Chapter 37
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
Three hours bleed into one another in that suffocating interview room, each minute stretching longer than the last. The grey walls seem to close in with every passing second, their institutional paint peeling at the corners, water-stained and neglected.
Someone's left a Styrofoam cup of coffee on the table—cheap station brew that's probably been sitting for hours, the acrid smell making my stomach turn.
The fluorescent lights overhead buzz, that relentless mechanical hum drilling straight into my skull until I want to scream. I press my palms against my temples, but it doesn't help. Nothing helps. I'm trapped here, waiting, while Julian sits in a cell somewhere because of me.
When the door finally opens at last, it's a different face entirely—not the younger officer who escorted me in here what feels like a lifetime ago.
Senior Officer Walsh stands in the doorway, a man who looks to be in his mid-fifties with the kind of bone-deep exhaustion that comes from too many years on the force.
His eyes are tired, bloodshot at the corners, bracketed by deep crow's feet that speak of long shifts and longer nights.
There's a wedding band on his left hand, a simple gold band that's digging into the flesh of his ring finger like it's been there so long his finger's grown around it, the metal creating an indentation in the thick, calloused skin.
"You're free to go, Ms. Singh.”
The relief hits so hard I almost collapse.
"And Julian?"
Walsh sits next to me. The chair groans under his weight.
"Mr. Ramirez has been formally charged with assault causing bodily harm," Walsh says, his voice flat and professional, devoid of any emotion that might offer me comfort.
He leans back in his chair, the metal frame creaking beneath him as he shifts his considerable weight.
"He's been informed of his right to legal counsel, and he'll be held pending a bail hearing. "
"No." The word rips out of me. "He was defending me. Daniel kidnapped me—"
"We're aware of the circumstances."
"Then why—"
"The force used exceeded what's considered reasonable self-defense under the law. That's not my call. That's the Crown's."
My hands shake. This is my fault. All of it.
"Is Daniel—" I can't finish.
"Mr. Ross is currently in critical but stable condition at Cumberland General," Walsh says, his tone remaining professionally neutral, almost clinical.
"He sustained a skull fracture, along with significant internal bleeding.
As of fifteen minutes ago, he was taken into emergency surgery.
" He pauses, watching me carefully, gauging my reaction.
"The surgeons will be working on him for several hours at least."
The room tilts. Julian could've killed him. Almost did.
"You're not to have any contact whatsoever with either Mr. Ross or Mr. Ramirez for a minimum of forty-eight hours," Walsh continues, his voice taking on that official, rehearsed quality cops get when they're reciting protocol.
"That means no phone calls, no text messages, no emails, no social media contact of any kind.
Additionally, you're barred from returning to the scene of the incident during that time period. "
I blink at him, trying to process what he's saying. "But my car is still there."
"Make other arrangements."
"How am I supposed to—"
He carefully pushes a small, white business card across the metal table, its faint glossy finish catching the overhead lights. The embossed letters read: "Victim Services," stark and bold against the stark white.
I stare at it, numb. Powerless.
Then something shifts. A spark of rage cutting through the fog.
"Daniel's in your system. The restraining order. The harassment." My voice steadies. "He's also a person of interest in a missing persons case. Claudia McAllister. She lived in his building. They were involved."
Walsh's expression changes. Just barely.
"Go on."
"Ask Officer Anderson. We turned over evidence—texts between Claudia and her boyfriend. Daniel's name is all over them. He was controlling her, isolating her. Then she disappeared."
Walsh writes something down.
"This information could be useful in your friend's defense," Walsh says, his tone carefully measured as he taps his pen against the notepad. "We'll certainly look into it. Cross-reference the timeline, pull what we have on McAllister’s disappearance. If there's a pattern here, we need to know."
"Will it help Julian?"
He doesn't answer. Just stands.
"You're free to go."
I walk out out of the station, shoulders hunched.
Julian's not here. He's somewhere inside, locked up, alone.
And I can't even call him.
I stand on the curb outside the police station, hugging myself against the cold night air, phone screen glaring up at me with its harsh blue light.
The Uber's seven minutes out according to the little car icon crawling across the map.
It might as well be seven hours. Every second stretches out, endless and suffocating, while I wait here alone on this empty street corner.
My thumb hovers over Julian's name before I remember—no contact. The words feel obscene.
The car pulls up. Silver Camry. The driver doesn't say much. I'm grateful.
I slide into the backseat and the world blurs past the window. Streetlights. Stop signs. People living normal lives, unaware that mine just detonated.
Daniel's face surges up in my mind—the twisted rage I felt when he grabbed me in that parking lot, fingers digging into my arm hard enough to bruise.
Then the metallic click and cold bite of handcuffs against Julian's wrists, the officer yanking his arms behind his back while he didn't resist, didn't fight.
And before that—God, before that—Julian's fists connecting with Daniel's face again and again, the sickening sound of knuckles on bone, the spray of blood, the way Daniel's head snapped back with each impact until—
I press my palms against my eyes. Stop. Just stop.
But I can't stop it—can't shut it off, can't make it go away. The loop plays on repeat, relentless and merciless, each frame seared into my brain with crystal clarity.
