Page 41 of Claim

I glanced at him. Mercer did too.

“Mr Slade,” Tristan said, “are you aware of a Lord Wolfe?”

For a second, I forgot how to breathe.

It was his voice. Out loud. That careful, contained accent. Timid only if you didn’t know what sat underneath it. The same one I remembered whispering my name. My real one. As if he was saying it again now, asking me to hear him. To answer.

It threw me. Hard.

So I dragged my focus back to the question. Turned it over in my head. Yeah. I knew the name. And I caught the tone he’d used too. As if willing for me to get what he wasn’t saying.

Then it hit.

All at once.

Another blunt knock to my thick skull, but this time, I understood what he was doing.

“You should know him in your line of work.”

So I said, “Yeah. I’ve heard the name.”

That night.

The moment I’d pulled Wolfe out of Tristan’s orbit so I could fuck him in a supply closet. Elliot had tried to warn me. Tristan had too. I hadn’t listened. Cause I’d thought I was invincible. Thought I had real backup. Real weight behind me. And because, more than anything, I’d wanted the man sitting in front of me.

Tristan looked down at his pen. “He’s aware of you as well.”

I saw his regret. His guilt, maybe. He thought this was on him.

But Mercer closed the file and interrupted that moment. “Here’s what happens next, Mr Slade. If we take this case, we formally notify the court that you’re represented again. That stops the drift. We then request full disclosure. Proper disclosure. Not summaries.”

“That includes digital extraction timelines,” Tristan added, as if he needed to get that out. “And any CCTV referenced but not served.”

I looked at him.

He didn’t look back. His gaze stayed on the papers, as if this were routine. As if I weren’t sitting there trying to work out whether this meant something or nothing at all. Maybe it was just another day at work for him.

Mercer nodded. “Once we have disclosure, we reassess bail. Only if there’s been a material change.”

“Bail?” I sat forward. “I’ve already been denied it.”

“There are gaps,” Tristan said, and this time I couldn’t not look at him. “In your case. Areas where evidence hasn’t been served and shouldn’t be holding you.”

“Which we will examine,” Mercer cut in smoothly.

“What gaps?” I pressed, testing whether they knew I’d left those gaps deliberately. Or whether this was hope dressed up as process.

Tristan opened his mouth, then stopped.

Mercer answered instead. “Only once we’re formally instructed can we identify that with any certainty.”

I cocked my head. “And if there aren’t any?” Because they hadn’t saved me yet.

“Then we tell you.” Mercer gathered the papers. “And you decide how to proceed. We’ll need your formal consent to act. Not today. Take tonight. Think about it. If you agree, we’ll return with the paperwork.”

Mercer stood first, shrugging into his coat and buttoning it. Tristan rose beside him, slipping into a long wool coat that looked as if it had been made for his shoulders. Dark. Expensive. The sort of thing that didn’t wrinkle, didn’t yield, didn’t belong in places like this. The gulf between our worlds opened wide and unmistakable. He looked as if he belonged somewhere I would never touch.

How fucking stupid of me to ever think I could have him.