Page 37 of Shadows of Justice

“This isn’t you, Viv,” he says. “You’re a good person. Don’t be an idiot and get swept up into something crazy. I’d hate to see you go down because of this.”

My hackles raise.

“You don’t give a shit about me, and don’t pretend you ever have.” I stand, shoving the chair backward with a satisfying screech. “Are we done? Or next would you like to see my bank statements and my car’s GPS?”

“We’re done,” Gavin says. “For now.”

I leave Room C and stop short when I almost run right into the chief.

“Walk with me,” my father orders with a snap of his fingers, and I obediently follow after him. I double-time it to match his brisk pace and catch up to him in the lobby. As we pass through the automatic sliding doors and into the parking lot, he pins my arm in between his thumb and forefinger—very hard.

I hiss in pain, his strength not seeming to have waned over the years. He drags me toward his car and roughly shoves me into it.

“What the fuck, Genevieve?” he shouts. I peer around, grateful there’s no one in the parking lot. “It’s like talking to a brick wall. I told you to watch your ass, and now the FBI has their eye on you for suspicious affiliation?”

“They’ve got it wrong!” I say, my tone matching his. “I don’t know Leo. It’s a coincidence. Gavin just smelled blood in the water and embellished that whole fucking story. He just loves to watch me drown.”

“Gavin is doing his job—something you need to learn to fucking do!” My father slams his palm on the car next to me and I flinch, years of harsh treatment and physical harm flooding into my memory like a dam breaking.

My eyes fill with tears, but I don’t let them fall. Fuck him. Fuck all of them.

“Are you running around like an idiot with a junkie loser?” he shouts, so close to me I feel his spit rain on me. My bag falls from my shoulder to my feet, but I don’t care. I want to scream.

“I guess the apple doesn’t fall far, huh? You worried, dad? Worried I’ll get involved with a junkie, just like you did? Just like mom?”

“That was different,” he says, practically a snarl. The beast is roiling beneath the surface, I can see it. But I can’t stop. I want to spew acid venom all over him and watch him sizzle into a miserable chief puddle at my feet.

“How? Was she not your informant?” I argue. “Your nineteen-year-old informant that you coaxed into drug dens, who’d never tried drugs in her life, but you got her hooked so she could get closer to who you wanted to take down? You fucked her when you wanted, and then left her on the streets after she had me. After she begged you to help her get clean so she could be a good mother!” A traitorous tear falls, but I ignore it. All I can think about is ripping him to shreds. “I read her letters. All of them. She left them for me with Mémé. She told me everything.”

My father’s expression is murderous. It reminds me of all of the times I hid under the bed whenever I did something even the least bit incorrectly. He’d come for me with the exact same look on his face. I got real good at hiding the bruises.

“Is that what you’re up to with Barone?” he narrows his eyes at me, a sick smile curling his lips. “Are you that desperate for attention that you’re whoring yourself out to get promoted? Typical, ladder-climbing cunt.”

I don’t even register the burning in my palm as my hand cracks across his face.

“Mom’s biggest mistake was ever having faith in you. Bigger than losing herself to drugs, bigger than all her other naïve, fucked up choices. Her life was over the moment she trusted the system your soul belongs to to take care of her.”

I pick up my bag, wiping my cheeks on the way down, and brush past his shoulder with intentional force. I spot my car on the opposite side of the parking lot and head toward it.

“You’ll never make detective if I can help it!” he calls after me. “I refuse to promote such an embarrassment to that uniform you’re wearing. You’re a fucking disgrace!”

I quicken my pace, trying to outrun the poisonous words, as if speed can make me unhear them. I whip my car around the corner—breaking a few traffic laws—and speed down a random residential street.

I pull up in front of a house, throw it into park, and lose myself in the tears.

Chapter Twelve - Interesting Exes

Saturday, July 18th

Idon’t cry often.

In fact, I avoid the completely normal emotional response like the plague. It makes my head hurt, and I hate when my head hurts.

But I can’t stop these tears. These tears have been on standby for years. They pour out of me with a vengeance that’s shocking, and I have nothing left inside of me to stand against them. I’ve ruined my life—my already semi-shitty life. I’m hiccuping and choking, snotting and beating my fists into the steering wheel.

And they just keep coming.

I hear a chirp from my bag in the front seat next to me. I wipe my nose with my uniform sleeve and fish out the pre-paid cellphone, flipping it open to read the text from Leo.

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