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Love. There’s no fighting this. I’m in love with her.

“We could take care of them, Max,” Anthony adds. “The inmates. The guards who didn’t help her during the attack. Her boyfriend, for one.”

I sit up straighter, the vigilante in me screaming YES as rage fills my veins.

“Her boyfriend?”

“Yeah. She didn’t tell you?” Anthony looks as infuriated as I feel. “Her boyfriend at the time, Henry Hamilton. Some piece of shit that guy was. He was in the academy with her. Apparently they were dating under everyone’s radar.” Anthony shakes his head in disgust. “She’d graduated the academy and was doing some sort of mandatory rotation in the jail when a couple of the inmates started taunting her. When they couldn’t get a rise out of her, one of them snapped and jumped her. Before long, both were beating the shit out of her.”

“Her son of a bitch boyfriend stood by and watched the whole thing happen. Ran off without lifting a finger to help her,” Gianni adds.

I jump to my feet, wanting to rip the guy limb from limb.

“Stop, Max. You need to think long and hard before doing anything rash,” Gianni warns. “Cassidy is still technically law enforcement. If we inflict our brand of justice, it could blow back on her career. Is that what you want?”

I pace about the office.

“Trust me, man. I get it. But this can’t be about you. Cassidy’s needs have to come first.”

Sitting in the back of the club, the heavy scent of expensive scotch and my own self-loathing clings to me like a second skin. Every night since I left Alpine has been a descent into the digital abyss. I’ve lived in the dark web, submerged in the worst of humanity, coming up for air only to refill my glass.

I shouldn’t have come back to the club tonight. I’m barely existing. My eyes are bloodshot, my skin feels tight with dehydration, and my brain is a frayed wire sparking in the dark.

I needed to see her. I fucking miss her. Miss her with an ache that frankly terrifies me. I hate that I pushed her away after visiting my parents. Yet if she’d looked into my eyes for more than a second, she would’ve seen the spiral. She would’ve seen I was drowning.

Glancing toward the bar, I search for a flash of pink hair, wanting to pull Cassidy into my arms and tell her what she’s done. Then I remember her pink is gone. My head drops. Not just about her hair color, but she isn’t here. It’s in this moment I realize how lopsided all of this is.

Cassidy bared her soul to me. She told me about the assault, the scars, and the father she lost to a broken heart. She shares her secrets and somehow finds the strength to keep moving, to keep growing.

And I’ve given her nothing.

I’m suffocating under the weight of Isla’s disappearance, trapped in a life that refuses to move forward, and yet this woman... every time we’re together, she heals another piece of me she didn’t even know was broken.

And what do I do? I push her away to protect her while I wither in the dark. I stare at her message again.

Look into this one. It doesn’t belong here.

Underneath is a phone number. A single, solitary string of digits.

She’d found the outlier.

She’s giving me the keys to the kingdom, and I’m standing here with a glass of scotch and a shattered heart, wondering if I’m even worthy of the help.

I need to find her. I need to tell her. But more than that, I need to figure out how to be the man who deserves the strong, smart, beautiful woman who did all the things I couldn’t.

The office is sterile, the morning sun cutting through the floor-to-ceiling glass like a beacon. I’m at my desk, but I’m not working. I’m barely existing in the wreckage of the previous night.

I should’ve known better. I’ve let Isla down. I’ve let my parents down. And after the way I’ve treated Cassidy, I’ve let myself down too. But Cass is the one person on the planet who calms the noise.

I need her.

Loretta enters without knocking. She’s usually a whirlwind of schedules and sharp-tongued reminders, but today she’s stoic. This overworked den mother takes one look at me, and the pity in her eyes feels like a fresh bruise.

Loretta shuts the door and sits across from me, folding her hands in her lap. “Max, I wasn’t hired to be your mother,” she starts, her voice eerily calm. “But by the looks of things, she may not be able to help you the way you need.”

I narrow my eyes, my temper flickering like a brush fire on the edge of a five-alarm forest fire. I steeple my fingers in front of me. “Loretta, what are you talking about?”

“Take a look around, Max.” She waves her arms toward the sleek, empty surfaces. “There are no pictures. This place is completely devoid of any reference to family or friends. I wouldn’t think you had any if it weren’t for Frank darting in and out. And you... you look like you’ve been on a bender. Do you have a drinking problem I don’t know about?”