The sound of her bedroom door closing is the loudest thing I've ever heard.
My father laughs, bitter and cruel. "See? Even your own mother doesn't give a shit about you."
He kicks me one more time, then stumbles toward the living room and his recliner. Within minutes, I hear him snoring.
I lie on the kitchen floor for a long time, tasting blood, feeling my ribs scream with each breath. And I understand something fundamental about the world.
Love means looking away.
Love means knowing someone is suffering and choosing not to see it.
Love means staying, even when staying destroys you.
My mother loves my father. I know she does. She tells me so on the good days, when he's sober and almost human. "He loves us," she says. "He just has a hard time showing it."
But if this is love—this violence, this turning away, this choosing the abuser over the abused—then love is twisted beyond recognition.
I blink, and I'm back in my car, my hands gripping the steering wheel so tight my knuckles are white. The memory fades but doesn't disappear. It never does.
I force myself to breathe slowly, to let the tension drain from my shoulders.
That was many years ago. My father is dead. My mother is dead. That house of horrors is ash and memory.
But the lessons remain.
I pull into my building's private garage and sit in the darkness, the engine ticking as it cools.
Is that what I'm doing with Eve? Recreating the model my parents taught me? Confusing control with care? Possession with devotion?
The thought makes my stomach turn.
No. It's not the same. I'm not hurting her. I'm protecting her. There's a difference.
But is there?
***
In the observation room, I watch Gideon Rivers type his pathetic excuse for an investigation report. He thinks he's being thorough, careful, professional. He has no idea I'm reading every word before his fingers even leave the keyboard.
I lean back in my chair, a smile playing at my lips as I watch the document take shape on my screen. Dead ends. Public records. Surface-level financial analysis that wouldn't impress a first-year business student. This is what Eve thinks will protect her? This is her attempt to hunt me?
It's adorable, really.
I watch Rivers scroll through his notes, his face illuminated by his laptop screen in his dingy office across town. He's convinced himself he's being clever, that he's closeto something. But all he's found are the breadcrumbs I've deliberately left—enough to make Bryce Royston look like the obvious suspect, enough to send Eve's investigation in exactly the wrong direction.
Poor Gideon. He has no idea he's a pawn in a much larger game.
My phone buzzes with the notification I've been waiting for. The report has been sent to Eve's email. I switch cameras, pulling up the feed from her office. She's still there, even though it's past ten. My beautiful, driven girl, drowning herself in work to avoid thinking about the walls closing in around her.
I watch her open the email, her face bathed in the glow of her computer screen. Those expressive green eyes scan the document, and I can see the moment hope flickers and dies. She was counting on this, on Rivers finding something concrete. Instead, all she has is confirmation that Bryce is unstable and dangerous—which she already knew—and absolutely nothing about the man who truly controls her world.
Me.
She sets her phone down and presses her palms against her eyes, a gesture of exhaustion I've seen a hundred times. The urge to go to her, to pull her into my arms, make her moan, and promise her that everything will be alright, is almost overwhelming. Soon, I tell myself. Soon I'll be able to touch her, comfort her, claim her properly.
But not yet.
I pull up Rivers' financial records on another screen, studying them with mild interest. The man is drowning in debt—mortgage, student loans, and a daughter's medical bills. He's desperate enough to take a case he knows is dangerous, stupid enough to think he can actually solve it.
