Page 14 of Collateral Damage
Ava
I push through the fire doors, and the morning sun hits me full in the face, bright and aggressive against the glass of the lobby.
I scan the room, searching for a uniformed officer. The lobby is empty except for Silas.
He’s standing near the reception desk, a dark, rigid shape against the morning light. He hasn't moved an inch. He’s watching the automatic doors with a look that makes the air in the room feel brittle.
"Silas?" I ask. My voice sounds thin, rattling against the high ceiling.
He turns. His face is hard, his jaw set so tight I can see the muscle jumping in his cheek.
"Ready?" he asks. His voice is a low, vibrating rasp.
"Did you call the police? Do we need to go to the station?" I shift my bag on my shoulder, my fingers fumbling with my keys.
Silas doesn't move. He doesn't even blink. "We aren't going to the station."
I stop midstride. "Why not?"
"I called the precinct," Silas says. He steps toward me, his shadow falling over me, blotting out the sun. "I told the detective exactly what I found."
"And?" I wait for the part where the police are on their way to Lindenford. "When are they meeting us?"
"They aren't." Silas’s voice is flat. “Vance is refusing to dispatch. He says because the alarm never tripped and because I’m a private contractor, he’s not treating this as a crime."
The air leaves my lungs. I feel the blood drain from my face, leaving me cold in the middle of the sunny room. "A crime? Someone was living in my home!"
"In their eyes, you're the woman who's called them four times this month for nothing," Silas says.
A bitter, hollow heat rises in my throat. Every night I lay awake in that house, heart hammering, telling myself I was safe because I was following the rules—I was reporting everything, keeping a record, trusting the police. It was all a lie.
“They think I’m overreacting,” I whisper. The realization settles, sharp and hollow. “They’re done with me.”
His gaze pins mine. “Vance might be done.” He opens the door, steady, unyielding. “But I’m not.”
Silas
Under the concrete canopy of the overpass, the air is thick with the scent of stale rain and exhaust. The homeless are dug in here, clustered in small, desperate fire-teams. Their possessions are piled into rusted carts like salvaged gear from a retreat—a grim, gray landscape of people the world has declared "acceptable losses."
Against my wishes, Ava moves through them with two canvas bags, one holding donuts from a local bakery, the other insulated and steaming with coffee.
I position myself forty feet back, angled toward the street, where I can monitor both directions. My job is to look like I belong here—a man checking his phone, waiting for someone, nothing remarkable. I've done it a hundred times in a hundred countries. But I've never done it while watching a woman give away time and genuine attention to people most of the city has forgotten.
I let my gaze drift, lazy on the surface, cataloguing instead of searching. Reflections in storefront glass. The rhythm of traffic. Footsteps that don’t belong.
Pressure settles at the base of my skull—low, insistent. The kind that doesn’t come from nerves or imagination. Years in hostile territory taught me the difference.
Two blocks north, half swallowed by the shadow of a shuttered warehouse, a dark sedan sits at an angle that makes no sense for parking. Too sharp. Too deliberate. Tinted windows. No visible driver.
It’s positioned to see Ashford Street clearly. Positioned to see her.
My jaw tightens.
Every instinct in me screams to end this now. To step in. To break the pattern before it hurts someone. But I hold position, because panic attracts attention, and attention gets people killed.
An hour ticks by. My eyes stayed glued to the sedan.
The homeless community lingers nearby, reluctant to let her go. She’s a dangerous mix of kindness and competence. Mother Teresa with triage instincts.
