20. Ryder
RYDER
The house doesn’t feel safe after I bring Alex back to it.
It’s locked. Monitored. Lit from the porch to the back fence with enough cheap temporary floodlights to make my yard look like a crime scene even before I start thinking about what happened today.
Remy is still here, even after he sent Logan home. Two other officers walked the perimeter, photographed the tarp over the fence, checked the muddy ground near the pine, and left with the kind of careful promises no one can actually make.
We’ll look into it.
We’ll increase patrols.
We’ll call if anything comes up.
None of it changes the sound Alex made when her phone hit the floor at those apartments.
I stand at the back window with one hand against the trim and watch the tree line while Alex sits at my dining room table with another mug she hasn’t touched.
She’s wearing my hoodie again, her bare knees tucked together beneath the hem, her hair still damp from the rain earlier.
There’s a faint red mark high on her arm where that bastard grabbed her, and every time my eyes find it, I have to move them away before I do something useless with the rage.
Remy stands in my kitchen, leaning back against the counter with his arms crossed.
He has the tired look of a man who has already spent too many hours staring at evidence and too many nights seeing crime scenes he can’t escape.
His gaze keeps moving between me and Alex, measuring both of us in a way I don’t appreciate and probably deserve.
“We’ve got the glove,” he says. “Partial tread from the hall, maybe. The apartment footage from the building is worthless because the landlord’s cameras haven’t worked right in two years, which is going to make me lose what little faith I had left in rental property management.
Mrs. Vance gave a statement detailed enough to terrify every man in a six-block radius with black sneakers, though, so that’s good. ”
Alex’s mouth moves against the rim of her mug. Almost a smile. Not enough of one.
“She also called him a knock-kneed coward with discount footwear,” Remy adds.
“That sounds like Mrs. Vance,” Alex says. “She’s nosy, but she’s the best neighbor in the world.”
Her voice is steady, and carefully measured. The kind she uses when she knows everyone is waiting for her to break and refuses to give them the satisfaction. I press my thumb harder against the window trim until the old wood digs beneath my nail.
Remy notices.
Of course he does.
He pushes off the counter and lowers his voice. “Ryder.”
“I’m fine.”
“No, you’re standing there like the window personally offended you.”
Alex looks at me then. Not quickly. Not with fear. She studies my hand on the trim, my shoulders, the distance I’ve put between us because I don’t trust what will come out of me if I stand too close. Her mug lands softly on the table.
“Don’t do that,” she says.
I turn from the window. “Do what?”
“Bleed anger all over the room and pretend you’re fine. None of this is fine, and you can be honest about that.”
Remy’s eyebrows lift like he’d enjoy that sentence more if the situation wasn’t so fucked. I don’t look at him. I keep my attention on Alex because she’s the only thing in the room that matters and the one person I’m trying not to damage with everything I’m holding back.
“I heard him put his hands on you,” I say, and the words come out low enough that Remy stops pretending to be interested in the coffee maker. “I heard you hit something. I heard you scream my name, and I wasn’t there.”
Alex’s fingers curl around the mug. “You got there.”
“After.”
The single word puts too much weight and tension in the kitchen.
Remy looks down. Alex doesn’t. She pushes her chair back and comes toward me before I can decide whether I’m allowed to meet her halfway.
She stops close enough to touch, but she doesn’t do it yet.
She waits until my eyes drop to the mark on her arm again, then covers it with her hand.
“You didn’t fail just because Mrs. Vance got there first.”
I swallow down the nausea that creeps in at the thought of what would have happened if that old woman didn’t come out cane blazing in Alex’s defense. “That isn’t what it felt like.”
“No,” she says quietly. “I know.”
That lands harder than her trying to offer comfort would have.
She knows because she spent years measuring safety by what hurt least, by which door was closest, by what mood a man was in when the room changed around her.
She knows because this helpless feeling I can’t escape is one she lived with for years.
Remy clears his throat after a second. “I’m going to keep a unit near the apartment tonight.
Not sitting directly outside because I’d rather not spook him off if he comes back, but close enough.
I’ll also put another request in on Preston’s known associates and see if anyone matches what Alex or Mrs. Vance saw.
The shoe detail is ridiculous, but with Mrs. Vance, I’m not ruling anything out. ”
“I want the name of every person he’s contacted since he came back,” I say.
