Chapter 7 Jake
Jake
The room smelled like coffee gone cold and stale regret.
Jake stood behind the one-way mirror, arms crossed, shoulders tight with tension. He told himself he was just doing his job, just seeing the case through. But the moment his eyes landed on Hannah, sitting at the metal table, everything inside him turned to ash.
She looked small.
Her arms were folded across her chest, fingers gripping her elbows like she was trying to hold herself together.
She was still in her bakery clothes—a soft, butter-yellow shirt, flour-dusted jeans, the kind of outfit that belonged in a warm kitchen, not in a cold interrogation room.
Her hair looked messy. Strands had come loose from where she'd tied it back, falling into her face.
Had they been rough with her?
The thought sent a vicious coil of rage through his stomach. He wanted to punch something. Someone. Himself.
Hannah flinched when the door opened.
Martinez strode in, her movements crisp, professional, detached. Hannah's head snapped up, confusion flashing across her face.
Jake felt it through the glass—the way she was searching for answers, for something that made sense.
But she wouldn't find it.
Because nothing would ever make sense again.
Martinez didn't waste time.
"State your name and date of birth for the record."
Hannah's fingers dug into her arms. "Hannah Elizabeth Everett." Her voice cracked. She swallowed hard. "March fifteenth."
Martinez slid a thick folder across the table. "Do you recognize these accounts?"
Hannah stared at it, then slowly reached forward.
Her hands were trembling.
Jake had seen criminals break before. Had watched men and women lie, manipulate, fold under pressure.
But this wasn't that.
This was pure, raw disbelief.
She flipped through the papers. Numbers. Transactions. Bank accounts tied to Sugar & Spice.
She blinked as if trying to make sense of another language.
"I… I don't understand."
Martinez didn't blink. "How long have you been laundering money, Hannah?"
Hannah's head snapped up. "What?"
"Did your father bring you in when you took over the bakery?"
Shock twisted her features. "No. No, that's not—I don't know anything about that."
Her voice was frantic now, climbing in pitch, cracking at the edges.
Jake clenched his fists.
Goddamn it.
She was searching for something, flipping the pages faster, looking for proof that this wasn't real.
It wasn't real.
Not to her.
Because she was innocent.
And Jake had destroyed her anyway.
Jake couldn't breathe.
The walls of the observation room felt smaller, pressing in, closing off all the air.
He watched as they led Hannah out of the interrogation room.
Her arms were stiff at her sides, her eyes glazed over, like she wasn't entirely there anymore.
He swallowed against the tightness in his throat.
Then his phone buzzed.
Hannah Everett calling…
His fingers hovered over the screen.
He could already hear her voice in his head—panicked, desperate, needing him.
Martinez leaned against the doorway, arms crossed. "You answer that, Cooper, and you're done."
Jake's jaw clenched. His teeth ground together so hard it hurt.
He didn't need the reminder.
He watched the screen.
Ring.
Ring.
Ring.
Then—voicemail.
His breath rushed out like it had been punched from his lungs.
Another call came through.
She was trying again.
His thumb twitched.
He should answer.
He should fix this.
But he didn't.
Instead, he turned off his phone.
Like a coward.
Like pretending she didn't exist would undo what he had done.
The FBI office was quiet now. Most of the agents had cleared out, moving on to their next tasks.
But Jake sat in the interrogation room, in the same chair Hannah had sat in hours ago, his fingers tapping against the metal table.
Martinez walked in, flipping through a file. "You did your job, Cooper."
Jake let out a bitter laugh. "Yeah. Sure. Great job. She's sitting in a fucking cell right now."
Martinez barely looked up. "She'll be out in the morning. She's lucky."
Jake curled his hands into fists.
Lucky.
Hannah had been dragged from her home, thrown into a cage, humiliated in front of everyone she loved—and Martinez thought she was lucky.
"Still think she's innocent?" Martinez asked.
Jake didn't answer.
Martinez smirked. "Then she'll walk. No harm, no foul. It'll be fine."
Jake knew better.
Even if she walked free, she would never be the same.
He reached out, touching the cool metal of the interrogation table.
Tomorrow morning, Hannah would be released.
And she would know.
She would know he never came for her.
She would know that the man she trusted—the man she loved—had left her to rot.
And she would never forgive him.
Jake's apartment felt like a tomb. Too quiet. Too dark. Too full of memories of Hannah curled up on his couch, stealing his sweatshirts, making his sterile living space feel like home.
The whiskey bottle sat unopened on the kitchen table. His badge lay next to it. The gold caught the dim lamplight, mocking him. He'd spent years earning it, and now it felt like a burning brand of shame.
She was sleeping in a cell tonight.
The thought hit him like a physical blow. Hannah, who loved soft blankets and warm spaces, who always ran cold and stole his body heat in the middle of the night—she was lying on a metal bench under harsh fluorescent lights.
Was she cold? Scared? Had anyone given her a blanket, or was she curled up in just that thin t-shirt, arms wrapped around herself like she'd been in the interrogation room?
