Chapter Four #2
"Travis." Her voice was firm but not cruel. "I haven't reconsidered. I'm not here for that."
The hope died. Watching it leave his face was uncomfortable; less about sympathy, more about recognizing a man who'd built an entire future on a foundation that didn't exist and was just now figuring that out.
"Oh." He sat back down. "Then what —"
"Someone's been threatening me. Seriously threatening me. My apartment was broken into, someone tried to run me off a bridge, and I've been receiving escalating harassment for weeks."
His face went pale. "Charlie, that's — are you okay? That's terrifying."
"I'm handling it. But I need to know — have you noticed anything unusual around my place lately? You live in the neighborhood."
His eyes dropped to the table. A flush crept up his neck. "I, um. I don't really —"
"Travis."
He swallowed. "I've walked by your building a few times. Recently." The flush deepened. "Not in a — I mean, I wasn't — I just sometimes walk that way. It's on my route."
"It's twelve blocks out of your way."
"I like the exercise." He couldn't look at her. Then, quietly: "I wanted to tell you. I've been seeing someone around your building. An older guy. He didn't fit the neighborhood, looked like money. Dark car, parked down the block. I noticed because I was —" He trailed off, mortified.
"Because you were watching my building."
"I'm sorry. I know that's —"
"When did you see him?"
"A few times over the past couple weeks. Maybe three? Always around the same time, late afternoon. I thought maybe he was visiting someone in your building, but he never went inside. Just sat in his car."
I processed the information from my table near the counter, coffee untouched.
Older man. Money. Dark car. The description eliminated Travis and Deb.
This was someone with means. But it didn't point to one person.
Could be Walsh. Could be someone connected to Kiser. Could be someone we hadn't considered.
Charlie thanked him and stood. Travis called after her.
"Charlie? Be careful. Please."
She didn't answer. I followed her out, and we walked half a block before she spoke.
"Your read?"
"Sad. Not dangerous." I kept my voice even. "Doesn't have the money or the temperament for what's been happening to you. That description is useful, though."
"It doesn't tell us enough."
"No. But it tells us two things. First: someone with money has been physically surveilling your building. Second —" I glanced back toward the coffee shop. "The figure I spotted outside Velvet Arrow. Average height, hoodie, amateur body language. That was Travis."
She stopped walking. "Travis was following us?"
"Following you. Lurking. Wrong body language for a professional tail, which is why I read it as low-threat." One mystery solved. A bigger one sharpened. I texted Cass the description and Travis's intel. Heartline was already digging — expected they'd have something by morning.
BACK AT HER APARTMENT, we worked.
No gala. No infiltration. No wigs or fake names. Just Charlie at the kitchen table with her laptop and her suspect files, and me across from her with Heartline's database.
She pulled her backup archive from the cloud, the files the break-in hadn't touched, and started cross-referencing.
Every story she'd broken in the last year, every person she'd photographed, every lead that had gone somewhere or nowhere.
She pulled threads between events that looked unrelated — a timeline here, a name there, connections I wouldn't have drawn.
Her instincts were different from mine — less systematic, more lateral — but just as sharp.
"Walsh's comeback started three weeks ago," she said, pulling up a timeline she'd built. "Same week the threats started. That could be coincidence."
"You don't believe in coincidence."
"I believe in data. And right now, the data says Walsh had means and motive.
But the data also says Kiser had an associate named.
.." She trailed off, scrolling through old case notes.
"During the Kiser story, I photographed him at three different events.
Never alone. Always with the same people.
Political types, mostly. Campaign donors. "
"Kiser's under federal watch. If someone in his orbit is operating independently..."
"Then we're looking at a bigger picture than one angry politician."
I called Cass. Relayed the description from Travis, Charlie's timeline connecting Walsh's public comeback to the start of the threats. Cass listened without interrupting.
"Give us overnight. We'll have something by morning."
I ended the call. Charlie was watching me. Her expression had shifted: less adversarial, more assessing. The way she looked at a scene before she found the shot.
"What?" I asked.
"You're good at this."
"It's my job."
"Not the protection part. The investigation part. The way you take all these fragments and build a structure." She tilted her head. "You think like a soldier, but you investigate like a journalist."
"Marine Recon. We did both."