Remy’s face goes flat. “And I want to win the lottery and retire with Parker somewhere no one commits crimes before breakfast or after I go to bed at night. We don’t always get what we want.”
Alex shifts beside me, and my mouth closes before I say the next thing on my mind.
The thing about finding the name myself.
The thing about not caring whether the method would hold up in court.
The thing about taking the glove, the tread, the partial description, and every rotten piece of Preston’s life apart until something breaks open.
Remy watches me swallow it. Because every single person in this room knows that I can’t be the one to do this. As much as I’m obsessed with her, I can’t be the one to catch the bastard hurting her.
“Good,” he says, quieter. “Keep doing that.”
Alex looks between us. “Doing what?”
“Not making my job harder,” Remy says. He reaches for his jacket from the back of one of my kitchen chairs and softens the words with a look at her.
“Call me if anything changes. Either of you. And Alex, I know Mrs. Vance said she was calling your family, but I’m hoping she was too busy insulting officers to follow through. ”
Alex’s face changes just enough to tell me she hadn’t let herself think that far ahead.
My phone buzzes on the counter.
We all look at it.
Josh’s name fills the screen.
The room goes still in a different way.
Alex closes her eyes. “Fantastic.”
I don’t pick it up. The call rings until it stops, then starts again almost immediately.
Josh. Again. I can picture him wherever he is, pacing with one hand in his hair and Nia close enough to keep him from putting his fist through a wall.
I can picture the moment he heard. Mrs. Vance, Remy, someone at the station, it doesn’t matter.
The story is loose now. Alex on the floor.
Masked man. Open apartment. Ryder on the phone while it happened.
I reach for the phone, but Alex’s hand closes over mine.
“Not yet,” she says.
“He’s your brother.” I hesitate.
“I know. And I love him. But right now, I can’t do his fear on top of mine.”
I turn my hand under hers and lace our fingers together. “Okay.”
The call stops. A text comes in before I can set the phone down.
Josh: Answer your fucking phone.
Remy sighs. “That’ll be fun later.”
Alex lets out a weak laugh, and it scrapes through my chest because it’s too small for her.
I hate that Preston keeps reducing her to these fucked up versions of herself.
A small laugh or thin voice instead of the sass and sarcasm I love so much.
Shaking hands hidden in sleeves. I want every piece of her back in the room at full volume.
I want her loud and stubborn and threatening me with plastic utensils because she knows I’ll stand there and take it and then ask her for more.
Remy leaves after making me promise twice not to go near Alex’s apartment tonight.
Alex walks him to the door with me a step behind her, not because she needs me there, but because I can’t stand it any other way.
When the door closes, I lock it, check it, then force myself not to check it again while she watches.
“Do it,” she says.
My hand is still on the deadbolt. “What?”
“Check it again. You’re going to think about it for the next ten minutes if you don’t.”
I look at her, trying to see if she’s teasing me, but I can’t see anything but her patience with my compulsion. “That doesn’t bother you?”
“It bothers me less than watching you pretend you’re not rebuilding the entire house from the ground up, adding in more security.”
I check the lock again.
Her mouth curves a little. “Better?”
“No.”
“Honest, at least.”
The hint of a smile fades as quickly as it came.
She looks small standing here, and I hate that thought the second it appears.
Alex isn’t small. She’s strong enough to survive things that should have broken her, stubborn enough to argue with me while shaking, brave enough to choose to trust me even when she’s afraid.
But her body looks slight inside my sweatshirt, her bare legs pale beneath the hem, and there are marks on her arms because Preston fucking touched her without permission.
“I need a minute,” I say.
Her eyes lift to mine.
I point toward the hall because words are getting harder. “Shower. I need to get my head right.”
She doesn’t ask if I’m okay. I’m grateful for that. She only nods and steps aside, letting me pass without making me explain the violence still racing under my skin.
The upstairs bathroom fills with steam fast. I turn the water hotter than it needs to be and brace both hands on the tile while it runs over the back of my neck.
Heat beats against my shoulders. My jaw aches from clenching it so hard.
Every time I close my eyes, I’m back in the truck with the phone on the console and Alex’s voice breaking through the speaker.
My door’s open.
Back away.