Page 57

As if Detective Hall could feel me watching her, she looked up from her report. Her lips curved. It wasn’t exactly a smile.

“Doctor West?” Her fingers swept across the files on her table, hiding whatever she thought I shouldn’t see.

“Hi,” I gave her a small wave. “Don’t mind me. I’m waiting for someone.”

Nia tilted her head slightly, as though she was trying to find the missing piece in the puzzle that was me, before she went back to her files after a few seconds.

Sighing, I pulled out my phone and opened the last message from the Strangler.

TS: I’m disappointed you did that to Sister Serena. Did she deserve it? Did she deserve to die like that, Yara? Did she deserve to be paraded in front of the fools, cut and carved? Did she deserve to have her death immortalized like that?

I gritted my teeth. She acted like it was my fucking fault. Like I was the one who butchered her.

Fucking bitch. I wished she was here in front of me right now. I would not even blink as I cut her down.

I flinched when I felt a hand on my shoulder.

“It’s me,” Ryden said, reading the message Patty sent me.

“Hey you.” I smiled.

“You okay?” Ryden asked, worried gray eyes wide on my face.

“She got the flower?”

I looked at the girl. She looked about Irene’s age. I gave her a comforting smile, but there was no comfort in knowing that you were… probably next on the list of a twisted psychopath.

She gave me a hand. I took it. Her palm was cold and clammy. I squeezed it.

“I have heard about you,” Valentina said.

“Only good things, I hope,” I said.

“Only good things.” She smiled.

I liked her, but people were rarely what they seemed. Experience had taught me that first impressions were often carefully constructed lies. But there was something real in the way she looked at me and smiled, like she trusted me. Like she trusted us.

“Go inside, Valentina. I’ll be right in,” Ryden said as he motioned for her to go inside before leaning in and pressing a kiss to my lips. “I think I’ve become accustomed to following you twenty-four seven. I still turn around expecting you to be there so I can tell you what’s going on.” He let out a long, exaggerated breath.

I laughed.

“That sounds like a problem, Mr. Sinclair.”

“Probably.” His smile softened. “It’s strange, though. Not having you next to me. I hate it.”

“You’ll survive.”

“That’s debatable, love.”

I rolled my eyes, but my heart was full of feelings, feelings I had never learned to name before Kat. But now I know what to call it.

It’s love. It’s more than love.

It was something bigger, something that had taken root within me so deeply that I couldn’t imagine a life without him. He had become a part of my days, my routines, my life.

Loving Ryden wasn’t really a choice—I didn’t consciously make it. It was as natural as breathing, and just as important.

“Drama queen.” Smiling, I threaded my fingers with his before we walked inside.