. Steady. Present.
And for someone like me, someone who had grown used to noise, to chaos, to people who made promises louder than they could keep, it was the stillness that caught me off guard.
These days, it wasn’t just stillness.
It was him leaning across the counter, brushing his fingers against mine, when he slid the coffee over. It was the way his lips ghosted over my temple when no one was looking. It was that low rumble of his voice when he muttered,“Morning, baby,”like his words were mine and mine alone.
I pretended it was routine. He pretended not to notice how my breath hitched.
Neither of us said the words we weren’t ready for, but they hovered there, thick as the autumn air pressing in through the cracked clinic windows.
Remi didn’t say much about it. But she noticed. Of course, she noticed.
“You like him,” she sing-songed once, flipping through a folder.
“I do.”
She looked up. Her expression softened, almost wistful. “You love him…”
I didn’t know if it was a question or a statement.
But I couldn’t answer. Couldn’t put it out there in the world. Not yet.
Because even as I leaned into Harlan’s steadiness, something else was shifting. Something colder.
Sergeant Erin Voss.
At first, I told myself I was being paranoid. But Erin had a way of circling like a hawk. She lingered too long outside the clinic doors. Interrupted intakes without warning. Took over cases that should’ve been ours. Once, she walked straight into my office mid-session, clipboard in hand, her fake smile sharper than any blade.
She called it “cross-referencing reports” or “jurisdictional overlap.” Bullshit.
