Nora emerged with a packed bag. She looked at him one more time, her eyes full of love and pain and resignation.
“Figure out what you really want, Carson. The job or me. Because you can’t have both. Not the way you’ve been doing it.” She moved to the door. “I’ll call you in a few days.”
Then she was gone.
And Carson sat alone in the quiet apartment, surrounded by case files and evidence boards and the career that had cost him everything.
He’d caught Shaw. Exposed corruption. Served justice.
But he’d lost Nora.
And for the first time in his life, Carson Black wondered if the price of justice had been too high.
If saving everyone else meant losing the one person who actually needed him to just be present.
The one person who’d loved him despite all his broken edges.
The one person he couldn’t imagine living without.
But didn’t know how to keep.
Chapter 22
Carson didn’t sleep that night.
He sat on the couch where Nora had told him she was leaving, staring at nothing, replaying every moment. Every choice. Every time he’d picked the job over her.
The apartment felt cavernous without her. Too quiet. Too empty.
He’d lived alone for years. Had preferred it that way. But now, after just a few weeks of having Nora here, the silence felt suffocating.
At three AM, he gave up on sleep and made coffee. Sat at the dining table surrounded by the Shaw case files that had consumed him for weeks.
Files that had cost him Nora.
He should feel victorious. They’d caught Shaw. Exposed decades of corruption. Twelve women—probably more—would finallyget justice.
But all Carson felt was hollow.
His phone rang at six AM. Captain Holloway.
“You sound like hell,” he said without preamble. “Rough night?”
“Something like that.”
“Come to the station. We need to process the Shaw arrest. Press conference at ten.”
“I’ll be there.”
“And, Carson? Bring Nora. She deserves to see this through. She was one of Shaw’s indirect victims. Eugene operated unchecked partly because of Shaw’s corruption.”
“She’s not here.” The words tasted like failure. “She left last night.”
The captain was quiet for a long moment. “I’m sorry. I warned you this might happen.”
“You were right. About all of it. I couldn’t change. Couldn’t be what she needed.” Carson’s voice was rough. “I don’t know how to fix it.”
“Do you want to fix it?”
