Chapter 33
Alex
Derek’s sitting down in the back of the lab when I practically run through the door. And he looks… pissed.
“Who’s fucking hair did you give me, Thornton? Wait, actually, don’t tell me. I don’t want to be any more involved in this than I already am.” He huffs angrily, pushing himself to standing and storming across the lab to a desk, snapping up a manila file folder than making a beeline towards me.
I have just enough time to glance around the lab and verify that no one else is in here.
“What did it come back as?”
He stuffs the file folder into my hands.
“First off, the handkerchief results. You were right, it’s York Malone.
But it just proves that he was in the warehouse, not that he’s involved in the trafficking.
It pinged from CODIS, when he got booked for a DUI that his parents unsurprisingly paid off the judge to ignore. ”
“Okay, but what about-”
“The hair?” he seethes. “Yeah, it came back right away. A familial match with a CODIS sample.”
So, someone she’s related to has committed a crime. I don’t see how that’s big enough news to have Derek this riled up.
“How strong of a match? And to who?” I ask.
“Her father,” Derek says, wiping sweat off his brow. He’s really nervous about this, making me more worried as well.
“She doesn’t know her dad, been in foster care since her mom died when she was six. So-”
“It’s York.”
My mind comes to a screeching halt, hands feeling dry and clammy at my sides. No, that can’t possibly be. Why would her mom have ever been in a relationship with that stuck-up bastard? And long enough to go to bed with him.
And if he really is connected to the trafficking ring, then Liv’s dad is deeply involved in it. This whole time, it’s been Liv’s father that I’ve been hunting.
I don’t remember walking out of the lab. I remember the words, and the look of Derek’s face, tight and irritated at first, eventually growing to be almost apologetic, like he’d finally settled enough to know what this would do.
But the walk? Gone.
The hallway from the lab to the bullpen stretches too far. Every step echoes louder than it should beneath the irritating fluorescent overhead lights. I’m pretty sure the building itself is trying to remind me where I am. What I am.
A detective, one who follows evidence, doesn’t manipulate it, and definitely doesn’t steal DNA from a woman who trusts him.
My mouth forms a grim line because that’s exactly what I did. And it worked, that’s the worst part. It fucking worked.
I push through the precinct doors, the bullpen noise hitting me all at once. The phones, voices, and keyboards clacking all feel distant. Like I’m moving through it instead of being part of it.
Liv’s face flashes in my head, her laugh in her kitchen, her voice in the ambulance. The way she told me she trusts me. My stomach twists, because now I know something about her that she doesn’t.
The truth of her origination… it changes everything. And I got it in the worst possible way.
“Alex.”
I don’t stop.
“Alex.” This time it’s sharper.
I turn and see Mason standing a few feet away, watching me like he already knows something’s off.
“What?” I ask.
His eyes narrow slightly. “You look like hell.”
“Been a long day.”
“That’s not it.”
Of course it’s not. I exhale slowly, running a hand through my hair.
“I need air,” I say.
He studies me for a second longer, then nods towards the back exit. “Come on.”
The alleyway behind the precinct still smells like rain from last night. But it’s better than inside.
Mason leans against the wall, arms crossed, watching me like he’s waiting for the moment I crack.
It doesn’t take long. “I crossed a line.” No preamble or deflection.
His brow furrows. “What kind of line?”
I laugh once, the sound short and humorless. “The kind you don’t come back from.”
He straightens slightly. “Alex.”
“I ran a DNA test,” I continue. “Off the books.”
His expression hardens immediately. “On who?”
I don’t answer right away because I just can’t get the words out. Saying it out loud makes it real in a way I’m still settling in to.
“On Liv.”
“Jesus Christ,” he mutters.
“Yeah.”
“Without her consent?”
I nod.
Mason pushes off the wall, pacing once before turning back to me. “Why?” he demands.
“Because I needed to know,” I snap.
“That’s not an answer.”
“It is when people are dying,” I shoot back.
The words hang there for a moment, ugly as they are.
Mason’s jaw tightens. “You don’t get to use that excuse,” he says. “Not with her and not after you broke major rules here, Alex.”
“I wasn’t using her,” I argue.
“You took something from her without her knowing,” he counters. “That’s using her, whether you want to call it that or not.”
Fuck, he’s right. Again.
“I’ve seen where that road goes,” he adds, quieter now.
So have I, that’s the problem.
“It’s not the same,” I shake my head.
“Isn’t it?”
For a second, it feels exactly the same. The same logic and the same desperation. It’s the same belief that the end will justify whatever I have to do to get there.
I look away. “I got a hit,” I stress.
That stops him. “What kind of hit?”
My chest tightens. It’s truth time, no longer about what I did but what it means. At least for now.
“Familial match,” I say.
Mason’s expression hardens. “To who?”
I meet his eyes for the first time since we came out to the alleyway. “York.”
Mason goes unnaturally still. “You’re sure?” he asks.
“Yeah.”
“How close?”
I swallow. “Direct.”
Derek was right because there’s only one way that works. Only one explanation that fits the age difference.
“Her father,” Mason says quietly.
I nod. “York Malone is her biological father.” The words feel wrong in my mouth, like they don’t belong. They feel like some kind of improbability, as wrong as saying “the moon is a cube.”
Mason drags his hand down his face. “Does she know?”
“No.”
“And you’re just… sitting on that?”
“I just found out.”
“And your plan is what?” he presses.
That’s the ultimate question right now, and it’s one that I don’t have a clean answer to. “I don’t know yet,” I admit.
Mason exhales sharply. “Jesus, Alex.”
“I know.”
“You can’t keep that from her.”
“I can’t just drop it on her either,” I snap. “Not like this. Not when she’s already-”
“What?” he cuts in. “Traumatized? In danger? Living in your father’s house because someone is trying to get to her? That ‘someone’ being her dad, remember?”
When I don’t respond right away, he continues. “She deserves to know.”
“And if it puts her at risk?” I counter. “If knowing makes her a bigger target?”
“She already is a target,” he shoots back.
That’s the truth, and we both know it. I lean back against the wall, staring up at the sky. Clouds are rolling in, a storm’s coming. Fitting.
“I don’t know how to do this right,” I admit.
Mason studies me for a long second. “Start by not lying to her.”
“I’m not lying.”
“You’re withholding,” he counters. “Same difference when it matters.”
“Figure out where your line is,” he adds. “And don’t cross it again.”
I huff a quiet breath. “That ship’s already said.”
“Then draw a new one,” he says.
He’s got a point. The line isn’t fixed; it can move and shift. And if I’m not careful, I’ll keep moving it until there’s nothing left.
I push off the wall, straightening.
“So, what’s the call?” Mason asks.
“I do this by the book,” I say.
Mason raises an eyebrow slightly. “All of it?”
I nod. “From here on out.” That’s the important part.
Because I have to. If I don’t, I won’t recognize what I become by the end of this.
“And her?” he asks.
That’s the hardest part. I exhale slowly, “I tell her.” Because she deserves that much, at the very least. Even if it breaks everything between us.
Some truths don’t stay buried. And this one is rising from the dead.