The vibration of her phone snapped Kendra out of her thoughts, the sound like a stone dropping into still water.
She sat curled on the couch in her dimly lit living room, one leg tucked under her, the other bouncing anxiously against the worn carpet. The only light came from the flickering television—her favorite crime docuseries she'd long stopped paying at, the muted voices just background noise for the weight in her chest. Ironic, she thought, how those shows made justice seem so clean and certain. Forty-two minutes and a tidy confession. Real life was messier. Real life left you sitting in the dark, second-guessing every decision, every ally, every fragment of hope you'd managed to salvage from the wreckage.
The screen of her phone lit up again, the vibration slicing through the quiet like a warning bell.
Brandon: Hey. Just a heads-up—something about Sean's movements tonight didn't sit right with me. Might be nothing. But stay sharp, okay?
Kendra blinked. Once. Twice. She reread it, this time slower, the words burning themselves into her retinas like a brand.
Her stomach clenched—not with fear, but with irritation. A sharp, hot pulse of it that started in her gut and radiated outward, flooding her chest with something that felt dangerously close to rage. 
Of all the things Brandon could say right now...
"Seriously?" she muttered, the word coming out like a splinter. She locked the screen and tossed the phone onto the cushion beside her. It bounced lightly, then lay still. But her thoughts didn't. They churned and twisted, dragging up memories she'd tried to bury.
Sean.
The man who'd risked more than she'd asked for. Who had slipped her files from the ongoing investigation, followed her to see a witness, risking his badge. Who had defended her even when others whispered that she was too close, too invested, too blinded by love to see the truth. He had looked her in the eyes that night, and said, "If you're going to keep digging, then you'll need my help." No conditions. No demands. Just quiet determination and a willingness to risk his career for something he believed in. For her.
He believed in her. That counted for something. That counted for everything when the world had decided Lena was guilty before the evidence was even processed, when even her own colleagues looked at her with pity disguised as concern.
And Brandon?
Brandon had cracked jokes and dragged his feet. Had flirted at the worst times and deflected at the best, that cocky half-smile always dancing on his lips even when she was falling apart in front of him. He'd made her promise him a date—a date—before he'd even agreed to help, as if her desperation was his opportunity, her pain something to be leveraged. She could still remember the way he'd leaned back in his chair, arms crossed, waiting for her to agree to his terms while her world crumbled around her. And now, what? He wanted to play the knight in denim armor? To sweep in with vague warnings when he could have been there from the beginning?
She leaned back against the couch, arms folded across her chest, her eyes narrowing as she stared at the ceiling. The water stain in the corner reminded her of a map to nowhere—all the wrong turns she'd taken, all the dead ends she'd followed, all the people who'd let her down when she needed them most.
"You had your chance," she said aloud, her voice low and bitter. "You don't get to pull the jealous ex routine now."
Brandon had never been wrong about people. Not when it mattered. He had an instinct for reading motivations, for seeing through facades, that had made him a good lawyer. 
Still, the words wouldn't stop echoing. They stung like splinters... Something about Sean's movement...
She reached for the phone again, thumb hovering over the keyboard, then flying across the screen:
You're jealous, Brandon. Admit it. You've always had a problem when I trust someone who's not you. Even back when we were together, you couldn't stand it when I laughed with other guys.
She stared at the message. Too raw. Too accusatory. Too much history bubbling to the surface like oil from a broken pipeline. She could practically hear his voice—low and tight, the way it got when he was trying to act like he didn't care. That half-laugh he did when he was stalling, figuring out how to dodge a hit to the heart. "Come on, Ken. It's not like that and you know it."
Delete.
She exhaled slowly, running a hand through her tangled hair, and tried again:
Sean's been helping me when no one else would. Maybe he's got his own crap to deal with, but that doesn't make him a suspect. You weren't there when the walls were closing in. He was. He didn't ask questions—he just showed up.
She read it twice, then once more. Defensive. Too personal. Like she was trying to convince herself, not him. The last line hung there like an accusation: He showed up. You didn't. And maybe that was unfair. 
She let the message fade to draft, thumb pressing the home button instead. Her fingers tightened around the phone, the case creaking slightly under the pressure.
