“This is my territory,” I say quietly. “They know the rules. They know what lines not to cross.”
“They thought you’d stay quiet,” Mav says. “Media pressure. Public optics. Dead socialite. They figured they could poke and see what bled.”
I drop the glass. It shatters against the floor, sharp and loud.
“They should have known better,” I snarl.
Two hours. Two fucking hours of her sitting under fluorescent lights while men who don’t understand the game tried to make her crack. The image comes unbidden—Violet, scared, her hands clenched in her lap the way she does when she’s bracing for impact.
I rake a hand through my hair, pacing now. “Did they touch her.”
“No.”
“Did they threaten her.”
“No.”
“Did they imply—”
“They asked about her alibi,” Maverick cuts in. “They floated the idea that she was the last person to speak to Alessandra Moore.”
The room goes very still.
“She didn’t fold,” he adds. “Didn’t give them anything. They let her go.”
Let her go.Like that makes it acceptable.
I move toward the monitors before I realize I’m doing it, then stop short. I didn’t watch today.
I could have. Every instinct in me wanted to. Instead, I remembered her apartment—the way she flinched when she realized how much I knew. The way she looked at me like I’d rearranged her reality just by standing there.
I’d told myself I wouldn’t be that man. That watching her every move would turn concern into a cage. So I didn’t look.
And while I wasn’t watching, the city decided it could touch her.
“This is because of me,” I say finally.
Maverick doesn’t argue. He never does when it’s the truth.
“This mess put her on their radar,” he says. “Zephyra. The party. The death. They’re fishing, Asher—but fishing still cuts skin.”
I stop pacing. “Rinaldi knew this would happen.”
“Yeah,” Mav agrees. “That’s the point. They wanted heat. They wanted eyes. And they wanted it aimed at you.”
“They used her.”
“They tried to,” Maverick corrects. “Didn’t work.”
I let out a slow breath, the kind that steadies a gun instead of calming a man. I step back toward the desk and pull up the precinct feed anyway. The footage loads, grainy but clear enough.
There she is.
Violet sits rigid in a metal chair, shoulders drawn tight, and hands knotted together in her lap. Her voice isn’t shaking—not much—but her eyes are wide, tracking every movement like she’s waiting for the floor to drop out from under her.
That fear isn’t guilt.
It’s the moment someone realizes the world isn’t safe.
