35. Avery #2
The detective seals the tablet screen and tells me the physical evidence, recording, officers, Nadia, and captured lookouts support my account.
Then he explains what happens next. The prosecutor will review it, police will keep my gun as evidence, and another interview may be necessary after everyone has slept.
I appreciate the lack of a tidy ending. Sasha did not become harmless the moment she died.
She left blood in my office, footage in police hands, and a smell my mind may put into rooms for years.
Before the detectives leave, the younger one opens Sasha’s property inventory.
Her bag held two encrypted drives, copies of the remaining family files, three phones, a paper list of account credentials, and records tied to the handler and both shell companies.
The captured men have begun asking for lawyers, but the accounts reach farther than either one.
Cruz and federal investigators are already arranging a controlled review.
“Your family file is among them,” the detective says. “It’s sealed with the others until the court authorizes release or destruction.”
The threat is finally small enough to fit inside evidence bags, yet my hands begin shaking again beneath the blanket.
Declan opened the first file to Sasha. He taught her which private facts mattered, and she carried them into my office intending to leave with more.
No detective in this room understands why jasmine shampoo mattered, why his mother’s mug made Sasha smile, or why killing me had become the last victory she thought Declan could give her.
After everyone leaves except June, I stare at the closed door for several minutes before I admit whom I want on the other side of it.
Wanting Declan here feels like another thing Sasha took from me.
She made herself the only person who shared the complete ugliness with him, then forced me to kill her while carrying the child Declan and I once planned to make together.
What I want is one conversation with the man who knows why she came, and comfort has nothing to do with it.
“Ask Declan to come in,” I tell June, catching her wrist before she reaches the door. “He sits in the chair. He doesn’t touch me, and this is about the shooting. Nothing else.”
June checks my face, waiting for any sign that I think I owe him this invitation. “I’ll tell him exactly that. If he forgets one word, I’ll remove him by the part he values most.”
“He’ll know which part you mean.” The answer almost becomes a joke, but exhaustion kills it before either of us can laugh. June squeezes my wrist once and leaves.
Declan enters without his cut after surrendering it and every weapon to hospital security.
His black sweatshirt is streaked with dust from the office floor, and dried blood darkens the inside of his lower lip where he bit it.
He closes the door, takes the chair June left beside the wall instead of the one nearest my bed, and keeps his hands locked between his knees.
“The baby is healthy,” I say because I chose to tell him, not because his waiting earned the news. “Dr. Evans expects me to go home tonight.”
His shoulders drop before he catches the movement. “Thank you for telling me.”
“Sasha had the remaining family files and the handler’s account records in her bag.” I watch his face change when he understands the club threat has ended in the same room where she died. “She came for copies that already existed somewhere she couldn’t reach. She was going to kill me for nothing.”
“She came because she couldn’t stand that you took every reason anybody had to need her.
” Declan leans forward, then stops with the chair legs planted against the floor.
“You exposed the companies, took the club from her, and made me tell her in front of everyone that she never had a future with me. The phone was an excuse to get in the room with you.”
“I know.” I rub the hospital bracelet against my wrist, irritated by the plastic edge and the fact that his answer matches mine. “She pointed the gun at the baby when she couldn’t make me jealous anymore.”
Declan looks at the monitor instead of my stomach. “I heard you tell her the child was yours. You were right. I don’t get to call what happened proof I can protect either of you. You protected the baby. You protected Nadia.”
The acknowledgment hurts because I once wanted him to be the man who made danger disappear.
I loved how feared he was until fear became the tool he used on my life.
In the conference room, I needed him to follow my plan more than I needed him to break down a door, and he did.
I accept that it is true without deciding what it means for us.
“I asked you here because I needed someone who understood why the shampoo was on that cart,” I say, refusing to let him turn the invitation into anything kinder. “June knows what Sasha did. Nadia heard the confession. You know why Sasha wanted me to smell her before I saw the gun.”
“I know because I taught her it hurt you.” His hands tighten together, but his voice doesn’t reach for an excuse. “Every time I let her use something of yours, every time I laughed off a complaint or left her shit where you might find it, I showed her which part to press.”
“Then don’t tell me she’s gone and I can stop being afraid.” I look at the dark hospital window, where my reflection lies beneath the monitor line. “I killed her, and I can smell her in this room.”
“I won’t tell you that.” Declan sits where I put him while the baby kicks beneath the strap and the machine records a life Sasha failed to take. “Tell me whether you want me here until the nurse comes back. If you don’t, I leave now.”
His hand can stay where it is, and so can his apology, his house key, and the marriage the judge ended while our first home burned. I want him to understand one terrible hour without making me explain every object inside it, and for tonight that is enough. “Stay in the chair until June comes back.”
Declan settles against the wall without moving the chair. Outside, detectives carry Sasha’s records toward the people who will finish dismantling her network. Inside, my ex-husband watches the monitor because I asked him to stay, and neither of us tries to make it mean more tonight.