22. Justin
JUSTIN
“Your girl just got herself arrested.”
My spine locks.
It’s after ten at night, the kind of hour where nothing good ever arrives unannounced, and for a beat I’m sure I misheard him. My brain stalls, refusing to process the sentence as anything real.
“What?” I snap.
“She was parked on Baker Street,” Miguel tells me. “Engine off. Cop just rolled up. I’m too far to hear it, but it looks like he’s trying to pin her for solicitation.”
For a second, I can’t speak.
It isn’t exactly shock. It’s the sudden, infuriating clarity of it.
This girl—brilliant, reckless, catastrophically self-destructive—planting herself in a known enforcement zone and acting surprised when she gets pulled up for doing so.
The sheer absurdity of it hits hard enough to make my jaw ache.
“Where are they taking her?” I ask, voice gone flat.
“Not sure,” Miguel replies. “She’s in the back of the cruiser now.”
My vision sharpens at the edges.
“There goes your law career,” I mutter, low enough that he can’t hear.
Miguel hesitates. “You want me to intervene?”
“No,” I say immediately. I draw in a slow breath, forcing the heat in my chest down into something controlled. Usable. “Follow them. Let me know which station she’s taken to.”
“Copy.”
The line goes dead.
I’m already moving—pulling on clothes, grabbing my keys, mind racing ahead of my body. By the time I reach the station, the initial surge of anger has cooled into something darker. Heavier. Something that sits in my chest like a live coal, burning steady, waiting for somewhere to land.
I park, get out, and walk into the building without slowing.
The desk sergeant looks up, irritation already set on his face, ready to be rude—until he actually sees me. The assessment happens in real time. My expression. My posture. The rage on my face.
I don’t introduce myself.
“I’m here for Rowan Hale,” I say.
He blinks. “You her attorney?”
I don’t answer that. “What’s she been charged with?”
His mouth tightens, like he doesn’t appreciate the pivot. “Loitering in a designated enforcement zone. Obstruction. Failure to comply.”
“She’s a law student,” I say evenly. “Not a prostitute.”
He shrugs, dismissive. “Tell that to the officer who found her parked with the engine off on Prostitute’s Row. From where I’m standing, it looks like solicitation. It’ll get sorted in the morning.”
I hold his gaze without blinking. I speak without raising my voice.
“Sort it out now.”
His nostrils flare. He doesn’t like me. That’s fine. I don’t like him, either.
“I’m taking her home,” I tell him.
He looks at me like I’ve just said the stupidest thing he’s heard all night. “No can do, buddy. She needs bail, and the courts don’t open until morning.”
I lean in just slightly—not threatening or loud, every movement precise.
“You’re making this unnecessarily difficult,” I say. “Rowan Hale goes home tonight.”
I enunciate every word, slow and certain, like I’m speaking to someone who needs the extra help. Then I step away from the desk before I can hear another useless word that comes out of his mouth, pull my phone from my pocket, and make the call.
That’s the thing about power—real power. It doesn’t shout. It moves quietly, through back channels and unspoken obligations. Being the head of Goliath means there’s always someone who knows someone who owes someone a favor they’d rather not remember.
The call is brief. Efficient. Without pleasantries.
When I hang up, I turn back toward the desk.
The sergeant is watching me now, his earlier irritation replaced by something closer to caution. Before he can say anything, the phone on his desk rings. He answers it with a clipped, impatient greeting.
I don’t miss the way his expression shifts.
Color drains from his face, then rushes back in uneven waves—pink, then red, then a deeper, angrier shade that crawls up his neck. He grunts into the receiver, tight and monosyllabic, before slamming it back into its cradle. He shoots me a glare sharp enough to cut.
Without a word, he picks the phone up again and dials another number. His jaw works as he speaks, shoulders stiff, irritation barely contained.
I wait.
Less than five minutes later, a door down the hall opens.
Rowan appears between two officers, walking under her own power, chin lifted.
She looks composed in that brittle way people do when they’re fueled by anger and sheer will alone.
Her hair is pulled back tight. Her face is pale under the harsh fluorescent lights.
Her jaw is clenched hard enough to ache.
Her eyes are sharp when they land on me.
Alive. Furious. Unbroken.
And for reasons I don’t want to examine too closely, the tight coil in my chest finally eases—just a fraction.
“What are you doing here?” she demands.
I don’t bother cushioning the moment. There’s no point.
“I should ask you the same,” I reply.
The desk sergeant slides a stack of paperwork toward me. I don’t look at it. By tomorrow morning, this entire incident will have been quietly filed away and forgotten. I’ll make sure of it.
