Chapter 16
Alex
The morning after the gala feels wrong.
Not quiet, because the precinct is never quiet, but off. Like something in me didn’t reset properly after forcing myself to leave Liv alone in her apartment last night.
The precinct hums around me the way it always does; phones ringing in uneven bursts, keyboards clacking, voices overlapping in low, constant conversation. It’s familiar noise. Grounding noise.
Usually.
But today, it grates at me.
I’m standing at my desk, a file open in front of me, but I’ve been staring at the same paragraph long enough for the words to blur into meaningless shapes. My coffee has gone cold in its mug resting at my elbow. I don’t remember drinking it… or even pouring it.
This doesn’t happen, not to me.
I built my reputation on focus, on being the guy who doesn’t miss details, who doesn’t get distracted, who doesn’t let anything personal bleed into the work.
But right now, all I can see is her. I can still see her opening her apartment door, the soft light from her apartment catching in her hair, showing off the chocolate brown strands.
Her maroon dress falling over her like it was meant to be there.
For a second, just a second, I’d forgotten how to breathe.
Forgotten where I was, and what I was doing there.
I just wanted to push her back into her apartment and take that dress off her.
That doesn’t happen to me either.
Then the way she felt in my arms on the dance floor, warm, solid, and real in a room that’s never felt real to me. The way she’d looked when my father mentioned the crash, like she wanted to disappear and stand taller at the same time. Like she didn’t know how to hold both things at once.
My jaw clenches. I shouldn’t be thinking about this. Not here, not now.
“She get in your head that bad?” Mason’s voice cuts through the noise, too close, and too accurate. I don’t look up. I don’t need to just to confirm that he’s wearing a smug grin and has a knowing look in his eyes that matches his tone.
“Don’t start.”
He drops into the chair across from my desk anyway, the scrape of metal against the tile sharp enough to pull my attention whether I want it or not.
“Oh, I’m absolutely starting,” he says, leaning back like he’s got all the time in the world.
“You’ve been staring at that report like it owes you money. ”
“I’m working.”
“On what?” His tone shifts just enough to tell me he’s not buying it. “Because it doesn’t look like the case.”
The case. Right. I close the file, the paper snapping together harder than necessary. The sound cuts clean through the noise in my head at least.
“Anything come back on the tox?” I ask, forcing the pivot.
Mason watches me for a second too long, like he’s debating whether to push, then exhales and lets it go. For now.
“Preliminary report just came in,” he straightens. “ME flagged something weird.”
That’s all it takes. The noise in my head hones into something usable. My focus snaps back into place like a switch flipping. “Weird how?”
“Paralytic agent,” he says. “Not something you find on the street. Not something you accidentally ingest.”
A cold line traces down my spine. “What kind?”
“They’re running confirmation,” he replies, “but early indicators are pointing toward something like succinylcholine.”
Everything in me stills. That’s not just weird, that’s intentional. “That’s surgical,” I rasp, the words settling heavy on my tongue.
“Exactly.”
For a second, neither of us speaks. The implication hangs between us, thick and undeniable. Whoever we’re looking for isn’t just organized. They’re precise, trained, or connected to someone in the medical profession.
“Which means?” Mason presses.
My mind is already moving, mapping out possibilities, narrowing paths.
“It means access,” I say, “Medical training, a hospital connection, black market supply. Something. This isn’t random.”
Mason nods once, slowly, in agreement. “That narrows it.”
“Not enough.” But it’s a start. It’s something I can hold onto. Something that doesn’t look like her face every time I close my eyes.
“Thornton.” The voice comes from across the bullpen, cutting through everything else. I don’t need to look to know who it is.
My shoulders tighten anyway. “Yeah.”
“Office. Now.” Not a suggestion.
Mason gives me a look as I pass him, curiosity edges with something sharper, but I don’t stop.
I already know what this is about.
The office door closes behind me with a quiet click that somehow feels louder than the entire bullpen combined.
The room feels smaller now, the air heavier. My boss doesn’t sit, he stands behind his desk, hands braced against the surface like he’s holding himself in place.
“I told you to keep your distance.” No buildup, no easing into it. Just straight to the point. “I told you to keep your eye on the prize.”
I don’t respond. I remember the conversation, if you can call it that, when he told me he better not be hearing anymore mumblings around the station about me seeing someone. That he didn’t need his “best detective distracted by some broad.”
I’d ignored it at the time because he doesn’t get a say in it. And because it just doesn’t pertain to him. Plus, he’s married. Who’s he to talk?
