52. Ava - A Gift
AVA - A GIFT
It had been six days since they tried to transfer Remi.
Six days since I watched her fall to her knees in handcuffs, her face pale and wild, her voice lost under the shouting.
Six days since I’d looked Harlan in the eye and felt nothing but betrayal.
I hadn’t seen her since.
Jack swore she was okay. Said she was safe.
But I needed to see her to believe it.
The world had already moved on to the next scandal. We hadn’t.
We were holed up in an abandoned storefront down the block from the clinic, dusty shelves, peeling paint, one flickering overhead light that made everything feel worse than it already was.
Jack had commandeered it as our makeshift war room, calling it “neutral ground,” “easier to secure,” and a dozen other things meant to make me feel better about hiding in a space that smelled like old paper and forgotten rain.
I’d let him take the lead. Let him coordinate statements, rally support, and field the hundreds of messages pouring in. Because if I stopped moving, if I gave myself even one minute to think too much about that night, I’d shatter.
This morning, when I walked in, he was already mid-call, pacing the floor, one hand pressed to his temple.
“Two oversight agencies. One internal. One state,” he said into the speakerphone, sharp and clipped. “They’ve opened a file on Sergeant Voss, and her unit’s been flagged for audit.”
He looked up when he saw me, his eyes lit with a kind of restless fire.
“This thing’s got legs, Ava. You realize what this could mean? If this lands, it’s career changing. The kind of win that opens doors.”
Something in my stomach turned cold.
Jack kept going, hands moving as he spoke, feeding off his own momentum. “I mean, I’m not saying I want to leave the city office, but if this goes to trial, and I win? There are people watching. Hell, the AG’s been cleaning house…”
“Jack,” I cut in, softer than I felt. “That’s not why we’re doing this.”
He blinked, thrown for half a second. “No, of course not. I just meant...”
But I was already looking away.
Remi had always said Jack needed to be seen. That he wanted to climb so badly, he sometimes forgot to look down.
And for the first time, I understood exactly what she meant.
It wasn’t that he didn’t care. He did.
But ambition has its own kind of gravity.
And sometimes, it swallows everything else.
I left before I said something I couldn’t take back.
The clinic was being put together bit by bit, volunteer by volunteer. But it felt wrong without her here.
Glass dust caught the weak sunlight, glittering like a cruel joke across the floor. And it didn't seem to matter how many times we swept the floor.
Half the file drawers had been overturned, cabinets raided. Someone had ripped papers from clipboards and scattered them like confetti, like our entire existence had been tossed into a storm.
Every intake form. Every log. Every application.
All of it had to be checked and double-checked.
So that’s what I did. Sat cross-legged on the office floor, buried in stacks of paperwork, sorting and re-sorting like my life depended on it. Because maybe it did.
I didn’t hear the door open.
Didn’t hear the footsteps.
But I felt him.
“You always work this hard, cupcake?”
I startled hard, whipping around.
Kane.
He leaned against the doorframe like he owned it, boots silent, leather jacket open just enough to show the Glock tucked into his waistband. He had that look, lazy on the surface, sharp underneath, like a man who saw everything, whether you wanted him to or not.
“Jesus Christ,” I hissed, pressing a hand to my chest. “You need a fucking bell.”
His mouth curved. “Too easy.”
I stood slowly, brushing dust off my jeans. “What do you want?”
He sauntered in, moving like a shadow. “What did you do to piss off Voss?”
I froze. “…Excuse me?”
“You heard me.” He stepped further inside, eyes scanning the room, cataloguing it in silence. “She’s targeting you. Hard. That kind of venom doesn’t come from you just existing.”
I crossed my arms tightly. “We’ve had run-ins. Professional friction.”
Kane laughed once, low and humourless. “Did that friction start before or after you were screwing the Chief?”
“Get. Out.”
“Relax.” He held up both hands. “Just trying to understand the terrain.”
“I don’t give a flying fuck what terrain you think you’re walking,” I snapped, heat rising in my chest. “You think you can just walk in here and judge me?”
“I’m here to help.”
His tone shifted.
Lower. Like maybe for a moment, I was getting a glimpse at the real him. “Believe it or not, you and I aren’t that different,” he said. “You use your voice. I use a gun. Same mission. Different weapons.”
I stared at him, jaw tight. “It started before I ever met Harlan,” I said. “This whole thing. The clinic. The threats. The pressure. He didn’t cause it.”
Kane’s gaze sharpened. He nodded once, slowly. “Alright. So, who did?”
I didn’t answer. Couldn’t.
He let the silence stretch until it threatened to break, then said, “Any cases stand out from when you first got here? Patients? Anything that stuck with you?”
I hesitated. “…Maybe. I’ll go through my notes.”
He studied me for a long moment. Something calculating moved behind his eyes, but he didn’t push.
“He cares for you, princess,” he said finally.
I groaned, throwing my head back. “With the nicknames again?”
“You don’t believe me?”
“If he cared, he wouldn’t have betrayed me,” I shot back. “He wouldn’t have lied. He wouldn’t have arrested Remi. He wouldn’t have cuffed her like she was nothing.”
Kane tilted his head, unreadable. “Not everything’s as it seems.”
I scoffed, shaking my head, but then he asked, almost too casually: “If you two hadn’t fought before the raid… would you still trust him?”
The question landed like a punch.
I didn’t answer. Because fuck... would I?
Kane stepped closer, lowering his voice. “Voss is a lot of things. A vapid bitch, sure. But she’s smart. You’re not the only thing she tried to frame.” He paused, letting that sink in. “What if she wanted you looking the other way? What if she wanted what you were building with Harlan broken?”
My blood went cold.
“She set him up,” I whispered. “She set us up.”
“Bingo.”
Kane backed toward the door, a glint of satisfaction in his eyes. “And I brought you a gift.”
I blinked. “…A gift?”
“Check your phone, muffin.”
And just like that, he was gone.
I scrambled for my desk, hands shaking, and grabbed my phone.
Two new messages. Both were from a blocked number.
I opened the first video.
The street outside Harlan’s building. Erin was walking up the sidewalk, checking her phone, waiting.
Seconds later, me... walking from the opposite direction.
Erin paused, glanced up, and waited just long enough for me to come into frame… then slipped inside the building and popped back out the moment I was in line to see her.
I watched it twice. Then a third time.
The timing was perfect.
Too perfect.
The second video hit harder.
The precinct locker room. The angle was rough, like someone had hidden the camera where it didn’t belong. But the reflection on a steel panel was enough.
Harlan. Alone. Walking to the showers.
Minutes passed.
Then Erin. Stripping down. Entering. Holding up her phone. A flash. A snap.
Gone. Dressed. Out.
I couldn’t breathe.
The photo.
The setup.
The lie.
My whole body shook, breath shallow, nails digging into my palms until they hurt.
Kane was right.
She didn’t just want to ruin our work.
She wanted to burn down everything we loved along the way.
And she almost did.
But now?
Now we had proof.
And I had fire in my chest again.