“The investigation,” he said. Not a question.
“The investigation.” I held his gaze, because looking away felt like a different kind of surrender. “And everything else. I can’t think clearly around you, and I need to think clearly. Too much depends on it.”
The silence between us was different from the charged silences we’d been trading all afternoon. This one had weight to it. Texture.
“All right,” he said finally. His voice was even. Controlled. But something underneath it wasn’t. “I understand.”
I picked up my notebook from where I’d set it on the edge of his desk, tucking it back into my bag with hands that were steadier than I had any right to expect.
“The investigation stands,” I said. “Whatever this is —” I gestured at the space between us, at the inadequate word for everything that had been in this room — “it doesn’t change what I found.”
“I know.” He hadn’t moved. Still standing in the same spot, watching me with those gray eyes that never missed anything. “I’m not asking it to.”
I made it to the door.
“For what it’s worth,” he said behind me, and something in his voice made me stop with my hand on the frame, “I didn’t know what I was going to do about it either. On the balcony. After.”
I didn’t turn around. If I turned around, I wouldn’t leave, and I needed to leave.
“That doesn’t change anything,” I said.
“No,” he agreed quietly. “It doesn’t.”
I walked out.
In the elevator, descending, alone with nothing but my reflection and the soft hum of machinery, I pressed my back against the cold metal wall and stared at the ceiling.
I’d done the right thing. I knew I’d done the right thing. The investigation was real and the stakes were real and Sebastian Laurent was many things, but what he was most was the man at the center of a story I’d been building for months, a story that mattered, a story that people needed someone to be willing to tell.
And I was that person. I had always been that person.
It was just that I’d never had to be that person while also being the woman who’d stood on a balcony in November and felt, for a few reckless minutes, like for now was enough.
My phone buzzed. Jenna.
Well? Did you get what you needed?
I looked at the screen for a long moment, watching the lobby rise up through the glass elevator walls, the marble floor growing larger below me.
I got out, I typed back. That has to count for something.
Three dots appeared immediately. Then:Did you want to?
The elevator doors opened.
I walked out without answering, because some questions deserved more honesty than I was capable of at the moment, and Jenna had always been able to tell the difference.
Outside, the Chicago air hit me like it always did — cold and direct and completely indifferent to whatever I was feeling. I stood on the sidewalk for a moment, letting it do its work.
The story was still real. The corruption was still real. Everything I’d walked in there with, I was walking out with.
I’d done the right thing.
I just needed to keep telling myself that until it stopped feeling like a loss.
Chapter Five
Sebastian “Bash” Laurent
