Emrys’ gaze darts over to Kade again, a tight smile forming on his lips before a tear slips down his cheek. He leans forward beneath the blanket, voice scraped thin and barely loud enough to carry. “He didn’t do it.”
“No?”
My answer seems to break him more than disbelief would have. His face crumples, and more silent tears slip down, but his voice comes again, a little stronger this time. “He didn’t do it. I tried to tell them. Outside, I said it. Kade pulled him off me. The man ran, and Kade stayed, but they wouldn’t listen.”
“I’m listening now.”
One of the officers behind me shifts forward as I lift one hand without turning, a silent request for patience or maybe a warning. Either way, the room holds.
“What’s your name?” I ask.
“Emrys,” he whispers.
“Do you go by Emrys?”
“Rys.”
“Rys, then, unless you tell me otherwise.” I keep my voice as calm as I can, because the last thing he needs is the room crowding inside the sound of his own name. “I need to make sure I understand you. You were attacked by someone who wasn’tKade Rourke. Kade intervened. The attacker ran before officers arrived. Kade didn’t hurt you.”
“No.” There’s no hesitation this time, Emrys’ voice strong enough that Bell looks over from the counter. “No, he was careful. He didn’t touch me after. He asked if I was bleeding, and he kept looking at my face like he thought there was more blood. But I needed a hug. That’s why he was touching me.” His gaze slips past me, fixing on Kade again, running over the flour coating the Alpha’s body. “He has flour on him because of me.”
At first glance, it’s impossible to believe there was someone else. Kade’s covered in flour and so is Emrys. It’s a logical deduction but just a few minutes around the both of them and I’m wondering if everything is wrong.
Convincing the officers who brought him in and the chief that everyone made a mistake, though, isn’t going to be the easiest thing I’ve ever done.
Emrys drags the blanket around him a little tighter, searching my face. I clock the forming bruise around his lips and the bit of blood but the Omega just shakes his head. “I’m fine. I just... no, it’s not about that. My tote ripped,” he says, the words coming a little faster now. “It was leftover flour from Ardor. I was bringing it home because I said I would, which was stupid because I didn’t even need it, and Priya told me not to carry heavy things after close because I’m short and dramatic about stairs. I told her I’m not short. I’m average in several countries.” His breath shakes at the end, as if he’s embarrassed by the spill of ordinary words in the middle of this.
“You’re absolutely average in several countries,” I tell him, solemn enough to make it something steadier than a joke. A smile spreads across my face as his scent evens out a little. “And the flour is the one normal thing in a very abnormal room, so we’re going to pay attention to it.”
A tiny sound catches in his throat, a mixture between a sob and a laugh. His fingers loosen slightly in the blanket. “The man said my name,” he whispers after a moment. “Not Rys. Emrys. Like he knew it already.”
I drag a hand through my hair, a sigh pulling from my lips. This wasn’t how this night was supposed to go. “I’m going to make sure they hear you this time,” I tell Emrys, keeping the promise as procedural as I can make it, because anything softer would come too close to the bond pressing at my ribs. “Medical needs to look at your face, and we need your official statement when you’re ready, but you don’t have to do all of that sitting in the middle of everyone’s assumptions.”
His fingers tighten once more, but not as hard. “And Kade?”
I push to my feet, nodding to Reyes to take over before refocusing my attention on Emrys. “I’ll make sure to get his side of the story too, so we can prove what really happened.” I want Emrys to be right. I need him to but I also don’t want to promise him hope if I can’t deliver.
Skylar
Interview room two has always been too small for anyone with shoulders, but it looks especially determined to make Kade Rourke uncomfortable.
He’s sitting on the far side of the metal table with his hands loose in front of him, wrists uncuffed now but faintly marked where the cuffs sat. I stand in the doorway for half a second longer than I should because the first breath in the room gives me his full scent. The cedar is steadier now than it was in intake, controlled enough to make the room feel less frantic around theedges. The whiskey sits underneath, and it keeps catching in the back of my throat while I’m trying to remember that I’m here to interview a suspect, not catalog all the ways my body has decided to betray procedure.
In my head, he’s not guilty, but I can’t just walk him out the front door either.
Fuck, this is going to be messy. I step inside and close the door softly. Kade’s eyes lift to mine, and up this close, he looks tired beneath the stillness. He isn’t visibly shaken or rattled, but he’s held together with so much care that I can see the strain in the edges.
“Mr. Rourke, I’m Detective Grayson,” I say as I take the chair across from him and set my folder on the table. “This interview is being recorded. Detective Williams and Officer Bell are observing. You’re not under arrest at this time, but we’re keeping this formal because tonight has already made a strong argument against letting assumptions do paperwork unsupervised.”
“I understand,” he pushes out.
A shiver crawls down my spine at the rich tone of his voice. It takes all of my control to swallow the sound at the back of my throat before taking a seat across from him with the slim folder of written notes put together by the officers. Beneath that is a printout of Kade’s file, information that an officer definitely spent way too much time on.
Clean record. Six years running Rourke Securities. Two commendations, both civilian, both ugly in the way commendations usually are because no one gets one for having a pleasant afternoon. One involved a domestic abduction recovery. The other involved a fire evacuation in a building with bad stairwells and worse maintenance records.
None of that proves anything about tonight but it does point to a pattern, one in which screams Kade wasn’t the assailant.
“For the record, state your full name, designation, and current address.”
