Pierce stood very still. Then he nodded, once, and something in his face closed off.
"I hope you find whatever you're looking for, Sloane." His voice was cold now. Wounded pride hardening into something that would curdle into resentment by morning. "I hope the job keeps you warm at night."
He grabbed his jacket from the back of the chair. His keys from the counter.
He didn't slam the door on his way out. The quiet click of the latch was somehow worse.
I sat alone at the table. Surrounded by the remnants of dinner and the relationship I'd known wasn't right for months—maybe from the beginning—but had stayed in anyway.
Because it was easier than being alone.
The apartment was very quiet.
I thought about calling my sister. My mother. Anyone who could tell me I'd done the right thing—that I deserved better than someone who wanted to shrink me down to fit his idea of a wife.
But I knew what they'd say. What they'd been saying for years, in different ways, with varying degrees of patience.
Why do you always find a reason to leave?
Two years with Pierce. Safe, stable Pierce, who looked good on paper but never made my heart catch. I'd thought it might work—stable career, steady hands, a man who came home at the same time every night.
But Pierce flinched at the parts of my life that mattered most. The late-night stakeouts. The threats from people I'd exposed.
He wanted a woman who played it safe. I'd never been her.
Before him, David—eighteen months of something that was never going to work, but I'd tried anyway. Before David, a string of first dates and second dates and relationships that fizzled before they started.
Because I was always comparing. Always measuring. Always finding everyone lacking against a standard I refused to name.
I'd built a pattern. Men who were available. Men who were suitable. Men who didn't make me feel too much, want too much, risk too much.
Men I could leave without it destroying me.
Because the last time I'd let myself fall completely, I'd nearly drowned in the aftermath.
And I'd hurt him in a way I still couldn't forgive myself for.
Some people didn't get second chances. Some people didn't deserve them.
I believed I didn't.
I pulled the arson files from my bag and spread them across the table.
Engine 295.
The words sat there, waiting.
Shane would help me. Brian would help me. Captain Rodriguez had always been cordial.
I had options. I'd worked cases connected to Engine 295 twice now without having to deal with Garrett directly.
Except once.
You publish now, the target moves to you. We don't want that.
He'd said that during the Lang investigation. Shane had arranged a meeting—him, Brian, Ava, the people I'd been coordinating with. I hadn't expected Garrett to be there.
But there he was. Sitting across from me in that Astoria diner, silent through the entire briefing until he wasn't. Voice flat and controlled. I'd met his eyes and saw something underneath.
