Chapter 34
HARLAN - I AM THE PROOF
The air hadn’t settled after Remi’s speech.
People were still in their seats, some dabbing their eyes, others clinging to the silence like it might mean something. Even the usual post-event chatter felt muffled, like the whole room knew it had witnessed something bigger than a fundraiser.
I’d heard a lot of speeches in my time. Graduations, retirements, and city council rants. But none of them had ever felt like that. None had cut the room open and made everyone stare at the wound.
And Remi Carter did it in black from collar to heel. No pretense. No pandering. Just truth, aimed like a bullet.
I stayed near Ava. Jack had stepped up to the stage to join Remi, and even with everything between them, it was like the crowd exhaled seeing them side by side. Like they fit into each other’s gravity, whether they meant to or not. The prosecutor and the woman who made hearts bleed with her truths.
Still, I stayed alert. I had two officers posted at the entrance and another near the exits. Not for show. For insurance. Because I’d asked them to keep an eye out.
For Dane.
And just as the crowd started to stir, just as the buzz began to creep back into the room, I felt it.
The shift.
The wrong energy.
I saw him before Ava did, tall, smug, wearing a black dress shirt unbuttoned at the collar like he thought he belonged here. He moved through the crowd with no urgency, just a simmering kind of self-importance that made my hands itch.
Ms. Cross, Sofia’s aunt, saw him too. Her hand went to her mouth. The colour drained from her face.
He didn’t head for the bar. Didn’t look for a seat. He was making a beeline for Ava.
I stepped in before he reached her.
“You’re not welcome here,” I said.
Dane’s lips curled. “That so?”
“You need to leave. Now.”
He glanced past me at Ava, who had gone absolutely still, jaw clenched, eyes blazing.
Then he looked back at me and grinned. “What are you gonna do, Chief? Arrest me for standing in a public venue? For paying my respects?”
I stepped in closer. “Don’t test me. Not tonight.”
He rocked back on his heels slightly, like he wanted to make a show of how unbothered he was. But his fingers twitched. He was enjoying this, the attention, the discomfort, the reminder that he could still ruin things just by showing up.
“You all like to play hero,” he said. “But at the end of the day, you’ll do nothing... because I haven’t done anything to your little friends. Yet.”
That word hung there. Yet.
I stared him down. He finally turned, slow and arrogant, and walked out like he owned the goddamn building. Ms. Cross crumpled into a chair, shaking.
I crouched next to her, placed a hand on hers. “I’m sorry,” I said gently. “That shouldn’t have happened.”
She nodded, lips pressed together, refusing to cry in public. I understood that.
Ava came up beside me, voice low. “Where’s Remi?”
I scanned the room.
Fuck.
Gone.
“Stay here with Ms. Cross,” I told Ava, already moving. I knew her. She’d ask questions later. Right now, she needed someone to find Remi before she stepped into the line of fire, again.
I slipped out the back hallway, past the catering doors and the small prep kitchen. Voices carried in echoing fragments, bouncing off the high walls of the old venue.
That’s when I heard hers.
“I said, walk away.”
Remi.
The voice she used when she was keeping the storm just beneath her skin.
I followed the sound until I saw them.
A man I didn’t recognize stood toe to toe with her. Late twenties, maybe thirty. Twisted smile. Arms crossed like he wasn’t intimidated, like he was entitled to her attention.
But Remi looked like steel. Not scared. Not even angry. Just done.
“I’ve paid my dues,” the man said. “You think you can keep running around like you’re better than the rest of us? You think what you did back then makes you some kind of hero now?”
Her jaw clenched. “You are the reason my sister is dead. Then you were stupid enough to try and come for me... for Ava.”
“That was never proven.”
She stepped closer. “I saw it with my own eyes, Colton. I don’t need proof. I am the proof. And if my memory serves me right, I almost beat your skull in with a bat. That wasn’t proven either. But we both remember that don’t we?”
I stepped forward just as Jack rounded the corner from the other direction.
His eyes landed on the man and turned to ice. “Colton.”
The man turned. “Well, well. The good old boy toy. Here to clean up her mess again?”
Jack didn’t react. “I’m here to make sure you never show your face around her again.”
Remi reached out, placing a hand on Jack’s arm. “You don’t have to.”
Jack’s gaze stayed locked on Colton. “I want to.”
“You going to threaten me, counsellor?” Colton sneered.
“No,” Jack said calmly. “I’m going to have your parole officer review the conditions you’re clearly violating by being here.
I’m going to have a conversation with your parents that they’re not going to like.
And if you so much as breathe near her again, I’ll make sure you get reacquainted with a cell. ”
That finally got through. Colton’s swagger dimmed. He looked at all three of us, scoffed, and muttered something under his breath before slinking away like the coward he was.
Remi stood frozen.
I stepped forward.
“Are you okay?” I asked quietly.
She nodded. Then shook her head. “I need a minute.”
Jack stayed where he was. He didn’t touch her. Just said, “You know I’ll always protect you, right?”
She didn’t answer.
And I stood there, watching the two of them, understanding that whatever line they’d drawn between past and present, it wasn’t clean.
And something was coming to wash all of it out into the open.