The 12th Precinct smelled of stale coffee, industrial floor wax, and exhaustion. It was a place where the worst days of people's lives were processed into paperwork.
Eva sat on a hard, molded plastic chair in the waiting area, her hands clasped tightly around the strap of her leather tote bag. Inside the bag was the manila folder Adrian had given her. The IP logs. The motive. The proof. She had come to give her official statement regarding her father's death, but mostly, she was here because she needed to see what happened next. She needed to see the fallout of her confrontation with Liam.
She didn't have to wait long.
The heavy double doors of the interrogation wing swung open, and Liam walked out. He wasn't handcuffed—men with his net worth rarely were unless the cameras were rolling—but he was flanked by Detective Davis and two uniformed officers.
Even in the harsh, buzzing fluorescent light of the precinct, Liam looked entirely out of place. His white shirt was pristine, his posture impeccably straight. He looked like a king who had momentarily slummed it in a dungeon, utterly unfazed by the dirt.
Eva stood up, her heart hammering a painful rhythm against her ribs. Liam's eyes scanned the room, landing on her. For a split second, the air between them pulled taut, heavy with the wreckage of their morning in his office.
"Mr. Carter," Detective Davis was saying, his voice tight with frustration. "You understand that your refusal to answer basic questions regarding your whereabouts at 3:45 AM only escalates our scrutiny. Your father is a person of interest, and your access codes..."
"Detective," Liam interrupted, his voice a quiet, freezing current that cut through the background noise of the precinct. "I have already stated my position. I am fully cooperating with the parameters of the law."
"You're stonewalling," Davis snapped.
Before Liam could reply, the main entrance doors of the precinct hissed open.
The temperature in the room seemed to drop ten degrees.
A woman walked in, and the chaotic energy of the police station simply parted around her. She didn't walk; she advanced.
It was Chloe Sterling.
She was a junior partner at Vance & Sterling, Adrian's firm, and the daughter of its founding member. But more importantly, she was the Carter family's dedicated fixer. Chloe wore a tailored charcoal suit that probably cost more than Detective Davis made in a year. Her blonde hair was pulled back into a severe, perfect knot, and she carried a sleek titanium tablet instead of a briefcase. She was flanked by two paralegals who looked like Secret Service agents.
Chloe wasn't a romantic rival. She was a weapon forged in boardrooms, designed to protect capital.
"Detective Davis," Chloe said, not raising her voice, yet commanding the attention of everyone in a fifty-foot radius. She didn't look at Liam. She walked directly to the detective, her heels clicking rhythmically on the linoleum. "I am Chloe Sterling, lead counsel for Carter Holdings. You are currently interrogating my client outside the presence of legal representation."
Davis bristled, crossing his arms. "Mr. Carter came in voluntarily, Counselor. We were just having a conversation."
"A conversation implies a mutual exchange of information," Chloe replied smoothly, stopping three feet from Davis. She didn't smile. "This looks like an attempt to leverage a tragedy into a fishing expedition. Unless you have a warrant signed by a judge who isn't up for re-election this cycle, Mr. Carter's 'voluntary' visit is over."
Davis flushed red. "We have digital evidence linking his corporate profile to the deletion of key security footage regarding a homicide."
"You have an IP log indicating an automated system purge," Chloe corrected, her voice dripping with polished condescension. "A log that my firm's cybersecurity team is currently proving was the result of an external breach. The paperwork is being filed with the DA's office as we speak."
Eva watched, paralyzed.
An external breach. Just like that, the smoking gun Adrian had handed her was being neutralized. They weren't just denying the truth; they were actively rewriting reality, paving over it with expensive lawyers and perfectly fabricated alibis.
Liam stood behind Chloe. He didn't say a word. He let her be his shield, stepping fully into the machinery of his family's power. It was the ultimate confirmation of what Adrian had warned her about. Liam wasn't an individual anymore; he was an asset being managed.
Chloe turned to Liam. "The car is out front. The board wants a briefing in an hour."
"Understood," Liam said. His voice was completely hollow.
As they turned to leave, Chloe's sharp gaze swept the waiting area and locked onto Eva. Chloe paused, then changed her trajectory, walking directly toward the plastic chairs.
