We stand there in silence as the ferry pulls in, metal groaning, and water churning louder now. People move around us—commuters, tourists, and lives continue like nothing is wrong. While I feel like I’m drowning beneath the waves.
Cami stands beside me, calm, steady, and certain.
And as I watch her, the truth settles cold and clear in my chest:
If this explodes, she’ll walk away.
I won’t.
Chapter 21
They Touched a Fuse.
Asher
The glass in my hand sweats cold against my palm as I stare out over the city, Manhattan spread beneath me in clean lines and glittering lights that pretend order exists. Normally, this is when I’d have her pulled up on one of the monitors. Normally, I’d be watching.
Tonight, I didn’t.
I told myself it was restraint. That after showing up at her apartment—after crossing that line—I needed to pull back. That watching her today would turn into justification, into control dressed up as concern. I don’t like not knowing where she is. I like it even less knowing I chose not to look.
The ice rattles as I pour more whiskey, the sound sharp in the quiet. I lift the glass, just as the door opens behind me.
Maverick doesn’t announce himself. He never does. He leans against the frame instead, arms folded, and expression already set like he knows exactly how this is about to go wrong.
“Don’t,” he says.
I don’t turn. “Don’t what.”
He finally looks at me. “Check the feeds.”
That gets my attention. I look at him then, really look—and see it. The tension. The tightness around his eyes. The way he hasn’t taken his phone out yet, like he knows once he does, something detonates.
My jaw tightens. “Why.”
Mav exhales through his nose. “Because if you see it before I finish saying it, you’re going to lose your temper.”
I don’t smile. I don’t blink. “Try me.”
He hesitates just long enough to confirm my suspicion. “NYPD picked her up this morning.”
The room tilts.
The words land wrong, like they don’t belong together. “Picked who up.”
“Violet.” His voice stays level, professional, like he’s briefing a hostile op. “Questioning. Precinct in Manhattan. She was there for two hours.”
For a beat, everything goes very still.
Then my grip tightens.
The glass fractures in my hand with a sharp crack, whiskey spills across the floor, and blood follows, but the pain barely registers beneath the surge of fury that rips through me.
“They did what?” My voice is calm in the way it gets right before people die.
Maverick’s jaw flexes. “They questioned her about the Moore girl. Brought her into a Manhattan precinct like she doesn’t exist under our fucking shadow.”
My grip tightens around the broken glass until blood drips onto the carpet.
