"By choice?" A bitter laugh escapes her throat like something she's been holding back all day. "Or because you've been watching me through cameras for 7 years like an unhinged stalker?"
The word lands exactly where she aimed it.Stalker. Unhinged.All the things I am, thrown back at me like weapons.
I can't defend myself against them. They're true.
She steps back, arms crossed. "You said 'something larger.' You said you were waiting for confirmation. It's been two days, Cole. What aren't you telling me?"
"Kade's team is still running analysis. When we have something concrete—"
"I don't want concrete. I want context." Her voice sharpens into something closer to the courtroom. "Is this about the sedan?About me specifically? Or is there a bigger threat you're dancing around?"
Judges are dying. Four in six weeks. The pattern is moving west and you're standing directly in its path.
I can't tell her that. Not yet. Not without evidence that separates pattern from coincidence.
"There's a threat beyond the sedan. We think you may be connected to it." I hold her gaze. "That's all I can give you until Kade confirms the pattern."
"A threat." She laughs, but there's no humor in it. "You're in my house. Watching my daughter. And 'a threat' is all I get?"
"For now."
Her jaw tightens. I watch her weigh whether to push harder or let it go.
Then something shifts in her expression—exhaustion winning over fury.
"Fine. But I want answers soon, Cole. Real ones. Not 'patterns' and 'confirmation.'"
"You'll have them."
She doesn't look convinced. But she doesn't push further either.
The kitchen light catches the shadows under her eyes. She hasn't slept properly since I arrived.
But the threat briefing isn't what's draining her tonight. Something else is sitting in her chest, heavier than surveillance and vague warnings.
Adrian. The her ex-husband in the charcoal suit. The way she stopped breathing when she saw him.
"The way he looked at you today." I keep my voice level even though everything in me wants to demand answers, to shake the truth out of her, to understand what I'm fighting so I can destroy it. "That wasn't an ex checking in. His eyes tracked you like something he'd misplaced. Something he expected to get back."
"Drop it, Cole."
Her hand drifts to her throat, fingers pressing into the hollow above her collarbone. She catches herself doing it, yanks her hand away like it burned her.
That wasn't casual. That was muscle memory. What did he do to your throat?
"That was possession. And you froze."
"He doesn't own me."
"Then why are you shaking?"
She yanks away from the counter, steps back fast. Puts distance between us like a barrier. Her hands are still wet, water dripping onto the tile floor. Caught mid-task. Vulnerable.
She's shaking and pretending she's not. How long did she have to pretend with him? How many years of hiding reactions, of controlling her face, of making herself small and invisible and safe?
"You don't own me either, Cole. You don't get to interrogate me because you spent years watching me through screens."
"I'm not interrogating. I'm asking."