Chapter 235
KATYA POV
The chair felt too big for . I sat stiffly, back straight, hands folded in my lap because I didn’t know what else to do with them.
My phone was still in my right hand, its weight pressing into my palm like a reminder I couldn’t put down.
Roo didn’t say anything. The silence stretched. It settled into the room the way fog settled into a valley, slow and suffocating.
I risked a glance upward and imdiately regretted it.
He hadn’t sat yet. He stood behind his desk, one hand resting against the polished surface, the other loose at his side.
His expression was calm, unreadable, as if nothing about this mont required urgency. As if I wasn’t sitting here with my pulse racing, waiting for sothing to fall.
My gaze dropped again, heart pounding loud enough that I was sure he could hear it.
The office slled faintly of coffee and sothing sharper—cigarette. Everything about the space reflected him. Order. Precision. Nothing out of place. Nothing unnecessary.
I wondered if that was how he saw people too. Seconds passed. Or minutes. I couldn’t tell.
My thoughts started to spiral, filling the silence he refused to break. I swallowed hard, my throat suddenly dry. I kept replaying last night in my head, every word, every pause, every mistake.
The way my voice had shaken when Michael suggested coming over. The way I’d frozen instead of explaining. The way I’d looked at Roo and said nothing.
Roo finally moved, opening a file I hadn’t noticed before—or maybe I had, and my mind had simply refused to register it.
The sound of paper sliding against leather was soft. Still, when he let it drop onto the desk in front of , I flinched hard enough that my shoulders jerked.
The sound wasn’t loud. But in that room, it might as well have been a gunshot.
My eyes lifted on instinct, dread crawling up my spine before I even understood why.
The file had landed open. A face stared back at .
Michael. My breath left in a sharp, silent rush, like my lungs had forgotten how to work for a second. My heart lurched so violently it hurt.
I didn’t need to read the words to know what it was. Photos. Docunts. Official-looking pages arranged with brutal neatness.
Even without understanding the text—without being able to read most of it—I knew exactly what I was looking at.
A background check. On him. On Micheal!
My fingers twitched in my lap, useless. My eyes skimd the page helplessly, catching only fragnts.
Numbers. Headings. A date. His face again, cropped from sowhere official. My stomach twisted.
Roo had done this overnight. He didn’t look at as he moved away from the desk. He walked toward the side table by the window, where a glass of whiskey waited.
He picked it up, turning slightly so his back was to . "Micheal Giovanni," he voiced calmly, lifting the glass. The ice clinked softly as he tilted it. "Twenty-five. Single."
He took a slow sip before continuing. "Forr police officer."
The words hit like a blow. My thoughts scattered instantly, crashing into each other without order or rcy.
Ex-cop.
Michael had told once. Casually. Like it was nothing. Like it didn’t matter. I’d forgotten. Or maybe I’d chosen not to rember.
Because now—sitting here, staring at his face on Roo’s desk—it looked terrible. It looked intentional. It looked like sothing I’d planned.
I hadn’t. But how could I prove that?
Roo turned then, glass still in hand. His eyes found imdiately, sharp and unreadable, stripping the air from my lungs.
"Your friend?" he asked. My mouth opened, then closed again. My heart was racing so fast I felt dizzy.
"I—" My voice ca out thin. I swallowed and tried again. "Yes." The word sounded wrong the mont it left .
His gaze didn’t change, but sothing in the room did. The pressure increased, invisible and suffocating.
"A friend," Roo repeated slowly, as if testing the shape of it.
I nodded, too quickly. "Yes. He is. He was." I stopped, confused even by my own correction. "He helped . Before."
He had helped . And now, sohow, I needed to help him by any ans necessary. Even if that ant lying.
"And you didn’t think it was important to ntion that your ’friend’ was law enforcent?"
"I didn’t think—" I broke off, breath hitching. "I didn’t rember. Not like this. I wasn’t thinking about... any of this."
"That," he said quietly, "is rarely a defense that holds."
My hands clenched together, knuckles whitening. I felt small. Exposed. Like every wrong choice I’d ever made had finally caught up to all at once.
"I didn’t call him," I said again, desperate now. "I swear. I didn’t plan anything. I didn’t even know he would—"
"I know," Roo interrupted. The word stopped cold. He set the glass down carefully, the base clicking softly against the table. Then he walked back toward the desk.
"You didn’t call him," he repeated. "But you answered." My chest tightened painfully.
"And you didn’t tell who he was," he added. He stopped in front of , close enough now that I had to tilt my head back slightly to look at him.
"Which ans," Roo continued evenly, "either you didn’t understand how dangerous that omission was..."His eyes darkened.
"...or you understood perfectly." My throat closed.
"I didn’t," I whispered. "I didn’t understand. I swear."
He studied in silence, searching for sothing I couldn’t see. Then, softly—too softly—he asked, "Do you know what an ex-cop looks like to a man like , Katya?"
I shook my head, fear coiling tight in my chest. "He looks like surveillance," Roo said. "He looks like leverage. He looks like a mistake waiting to be exploited."
"He’s not like that." My eyes burned, anger simring at how he was throwing accusations on Micheal.
"You don’t know that, Katya," he said evenly. "He could be using you to get to ."
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Thanks for reading and the golden tickets.
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