The holding cell smells like bleach and old sweat. I sit on the concrete bench with my back against the wall, my right arm cradled against my chest. The shoulder is swollen now. Tight and hot. Every small movement sends lightning down to my fingertips.

A woman across from me is asleep on the floor, curled around her shoes like they might get stolen. Another one paces near the bars, muttering to herself. The fluorescent lights never turn off. I don't know what time it is. I don't know how long I've been here.

The woman on the bench next to me shifts closer. She's older, maybe fifty, with tired eyes and a scar across her jaw. She looks at my arm.

"What happened?" she asks.

I swallow. My throat is dry. "I fell."

She studies me for a long moment. Then she nods and looks away. She doesn't believe me. But she doesn't push.

I press my thumb into my left wrist and count. One. Two. Three. The shoulder throbs with my heartbeat. I can feel the bone sitting wrong, pressing into places it shouldn't be. I try to breathe shallow so it won't move.

Sometime later—hours, maybe—a guard comes and takes me to a medical station. It's just a desk with a blood pressure cuff and a scale. A man in scrubs who looks half asleep tells me to sit. He touches my shoulder and I bite down on my lip so hard I taste copper.

"How long's it been like this?" he asks.

"Since yesterday."

He writes something on a clipboard. "You need an orthopedic consult. Probable nerve damage. I'm flagging this for follow-up."

He doesn't say when the follow-up will be. He doesn't give me anything for the pain. He just sends me back to the cell.

I sit on the bench and watch the lights hum. I think about Drew's hand on my arm. The sound my shoulder made. The way he looked at me after, like I deserved it.

I close my eyes. I don't sleep.

Morning comes with a guard calling my name. Someone posted bail. I stand up too fast and the room tilts. My shoulder screams. I follow the guard down a hallway that smells like industrial cleaner and out into a processing area where I sign papers I don't read.

Joshua Bell is waiting in the lobby.

He's standing near the window with his hands in his pockets, and when he sees me he doesn't smile or rush forward. He just walks over, steady and unhurried, and says, "Let's go."

I follow him to his car. It's clean inside. Quiet. He doesn't ask what happened. He doesn't ask if I'm okay. He starts the engine and pulls into traffic, and after a long silence he says, "Where do you need to go?"

My voice comes out rough. "The cemetery. I need to see my father."

He nods. He doesn't ask why. He just drives.

The ride is long. I watch the city pass outside the window—buildings, billboards, people going to work like the world is still normal. My shoulder pulses with every bump in the road. I cradle it with my left hand and press my thumb into my wrist. One. Two. Three.

Joshua doesn't fill the silence. He just drives, calm and deliberate, like there's nowhere else he needs to be.

When we pull into the cemetery, I see them immediately.

Workers. Three of them, with shovels and crowbars, tearing apart my father's grave. The headstone is tipped on its side. Memorial flowers are scattered across churned mud. One man is prying up the stone border. Another is digging.

I'm out of the car before it fully stops.

My legs are shaking. My shoulder is on fire. I stumble across the grass toward the grave, and that's when I see her.

Giselle.

She's standing near the edge of the plot, arms crossed, watching the workers like she's supervising a home renovation. She's dressed in a soft cream coat, hair perfect, face calm. She looks up when I approach, and for a moment something flickers across her expression—surprise, maybe, or annoyance that I'm here.

One of the workers straightens up, wiping his forehead. "This the right plot?" he asks Giselle.

"Yes," she says. Her voice is light. Casual. "Just make sure you get all of it. The family wants it cleared."

The worker grunts and goes back to digging. Another one laughs—low and ugly. "Old man probably didn't even see it coming," he says. "Driver said he barely had to swerve."

Giselle's mouth curves. "He nearly botched it," she says. "The whole point was to make it look clean. Not some sloppy accident."

The words land like a fist to my chest.

I stop walking. The ground tilts under me. My father's grave is being torn apart in front of me, and Giselle just confessed—casually, carelessly—that his death was never an accident at all.

She hired the driver. She killed him.

I don't think. I just move.

I lunge at her, my good arm reaching, my voice ripping out of my throat in something that isn't words. I don't know what I'm trying to do. Hit her. Hurt her. Make her feel a fraction of what she's taken from me.

I don't reach her.

Hands catch me from behind—strong, familiar. Drew.

He yanks me backward, his arm across my chest, and I scream. My shoulder tears apart all over again. The pain is total. Blinding.

"Let her go," Joshua's voice cuts through, sharp and close.