"I bet you were terrifying."
"I was thorough."
She almost smiled. Almost.
AT 1600, CHARLIE INSISTED on leaving the apartment.
She had the gala shots sitting on a drive that needed to get to Morty's office. Deliverables didn't wait, even when someone was shredding your life's work and leaving it on your doorstep.
"I can take the drive myself," I said.
"Morty's my editor, not yours. He'll want to review the shots with me. Besides." She grabbed her jacket. "I've been staring at screens for eight hours. If I don't move, I'll start climbing walls. Literally."
I believed her. I'd watched her pace three times in the last hour, energy coiling tighter with nowhere to go.
We took my SUV. The afternoon was gray and cold, February in Cupid City, the river fog already creeping up the streets.
She sat in the passenger seat scrolling through the shots on her camera, selecting the strongest frames.
Jaw set, posture straight, no trace of the woman who'd been sorting through confetti six hours ago.
If I hadn't been there for both versions, I wouldn't have believed they were the same person.
Morty's office took twenty minutes. I waited in the SUV, engine running, eyes on the entrance of Giovanni's Pizza and the staircase above it. She came out carrying a check and complaining about Morty's feedback.
"He wants more Tully. The man's a senator with a mistress, how much more does he need?"
"That's between you and your editorial standards."
"My editorial standards are impeccable. Morty's are driven by clicks and spite."
The drive back took us east on Market, through the tail end of rush hour. Traffic was heavy but moving. I had the route mapped: left on Fourth, right on River Road, straight shot back to her building. Routine.
The car came out of nowhere.
A dark sedan, midsize, tinted windows, ran the red light at Fourth and Market and clipped the SUV hard on the passenger side.
Metal shrieked. The impact slammed Charlie against her seatbelt and threw my hands off the wheel for a half-second before I corrected, fighting the skid, tires screaming on wet pavement.
The sedan didn't stop. It accelerated through the intersection, rear tires fishtailing, and was two blocks ahead before I got the SUV straight.
Charlie was braced against the dashboard, breathing hard. "What the hell —"
I was already reading the plate. Partial: first three characters, maybe four. I burned them into memory and grabbed my phone.
"Cass. Sideswipe on Market and Fourth. Dark sedan, midsize, tinted windows. Partial plate: Kilo-Bravo-Seven-Four, first four characters. Hit Charlie's side. Ran the light, made contact, kept going."
"Intentional?"
"The hit was on her side." I looked at Charlie. She was pale, one hand gripping the door handle, the other pressed against her ribs where the seatbelt had caught. "Could be road rage. Could be targeted. The approach angle and acceleration pattern say targeted."
"Get her home. Stay locked in."
"Are you hurt?"
"No." She released the door handle. Her fingers were white. "Ribs are sore. Seatbelt did its job." She stared at the road ahead, then back at the intersection where it had happened. "That wasn't an accident."
"No."
"Should we call the police?"
"Your call. But think about what happens if we do."
She was quiet for a moment. "Cops hate Cupid Confidential. They've threatened to investigate our methods twice. If I walk into a precinct, they'll ask how I got those photos, and then I'll be the one answering questions."
"There's another angle. Feds are circling Kiser. If this connects to a bigger operation, involving local PD could tip someone off or get buried by corruption."
"So what do we do?"
"We let Heartline gather evidence. Build the full picture. When we have enough, we hand it all to the feds as a package: the threats, the shredded photos, the plate, whatever turns up on the money trail. One shot, done right."
She looked at me. Held my gaze longer than she needed to. Whatever she was deciding, she decided it.
"Okay," she said. "We do this our way."
HER APARTMENT FELT smaller at night. Same locks, same blinds, same routine — but tonight the walls felt closer, the silence heavier.
I checked the windows. Checked the fire escape. Set my phone on the counter with Cass's number one tap away. Charlie sat on the couch with her legs tucked under her and a mug of tea she wasn't drinking.
The adrenaline crash was hitting. I could see it in the way her hands wouldn't stay still, picking at the mug handle, adjusting the blanket, pulling at a loose thread on the cushion.
She'd locked everything down in the SUV like she always did: compartmentalized, kept moving.
