Chapter 2
HARLAN - THE THREAT
The call came in less than five blocks from where I was grabbing a coffee, I wouldn't have been able to tell you if it was to ward off the cold or for the caffeine.
"Assault with a weapon. Carter she was screaming.
“Hands where I can see them!” someone barked.
The kneeling woman obeyed without a word.
I scanned the room. Two women. One armed. One unarmed. One bleeding man.
My instinct took over: Secure the scene. Protect life. Detain the threat.
“Get your hands off her!” the other woman yelled, voice sharp and laced with rage.
I stepped in quickly and decisively. My hands found the cuffs. They clicked shut around the kneeling woman’s wrists. She didn’t flinch. Didn’t argue.
But the other one?
She came for me with fire in her eyes.
“What the fuck are you doing?” She snapped, “She saved me! He came at me with a knife!”
I turned to her. Blonde. Petite. Eyes like blue-green storms.
“Ma’am, I need you to step back.”
“You need to open your goddamn eyes, Chief!”
Her voice cut clean through the adrenaline haze. Loud. Sharp. Full of fury that made the rookie at my side take a full step back.
That was my first impression of Ava Sinclair.
Not fear. Not hesitance. Just fire.
At the station, I reviewed the scene report while Remi Carter was being booked.
Ava arrived less than fifteen minutes later, all heat and hellfire, and blew straight past the front desk.
Her hair was just as wild as her eyes, tiny fists clenching and unclenching at her sides.
My first thought was that even in chaos, she was breathtaking, but I had to push that thought aside.
That wasn't me; it had to be the exhaustion of taking over the precinct after my father passed, the months of playing catch-up and still not knowing everything I needed to know.
But I had a job to do and I did it well.
“Hey!” Erin stepped in her path. “You can’t be back here. You need to return to the scene and wait for official...”
“Back off,” Ava snapped. “You’ve got one shot to do this right, or I’ll drag your whole department through the shit and light it up on every media channel in the county.”
Erin crossed her arms. “You threatening an officer, ma’am?”
Ava gave her a smile that was decisively not pleasant, “I would never threaten an officer... Sergeant. But... threaten your perverted sense of justice... Watch me."
Before I could figure out what that was about or try to get between them, the door to holding opened and Remi’s voice cut in.
“Ava. Call Jack. Please.”
That stopped Ava cold. She turned, nodded once, and stepped out of view to make the call.
I finally exhaled.
What kind of shit show was this?
Remi sat calmly. Collected. She was still cuffed, with blood dried in streaks down her forearm. She hadn’t said much, but she hadn’t resisted either. And the man she’d stabbed? Well, the hospital confirmed a superficial wound. The knife had barely gone in.
The rookie wanted to call it an attempted homicide, saying that is what Voss had suggested.
Twenty minutes later, a man in a pressed shirt and courtroom face stormed into the station.
Jack Callahan.
Lead prosecutor for the county. And from the way Ava hovered at his shoulder, he had a connection to Ms. Carter. This must be the Jack Remi asked Ava to call.
Fuck
“You’ve got five minutes to fix this before I take it to the DA,” Jack said, glaring at Erin.
I stepped forward. “I’m Chief Gray. I made the arrest.”
Jack’s jaw tightened. “Was she questioned before being brought in?”
I hesitated. I knew he was talking about Remi, but he was a prosecutor. “We needed to secure the scene.”
Jack didn't hesitate. “So that’s a no. Do we arrest people now on assumptions, Chief? Or is questioning optional these days?”
“The man she stabbed will be brought in shortly,” I said evenly. “He’s with the responding Officer Reid. We’ll take his statement when they get here.”
Jack’s expression didn’t budge. “So, no one’s taken any statements. You went with the man’s word and cuffed the woman without hearing her side. That about right?”
Erin stepped forward. “Watch your tone when you speak to the Chief.”
I raised a hand to silence her. “It was clear-cut. The scene spoke for itself.”
Jack gave a sharp laugh. “You sure about that?” He stepped in closer, voice quiet but full of edge.
“Was Ms. Carter in possession of the weapon when your officers arrived?
" He didn't give me a chance to answer before he plowed on. "Did you know there’s a camera at the front entrance of the clinic? Another in the hallway. Footage that’ll show exactly what happened.”
I frowned because I didn't, and the more I thought about it, I didn't know much about what had happened. Fuck.
“And did you also know,” Jack continued, “that the man who attacked Ava today has a record? That Ms. Sinclair and Ms. Carter were trying to help their patient get a restraining order against him? That she’s filed multiple complaints with this department, and your officers have been giving her the runaround? ”
Ava's eyes went wide, and she gasped like she had been struck with something.
Then, without a word, she turned and walked straight out into the hallway, phone already in her hand.
My eyes trailed after her retreating form, trying to figure out what she was up to now.
But Jack wasn't done. “Congratulations, Chief. You just made yourself part of a wrongful arrest. The man she stabbed entered the clinic, which is private property, armed, which leads me to believe his actions were premeditated. There’s a video. Witnesses to previous altercations. And she used his knife in self-defence.”
Ava came back in looking pale and stood beside Jack, crossed her arms and glared at me.
“He was going to kill me. And she stopped him.”
Erin bristled. “Maybe don’t provoke people next time.”
What the holy hell was that?
I was making a mental note to have a discussion with my Sergeant when Ava rounded on her. “Maybe don’t consistently turn a blind eye to all the shit going on in this county.”
Voices raised one after the other. Remi sat quietly observing from the holding room, like this was just another day in her life. I needed to figure out what the hell I had just walked into.
I raised a hand. “Enough.”
All three fell silent.
I looked back at Remi Carter. She looked me straight in the eye. She was so young, but her wide hazel eyes held a multitude of emotions, a depth of wisdom beyond her years, and a pain that was hidden yet always there.
I felt something twist in my chest.
I needed the full report. But something about this whole thing was off. And it wasn’t coming from her.
One thing that was becoming increasingly clear was that this wasn’t as straightforward as it had initially appeared.
And maybe, just maybe, I’d gotten it wrong.