He’d always been good at reading people. He saw the cracks below the surface, the fractures in the armor. This one was all restraint and righteousness now, but somewhere underneath all that flinty composure was a man who didn’t sleep well, who ground his teeth in his dreams, who had a fire in his blood. A dangerous man. A man who was here to break him.
Ash smiled wider, wicked and slow. Good. He liked a challenge.
“Aren’t you cold in that getup?” the copper asked at last, nodding toward the harness peeking out from beneath Ash’s open jacket.
He rolled a shoulder, feigning indifference. “I run hot.”
There—a flicker at the detective’s mouth. Too brief for a smile, too human for nothing.
Ash caught it. Logged it like a collector slipping a rare coin into a velvet-lined case. He leaned in, enough to let the heat bloom between them. It was automatic, instinctual: the curl of his voice, the drag of his lashes, the slow dilation of his pupils catching the low light and sparkling. People melted when he turned that look on them. They stammered. Surrendered. Gave more than they meant to.
This one didn’t move. Didn’t flinch. Didn’t even blink. Nothing.
Ash felt the shift in his gut—not rejection, exactly, but something worse. As if the connection hit glass and slid off, leaving only his own reflection staring back. A flicker of unease slithered through him. He told himself it was because he was tired, because he was in shock, because he blew his mojo on those muggers earlier. But that was only half the truth, wasn’t it?
The other half sat across from him, stone-still and impregnable.
Ash pulled back, fingers curling against the table to ground himself. He kept his smirk in place, lips painted in defiance, but under the surface, his confidence faltered.Why didn’t it work? Why couldn’t I touch him?
“You know why you’re here,” the cop said, his tone flat, professional, annoyingly unaffected; a scalpel before an autopsy. Just business. Just another night at the butcher’s table.
“Interior decorating advice?” he offered, faking courage that slipped from him with every passing moment. He forced a smile, the kind that once made tips rain and guards drop, but the old tricks didn’t land here. Not in this room, not on this man.
There was no reaction. Only the whisper of paper as he opened the case file, and then the slide of photographs being spilled across the metal surface, tarot cards from a cruel deck. Blood. Torn flesh. Art made of agony.
Ash didn’t look. The images were already tattooed behind his eyes. He could still smell the coppery bite in the night air, feel the cold of the pavement against his knees. He wouldn’t be able to shake it, no matter how much he wished he could. Instead, he watched the badge watching him.
“Why don’t you make it easy for everyone and tell me what really happened?” the detective said.
Ash’s smile tightened.Easy.That word. It always came with strings attached. “I don’t see my lawyer.” He leaned forward, lashes lowered. “I distinctly remember asking for one when your buddy cuffed me to the table like some low-budget bondage fantasy.”
He hadn’t expected it to land, but some part of him still hoped the guy would crack. Show something. Anger, disgust, curiosity. Anything but that wall of granite calm. “We’re processing it,” came the reply. “For now, this is off the record.”
Ash reclined slowly, the plastic chair groaning in contempt. “Is that what you tell all the boys before you bend them over?” The deflection was sharp, polished. He’d spent years refining it. Push first, before they can push you.
The detective didn’t move, but Ash thought he saw an emotion passing behind his eyes—an ember catching wind, a pulse below stone, a lightning too far off to hear. “You were found covered in the victim’s blood,” he said, leaning in now, elbows braced like pillars. “Face mutilated. Body arranged like some kind of sick shrine. You expect me to believe you just stumbled across it?”
Ash held his gaze. Cool. Unshaken.Be ice. Be smoke. Be gone before they can cage you. “Are you always this charming, Detective? Or is this your idea of foreplay?” He didn’t dare let the quiver in his chest show. The hunger. The fear. His throat was sore with the memory of what he’d seen. The way the body didn’t look human anymore. The smell. The absence. And still, no warmth from within; no stolen heat to shield him.
“Answer the question.”
“You first.” A smirk ghosted across his lips. “What’s your name?”
A pause. The copper’s jaw ticked. “Slade. Rick Slade.”
Ash turned the name over in his mind, letting it roll across his tongue. “Rick Slade.” Solid, stark as the man himself. Sculpted from stone and bourbon-soaked regret. “It suits you.”
Slade didn’t take the bait. He just watched, unyielding.
“Well, Rick,” Ash said, slow as honey on a warm spoon, “like I told you before… you’ve got the wrong guy.”
Slade tapped a finger against one of the photos. “Then what were you doing there?”
“Smoking a cigarette. I’d appreciate one right about now.” The excuse was thin. He could hear it tear as it left his mouth. But he couldn’t stop. He didn’t knowhowto stop. Anything tokeep the panic on its leash. Anything to keep the gumshoe from noticing the tremor in his hands or the way the room felt too small, too full of ghosts. The only thing worse than being accused was being seen.
Slade was not amused. “A man is dead. Face cut off. No ID. No phone. No clothes. Prints came back clean—no record. And you just happened to wander into the alley, just in time to cuddle a corpse?”
Ash tilted his head, expression lazy. “What can I say? I have a thing for alleys. Dark corners. Repressed men with badges.”