Daniel crumpling to the ground, his body folding in on itself like a broken marionette. Blood spreading across the concrete in dark, arterial rivulets that caught the streetlight and gleamed wet and obscene.
Julian's hands shaking violently as he pulled out his phone and dialed 911, his knuckles split open and bleeding, his voice oddly steady as he reported what he'd done, what he'd had to do.
"You okay back there?"
The driver's watching me in the rearview.
"Fine."
I'm not fine. I'm nowhere close.
The brownstone feels wrong without Julian. Too quiet, as if someone's sucked all the sound out of the air and left only this oppressive, suffocating silence that presses against my eardrums and makes me want to scream just to fill the void.
I wander from room to room, my footsteps echoing on the hardwood floors in a way they never did before, each hollow sound amplifying the emptiness.
I dig through his desk drawer until I find it—a torn envelope with Mark's number scrawled on the back. Julian mentioned him once. Best friend since high school. Works in construction.
My hands won't stop shaking as I dial.
"Yeah?"
"Mark? This is Liza. Julian's—"
"I know who you are."
His voice is rough. Guarded.
"Julian's been arrested," I blurt out, the words tumbling over each other in a frantic rush.
"They charged him with assault. Aggravated assault.
They're holding him at the police station downtown and I can't—" My voice cracks, splinters into something raw and desperate.
"They told me I can't contact him directly.
That I'm not family, so I don't have any rights to see him or talk to him, and I don't know what to do.
I don't know how to help him and this is all my fault and—"
"Slow down."
I suck in air. Try again.
"He needs a lawyer. He was defending me but they charged him anyway and—"
"Where is he?"
"Cumberland PD. Downtown station."
"I'm on it. Heading there now."
Relief crashes through me like a physical wave, so overwhelming and sudden that my knees nearly buckle beneath me. I grip the edge of Julian's desk to keep myself upright, my fingers white-knuckled against the dark wood.
"Thank you. God, thank you—"
"Don't thank me yet."
He hangs up.
I call Jenna next. She picks up on the second ring.
"Liza?"
The second I hear her voice—warm and familiar and safe—something inside me finally shatters completely, all the fear and guilt and panic I've been holding back breaking through the fragile dam of my composure like a flood.
"Daniel…” Suddenly, I can’t speak.
“Liza? Are you okay?!” Jenna is frantic. Worried.
I inhale a long breath, attempting to calm myself down. The last thing I want is to scare Jenna. “Daniel… tried to kidnap me,” I finally manage.”
“What the fuck!” Jenna says. “Are you okay?!”
“Yes. Julian stopped him…” I inhale another long breath. “But he went too far and now… Julian's in jail and Daniel's in the hospital and—"
"Breathe. Just breathe."
I gulp air. My chest hurts.
"Tell me everything. Slowly."
So I do. I tell her everything, forcing myself to slow down, to make my words coherent instead of the frantic jumble they want to be.
I tell her about coming home from a shift, walking from my car in the dim parking garage beneath Julian’s building, keys in my hand.
About the footsteps behind me that I'd tried to convince myself were nothing, just another tenant heading to their car.
I tell her about Daniel appearing out of nowhere, his hand clamping over my mouth before I could scream, his other arm like an iron band around my waist as he dragged me backward.
About the handcuffs—actual handcuffs—that he'd snapped around my wrists , the metal biting into my skin.
About his voice in my ear, calm and almost tender, telling me we were going to talk somewhere private, somewhere I couldn't run away from him again.
I tell her about Julian appearing like something out of a nightmare, his face transformed into something I'd never seen before—pure, unfiltered rage.
About the sickening sounds of fists connecting with flesh and bone.
About Daniel crumpling to the concrete, blood pooling dark and terrible beneath his head.
About Julian's knuckles split and bleeding, his chest heaving, his eyes wild and unseeing until I'd finally screamed his name loud enough to break through whatever dark place he'd gone to.
My voice shakes through all of it, breaking on certain words—but I get it all out.
When I finish, there's only silence.
"Jenna?"
"I'm here. I'm just—Jesus, Liza."
"I ruined his life."
"No. Absolutely not, Jenna. Listen to me," she says, her voice firm but gentle, that particular tone she uses when she's trying to reach through my anxiety and pull me back to reality.
"That man—Daniel—he made his choices. He put his hands on you.
He handcuffed you. He tried to take you somewhere against your will.
Do you understand what that means? What he was planning to do? "
I squeeze my eyes shut, hot tears leaking from the corners. "I know, but—"
"No buts. Julian defended you. He protected you. That's not ruining his life, Liza. That's what someone who loves you does when they see you in danger."
Her words wash over me like cool water, and I feel something in my chest start to loosen, just a little. My breathing is still ragged, but it's not quite as desperate as it was a moment ago.
"I just keep seeing Daniel's head slamming against that pillar”, I whisper. "All that blood."
"I know, sweetie. I know it was traumatic. But that blood is on Daniel's hands, not yours. Not Julian's. Daniel created that situation. He's been terrorizing you for weeks… months. This was bound to explode eventually."
I take a shaky breath, letting her words sink into me, trying to absorb their truth even as my mind rebels against them. What would I do without my best friend—without this woman who always knows exactly what to say, who can pull me back from the edge when I'm spiraling into darkness?
I close my eyes, and thank the heavens for her.