I catch my reflection in the steamed-up mirror, and for a second, I don't recognize the man looking back. There's a frantic, jagged edge to my eyes that wasn't there before we brought her here. I have to school my features, forcing my mind into a cold, tactical space.
If the guys notice the way my hands are unsteady as I lace my boots, they don't say it, but I feel their eyes. They think I'm obsessed with the case, that I'm taking every guard shift because I'm the one with the most skin in the game. They think it's righteous fury.
They have no idea it's a twisted, depraved sickness.
The realization makes my stomach twist.
Of all the women in the world, why her?
Why the one who sat in a glass tower and balanced numbers for a machine that treated my daughter like a disposable line item?
The rage comes quick and violent, hot enough to make my vision flare white behind my closed lids.
I see my daughter's hospital bed. Tubes. Monitors. The antiseptic smell of the room. The hollow look in my mother's eyes when she believed I wasn't watching.
And layered over it, like some kind of cruel overlay, is Stratton's face.
Maybe it's because she didn't flinch when I pressed a gun to her chest.
Maybe it's the silence. The way she doesn't fight the hatred I throw at her, like she's determined she deserves every ounce of it.
Or maybe it's something worse.
Maybe it's the way she stands there and takes it.
As if my anger is the only thing tethering her to the ground.
A rough sound escapes my throat, half breath, half frustration. My fist bumps the wall once, not hard enough to crack it but hard enough to send a dull ache up my arm.
The truth sits in my chest like something poisonous.
My body doesn't care about the math.
Doesn't care about the logistics reports she signed or the system she helped run.
It only remembers the heat of her skin when I grabbed her arm. The fragile weight of her wrists in my hand. The way she moved when I shoved her forward. No resistance, just that same quiet, unsettling acceptance.
I shove the image away so hard my teeth grind.
This is weakness.
This is betrayal.
Of the uniform. Of the code. Of the little girl asleep in the next room, who almost didn't live long enough to have a tomorrow.
Whatever this is inside my head: this rot, this confusion. It can't walk out that door with me.
The hallway feels too narrow as I head toward the safe room. My blood is still humming from the shower, a low-frequency vibration that settles right in my gut. Every step toward Strattonmakes the air feel heavier, thicker. I'm a predator drawn to the very thing that's dismantling my soul.
I throw the bolt, the metallic clack echoing in the small space. Stratton is sitting on the edge of the mattress, her spine a rigid line of feigned composure.
She doesn't look up when the door opens. She doesn't have to. She knows the sound of my boots; she probably knows the rhythm of my breathing by now.
"Come," I rasp. The word feels like a stone in my throat, dry and heavy.
I don't wait for her to stand. I reach down and wrap my hand around her upper arm, yanking her to her feet with more force than necessary. The contact sends a jolt through my palm that travels straight to my core, a searing reminder of what I was doing ten minutes ago.
She doesn't fight me. She doesn't even tense to resist the pull. She just—goes. She lets her body be moved by mine, a total, limp surrender that makes my vision swim with a dark, secondary heat.