But Drew doesn't let go. He's holding me like I'm the threat. Like I'm the one who needs to be restrained.

One of the workers spits into the dirt near my feet. "Crazy bitch," he mutters.

Drew's grip tightens. Then his hand moves—fast, brutal—and he strikes me across the face.

The world goes white.

I'm on the ground. Mud under my knees. Blood in my mouth. My father's overturned headstone two feet from my face.

I hear Joshua shouting. I hear Drew's voice, cold and distant. I hear Giselle laughing softly.

I press my forehead into the dirt and close my eyes.

I'm done.

The words hang in the air like smoke after a gunshot.

*Driver said he barely had to swerve.*

*The whole point was to make it look clean.*

My father didn't stumble into traffic. He didn't misjudge the street. Someone aimed a truck at him like a weapon, and Giselle Rose paid for it.

The ground disappears beneath me. My legs move before my brain catches up. I'm running—stumbling—across the churned mud toward her. My right arm hangs useless at my side. My left reaches out like it can grab the truth and strangle it.

"You killed him!" The words rip out of my throat. "You murdered my father!"

Giselle's eyes go wide. She takes a step back, her cream coat swirling around her knees. But she's not fast enough.

I'm three feet away when hands lock around me from behind.

Drew.

His arm crosses my chest like an iron bar. He hauls me backward and my shoulder explodes. White light floods my vision. I scream—a sound I don't recognize, animal and raw.

"Stop," Drew's voice is cold in my ear. "Elina, stop."

I thrash against him. My good arm claws at his sleeve. "She killed him! She just said—she hired someone to kill my father!"

"She's hysterical," Giselle says. Her voice shakes just right. Tears well in her eyes. "Drew, please—she's been like this for days. I don't know what to do."

One of the workers laughs. It's low and ugly, like watching someone fall is the best entertainment he's had all week. "Crazy bitch doesn't know when to quit."

Another one spits into the dirt near my feet. "Pathetic."

Drew's grip tightens. I can't breathe. My shoulder is grinding bone against bone. I try to turn my head, try to make him look at the grave—at the overturned headstone, the scattered flowers, the evidence of what Giselle has done.

"Drew, look—" My voice breaks. "Look at what she's doing—"

"I'm looking at you," he says. Flat. Final. "Attacking someone at a cemetery. Is this what you've become?"

I stop struggling. Not because I want to. Because my body has nothing left.

Joshua's voice cuts through the noise, sharp and close. "Let her go."

I didn't hear him approach. But he's here now, standing a few feet away, his hands loose at his sides but his entire body coiled tight. His eyes are locked on Drew.

"This isn't your business," Drew says without looking at him.

"Let her go," Joshua repeats. His voice doesn't rise. It doesn't need to.

Drew's arm shifts slightly—not releasing me, but adjusting his grip. Like he's deciding whether Joshua is a threat worth addressing.

Giselle steps forward, one hand pressed to her chest. "Drew, I'm scared. She tried to hurt me. She's not stable."

The worker with the shovel grins. "Maybe she needs a psych eval. Lock her up somewhere safe."

Another one chuckles. "Yeah. For her own good."

I close my eyes. The mud is cold under my knees. My father's name is carved into the stone two feet from my face, and I can't even reach it.

Drew's hand moves.

I don't see it coming. I just feel the impact—his open palm across my face, full force, no hesitation.

My head snaps to the side. My vision whites out. There's a ringing in my ears that drowns out everything else. I taste copper. My cheek is on fire.

I'm on the ground. I don't remember falling. My knees are in the mud. My good hand is braced against the overturned headstone, fingers spread across my father's name.

Kenneth Patterson.

Beloved father.

I hear Joshua shout something. I hear movement—fast, violent. But it's far away. Underwater.

I press my forehead against the cold stone and breathe.

One.

Two.

Three.

Giselle is saying something. Her voice is soft and wounded, the voice of someone who's been victimized. Drew is responding. I can't make out the words. I don't try.

I lift my head slowly. My neck feels like it's made of glass. I look up at Drew.

He's standing over me, breathing hard, his hand still raised slightly like he's forgotten to lower it. His face is flushed. His eyes are hard.

I don't cry. I don't beg. I don't explain.

I just look at him.

And something in me—something that's been bending for three years, bending and bending and never quite breaking—finally snaps clean.

I don't feel it break. I just feel the absence. The space where hope used to be. The silence where love used to live.

I lower my gaze. I press my thumb into my left wrist. I count.

One. Two. Three.

I'm done.

I don't say it out loud. I don't need to.

I just know.

I'm done.