“He’s not in the back!”an officer shouted.
Azlyn’s head snapped up.
He’descaped?
The man who had killed Olivia had slipped away from the back seat of a police cruiser?That wasn’t just impossible—it was alarming.Police cruisers didn’t have interior door handles in the back.No one justlet themselves out.
Which meant…
It wasn’t just an accident.
Her stomach dropped.
Was this retribution?Payback for a documentary that had hit too close to home?For an interview that exposed too much?
She didn’t know.Not yet.
But shewould.
Azlyn’s hand moved instinctively to stroke Griffin’s soft hair.Her heart ached to charge forward, to scream for justice, to tear open the truth the way she always had.But she couldn’t.
Not anymore.
She had a greater duty now—to the small, sleeping boy in her arms.
He needed her alive.Whole.Vigilant.
So instead of stepping into the fray, warning the officers, demanding answers, Azlyn took a single step back.Then another.The shadows swallowed her as she moved away from the flashing lights and the rising questions.
“It’s okay, Griff,” she whispered against his downy head, steadying her voice for his sake.“We’ll get through this.Just like we always do.”
Carefully, trying not to draw attention to herself, Azlyn slipped away from the scene where her best friend had been run down.
Her chest ached, but she held herself together.Barely.
When she finally reached her home, she closed the door with quiet precision and immediately locked it—deadbolt, chain, and the extra latch she’d installed after someone had broken in years ago.Her job as a researcher and executive producer wasn’t supposed to be dangerous… but truth had a way of painting a target on your back.
She and Olivia had always operated under the radar.By the time the people they exposed even realized they were being investigated, it was too late.The story was already out.The media storm had already hit.Most of the time, their subjects were too busy scrambling for damage control or talking to lawyers to bother threatening them.
But tonight felt different.
Azlyn slid down against the door until she was sitting on the floor, knees bent, back pressed against the solid wood.Her mind raced as she sifted through the mental files she’d built over the years—every corrupt executive, every violent narcissist, every powerful predator they’d shined a light on.
None stood out immediately.
Which terrified her more than if one had.
Because this didn’t feel like a random act.It felt targeted.Personal.Calculated.
Not for her own sake—Azlyn had always been willing to put herself at risk.Bullies were cowards, and cowards cracked under exposure.Sure, some got nasty.A few had gone scorched earth.But she and Olivia had weathered worse.
Now, though, she had Griffin.
And Griffin changed everything.
It was hard enough protecting herself.Protecting a baby?Nearly impossible.He couldn’t be stashed in a secure server or encrypted behind a password.He cried when he was hungry, he pooped at the worst times imaginable, and he blew through diapers as if they were personally responsible for all his troubles.
She’d tried nursing exclusively, but her son had the appetite of a teenage linebacker.Now she supplemented with formula just to keep up.The pediatrician called him "thriving."
