Chapter 83
HARLAN - LET ME BE HAPPY
The clinic smelled like lavender and coffee, always did, but it was quieter than usual for a Monday afternoon. The front desk was empty. The waiting room was half-lit. The door to Remi’s office was cracked.
I hesitated outside it for a long second.
I had no real reason to be here. No emergency. No official business. Just a feeling I couldn’t shake. A knot in my gut that had been tightening since Ava told me.
Spike.
It sounded like a joke. A name you gave a stray dog or the villain in a bad western. Not someone Remi would fall for. Not someone she would let in. Not after everything.
But here I was.
I knocked once and pushed the door open.
Remi looked up from a stack of intake notes. She was barefoot, curled in her chair with a mug of something that had probably gone cold hours ago. Her hair was twisted into a messy knot. There were shadows under her eyes and pen smudges on her fingers.
She looked exhausted.
But she smiled when she saw me. “Hey. You, okay?”
I stepped in and closed the door behind me. “I could ask you the same thing.”
She shrugged and sat up a little straighter. “Busy day. What’s up?”
I stayed standing. The air in the room felt too still.
“I heard you’ve been seeing someone.”
Her smile didn’t falter. But her eyes flicked to my hands, to my stance. Reading me. She always did.
“Ava told you.”
“Is it true?”
She leaned back, fingers wrapping around her mug again. “That I’ve been seeing someone? Yes.”
“Spike,” I said.
She nodded slowly. “Logan.”
“He goes by Spike.”
“Not to me.”
I rubbed a hand over my jaw, trying to keep my voice even. “Do you even know who he is?”
Remi sighed, setting her mug on her desk. “I know he rides with a local MC. I know he used to run in rougher circles. I know he’s done time.”
“And that doesn’t concern you?”
She met my gaze. Steady. Calm. “He’s never been anything but kind to me. Respectful. Protective. Funny, even.”
“Funny?” I scoffed. “Remi, he’s a biker. You think he just woke up one day and decided to be Prince Charming?”
“I think people change.”
I stared at her, stunned. “This isn’t you. You don’t do reckless.”
“Maybe I’m tired of being careful.” Her voice was soft, but there was steel beneath it. “Maybe I’ve spent enough of my life looking over my shoulder.”
I crossed the room and stood at the edge of her desk. “You’ve also spent your life helping women crawl out of situations exactly like the one you’re walking into.”
She didn’t flinch. “Logan isn’t like that.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I know him better than you do.”
“He’s part of Devil’s Ride.”
“And? You had no problem with me spending time with the Dawnbreakers...”
“Remi, they are not the same... please just trust me. He is not a safe choice for you.”
Remi stood, her expression unreadable now. “No one is safe, Harlan. Not really. You think I’m under any illusions about that? You think I don’t know what kind of world we live in? What kind of men walk free, and the women they leave in ruins who walk through my door every damn day?”
She was trembling now, but she didn’t look away. “He makes me feel seen,” she whispered. “Not pitied, not broken. Just… me. And I see him. He is soft with me, different... I feel like he is exactly who I have been looking for... You just haven't seen who he is with me.”
I swallowed hard. My chest felt tight. “He should be who he is all the time, not just when he’s with you. That’s what real character looks like.”
Her voice cracked. “Do you trust me?”
I didn’t answer right away, because part of me wanted to scream. To shake her. To drag her away from whatever this was before it turned to ash in her hands.
But another part, bigger, quieter, was just afraid.
Because I did trust her.
Maybe more than anyone.
“Of course I trust you,” I said finally.
She stepped around the desk, came close enough that I could see the glint of unshed tears in her eyes.
“Then trust that I know what I’m doing. I’m not na?ve, Harlan.
I’m not chasing a fantasy. I’m making a choice.
” Her voice dropped to almost a whisper.
“I’m happy. For the first time in a long time…
I’m actually happy. Please… let me be happy. ”
I looked down at her.
And for a moment, she looked like the girl I first met in my precinct a few years ago. All fire and fight and sharp-edged brilliance.
But behind that… something new.
A softness I hadn’t seen before. A quiet kind of hope that made my stomach turn.
I nodded.
Just once.
Because I couldn’t bear to steal that look from her face.
That sparkle in her eye she never had when she was with Jack.
Even if it killed me.
“I’m still going to keep an eye on him,” I muttered.
She smiled, and a tear slipped down her cheek. “I’d expect nothing less.”
I left the office a few minutes later, heart hammering.
And I prayed I was wrong.
But something in me already knew:
This wasn’t what she had always dreamed of.
It was the beginning of a tragedy.