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I didn’t want to be here. I didn’t want to have Tanner look at me that way. He was always angry, always. He covered it up with funny and crude comments, but he was angry underneath. And Kai—I couldn’t look at him.
Kai was ice. Always controlled. Always thinking, planning. Kai ran our empire.
Kai kept us safe, and he’d tried with me.
It was my fault.
“I have to call her brother,” I announced.
“Jonah.” Tanner started for me, but I moved away, shaking my head. He stopped, but then Kai moved forward.
“Let us call him,” Kai said. “This is Oliver?”
Of course, Kai knew his name. Kai probably knew more about my fiancée than I did. Ex-fiancée? Was she an ex when the relationship ended because of death?
So much fucking pain.
What was the threshold? When would I start going numb? I thought that’s what happened. You feel too much until finally you stop feeling? It was a coping mechanism, or that’s what I’d studied. The shock should’ve settled in long ago.
I remembered what Tanner said before, about the fighting. I didn’t remember that.
Shock must ebb and flow. I hadn’t realized. That was good to know.
“He’d be expecting a call from her, if—wait.” The hospital. “The doctor said they were going to notify her family. They would’ve called him.” Melissa wasn’t tight with their parents, but Oliver was. He was the youngest and most adored, as Melissa put it.
She hadn’t known I was also the youngest. Brooke teased me about being the most adored in my family.
I never told her.
She would’ve liked knowing that.
Brooke.
“I don’t want Brooke to know.”
Tanner and Kai shared a look.
“She’ll freak out, and I can’t handle it. I…” I had no clue what I was doing. Melissa’s family would handle what they could. Kai would take care of anything else. I had work. But… there’d be a funeral. Was I supposed to… No. Her family would do that.
Her body.
Then I remembered why I’d left the library in the first place. “I don’t know where my phone is.”
Kai glanced to Tanner, who was already shaking his head. “I don’t have it.” He frowned at me. “The cops ask to see it?”
They had.
I’d forgotten.
“They still have it.”
Kai pulled his phone out, already dialing a number. “They asked for it for evidence. I’ll see if the lawyers can get it back.”
See? He took care of everything.
“What do you need, Jonah?” Tanner had moved closer.
I shook my head. “I have no idea. I want to murder whoever killed her. I want to see her body, say goodbye. Her family won’t want me at the funeral. I’m sure the cops will tell them the connection. And even if it wasn’t about who we are, it won’t matter. They’ll still go there, be angry she was involved with me in the first place.”
What did I have if I wasn’t with Melissa? Being a surgeon?
“I want to see her body,” I repeated. I looked over at Kai, who was finishing his call. “I need to say goodbye.”
He gave me a small nod and was on the phone again.
He’d make it happen. That’s what he did.
Chapter Six
CARSON
Sometimes being a forensic technician was cool, sometimes it wasn’t.
And I wasn’t even the lab director. That was Milo. I was the technician, so I was more their assistant—doing the tests, taking the samples, stuff like that. But currently, I was exhausted, and I wasn’t loving my job, because I’d already worked a sixteen-hour shift. And even though I’d clocked out, I had more left to do. We’d had more bodies than normal come through. The other tech, Benjamin, had the weekend off for a wedding he was going to up in Oklahoma.
This wasn’t a normal situation, but that didn’t matter. It was all me.
Milo had called, said she needed a rush on some new tests on the most recent body, and since I was the closest to the lab, it was on me to get it done. Police had called in late, putting an urgent rush on the tests. I agreed, because what choice did I have?
I remembered when the body came in. Even though she was dead, she was beautiful.
Her family had come through, asking to see her.
I also noticed her ring. I mean, Milo had noticed, too. It was swabbed before it was taken in for evidence, but it was a serious rock. Whoever loved this girl really loved her. The dude had money, but he hadn’t been with the family when they came in.
A pair of parents. The mom was stiff. The dad, too. They’d just stood there, looking at her. The little brother broke my heart. He was maybe in high school? He’d fallen apart, and then they’d left.
No one else had showed up since, so the lab was dark and closed when I went back.
I scanned my badge, went in, and went to the back room to put my stuff down. I was coming back out with my lab coat on and my hair pulled back when I heard the voices.