But apparently, he meant it.
“And now I hear,” he continues, his voice sharpening, “that you took the medic to your father’s gala last night.”
There it is.
“Paraded her in front of the city’s elite like she’s part of this,” he adds. “What the hell are you doing?”
I hold his gaze, keep my posture neutral even as my chest starts to boil. “It was a bad time for her. For her crew. It was-”
“A humanitarian gesture?” he cuts in, the worlds edged with something cold.
“Yes,” I say, trying to simplify it just to get him off my back.
“Don’t bullshit me.”
The words land hard, but I don’t flinch.
“I saw the footage; saw the way you looked at her.”
That… that hits deeper than it should. Because he’s not wrong.
“This operation is bigger than your feelings,” he continues. “Bigger than whatever you think is happening there.”
My jaw goes rigid. “She’s not involved,” I say.
“She lives in the middle of it,” he snaps.
I don’t have a response to that because it’s been at the center of my mind for weeks.
“She talks to you,” he presses. “Gives you information. That makes her involved whether you like it or not.”
Silence stretches between us, thick and uncomfortable.
“She’s a complication,” he says flatly. “One you can’t afford.”
“She’s not a liability.”
“She’s a potential target,” he snaps in response.
That hits like a blow to the sternum, leaving my chest aching uncomfortably.
Doesn’t he think I know that? That she looks just like the victims, the near grabs, and the missing persons cases? I fucking know she’s a potential target. But if she’s close to me, I can protect her. I can make a move to get her to safety before it’s too late.
“She doesn’t even know what she’s close to,” he continues, quieter now but no less cutting. “And you’re standing there dragging her deeper into it.”
That’s not-
But maybe it is.
I’ve known it before but pushed it from my mind after the fire. If she’s seen by the wrong people in her neighborhood with the detective leading the trafficking ring case, she may become even more of a target.
I exhale slowly, forcing control back into my voice. “I’m not trying to put her in danger.”
His expression doesn’t change. “You are anyway.”
The truth of it lands harder than anything else he’s said because I know he’s right.
“Get your head in the game,” he says. “Or you’re off this case.” His face gives him away. He’s not threatening it; he’s drawing a line in the sand.
“And stay away from her,” he adds. “That’s an order.”
I don’t remember walking out. One second I’m standing in that office, the words still echoing in the air. The next I’m back in the bullpen, the noise crashing into me like a wave.
Stay away from her.
It loops in my head, steady and relentless. Because he’s right. And that’s the problem.
But there’s Liv, still bouncing around in my head too.
When I stood in her doorway the first time I’d worried that my presence would put ill-intending eyes on her, so I told her this was a bad idea.
And then she was there on that dance floor, looking like she didn’t belong but was holding herself together anyway.
And her running toward a wreck on the side of the highway without hesitation.
She doesn’t belong in this. And I keep pulling her into it. The realization settles heavy, like something locking into place whether I want it to or not.
“Everything good?” Mason asks, quieter this time.
I look at him, and for a second I consider telling him the truth. But I don’t; I can’t. “Yeah.”
It’s a lie and he knows it but doesn’t call me on it.
“ME’s pushing for a full tox panel,” he says instead, letting us change the topic. “If it comes back confirmed, we’re looking at someone with access. That changes things.”
I nod. “Then we adjust.”
Because that’s what I do, I adjust. I refocus. I cut out anything that compromises the objective.
That night, as much as I want to, I don’t go to her apartment. I don’t text or call either.
Instead, I sit on the edge of my bed, my phone in my hand, her name on the screen, and I stare at it long enough for the screen to dim.
All it would take is one message. One.
You okay?
Simple and harmless. But that’s a lie because nothing about this is harmless anymore.
I can still feel her in my arms, the memory of it too vivid. The way she’d looked at me when she said this was a bad idea.
She was right. I should have listened. We both knew it but kept trying to ignore that truth.
My grip tightens around my phone. Stay away from her, not because I want to. Because I have to. Because the alternative-
The image hits before I can stop it. A body on a table, covered. A face that looks too much like hers. Still, empty, and gone.
I shut the thought down hard, forcing it out before it can take root.
No, that won’t happen. Not if I can help it. And the only way to make sure of that is distance. Even if it feels like I’m carving something out of my own chest to do it.
I set the phone down, and don’t pick it back up. And for the first time since I met her, I choose the case over her. Not because she matters less, but because she already matters too much.