Chapter Two #2
She had seen enough death notifications in her career to recognize the looks on the doctors’ faces before a single word was spoken.
Her sister, Amelia, was gone on impact.
Her brother-in-law, Derek, had held on for three more hours before his body finally gave up too.
Violet hadn’t been there when he passed. She had been sitting out in the hallway, staring at the pale green walls, waiting for news she already knew would be bad.
She wished she had been in that room.
She should have been there for him during the last breaths he took.
He wasn’t alone, though, the doctors had been with him, still working on him.
His parents hadn’t been able to see him either, since they got to the hospital soon after Violet.
Her mom had arrived around the same time.
Riley was at a friend’s birthday party. Amelia and Derek had just dropped her off when it had happened.
Violet hadn’t cried. Not at first. Not when the doctor spoke, not when they gave her a list of things to prepare for, not even when they handed her a small, plastic bag containing Amelia’s necklace, Derek’s wedding band, and whatever else had survived the wreckage.
She had just nodded. Spoken in clipped, controlled sentences, her training kicking in, keeping her upright.
It wasn’t until she was home, alone, standing in the middle of her too-quiet apartment, that it had hit her.
She had sunk to the floor, gasping for air, grief slamming into her like a freight train, breaking something inside her that would never quite fit back together the same way.
Now, sitting beside Riley’s bed, she still felt the cracks in her foundation.
Her sister had been her best friend, her only real family apart from their mom, whose health had been suffering for years. Amelia had been the brightest light in any room, the one person who had always known what to say, who had always been there.
And then, just like that, she wasn’t.
One drunk driver. One reckless decision.
And two lives stolen too soon.
Violet swallowed hard, reaching out to smooth a hand over Riley’s blanket, grounding herself in the rhythmic rise and fall of the little girl’s breathing.
Violet had been so fucking angry. Who drove drunk at midday on a Saturday afternoon? The man had been caught, charged, sentenced, but it didn’t matter because she was still gone and she was never coming back.
But Violet couldn’t change the past.
She couldn’t bring Amelia back.
But she could keep her promise.
She could protect the one piece of her sister she still had left.
Riley.
Violet had always known she was Riley’s godmother. It had never been a secret, never been some abstract title given for tradition’s sake. Amelia had made sure of that.
“You’re her person,” her sister had told her the day Riley was born, grinning as she cradled the tiny, pink-faced newborn in her arms. “If anything ever happens to me or Derek, you take care of her. No arguments.”
Violet had rolled her eyes at the time, laughing softly as she brushed a fingertip over Riley’s impossibly small fingers. “Nothing’s going to happen to you, Ames.”
“But if it does,” Amelia had pressed, tone turning serious. “Promise me.”
“I promise,” she’d said with a roll of her eyes.
She had meant it. Of course, she had. But she never thought she’d have to make good on the promise.
Never thought she’d wake up one day as an aunt and go to sleep as a mother, not that she’d slept worth a damn that night or any night for the next week. She never thought she’d be picking up the shattered pieces of a child’s world while struggling to hold herself together at the same time.
The legal process had been fast. Almost too fast. There had been no custody battle, no long, drawn-out court hearings. Just a cold, sterile meeting with a judge, a stack of paperwork, and the finalization of something that never should have had to happen.
Riley had only been five and a half. Too young to understand the depth of what she had lost but old enough to feel it, to know that one day, Mommy and Daddy took her to a party, but they never came to pick her up.
The first few months had been brutal.
Riley had cried herself to sleep more nights than Violet could count, waking up screaming for parents who weren’t there.
Violet had spent so many nights sitting beside her bed, stroking her hair, whispering that she was safe, that she was loved, even when she had no idea if Riley could hear her through her grief.
And then there were the tantrums.
The heartbreaking ones. The ones that came when Riley realized her parents weren’t just gone for a while, they weren’t coming back at all.
“I want Mommy!” she had sobbed one night, kicking her legs and thrashing in her bed, tiny fists pounding against her pillow. “I want Daddy! Where are they? Why won’t they come back?”
Violet had held her, helpless in a way she never had been before. She could fight criminals. She could take down drug dealers in her sleep. But she couldn’t fix this. She couldn’t bring Amelia and Derek back.
