Layla: You alive?
I typed back quickly, my fingers clumsy on the screen.
Me: Barely. Closing was rough tonight.
Layla: You need to hire more staff. Or a guard dog. Or a boyfriend with a gun.
I almost laughed. Almost.
Me: I'll take the dog.
Layla: Seriously, Betts. You okay?
I stared at the screen for a long moment. Layla was my best friend. The only person who knew the full extent of what was happening, who'd held my hand through the police interviews and the FBI meetings and the sleepless nights. She'd offered to let me stay at her place a dozen times, but I'd refused. I wasn't going to bring this danger to her doorstep.
Me: Yeah. Just tired.
It wasn't a lie, exactly. I was tired. Bone-deep, soul-crushing exhausted. But I also wasn't okay. Not by a long shot.
I shoved the phone in my pocket and climbed out of the car, my keys clutched between my fingers again. The street was quiet. Too quiet. The kind of quiet that made every shadow feel like a threat, every rustle of wind sound like footsteps.
God, I hated this. I hated who I was becoming. This jumpy, paranoid shell of the woman I used to be.
I'd grown up in this city. I'd worked my ass off to buy The Flame when I was twenty-five, pouring every penny I had into making it something special. I'd dealt with drunks and assholes and handsy customers for years. I'd broken up bar fights, kicked out dealers, and once talked a man out of putting his fist through a window.
I didn't scare easy.
But this? This was different. This was two dirty cops with badges and guns and the entire system on their side, and I was just one woman who'd seen something she wasn't supposed to see.
I made it to my apartment and let myself in, flipping the deadbolt and the chain behind me. The place was still a mess from the break-in. I hadn't had the energy or the heart to put everything back. My father's old recliner sat in the corner, the leather worn smooth from decades of use, and just looking at it made my chest ache.
Dad would've known what to do. He always had.
When Mom walked out on us when I was twelve, just packed her bags one morning and drove away without looking back. Dad had been the one to pick up the pieces. He'd worked double shifts at the factory to keep a roof over our heads, had taught me how to throw a punch and change a tire and never, ever let anyone see me cry. He'd been tough and gruff and not the kind of man who said "I love you" easily, but he'd shown it in a thousand other ways. Late-night driving lessons in the empty factory parking lot. Breakfast tacos on Sunday mornings. The way he'd nursed a single beer at The Flame on opening night, wearing his only suit. The same one he'd worn to my high school graduation, and beaming at me like I'd hung the moon.
"That's my girl,"he'd said, his eyes suspiciously bright."Your mama left because she didn't have grit. But you? You got grit, Betty. Don't ever let anyone take that from you."
He'd died two years ago.
Heart attack, they said. Quick and painless, they said, like that was supposed to make it better. Like knowing he hadn't suffered was supposed to ease the hollow ache in my chest that had never really gone away.
I'd buried him on a rainy Tuesday in October, standing by his grave with an umbrella that kept trying to turn inside out and a heart that felt like it had been ripped out of my chest. Layla had been there, solid and steady at my side. A few regulars from the bar. Some of the guys from Dad's old factory who'd driven in from out of town to pay their respects.
But the one person I'd wanted there. The one person I'd stupidly, desperately hoped might somehow find out and come. He hadn't shown.
Because Hudson Cole had left eight years before that. He had walked out of my life without a backward glance and disappeared into whatever black hole swallowed up men who chose the military over the woman who loved them.
I shoved the thought away like I always did. I wasnotgoing to think about Hudson. Not tonight. Not when I was already barely holding it together.
I dropped my keys on the counter, kicked off my shoes, and headed straight for the kitchen. Wine. I needed wine. Or whiskey. Maybe both.
I poured myself a generous glass of red and downed half of it in one go, leaning against the counter as the warmth spread through my chest. My hands were still shaking, but not as badly. My heart rate was coming down from cardiac arrest territory to merely terrified.
Just a few more weeks,I told myself for the hundredth time.The trial's coming up. Once Lang and Briggs are arrested, and once they're behind bars, this will all be over.
If I made it that long.
I finished the wine, rinsed the glass, and was halfway to my bedroom when I heard it.
