Idropped my keys onto the hook by the door and shoved it shut behind me with my foot. One shoe came off neatly by the wall, while the other ended up sideways, halfway across the floor.
When I made it to the kitchen, I grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge and twisted the cap off the top. I took a long drink before setting it down on the counter.
Then my eyes went to the file.
It was right where I’d left it. Sitting at the edge of the counter like it was waiting for me to give a damn. I’d told myself all week it didn’t matter, that I didn’t care.
But I hadn’t thrown it out, had I? That said enough.
I picked it up, flipped it open, the corner of the cover curling under my thumb.
Her name was at the top of the first page:Valentina De La Vega.
Contrary to what the woman thought, I wasn’t stalking her. I’d taken the file Max had left on his desk—the one his PI handed to him. I didn’t like that he was having her followed. I thought it was an invasion of her privacy, and that wasn’t some moral stand—I just didn’t see the point.
Valentina was going to make mistakes. Let her. We didn’t need a file to know she was teetering on the edge.
Apparently, Max thought otherwise.
Still, much as I didn’t like it, I’d been itching to read the damn thing. I wasn’t sure what that said about me.
I’d seen it on Max’s desk for over a week. It had caught my attention every time I walked past it, and despite myself, I wanted to know what information it held on her.
I told myself it was professional curiosity; that knowing who I was dealing with wasn’t unusual. And maybe it wasn’t, but this? This felt different. Almost like I was looking for something specific, even if I wasn’t sure what it was.
The first page was standard. Name. Background. A bullet-point list of everything she’d done to land her in this position. Mistakes, bad decisions, debts she’d never dig herself out of. If Max had been trying to prove she was a liability, he’d succeeded. The Callahans. The drinking. The absolute lack of self-preservation. She ticked every box.
The Callahan connection was bolded, as if whoever had typed this up knew it was the headline Max would care most about. Valentina’s past wasn’t a tragedy, it was an endless cycle of chaos she’d willingly spun herself into. Debt collectors listed with bold red numbers. Debts bigger than most people’s mortgages. A reckless marriage to a man who’d been found dead under ...suspiciouscircumstances.
I flipped the file open again, my attention catching on the date of birth typed neatly in the top corner.
She was twenty-two.
The number felt wrong somehow. She was too young. Too young for the husband who’d left her drowning in debt. Too young for the chaos she surrounded herself with and the kind of trouble that ended with your name in a file on Max Romano’s desk.
At twenty-two, I’d barely figured out who I was beyond a uniform and a set of orders. I had no excuse for reading through a report on a woman a decade younger than me. No justification beyond idle curiosity and my habit of overstepping.
The age gap sat wrong with me, adding another layer of discomfort I didn’t want to examine closely. What the hell was I doing, standing here late at night digging through Valentina’s past as if I had any right to judge her?
I turned the page roughly, eyes landing on details I wasn’t sure I should know. Awards she’d gotten in high school—academic achievements, art scholarships, recognition for talents that painted a very different picture from the woman I’d seen struggling at José’s bodega. She’d earned a full ride to a decent college in Jersey, which she’d dropped out of after just a semester.
Family details came next. Her mother was ill—something I knew from bits and pieces overheard from Max. Her father was listed too but marked as absent. A deadbeat dad who clearly hadn’t stuck around to help. I wondered briefly if he was part of the reason she’d ended up marrying Cillian.
I snapped the file shut and tossed it back onto the counter as if it had burned me.
None of this was my business. Not her awards, not her college scholarship, not her absent father.
She may be young, but I was old enough to know better.
I should’ve thrown the damn file away the second I took it.
But I didn’t.
I’d done far worse things than read a file that wasn’t mine—things that wouldn’t just cross moral lines but erase them completely. And yet, for some reason, this felt different. Smaller, sure, but also ...personal.
It wasn’t like I cared about Valentina. I didn’t. Not beyond the fact she was Max’s problem and, by extension, a potential problem for me.
But there was something about the file that nagged at me.
