Chapter 4
Ava
Three weeks since I filed the report.
Three weeks of waiting for something to happen.
Three weeks of checking over my shoulder, varying my route to work, jumping at shadows I used to ignore.
Pretending everything was fine.
My phone buzzed as I walked out of Queens General, the night shift finally over. I glanced at the screen.
Mom
Thinking of you, sweetheart. Your father and I would love to see you. Dinner this weekend?
Below it, another message from two days ago that I still hadn't answered:
Mom
Just checking in. Hope work isn't too stressful. Call when you can. Love, Mom.
I swiped the notifications away without responding.
Years of silence, and now suddenly my parents wanted to reconnect? I didn't have the bandwidth for their version of concern. The kind that came with strings attached, with expectations, with the weight of everything I'd walked away from.
I had enough to deal with.
The police had interviewed Kevin Lang. He denied everything. Said he didn't remember the overdose, didn't remember saying anything. His lawyer, hired by his father, of course, had called it "drug-induced delusion with no evidentiary value."
The investigation was ongoing, but I could tell it was stalling. Richard Lang's connections were everywhere. The case was dying a slow, quiet death, suffocated by politics and power.
Meanwhile, a formal complaint had been filed against my medical license. The accusation: violating patient confidentiality.
It was retaliation. I knew that. But it was also expected.
I'd walked into that precinct understanding exactly what I was setting in motion.
The complaint itself wasn't surprising; mandatory reporting of suspicious injuries was within my professional scope, and I had the documentation to prove it.
My report had been filed in good faith, with proper clinical justification, and the hospital's legal team had confirmed as much when I'd met with them.
But confirmation wasn't the same as protection.
The investigation was mandatory regardless of merit, which meant meetings, paperwork, and formal statements.
It meant explaining my clinical reasoning to administrators who nodded politely and took notes, their expressions carefully neutral.
It meant my name was attached to an open file, flagged in a system that didn't distinguish between frivolous complaints and legitimate ones.
The Langs' lawyers knew exactly what they were doing. They couldn't stop the police investigation, but they could make sure it cost me something.
I'd weighed this risk before I ever picked up the phone. I'd made my choice.
That didn't make the weight of it any lighter.
Two weeks ago, I came down to the street to find deep scratches gouged across the driver's side of my Honda. It was parked where it always was, on the block outside my apartment building, the same spot I'd had for three years. No message. No witnesses. No security cameras on a residential street.
I'd reported it. Filed the paperwork. Added it to the growing file of incidents that no one seemed able, or willing, to investigate.
The message was clear: We know where you live. Back off.
I wasn't backing off.
But I also wasn't sleeping well. Wasn't eating right. Wasn't doing anything except working and worrying and pretending, every morning on the balcony with Brian, that everything was fine.
He knew it wasn't, but he didn't push.
Today's shift had been brutal. A twelve-hour marathon of traumas and near-misses that left me hollowed out deeper than physical exhaustion. All I wanted was to go home, curl up with my cat, and forget the world existed for a few hours.
I pulled my jacket tighter against the early autumn chill, entered my apartment building, and tried not to think about anything at all. The elevator doors were sliding shut when a hand shot through the gap.
"Hold up—"
Brian squeezed through, gear bag slung over one shoulder, soot still smudged on his jaw. He looked as tired as I felt. Eyes heavy, shoulders slumped, his FDNY T-shirt wrinkled, and his hair flattened from his helmet.
"Hey." He hit the button for our floor and leaned against the elevator wall. "Rough day?"
"You could say that. You?"
"Three-alarm in Astoria. Everyone got out, but it was close." He glanced over at me. "You look like hell, by the way."
"Charming as always, Torres."
"I call 'em like I see 'em, Rothwell."
The elevator groaned its way upward. Slow and shuddering, the way it had been for months. Neither of us mentioned it. We'd both given up reporting things to the super.
I was already digging for my keys when the doors opened, and we stepped out onto our floor.
And stopped.
My door was ajar.
Not much. Just a crack. But enough.
Brian's arm came out, stopping me before I could move forward.
"Stay here."
"Brian—"
"Ava." His voice was different. Calm but firm, the voice of someone trained to walk into dangerous situations. "Stay in the hallway."
He set down his gear bag and approached my door carefully, pushing it open with his foot. I watched him disappear inside, my heart pounding so hard I could feel it in my throat.