Rowan Hale is officially released into my custody.
It’s an absurd sentence. One that shouldn’t exist. And yet, here we are.
Her gaze flicks toward the exit, calculating. For a second, I think she might walk straight past me and pretend I’m not standing there at all.
Instead, she steps closer, lowering her voice. “How did you even know I was here?”
I lean in just enough that the desk sergeant can’t hear us clearly. “Let’s take this outside, shall we?”
Rowan bursts through the station doors and drags in a breath like she’s been underwater. The night hits her all at once—cold, sharp—and for half a second she just stands there, chest rising too fast.
Then she turns on me. Her glare could start fires.
“Why are you following me?”
“I’m not,” I say evenly. “But it’s a good thing I had eyes on you, isn’t it?”
Her mouth twists, ugly and furious. “You’re stalking me.”
I let out a short, humorless laugh. “You were parked in a no-standing zone on a prostitution strip. You weren’t exactly invisible.”
“I was working,” she snaps.
“On what?” I press. “Tell me.”
She gives me nothing.
“Rowan,” I say, my voice tightening despite myself, “you’re treating your future like it’s disposable. You realize a conviction like that could end any chance you have of practicing law?”
“I don’t care.”
The words cut clean. I stare at her a beat too long.
“This is your life,” I say quietly. “You should care.”
Her eyes flash. “Why? So I can be a good little law student who believes in a corrupt system that protects the guilty and punishes the innocent? Is that what you want?”
The air between us goes razor-thin. She lifts a hand to her mouth like she can shove the words back inside herself. Color drains from her face. She knows she said too much. Knows she cracked something open she meant to keep sealed.
I already know. I just want to hear it from her.
I keep my voice low, controlled. “Why are you so angry?” I ask. “Tell me.”
“I’m not angry,” she says, and the calm in her voice is lethal.
Her lips part, then press together again. She looks past me, breathing hard through her nose, fighting herself. Holding something vicious back.
I don’t let her retreat.
“What were you doing on Baker Street?” I ask.
I’m met with her silence. I step closer. Not touching or crowding her. Just enough that she feels me there.
“Rowan.”
She blinks. It’s only once, small and involuntary.
“Why are you following me?” she fires back, voice rough. “Who sent you?”
“Answer my question,” I say. “What were you doing on Baker?”
She shakes her head. “No.”
“No?”
“You don’t get to stand there and interrogate me,” she snarls, the words tearing out of her. “You’re not who you say you are, are you? Justin Collins. Fucking security consultant,” she spits. “You’re stalking me.”
Her anger is a living thing—sharp, incandescent, filling the space between us like it needs air to breathe. It rolls off her in waves, reckless and righteous and barely contained.
Something inside my chest snaps tight in response.
“If I hadn’t been watching,” I fire back, voice hardening despite myself, “you’d be sitting in a cell right now with no one coming for you. No calls. No lawyer. No one.”
The words land harder than I intend.
Her mouth opens, but nothing comes out. It closes again, and the silence that follows is brutal.
I watch the moment hit her.
It’s not denial or disbelief, but recognition.
It cuts clean and deep. The truth she didn’t want to name finally forces its way to the surface—that there is no safety net waiting to catch her. No one pacing the floor. No one blowing up her phone. No one who would have shown up at a precinct demanding answers.
No one.
She turns sharply and stalks toward the car park, shoulders rigid, every step fueled by fury and pride stitched together just enough to keep her upright. I follow at a distance, close enough to intervene if I have to, far enough not to corner her.
She moves like a wound held together by rage alone.
I move like restraint is the only thing keeping me from detonating right alongside her.
The night air hits us both—cold and unforgiving. It cuts through the heat between us, strips the moment bare. No music. No masks. No velvet shadows to hide in.
Just the truth.
And it’s standing between us, sharp enough to draw blood.
“Rowan.”
She keeps walking.
I catch up and grip her elbow—just enough to stop her. She whirls on me, her eyes feral.
“Don’t touch me.”
I let go instantly. “I’m taking you home.”
“I can take myself.”
“No,” I say flatly. “You can’t. It’s past midnight, and I’m not letting you walk home alone.”
Her eyes burn. “I want you to leave me alone, Justin. Whoever you are. Whatever you think you want. I just need you to leave me the fuck alone.”
She doesn’t shout it. She says it like she’s empty. Like she’s running on fumes and sheer stubbornness. Her throat works once as she swallows.
“I’ll drop you off at home.”
For a moment, I think she’ll fight me.
Instead, she turns and walks toward my car without another word.