His hands shook as he reached for his phone. Three missed calls. One voicemail.
He shouldn't listen to it. He'd already betrayed her enough today. But his thumb moved before his brain could stop it.
"Jake..." Her voice cracked on his name. A shaky inhale. A sound that might have been a suppressed sob. "Please call me. I don't—"
She broke off, and Jake could picture her perfectly—pressing her hand to her mouth, trying to hold herself together. She always did that when she was trying not to cry.
"I don't know what's happening. I need you."
Silence stretched, heavy with everything she couldn't say. Then, softer, barely a whisper—
"Please, Jake. I need you."
The phone slipped from his numb fingers.
She needed him. The way she'd needed him every other time something had gone wrong. The way she'd trusted him to fix everything from leaky pipes to her fear of thunderstorms.
But this time, he was the thing that had broken her world.
He grabbed the whiskey bottle. The alcohol couldn't wash away the image of Hannah alone in that cell. Hannah, who hated sleeping alone. Who always reached for him in the middle of the night, instinctively seeking his warmth.
Was she sleeping now? Or was she lying awake, wondering why he hadn't come? Why the man who had wormed his way into her world had abandoned her on the worst day of her life?
His chest felt like it was being crushed in a vice. He should be there. Should be holding her, protecting her, keeping her warm and safe like he'd promised a thousand times. Maybe not with words, but with actions. With the way he had held her, kissed her.
Instead, he was here, drowning in memories and self-loathing while she was left overnight in an metal cell.
In a few hours, she'd look at him with those trusting eyes one last time—the way she had the last time he'd kissed her goodbye. Before the betrayal, before he'd let federal agents drag her from her grandmother's bakery in front of everyone she loved.
And then she'd know.
She'd know that every kiss, every touch, every whispered promise had been a lie.
She'd know that the man who'd made her feel safest in the world had been the one to destroy it.
She'd know that while she'd been planning their future, he'd been planning her destruction.
Jake hurled the whiskey bottle against the wall. It shattered, amber liquid running down the paint like tears.
Hannah hated the smell of whiskey.
The thought hit him like another punch to the gut. Even now, even after everything, his brain cataloged her preferences, her comfort, her needs.
But it didn't matter anymore.
Nothing mattered except the fact that Hannah was sleeping in a cell, alone and scared and confused.
And he was letting it happen.
Jake sat in his parked truck across from the Crystal Lake Police Station, knuckles white against the steering wheel. Dawn painted the sky in shades of gray, matching the hollowness in his chest. He'd been here for hours already, watching the building where Hannah slept in a cell because of him.
The bail had been posted anonymously. Martinez wouldn't be pleased, but he couldn't let Hannah spend another minute in that cell.
His phone buzzed. Martinez.
Don't even think about it, Cooper.
He ignored the message, eyes fixed on the station's front doors. Hannah would walk through them soon. She'd be processing out right now – getting her personal effects back, signing papers, trying to hold herself together while her world crumbled around her.
And he couldn't go to her.
Couldn't hold her.
Couldn't explain that everything – the investigation, the arrest, all of it – had been about protecting people. That he'd always believed in the system, in justice, in doing things by the book.
But now, watching the sun rise over the station where Hannah had spent the night alone and afraid, he wasn't so sure anymore.
Another buzz. Martinez again.
I mean it. Stay in your vehicle.
Jake's jaw clenched. He'd follow protocol. Stay hidden. Let Hannah believe the bail money came from a concerned citizen or a family friend. It was safer that way. Cleaner.
God, he hated himself for even thinking in those terms anymore.
Movement at the station doors made his breath catch. Hannah stepped into the morning light, and Jake's heart stopped.
She looked small. That was his first thought – horrible and immediate. Hannah had always been a force of nature, filling every room with warmth and light. But now she seemed diminished, her shoulders curved inward like she was trying to protect herself from the world's judgment.
She still wore yesterday's clothes, flour dust now smudged and gray. Her hair had fallen from its usual neat bun, strands framing a face that looked too pale, too tired, too hurt.
Jake's hands itched with the need to go to her. To wrap her in his arms and tell her everything would be okay. To explain that he'd fix this, that he'd make it right, that he'd—
But he couldn't.
Because he was the one who had destroyed her world.
He watched as she stood on the station steps, squinting in the harsh morning light. Watched as she reached for her phone – probably checking for messages, missing his number among them. Watched as she squared her shoulders and began the long walk back to Sugar & Spice.
"I'm sorry," he whispered to her retreating form. "I'm so damn sorry."
His phone buzzed one final time.
Report to the office. Now.
Jake kept his eyes on Hannah's retreating form. He'd go face Martinez's anger about the bail money. He'd write his reports. He'd do everything by the book.
But watching Hannah disappear around the corner, something shifted in his core. A fundamental change in what he believed, in what mattered most.
Because if the law wasn't about protecting people like Hannah, then the foundation of his life was crumbling.