But there was nowhere to move now. Just the apartment and the silence and the fact that someone had tried to hurt her today and she couldn't outrun it by climbing a fire escape or hiding behind a dessert cart.
I sat beside her. Not touching. Close enough that she could feel the warmth if she wanted it.
"I'm fine," she said.
"I know."
"I've dealt with worse."
"I know that too."
"I don't need —" She stopped. Her jaw worked. Slight, barely visible, but I'd been trained to read bodies in combat zones and hers was running on fumes and adrenaline.
She set down the tea and reached for me.
Not the way she'd reached for me at the Conservatory.
Hungry, reckless, pulling me toward her with both hands and no plan.
This was different. Her fingers found the front of my shirt and curled into the fabric, and she pulled herself closer, pressing against my chest, her mouth finding my jaw, my neck.
Her breathing was wrong. Too fast, too shallow, more adrenaline than desire.
She kissed my throat. Her hands slid under my shirt, fingers cool against my stomach, and she tried to climb into my lap.
I wanted her. Same as the first night, same as every night since: immediate, consuming, the kind of want that made discipline feel like a joke.
But her fingers were cold. Ice-cold against my stomach, and unsteady.
She wasn't reaching for me because she wanted me. She was reaching because she was scared and she wanted to feel something other than afraid.
I caught her wrists. Gently.
"Not like this."
She flinched. "What?"
"Not like this, Charlie."
She tried to pull her wrists free. Her eyes were bright — anger and embarrassment fighting for dominance. "I'm fine. I want this. I want —"
"I know what you want." I held her wrists, thumbs resting on her pulse points. Both racing. "And I want you. Every part of me wants you right now. But your hands are shaking and your breathing's wrong, and this isn't desire driving you. It's fear."
"Don't tell me what I'm feeling."
"I'm not. I'm telling you what I see." I loosened my grip but didn't let go.
"You've been terrified since that box showed up this morning.
You held it together through Travis, through the case work, through someone trying to kill us with a car.
You held it together because that's what you do — you push through, you keep moving, you don't stop.
But you've stopped now. And the fear's catching up. "
"So what?" Her voice cracked. "What if it is fear? What's wrong with wanting to feel anything other than —"
"Nothing's wrong with it." I brought her wrists together, pressing her palms flat against my heartbeat. "But I'm not going to be the thing you use to run from it."
Her jaw worked. She blinked hard, looked away, looked back — and the fight drained out of her face all at once. What replaced it was worse. Raw. Open. Someone caught without her armor who didn't know how to exist without it.
She tried to pull away. I didn't let her.
I shifted on the couch, pulled her against me, and wrapped both arms around her. Not a kiss. Not foreplay. Just holding her. My chin on top of her head, her face tucked into my shoulder, my arms tight enough that she couldn't pretend this wasn't happening.
She fought it. Stiff in my arms, every muscle rigid, pride screaming at her to shove me away and retreat to her bed where she could fall apart alone like she always had.
She lasted about thirty seconds.
Then something broke. A sound against my shoulder — small, wrecked, furious. Her whole body shuddered with it. Charlie Collins, who stared down threats and climbed buildings and never let anyone see her flinch, was crying into my shirt and hating every second of it.
I held her tighter. Didn't speak. Didn't move except to pull the blanket over both of us when the shivering started. She cried the way she did everything else — fiercely, like she was angry at herself for needing it.
It didn't last long. Maybe five minutes. Then her breathing started to even out and her fists uncurled against my chest, fingers spreading flat.
"Dominic?"
"Yeah?"
"If you tell anyone about this, I will end your career."
"Understood."
Her body relaxed against mine, one degree at a time. After a while her weight shifted. Not fighting it anymore, just letting go because her body had decided for her.
I stayed awake.
The apartment settled into its nighttime sounds: pipes groaning, refrigerator humming, the old building shifting on its bones. I ran the plate numbers in my head. Cross-referenced the description with Walsh's profile. Built timelines. Drew connections.
And I held her.
This was going to cost me. Not the job. I'd made peace with that when I kissed her in the Conservatory. The clean exit. The ability to hand off the file and walk away when the assignment ended.
I'd held her instead of taking what she offered, and it had cost me more than the couch, more than three sleepless nights. Because now she was asleep against my chest and I couldn't imagine the version of this where I left.