“Why are you rooting around in my data?” he asked without a hello.
“There’s not even a low-level, forgotten, traffic ticket ten years ago,” I answered, never naming names.
Caleb hummed. “Ah, our elusive Doc.”
I listened as Caleb rattled off what he had managed to find out about Doc, which wasn’t much.
“Rosen!” Someone snapped and startled the shit out of me. Stanton was right there in front of me as I listened to Caleb. Jesus—where was my situational awareness, and just how long had he been standing there? He stepped closer than necessary, voice low enough that no one else could hear.
“Fuck off, Stanton, I’m on a break,” I lied, and ended the call to Caleb as he leaned over me, squinting at the screen. I tabbed out to a boring, safe grocery list before he got a good look. He didn’t move, hovering in that way he had when he thought he was being subtle about wanting to dig, and of course, he had more to say.
“Wanted to give you a heads-up,” Stanton added, lowering his voice like we were conspirators, but he was smug. “IA asked me directly for an update on the MC/Cartel situation.”
My jaw tightened. “And?” I dared him. I didn’t blink. I wanted him to feel it.
“And nothing,” he said, too fast, too bright. “Just thought I’d give you the courtesy of a warning.”
A warning, my ass. The bastard sounded gleeful—IA’s attention on me for things I had nothing to do with had lit him up like Christmas. I stared at him, and he finally shifted, looking uncomfortable for once.
He added, “Just passing it on.”
Yeah. Right. The man didn’t warn out of courtesy; he warned because he’d worked with my dad, hadn’t seen what was happening, had been embarrassed, and now liked watching me squirm and hoped I’d give him a show.
“I’m. On. My. Break,” I repeated slowly, and waited for him to leave. He did, eventually. Or maybe I stopped hearing him. Was it wrong that the first image in my head was me pulling my service weapon and putting a bullet somewhere non-vital—like a toe? Something to stop the smug bounce in his walk? Surely no one would judge me.
He bristled. “You’re a liability, Rosen. You think you’re bulletproof because Davis likes you? One day, your name is going to bury you… and anyone dumb enough to trust you.” He held my gaze a second too long. “Watch yourself.” When he walked away, I imagined a target on his back and how easily it would be to aim right at it. Fucker.
I didn’t reopen the secure link on my phone, talking myself out of digging deeper, because I knewexactlyhow far I’d go if I didn’t stop myself now. If there was one thing Frank had taught me, it was how to recognize when I was about to step off an edge. Too bad he didn’t know about Doc, and I’d already stepped.
By the time my shift ended, my brain was fried, my nerves were raw, and I’d decided three separate times I was going to cut this thing with Alejandro off. I wasn’t going to see him again. I wasn’t going to let him put his hands on me again. I wasn’t going to let myself be the kind of idiot who’d let a man like him crawl under his skin. The decision didn’t feel real, but I clung to it anyway.
Frank was talking shit with one of the uniforms near the elevators, and he shot me a knowing wink as I grabbed my jacket and headed out without bothering to say goodbye. He knew damn well I wasn’t going home. He might not have details, but he understood me well enough to recognize when I was clocking out on paper and clocking right back in the second my feet hit the street.
Outside, the air had that late afternoon chill, the sky a flat, pale blue that said we were in for a colder night. My car was three blocks away. My apartment was fifteen blocks in the opposite direction. I walked home.
Every step was an argument with myself.
I’m in too deep.
I knew what Doc was the second I’d seen him at the warehouse. I recognized his vacant expression as that guy bled out.
You put your hands on him anyway.
By the time I hit my street, I’d worn a groove into the inside of my head that felt like a headache. I stopped at the corner and scanned the block reflexively. Habit. Training. He wasn’t there. Good. My chest loosened a fraction.
I climbed the stairs, keys in my hand. The hallway was quiet, the kind of quiet that used to soothe me and now just reminded me how empty my life was outside the job. It hit me sometimes—the silence, the emptiness, the way the apartment waited for me and no one else.
I told myself that was fine. I’d made it fine. No partners. No one to lie to. No one to lose.
The key was halfway to the lock when it happened.
“Detective.”
The voice was low, familiar, coming from the shadows near the far end of the hall. I went cold and hot at the same time.
Ofcourse, he was here.
I turned, hand already dropping toward my holster. Doc stepped out of the dim space between the stairwell and Mrs. Henderson’s door, hands shoved in his pockets, hood up, acting as if he belonged anywhere dark and inconvenient.