“I know, baby,” she had whispered, her own tears falling into Riley’s curls. “I know.”
The memory made her throat tighten.
That first year had tested her in ways she hadn’t known were possible. Balancing a demanding career with suddenly being responsible for a grieving child had been exhausting. Every day felt like trying to navigate a battlefield, dodging landmines of emotions, uncertainty, and guilt.
She had doubted herself. So many times.
She had wondered if she was doing the right thing, if she was enough, if Riley would ever be truly happy again.
But now?
Violet glanced down at the little girl curled up in her bed, her small fingers twitching in sleep, lips parted as she breathed deep and steady.
She was happy. She was safe.
The house was filled with laughter now, not just quiet sadness. Riley still missed her parents—she always would—but she had found a new kind of normal, a new sense of love and security.
And Violet?
She wouldn’t trade a single moment of being this little girl’s mom.
Yes, the past year and a half had been challenging.
Yes, there were days when the grief still crept in, when exhaustion felt like a weight pressing down on her shoulders.
But if she had to go back and do it all again, if she had to make that same impossible decision, she wouldn’t hesitate.
Riley was hers now.
And she wouldn’t change that for anything.
Violet ran a gentle hand over Riley’s blanket, smoothing out a wrinkle that didn’t need fixing. It was a habit, something to keep her hands occupied while her mind drifted where it shouldn’t.
On this occasion, it drifted back to him.
She clenched her jaw, exhaling slowly through her nose as she stared at her sleeping niece, willing herself to focus on what mattered.
Arlo Harrison didn’t matter.
Not to her.
Not to Riley and the life they shared.
He was a momentary distraction, a complication she neither needed nor wanted. He had thrown himself into her case, interfered with her work, ruined her pursuit, and somehow had the audacity to smirk about it afterward. Cocky. Smug. Infuriating.
And yet…
Her fingers curled into the fabric of Riley’s blanket as an unbidden thought unraveled inside her, slow and dangerous.
Arlo was more than just some arrogant operative who had gotten in her way.
He was hers.
The moment had been too brief, too chaotic, but she’d felt it the second their eyes met in that alleyway. The instant pull that had wrapped around her like a net and refused to let go. The world had narrowed, the air thickening, something ancient and instinctual flaring to life inside her.
She had spent her whole life waiting for that moment.
And she’d spent the last year and a half convincing herself she didn’t want it to come.
Violet swallowed, her throat suddenly dry.
When she was younger, she had thought about her mate often. Wondered what he would be like, if he would match her energy or challenge her every step of the way. If he’d be someone who understood her need for structure and discipline or if he’d push against it, frustrating and unyielding.
She had never imagined someone like Arlo.
He was too much. Too wild, too reckless, too comfortable in his own skin, like nothing in the world could shake him. She had seen it in the way he moved, in the sharp, predatory confidence in his eyes.
And God, that grin.
It was the kind of grin that made you want to slap it off his face or kiss him just to see if he’d smirk against your lips.
Violet bit the inside of her cheek and hated that her mind had gone there.
That wasn’t her life anymore. She had pushed those thoughts aside when she became Riley’s guardian.
She had put away the fantasy of a mate, of something that belonged to her and her alone, because Riley was her priority now.
Riley would always be her priority.
And yet…
Violet let out a slow breath, tilting her head back to stare at the ceiling.
She had wanted a mate. Perhaps even still wanted one.
Even if she told herself she didn’t need it, even if she pretended her heart didn’t ache with longing when she saw happy mated pairs, it was there, buried deep under the weight of responsibility.
And now there was Arlo. He infuriated her. But part of her… maybe the part she’d been ignoring for too long… wanted to be infuriated.
She closed her eyes, shaking her head as if it would somehow shake him loose from her thoughts. It didn’t work. She didn’t care if she ever saw him again. She didn’t. Did she?
Violet exhaled sharply, rubbing a hand down her face.
No, that was a lie. She knew it the second she let herself breathe.
Because beneath all the frustration, beneath all the logical reasons to forget him, there was a small, treacherous part of her that wanted him to find her.
She wanted him to be exactly who he said he was: CIA, someone who wouldn’t just disappear into the night.
He’ll find us! her dolphin declared. It had been angry at her for not going back to Arlo earlier and had been sulking ever since. Our mate will find us!
But would he?