This time, the fist hit the table like a gunshot. “You think this is a joke?”
Ash’s smirk vanished. His gaze turned blade-sharp. “No. But you do. You think I’m just some dumb kid who got in over his head.” A beat of silence passed. “Maybe I am. Or maybe I don’t like talking to pigswithout my fucking lawyer.”
The last word cracked in his throat, wrapped in memory of fists and flashing lights and those officers whose breaths reeked of whiskey and hatred. The ones who taught Ash early not to trust a badge.
“We don’t need a confession,” Slade said coolly. “Forensics is working the scene, and a witness confirmed you left the club with the victim.”
“Bullshit,” Ash snapped. “I haven’t seen Jimmy in weeks. I left with another guy.” He stiffened, only for a breath, but it was enough.
Fuck.
Too late. He’d let himself get distracted—by the voice, the body, the way Slade filled the room like a thunderstorm about to break. Now he was going to pay for it.
Slade’s smile was all teeth, more beast than man. “So you did know him.”
Ash clamped his mouth shut. He’d already said too much. Let too much slip. The name tasted bitter now, iron and dust corroded with guilt. He didn’t know Jimmy all that well, but there had been kindness there, the kind that lingered, the kind that didn’t deserve to die alone, screaming.
Slade raked a hand through his hair and exhaled, the tension unspooling from him in thick, invisible threads. “Look. I don’t think you’re the killer. But you’re close enough to smell the rot. Help me out here. What was his last name?”
Ash hesitated. The silence stretched thin. It’s not that he didn’t want to help; he just didn’t believe it would do any good. Not to Jimmy, and certainly not to him. Then again, if anyone might bring some justice in this cold, dark world, this He-Man might. It was a hunch, nothing more, but right now it had to be enough. “I don’t know his full name,” he said at last. “It was a hookup. That’s it.” His gaze dropped. “He was a nice guy.” His voice softened at the edges, lost its lacquer. “I didn’t know it was him. Not until I saw…” The words scraped as they left him, unvarnished. His throat bobbed. Just for a second, he let the armor slip.
Slade didn’t interrupt. Simply leaned back, arms folded, watching him the way you watch a stray cat inch toward your doorstep. “What else? Anyone leaving the alley? Give me something, kid. You don’t strike me as stupid.”
Ash’s mouth curled, but there was no amusement this time. “No. Just expendable, right? You cops are all the same. Fuck off.”
Slade’s eyes narrowed. “Fine. We’ll see what the lab turns up. If your prints are on the murder weapon—”
“There is no murder weapon,” Ash cut in. “You’d be booking me already if you had one. You wouldn’t be sitting here playing Good Cop-God Complex.”
Slade rose, slow and seismic, a mountain pushing off its foundation. “It’s all a game to you, is it?” he growled, voice deep enough to drag gravel. “A man was killed, boy! Someone cut off hisfucking face!”
Ash stood too, uncoiling from his chair in one liquid stretch, all feline grace and defiance. “And I told you,” he shouted, loud and lethal, “I didn’t kill him!”
The air between them crackled—thick, volatile, electric. Neither of them blinked. Fury shimmered just below the surface, restrained only by the thinnest leash of self-control. Ash’s lips curled into a venomous snarl; Slade’s jaw ticked, stone-carved and thunder-silent.
Then the door burst open.
Slade’s partner stepped in, followed by a petite woman in a pencil skirt suit and a fancy hat, dark hair curling above her shoulders, heels a ticking clock slicing into the granite. Her briefcase was a shield; her words, a knife.
“Good evening, gentlemen. I’m Leonor Ortega,” she announced. “Mr. Hunter’s attorney. And this interview is over.”
Slade didn’t move. Didn’t breathe. His stare remained pinned on Ash, two storms orbiting the same lightning rod, each waiting for the other to strike first. “You sure you want to play it this way?” he asked quietly.
Ortega’s voice sliced through the tension before Ash could respond. “I’m sure you don’t have enough to charge him. No motive. No weapon. No eyewitness. Holding him without cause is skating on thin ice.”
Slade’s partner exhaled and lifted a placating hand. “We’ve got forty-eight hours.”
“And you’ll waste them,” Ortega said, with the calm certainty of someone who knew the law better than she knew most people, her smile as cold as polished steel. “Because unless forensicsgives you a miracle, you’ve got nothing. Now, I’d like a moment alone with my client.”
With a grunt and a clatter of keys, the other cop stepped forward to uncuff Ash from the table. The shackles dropped away, cold metal clanking.
Ash flexed his wrists, dragging his gaze over Slade one last time. That unreadable face, those iron eyes, hands braced on the table, veins taut beneath the skin, jaw clenched so hard it looked like it hurt. Without a word, Slade stormed out of the room, his partner following him into the hallway. The door clicked shut behind them.
Ortega crossed to the other side of the table and sank into the chair. “I’m sorry for being so late, Mr. Hunter,” she said evenly. “Mr. Rossi retained me as soon as he heard you’d been brought in, asked me to make sure you were taken care of.”
“No worries.” Ash settled in his seat, rolling the tension out of his shoulders. “I figured the boss would send someone. You only missed my little heart-to-heart with the burly detective.”
A corner of Ortega’s mouth twitched, barely. She opened her briefcase, composure sliding back into place as she withdrew a stack of documents. “All right,” she said. “Let’s start from the top. You okay to talk?”