I heard him moving through my apartment. Checking rooms. Opening closets.
Then silence.
"Ava." His voice carried from inside, carefully controlled. "You can come in. But... prepare yourself."
I stepped through the doorway and saw—
My apartment. Destroyed.
The couch was overturned, cushions slashed open, stuffing spilling across the floor like snow.
Every drawer in the kitchen had been pulled out and dumped.
My books, my detective novels, my medical texts, the worn Sherlock Holmes collection I'd read a dozen times, were scattered and torn, pages ripped out.
And on the wall, in red spray paint, letters two feet high:
Mind Your Business
My knees went weak. I grabbed the doorframe.
"Watson—"
"I found him."
Brian emerged from the bedroom, Watson cradled against his chest. The cat's yellow eyes were huge, his body trembling, but he was alive. He was okay.
"He was hiding in the closet," Brian said quietly. "Behind your sweaters. Scared, but not hurt."
I crossed the room in three steps and reached for Watson. Brian transferred him gently into my arms, and the cat pressed against my chest, purring despite his fear. That steady, rhythmic sound that meant I'm here, I'm here, I'm here.
"Let's get you both out of here," Brian said. “You’re staying with me.”
I didn't argue. I couldn't. I just held Watson and let Brian guide me into his apartment, away from the wreckage of everything I'd built.
Brian's apartment was the mirror image of mine in layout. That's where the similarities ended. His space was simple and warm. A navy couch with a blanket thrown over the back. A bookshelf stuffed past capacity. A framed photo of his parents on the side table, his mother's smile the same as his.
Watson had claimed the corner of Brian's couch. He was still shaken, his yellow eyes tracking every movement in the room. I sat beside him, one hand absently stroking his fur while Brian moved around the kitchen, making tea neither of us would drink.
"We need to call building security," he said. "The landlord. And the NYPD."
"I can make the calls myself." My voice came out steadier than I felt. "You just got off a twelve-hour shift. You should be resting."
"I'm fine."
"Brian—"
"Ava." He set down the kettle and turned to face me, his eyes steady. "Let me help. Please."
I wanted to argue. Every instinct I had screamed to handle this myself, to prove I didn't need anyone. But I looked at my hands and realized they were shaking.
"Okay."
We made the calls together. Building security was apologetic and useless. The cameras in the stairwell had been “malfunctioning.” The landlord promised to change my locks, as if that would help.
The NYPD sent an officer to take a report. He was young, earnest, and out of his depth. He walked through my destroyed apartment with a flashlight, took photos of the spray-painted wall, and asked me questions while Brian stood in the doorway, arms crossed, watching.
"Any idea who might have done this?" The officer's pen hovered over his notepad. "Anyone who might have a grudge against you? Ex-boyfriend, disgruntled patient, neighbor dispute?"
I hesitated. I could feel Brian's eyes on me.
"There have been other incidents," I said carefully.
The officer looked up. "What kind of incidents?"
"My car was keyed two weeks ago. Outside my apartment building. Deep scratches across the driver's side."
"Did you file a report?"
"Yes."
Brian shifted in the doorway.
"Anything else?" the officer asked.
I thought about the formal complaint against my license. The investigation that was stalling. The councilman's son, who'd confessed to murder in my trauma bay.
"There's an ongoing police investigation," I said. "I'm a witness to it. I believe these incidents may be connected."
The officer's pen stopped. "What investigation?"
"You'd have to contact Detective Diaz at the 114th Precinct. She's the lead."
He wrote that down, nodding slowly. I could tell he wanted to ask more, but something in my tone, or maybe the spray-painted threat on my wall, told him this was above his pay grade.
"I'll follow up with Detective Diaz," he said. "In the meantime, I'd recommend staying somewhere else. Somewhere they don't know about."
"Thank you."
He closed his notepad and headed for the door, pausing to take one more photo of the message. Brian stepped aside to let him pass, then waited until we heard the stairwell door close.
"Ava."
I busied myself picking up a torn book from the floor. One of my Agatha Christies. The spine was broken.
"Ava." His voice was quieter now. "What investigation?"
I set the book down. Looked at him.
He was standing very still, his expression caught somewhere between concern and something harder. The kind of look I imagined he wore when he arrived at a scene and realized it was worse than dispatch had said.