CHAPTER 236

**WINTER**

Zion’s grip tightened around my hand—

“Questions?” he snapped, his voice low, dangerous.

Martin didn’t even blink. 

His gaze slid over me, cold and businesslike, before he gave a curt nod. 

“We’ll discuss whatever needs to be discussed back at the precinct.”

The words made my stomach sink, dread twisting tight in my chest.

“Why?" Zion seethed beside me, his jaw locked, every muscle in his arm rigid against mine. 

“You can ask your questions here and—”

“No, we can’t.” Roxy’s interruption sliced clean through Zion’s words. 

"I have a great many questions.” 

Her hand drifted lazily across the folder in front of her, like she was bored already.

Then her gaze lifted, dark and steady. 

“This is a homicide investigation—one that I am leading. And no…” her brow arched, lips tugging into the faintest curve, more cruel than kind.

“I don’t hand out favours. Not for a group of college kids who think the world bends for them. Not for boys who puff their chests like they’re untouchable. Not for little girls who think crying makes them innocent.”

Her gaze swept over us, sharp and deliberate, like a blade pressed against skin.

“This isn’t a classroom squabble,” she said, voice smooth but laced with venom. 

“This is a murder. My victim is Ethan Wilde—found tied to a chair, beaten until his bones splintered, left to bleed out like an animal while someone watched him suffer.”

I felt bile claw at the back of my throat, flashes of Ethan’s bloodied body searing behind my eyes.

Roxy’s stare didn’t soften. 

If anything, her lips curved in that razor-thin mockery as she tilted her chin toward Zion.

“So no,” she said, voice cold as glass. 

“We will not be hanging around here for your convenience, to ask questions just because you snapped your fingers and ordered it!”

The deliberate bite in her tone made his jaw flex, his grip tightening protectively around my hand.

Roxy’s attention landed back squarely on me. 

Her stare didn’t waver, dark and assessing, like she was dissecting me in silence. 

“And you, Miss Winter,” she said, her voice clipped, 

“You will not be leaving my company until I have all my questions answered.”

Harry shoved forward, voice breaking with outrage.

“What the hell is this? Why are you treating her like she’s guilty? She’s the victim here—she’s the one being stalked!”

Roxy shook her head once, cold and unbothered.

“She’s not my victim,” she corrected flatly.

“Ethan Wilde is. He was beaten, tied, and tortured for what looked like hours before his death. That is my victim.”

Her hands rested lightly on her hips, posture straight, immovable. 

“So yes. You’ll be coming to the station with me. You’ll answer every single one of my questions.”

Her brows lifted, just slightly. 

“And if you’re as innocent as you claim, you might want to get yourself a lawyer before you open your mouth again.”

The words landed like a gavel. 

Final.

No one spoke. 

Not Zion, though I felt the tremor of restrained fury in the way his arm tightened around me. Not Clark, not Harry, not Ro. The silence was suffocating, louder than any shouting match could have been.

I could feel every eye on me, but it was her gaze that burned—the dark, unflinching weight of it—pressing until I swore my ribs might crack.

My pulse hammered. My throat was dry. For the first time that night, the icy truth sank all the way in.

I wasn’t just a witness anymore.

I was a suspect.

.....

I’d been inside a police station before—once, twice, in passing. 

Filing a report. 

Sitting in a waiting room. 

But never like this. 

Never on the wrong side of the table.

Never as the suspect.

My pulse was a drum in my throat, and the chair under me suddenly felt like a trap, not a seat.

Interrogation. 

That word alone made my stomach twist into tight, painful knots. It wasn’t supposed to be me sitting here.

I was a victim too—the one who had been hurt. 

And yet, the way they had looked at me… cold, calculating, watchful… it felt like the entire world had turned upside down.

The room was colder than it should have been. 

We sat around the long metal table like suspects in a crime drama—Zion beside me, his silence heavy, Clark shifting irritably in his seat, Ro with her arms crossed like a shield, and Harry drumming restless fingers against the steel.

A shudder ripped through me before I could stop it. 

No amount of breathing or pinching my palms under the table was helping—my body just wouldn’t listen. 

My nerves had turned to glass, brittle and ready to splinter with the slightest touch.

“Snowflake.”

Zion’s voice was rough, frayed at the edges, but the moment it cut through the chaos in my head, I clung to it like a lifeline. 

His hand found mine, warm and firm, grounding me when everything else felt like it was slipping away.

He scooted closer—too close for the narrow chair, but I didn’t care. 

I needed him here. 

His arm slid around my shoulders, pulling me slightly into his side. I could feel the steady rise and fall of his chest, the warmth of him pressing into me, and it made the fear shrink just a little.

Then his lips brushed my forehead, light and reassuring, almost tender. 

“I’m right here, Snowflake.”

His thumb stroked circles over the back of my hand as his other arm tightened gently around me. The chaotic hum of the station, the waiting, the staring—it all faded behind the small, steady cocoon he’d made around me.

I leaned against him without thinking, letting him carry some of the weight I couldn’t manage, letting his closeness tell me I wasn’t alone in this.

We sat there, in those battered, uncomfortable chairs you only ever saw in crime shows. 

Except this wasn’t TV. 

This was real. 

The steel in the air. 

The suffocating walls. 

The knowledge that any second, someone was going to walk in and treat me like I didn’t just survive Ethan, but had somehow become the monster instead.

No. Not us. 

Not they.

Me.

I was the suspect.

“I’m scared,” I whispered, the words cracking before they left my mouth. My chest tightened, my palms damp against his.

“I can’t believe I’m here… that they actually think—” I whispered, my voice trembling.

