Chapter 6
Yesterday, Sanaa had walked into my office like she wasn’t the woman who once shattered me. Like I wasn’t the man who let her.
She sat across from me with those same eyes—calm seas hiding storms—and I could barely breathe. Every word out her mouth had me rewinding time, tripping over memories I never stopped carrying.
I’d fumbled her in ways I still couldn’t say out loud. Thought I could keep her close without giving her everything. Thought my silence could shield her, when all it did was push her away.
I didn’t say what I should’ve said back then. That the fire scared me and I was afraid to scare her too.
And yesterday, when she leaned back in my chair, letting her legs cross slowly and deliberately—I damn near forgot how to speak again.
She still had that effect on me and I realized nothing would ever change that when I had to hold myself back from chasing her down when she left my office.
I was still the fool staring after her, trying not to drown in what we used to be.
My morning hadn’t been sloppy. I didn’t allow that. Not in this job. Not at this rank.
I woke before sunrise, same as always. Ran three miles through Highland Park while the city was still quiet enough to think. Showered. Shaved clean. Pressed my shirt. Knotted my tie twice until it sat right. Ate what I always ate—protein shake and grapes. Fuel, not comfort.
Discipline was the only way to carry what this work asked of you. The only way to walk into burned spaces without letting them follow you home. But even with all that control, she was still there. In the back of my mind. In the rhythm of my steps. In the silence between breaths.
I could button my collar. I could polish my shoes. I could make the outside of my life look ordered and exact. It didn’t change the fact that seeing Sanaa again had knocked something loose I’d spent six years locking down.
Hell, I’d barely slept last night. Laid in bed for hours with my hand around my dick, hard as steel and thinking about the way her voice dipped when she said my name.
I stroked myself slow, my eyes shut, her scent still in my lungs.
But I stopped before the edge. Didn’t finish. Couldn’t. Not without her.
By midafternoon, I was bone tired.
My boots crunched over scorched gravel and ash as I made another pass around the perimeter, cataloging what couldn’t be saved.
Smoke still hung in the air—not heavy, but enough to coat the back of your throat if you breathed too deep.
My gloves were black at the fingertips, the fabric worn smooth from pressure and grit.
I didn’t mind. The mess helped me think. Helped me listen.
Some men solve fires with data. Timelines, witness logs, damage ratios. I did all that too—but mostly, I hunted silence. The shift in the air. The place where the fire started lying.
We’d narrowed the ignition site to the west wing—a collapsed wall and the remnants of what looked like a gallery space. A melted metal bracket hung twisted from brick. Canvas had curled into charred leaves. The accelerant had been clean. Professional. Whoever set this wanted precision, not chaos.
I took a knee in the ashes of what used to be a library wing.
Burned tomes lay scattered, their spines blistered and warped like arthritic bones. I reached for one, brushed back a layer of soot. Gold leaf flaked beneath my thumb. Leather binding. First editions, maybe. Rare. Curated. Whoever lived here prized knowledge.
I closed my eyes for a moment, let my other senses lead.
The air was drier here. Too dry. No water damage, no fire suppression.
That was intentional.
I stood slowly, every joint feeling the weight of the scene. The quiet parts told me more than the obvious ones. This wasn’t a panic burn. This was ritual. Erasure. And someone wanted us to believe it was random.
My phone buzzed in my chest pocket. I almost ignored it. But when I checked the screen, I saw Tyson.
I exhaled hard. I loved my brother, but he had a knack for calling when I needed to be tuned into whatever ghosts were whispering through scorched drywall.
“Yeah.”
“Damn, that’s how you answer the phone now?”
“I’m on site.”
“Oh, shit—my bad. You alright?”
“Yeah,” I muttered, crouching again. “You know how I get when I’m listening to what the fire didn’t say.”
“Right, right,” he said. “I’ll keep it short. Just wondering if you’re sliding by the house this weekend. Ma said she’s making sweet potato pie.”
“Maybe.”
“Mmmmn. That’s a no.”
I didn’t answer. My mind had already started drifting toward Sanaa again. Her scent still clung to the edges of memory—leather and some kind of soft floral heat.
Tyson paused. Then—“So uh… Tyrell said he saw her.”
I frowned. “Who?”
“Sanaa. Yesterday. Said she was leaving your building.”
This city was too damn small and my younger brother never missed shit.
“Tyrell’s always running his mouth,” I said flat.
“Ohhh,” Tyson chuckled. “So it was her.”
I didn’t reply. Just shifted my stance and kept my eyes on the blackened wall ahead.
“Damn,” he dragged the word like a sigh. “And y’all just ran into each other?”
“She’s tied to the case. The fire. She was working the scene.”
Silence. Then: “How’d she look?”
I let the truth slip out before I could stop it. “Like herself.”
“So—fine as hell.”
Still, I said nothing. How could I? She’d had my mind blown and my tongue tied since the first day I met her.
Tyson whistled low. “That’s a hard one, man. Sanaa always moved like she knew what the room owed her.”
“She still does.”
“I remember when Ma first met her. I thought she was gonna cry when y’all split.”
I huffed. “Ma’s dramatic.” I remember my father rolling his eyes and shaking his head, but still staring at Sanaa like she was an apparition.
“True. But she liked her. Said she was elegant. Smart as hell. Thoughtful. Called her gracious—you know she don’t use that word for just anybody.”
She was all of that. But she wasn’t only that.
Not when I had her shaking under me, breath caught in her throat, saying my name like she knew it meant more than sound.
Not when her mouth wrapped around me with that slow hunger—soft, then devastating.
Not when she’d ride me slow with her fingers locked behind my neck, whispering shit only I got to hear.
A growl built in my chest—raw, hungry. I swallowed it whole.
“You good?” Tyson asked.
“Yeah.”
“You know what I’m gonna say, right?”
“I do.”
“You fucked that up.”
“I know.”
“You still got feelings?”
I stood and brushed my palms off on my pants. “I gotta get back to work.”
“Yeah, alright,” he sighed. “Just don’t pretend you don’t miss her. And don’t come to the house acting mad when Tyrell brings her up again.”
He hung up before I could respond.
I stared at the phone for a moment, jaw tight, then slid it back into my pocket. The fire didn’t answer to noise. It answered to presence.
I closed my eyes. Felt the air again. The pressure. The pattern.
And then I saw it—no scorch above a certain line on the wall. Shelf height. There’d been something there. Blocking. Resisting. Or pulled down after.
I took a step forward, let my fingers trace the ghost print left behind. Something had been removed from this room. Not everything burned.