The next one came slower, more intentional, typed and retyped as the clock on the wall ticked by:
Look, Brandon. Stay focused on the case. I appreciate your help, but back off. I trust Sean.
She hit send before she could second-guess herself, but her finger lingered on the screen, trembling slightly.
It was firm. Clipped. Respectful. Professional.
But it didn't feel good. It felt like shutting a door she might need open later, like burning a bridge while she was still standing on it. It felt like choosing sides in a war she didn't fully understand.
As the screen dimmed again, guilt crept in, slow and stubborn, like water finding its way through concrete. She dropped the phone on the coffee table.
Maybe Brandon was just being protective. Maybe he cared—and this was his way of showing it, all tangled and backwards like always. Maybe there was something to what he was saying, some instinct or observation that her exhaustion was keeping her from seeing clearly. Maybe she was so desperate for an ally that she'd blinded herself to red flags that would have been obvious under normal circumstances.
Her phone buzzed again.
Brandon: Understood. Just watch your back. That's all.
Kendra felt her shoulders sag slightly, the fight draining out of her like air from a punctured tire. No argument. No defense. No wounded pride or masculine posturing. Just acceptance and concern, wrapped in the kind of quiet dignity that reminded her why she'd fallen for him in the first place. Why did that make her feel worse? Why did his grace make her own anger feel petty and small?
Her jaw tightened as she typed back: I always do.
She hit send, then added, her curiosity overriding her pride:
What exactly did you see?
The three dots appeared immediately, then disappeared. Appeared again. Disappeared. Like he was typing and deleting, struggling with how much to say or how to say it.
Kendra frowned. That wasn't like Brandon. He was direct, sometimes brutally so. If he had something to say, he said it. The hesitation made her stomach twist with something that might have been fear.
She set her phone down on the table with a thud, the sound sharp in the silence.
"This isn't the time for mixed signals or drama," she told herself aloud. "Lena's still locked up. Mr. Stephen's still dead. And someone out there knows more than they're saying."
She leaned forward, elbows on her knees, pressing the heels of her palms into her temples. The silence, once familiar and comforting, now felt like a trap. Heavy. Watching. Waiting for her to make the wrong move, trust the wrong person, follow the wrong lead into another dead end.
She stood up, muscles tight from sitting too long, and paced toward the window. Parting the curtains with two fingers, she stared out into the night, searching for... what? Answers? Threats? Some sign that the universe was still paying attention?
Empty street. Quiet sidewalk. One lone streetlight buzzing faintly overhead, casting a golden cone onto the pavement like a spotlight on an empty stage. Mrs. Ebony's cat, a sleek black shadow, slipped along the fence line across the way, moving with the fluid grace of something that belonged to the darkness.
No movement otherwise. No lurking figures or suspicious cars. No obvious signs of danger.
But still, something twisted inside her. A whisper of paranoia. A ghost of suspicion. The feeling that she was being watched, evaluated, measured for weaknesses.
Or maybe it was just exhaustion, bone-deep and relentless. Maybe it was the three hours of sleep she'd managed in the last forty-eight. Maybe it was the coffee still buzzing through her system, making her jumpy, making monsters out of shadows and enemies out of friends. Maybe it was the weight of carrying Lena's fate on her shoulders, the knowledge that every decision could be the one that sealed her sister's doom.
She let the curtain fall back into place and stood still for a moment, arms folded across her chest, the silence pressing in again like a physical thing.
Her phone sat accusingly on the table. Brandon's message a pebble dropped into the pond of her certainties, ripples spreading outward, distorting the clear surface of her convictions until she couldn't tell what was real and what was reflection.
Trust. Such a fragile thing. So easily given to the wrong people. So reluctantly granted to the right ones. So impossible to navigate when you were drowning and everyone around you claimed to be throwing life preservers.
"I'm not wrong about Sean," she whispered, but the words sounded like a promise made without conviction.
The doubt was there now, small but persistent, like a seed planted in fertile ground. And despite everything—despite Sean's help, despite his kindness, despite the way he'd looked at her with something that might have been understanding—she couldn't quite make it go away.