Chapter 38
AVA - I TRUSTED HIM
It had been almost three weeks since I’d seen Harlan.
Since he’d touched me like I was fragile and held me like I wasn’t. Since he whispered, I love you in the space between sex and sleep, his voice rough and real against my skin.
Three weeks since I saw Erin Voss strutting out of his building at eight in the morning, same clothes as the day before, damp hair, no makeup. That smug little smirk carved into her face like she’d already won a game I didn’t know I was playing.
What the fuck was she doing there?
I knew for a fact she didn’t live in his building. None of his staff did. He’d told me that. Said he kept personal and professional separate.
Apparently, he lied.
The weeks after blurred, heavy with excuses.
Working late. Chasing leads. Helping a friend with hunting. Feeding the damn pigs.
That was the last one. A vague mention of a ranch and a favour he’d owe someone I’d never met. No follow-up. No invite. No wish you were here. Just absence, wrapped in apology-shaped words that didn’t land.
I hadn’t pushed. Not at first.
Because I trusted him.
Because I believed in what we had.
Because this was the man who made coffee the way I liked it, who learned my silences, who held me like I wasn’t broken and loved me like maybe, just maybe, I was worth staying for.
That man wouldn’t lie.
Wouldn’t ghost.
Wouldn’t disappear behind half-truths I used to drown in.
He’s just overwhelmed; I told myself.
Short-staffed at the precinct.
Doing the best he can.
Busy doesn’t mean disinterested.
But busy doesn’t hollow you out either. Doesn’t leave you checking your phone at midnight, rereading old messages just to feel something that looks like love.
And disinterest doesn’t feel like betrayal… until it does.
The silence stretched, and I started to get lost in my mind... the ache and worry had calcified into something sharper. Something closer to fear. Loss.
We hadn't put a label on us, but we had been seeing each other for somewhere around 8 months. Should I have clarified, put a label on us, ensured he knew we were exclusive?
What if he was finally over my issues, tired of my moods and inability to let him in all the way?
I was with Remi when it finally broke.
In the clinic, fluorescent lights buzzing overhead, papers stacked high like they could bury us both.
She was updating a file on one of our new patients, a man in his sixties still learning how to grieve the old version himself and his mistakes.
I was pretending to work, staring at my phone like it might explain the silence, debating whether another text made me look desperate or just determined.
Then the message came through.
Blocked number.
No subject. No words.
Just a picture.
I opened it without thinking.
At first, it didn’t register. Steam clouding glass. A familiar silhouette blurred through condensation. A shower I didn't recognize.
And then it clicked.
Harlan. Head bowed. One hand braced on the tile, water running down his back.
And in the mirror, just to the left of the fogged frame, so perfectly angled it made my blood run cold...
Erin. Naked. Damp. Phone raised just right.
Her smile in the reflection was sharp enough to carve me open.
No.
No, she wouldn’t.
But she would.
And him? He wouldn’t… right?
He couldn't do something like this to me...
But maybe it was old. Maybe it was before.
My mind started to spiral and panic. My heart started to stutter. We had been together for Months. Months of mornings and nights, of learning each other’s rhythms, of falling in ways I swore I’d never let myself fall again.
This had to be old.
I zoomed in.
No.
A scar that I knew was fresh because I helped patch it up one night in my apartment.
“This isn’t old,” I whispered.
Remi looked up at the sound, saw my face, and stood. “Ava?”
I turned the phone toward her.
She froze. Her eyes flicked to mine, then back to the screen. “Ava…”
“He said he didn’t want drama,” I rasped. “Said she was the problem. That she was twisting everything. That he was building a case against her. That he was going to fix it. Fix the precinct. Fix… us.”
I swallowed. My mouth tasted like iron.
“This doesn’t look like an investigation, Remi. Unless he’s charging her vagina with obstruction of justice.”
Remi flinched.
So did I.
Because it wasn’t even funny. It was pathetic.
It was me. Believing in a man who used soft words and steady hands while the storm I’d been bracing for turned out to be him.
“You need to talk to him,” Remi said softly.
“I did. I have. He told me I was it. That I was different. That he...” My voice cracked.
Remi stepped closer. “He loves you.”
I laughed. One sharp, broken sound. “How do I know that? Because he said so?”
She didn’t answer.
I took a step back.
“I thought I did. But isn’t that what they all say? I love you. I’d never hurt you. You’re different.”
My throat ached. My spine stayed straight.
“I thought I knew him,” I said. “But isn’t that the story every woman tells herself right before the truth burns through the lie?”
I stared at the phone one last time.
At her in his mirror.
At the scar, I had traced too many times since it healed.
Then I turned and walked out before Remi could stop me.
Because whatever came next, I’d face it alone.
Even if it shattered everything, I thought I finally had.
Even if it meant the man I loved, the man I thought was my forever, was exactly the kind of lie I’d built my whole career fighting against.
And this time?
I wouldn’t just walk away.
I’d light the fucking match myself.