All Chapters of SIR: Chapter 131 - Chapter 139

Six months pass in the kind of blur that only comes after everything has already broken and been pieced back together wrong-side-up. David finishes physical therapy the week before Thanksgiving. The last session ended with him jogging in place on the treadmill while the therapist clapped like he’s just run a marathon instead of simply remembering how to trust his own legs again. When he walks out of the clinic under his own power, I’m waiting in the parking lot with Lucy on my hip and a coffee in both hands. He stops in front of us, takes the cup from my fingers, and kisses me so thoroughly the paper sleeve crinkles between us. “Still got it,” he murmurs against my mouth. “Never doubted you,” I tell him, and mean it. The life insurance check from Malcolm arrived two weeks later. The eight-figure number still feels obscene sitting in my bank account. David immediately called his old financial advisor the same afternoon, then spent the next month quietly buying back Calder Investmen

The holding cell door clangs shut behind me and I stand there for a long moment, feeling the orange jumpsuit scratching against my skin. The fluorescent light overhead never seems to turn off. It hums like it’s mocking me. I sink onto the thin mattress and take a deep breath. The woman already in the cell doesn’t look up right away. She’s older, maybe late forties, with hair pulled into tight cornrows and arms crossed over her chest. Tattoos crawl up her forearms bearing names, dates, and a small cross. She finally glances my way. “New fish,” she says, her voice low and gravelly. “What’d they pin on you?” “Murder,” I answer. No point in lying. Pretty sure everyone in here already knows my face from the news. She snorts. “High profile. They love those. Means the guards watch closer, but the other girls leave you alone. Mostly.” “Mostly,” I repeat. “Name’s Tasha. Been here fourteen months waiting on sentencing. You got people

Maya settles deeper into the leather armchair in the surveillance van parked three blocks away with her legs crossed and a tablet balanced on her knee. The feed from the six micro-cameras she planted throughout David and Nora's apartment is crisp, the audio clean enough to catch every breath and every word. She has watched David and Nora return from the federal building, watched him hold her too long in the foyer, watched them disappear into the master suite for what was obviously not a conversation. The rage that had simmered since the chapel wedding is now a steady burn in her chest, but she keeps it contained. Rage without control is useless. She has learned that lesson the hard way. On the screen, Nora moves alone through the hallway toward the front door. She kisses David on the cheek just before she steps out, and promises to be back home soon. Wouldn’t be so sure if I were you, Maya thinks to herself. Nora steps out holding a black leather bound

Maya jerks backward from the impact, the bullet tearing through the meat of her shoulder. She staggers two steps with her right hand clamping over the wound and blood already seeping between her fingers. The knife she’d pulled from her boot clatters to the floor. Her eyes are wide and locked on the smoking barrel in David’s hand. I’m still on my knees beside Vincent’s body, his blood soaking through my jeans. My ears are still ringing from the shot. Everything feels slow and too loud at the same time. I turn and see David standing in the doorway, holding the gun steady even though his knuckles are white around the grip. He doesn’t look at me first. His eyes stay on Maya. I push myself up slowly, legs shaky under me. “I thought I told you to stay outside and let me handle this on my own.” He finally glances my way. Just a quick flick of his gaze enough to make sure I’m still breathing, before returning to Maya. “I heard you,” he says. His voice is calm, almost conversational.

The bedroom door is barely closed before David's hands are on me, sliding up under the thin silk of my robe as he backs me against the wall. I tilt my head back against the cool plaster, letting him kiss down the column of my throat while my fingers work the buttons of his shirt open. His skin is still firm under my palms, though the muscle has softened slightly with the years, the hair on his chest is more silver than dark now. I love every change. Every line around his eyes when he smiles, every grey at his temples, every scar from nights we almost didn't survive. I trace them with my fingertips as I push the shirt off his shoulders. "You smell like trouble," he murmurs against my collarbone, voice low and rough the way it gets when he's already half-gone on me. "Good trouble?" I ask, sliding my hand down his stomach, feeling the way his muscles jump under my touch. "The best kind." He catches my wrist, brings my palm to his mouth and kisses the centre before guiding it lower