“Shh… Snowflake.” Zion’s hand found mine, firm and grounding, a quiet anchor in the chaos. He pulled me closer, draping an arm around my shoulders, holding me against him.

“What questions could they possibly want to ask?” I murmured, voice tight.

“Probably just routine stuff,” he said softly, brushing a thumb over my knuckles.

I shivered. 

“The way Roxy Anne looked at me… it was like she already decided I did something wrong.”

He pressed his forehead to mine, warm and steady, voice low and soothing. 

“She’s not deciding anything yet. She’s just going over everything, trying to get the facts straight. That’s all. Okay..relax.”

I let out a shuddering breath, clinging to him, letting the panic ebb just a little in the safety of his presence.

He leaned closer, his breath brushing against my hair, low enough for only me to hear. 

“We’re going to sort this out. No matter what they throw at you, we’ll fight it. I called in a friend—criminal law’s his speciality. He’ll be here within the hour. Until then, don’t say a damn thing. Not one word. Do you hear me?”

I nodded, my throat too tight to answer.

“And my mom and your dad…” His thumb brushed over my knuckles, softer now, almost tender. 

“They’re on the first flight back. Straight from France. They know. They’re coming.”

A lump rose in my throat. Relief. Terror. Everything at once.

The room was too still, too quiet. 

When I glanced up, Clark, Ro, and Harry were watching us. 

Silent. 

Their gazes were heavy, unreadable. 

None of them said a word. 

They didn’t have to. 

Every unspoken thing sat thick between us.

The door opened with a slow, deliberate creak. 

Roxy Anne walked in first, her heels sharp against the linoleum, followed by Inspector Martin—grim-faced—and Agent Muiz, who closed the door behind them with a soft click that felt too final.

Muiz spoke first. Broad-shouldered, steady, his voice carried a practised calm.

“Alright, guys,” he said, tone almost warm. 

“Thank you for waiting. We know this isn’t easy.”

Inspector Martin followed, slipping into the room with a looser air. 

“I bet you’d rather be anywhere else but here.” 

His half-smile aimed for casual, but his eyes gave him away—sharp, searching, cataloguing every movement around the table.

And then came Roxy Anne. 

She didn’t bother with courtesy. 

She set a folder down on the table but didn’t open it. 

Instead, she sat. 

Folded her hands. 

Watched us. 

Silent. Patient. 

Like a surgeon deciding where best to make the first incision.

Martin exhaled lightly, his voice carrying that practised calm of someone used to long nights in interrogation rooms.

“Agent Roxy Anne has a few questions for you, Winter” he said evenly. 

“It’s better we address them now while everyone’s here. Once we’re finished, you’ll all be free to go.”

At first, her voice was almost soft. 

“You’ve all had a rough night,” she said, as though acknowledging something obvious. 

“A body is found, questions swirl, and suddenly… you’re here instead of in your beds. That’s hard. I get it.”

Her eyes moved from face to face, slow, deliberate. She let the silence hang just long enough before continuing. 

“But what’s harder—for me—is when details don’t line up. When stories bend under pressure. When the truth gets tangled.”

The softness drained from her tone, leaving only steel. Her hands shifted, opening the folder with a sharp flick, papers rustling like knives unsheathed.

“So let’s untangle it, shall we?”

Her gaze found me and held. 

Cold. Unyielding.

She let that sink in, then flicked open the folder she’d been holding. 

“When my techs cracked into his computer—a computer he went out of his way to conceal in that house—they found something else.”

Her eyes cut back to me like knives. 

“They found an email. From you.”

My breath seized. “What!”

“I haven’t—” I started, shaking my head violently. 

“I haven’t contacted him. Not ever—”

“The email was sent twenty-four days ago, just a few days before his death,” Roxy pressed, her tone still maddeningly calm.

“From your email account. It reads…” She flipped a page, scanning, then recited with surgical precision:

‘*Ethan, I can’t stop thinking about you. I regret everything I said—I was angry, and I exaggerated. I need to make things right. Please, meet me. I want to see you, just the two of us. I’ll take my statement back. I know I hurt you, but I still… care about you. There’s so much I haven’t said, and I can’t let it end like this. I need to know if there’s a chance for us… even just one more time.’*

Her voice cut through me like a blade.

My pulse thundered. 

“No!” The word burst from me. 

I shook my head violently. 

“I didn’t write that. I swear, I didn’t—”

Roxy cut me off by raising her voice just slightly, enough to drown me out as she finished the letter.

*“Please… where are you? I’ll come to you—I’ll go anywhere, we can talk, we can figure this out. Just tell me where you are. I can’t stop thinking about you. I miss you so much… I just want to make things right.”*

Zion surged forward, fury vibrating off him. 

“That’s bullshit!” His voice cracked like a whip. 

“She didn’t send that, and you fucking know it. What are you trying to pull here? What the fuck are you trying to prove?”

Roxy ignored him. 

Her eyes never left mine.

“Convenient, isn’t it?” Her words were sharp enough to draw blood.

“You ask him where he is. You promise you’ll come, that you just want to talk. He replies, gives you his address. And now—just like that—he’s dead. Tortured, executed… in the very house you were meant to meet him. Do you see how it looks, Winter? Do you feel how easily it paints you as… complicit?”

"So,” she said, folding the paper with careful precision. 

“This paints a very different picture than the one you’re trying to sell us. A girl retracts her accusations, begs for her abuser back, arranges a place for him… and then, conveniently, he ends up tied to a chair, tortured, and dead. In the very house where you happened to be.”

She leaned back in her chair, hands on her hips, her voice razor-sharp.

“So tell me… do you see how that looks?”

Silence. The weight of her words pressed down like a noose tightening.