Liam tensed, his hand twitching at his side, but he didn't stop her.
Chloe stopped in front of Eva. Up close, the perfection of her features was almost intimidating. She looked down at Eva with a gaze that held no malice, no jealousy, and no pity. It was a purely transactional look. It was the look of a manager assessing a liability.
"Miss Bennett," Chloe said, her tone professional and cool. "The firm extends its deepest condolences for your loss. Adrian Vance informed me of your meeting this morning."
Eva's grip on her bag tightened until her fingers ached. "Did he."
"He did," Chloe confirmed. "Please know that any further communication regarding Arthur's estate, or the ongoing investigation, should go through our probate division. We have assigned a dedicated liaison for you." Chloe's eyes briefly flicked to the manila folder sticking out of Eva's bag. "Liam is no longer your point of contact for anything. For his legal protection, and yours, the system requires a hard boundary."
The system. Eva felt a sickening wave of helplessness wash over her. It didn't matter what she knew. It didn't matter what she had felt for Liam, or what he had felt for her. They were standing on opposite sides of a fortress wall, and Chloe had just locked the gate.
"I don't need a liaison," Eva said, forcing her voice to stay steady, though her hands were shaking. "I need the truth."
Chloe finally offered a tiny, terrifyingly polite smile. "The truth is whatever the jury believes, Miss Bennett. And right now, we are the ones writing the script. Take care of yourself."
Chloe turned and walked away. Liam followed her. He didn't look back at Eva. He walked out of the precinct, the double doors closing behind him, shutting Eva out of his world entirely.
Eva sat there for a long time, the buzzing of the fluorescent lights sounding like a swarm of insects in her head. She had brought logic to a war that was being fought with power. She had lost.
Slowly, she stood up and walked out of the precinct into the biting afternoon air. She needed to go home. She needed to figure out a new angle. Because the police were useless, and Liam was a ghost.
As she reached her car, parked in the shadowed alley beside the station, a figure detached itself from the brick wall.
Eva gasped, stumbling backward, her hand reaching blindly into her bag for her keys.
"Relax," a dry, cynical voice drifted through the cold air.
A small flame flared, illuminating a face framed by a dark hoodie. Ethan took a drag from a cigarette, the cherry burning bright red in the gloom. He exhaled a thin stream of gray smoke, his sharp eyes locked onto Eva.
"They put on a hell of a show in there, didn't they?" Ethan asked, gesturing lazily toward the precinct with his cigarette. "Chloe is a shark. But she's a shark who only looks at the water in front of her."
Eva stared at him, her defenses instantly back up. "What do you want, Ethan? If Liam sent you—"
"Liam doesn't know I'm here," Ethan interrupted, stepping out of the shadows. The trademark smirk was missing from his face. "In fact, Liam is currently busy playing the perfect little corporate victim for the board. Which is exactly what he wants them to think."
Eva frowned, confusion cutting through her anger. "What are you talking about?"
Ethan flicked his cigarette onto the wet asphalt. He looked at Eva, his expression dead serious.
"Chloe told the cops the system was breached externally to cover up the deleted footage," Ethan said quietly. "She's lying to the cops. But she doesn't know she's lying. She actually believes her cybersecurity team found a hacker."
"But Liam deleted it," Eva said. "Adrian gave me the logs."
"Yeah, he did. With his Omega clearance," Ethan agreed, stepping closer, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. "But here's the problem, Eva. I checked those same servers twenty minutes after your little fight in his office."
Ethan reached into his pocket and pulled out a folded piece of paper, holding it out to her.
"Liam used his clearance to wipe the harbor master's camera. That's a fact," Ethan said, his eyes burning with a strange, nervous energy. "But whoever actually breached the system ten minutes before him... they didn't just delete footage. They altered the city's traffic grid. They changed the toll booth records."
Eva took the paper, her hands trembling as she unfolded it.
"Liam isn't the one orchestrating this, Eva," Ethan said, his voice a grim echo in the alleyway. "He's the one trying to clean up the mess before the real monster realizes we can see them."