Steele’s Redemption

Chapter 15

Emma

Jake was already moving before I processed what I'd seen on the screen. He crossed to the door, checked the deadbolt with his palm flat against it like he could feel through steel whether it would hold, then texted Nash without looking down at the phone.

"Stay back from the windows," he said. Not sharp. Just certain.

I did, but I didn't sit down. My heartbeat hadn't caught up to how calm his voice sounded, and some part of me still measured danger by volume—Derek's had always gotten louder before it got worse. Jake's got quieter.

Nash called instead of texting. Jake put it on speaker.

"Stairwell door's locked from your side," Nash said. "Whoever tried it didn't have a key or gave up fast. I'm pulling the last twenty minutes of footage now."

"Send it," Jake said.

It came through in pieces, grainy and gray. A figure in a dark jacket, face angled down and away from the camera like he'd studied where it was mounted. Work boots. A canvas bag slung across one shoulder, bulky, the strap crossing his chest.

I leaned closer without meaning to.

"Stop it there," I said.

Jake froze the frame.

"That bag." My voice came out steadier than I expected. "I've seen it before. Not just any tool bag—that exact one, with the red patch on the strap. The maintenance guy who used to service the boiler at my building carried one like that. And the man who came into the clinic waiting room a few weeks ago, before my appointment—he had it too. I noticed because he didn't sign in at the desk. Just walked past like he already knew the layout."

Jake's eyes stayed on the screen, but I felt his attention shift fully onto what I'd said, weighing it instead of brushing past it.

"You're sure it's the same bag," he said. "Not just similar."

"The patch was crooked. Like it'd been resewn." I could see it clearly now, replaying it the way I used to replay every detail of a bad night, except this time the replay felt useful instead of like drowning. "I don't forget details like that. I used to have to. It kept me safe to notice things Derek didn't think I was paying attention to."

Something moved behind Jake's expression—not pity, which I would've hated, but something closer to respect. "That's not nothing, Emma. That's a lead."

Nash's voice came back through the phone. "I'll cross-check maintenance companies with contracts at Emma's old building and the clinic. If it's the same guy, there's a paper trail somewhere, even if the name on it's fake."

"Do it tonight," Jake said, and ended the call.

The apartment went quiet except for the hum of the security panel resetting itself, green lights blinking back to steady. Jake sat down across from me instead of beside me, which I noticed, and appreciated more than I could easily explain.

"You okay?" he asked.

"I don't know yet." I pulled my knees up onto the couch, wrapping my arms around them. "A few minutes ago we were—" I didn't finish it, and he didn't finish it for me.

"Yeah," he said instead. "We were."

"I don't regret it." I needed to say that first, before whatever came next got complicated. "But I keep hearing myself the second after. Wondering if I want you because I want you, or because you're the only place that's felt safe in months, and my brain doesn't know how to tell the difference anymore."

He didn't argue with that, which was exactly why I could say it out loud. "That's a fair thing to wonder," he said. "I've wondered something like it myself—if what I feel is about you, or about the version of you that needed rescuing. I don't have a clean answer. I don't think you owe me one either. Not tonight."

"So we just... sit in the not-knowing."

"We sit in it as long as it takes." His hands stayed on his knees, not reaching for me, though I could tell some part of him wanted to. "You don't have to decide anything about us because a man tried a door handle. Those are two different problems and I'm not going to let this one make you rush the other."

I let that settle instead of answering right away. It was strange, how much steadier I felt with him refusing to hand me easy comfort disguised as an answer.

"I want to help with this," I said, once I trusted my voice again. "Not just sit here while you and Nash handle it around me. I want to see the access logs from my building. I want to know exactly what the fake company claimed the work order was for. And I want to decide myself whether I ever go back to that clinic, or if we find a new one. Not you deciding for me because it's safer."

"Agreed." No hesitation in it. "Nash pulls the logs, you look at them with him tomorrow. Same for the clinic decision—your call, whenever you're ready to make it."

"And my room? The one I'm still paying rent on?"

"Also yours to decide." He said it like it should've been obvious, which somehow made it land harder. "I can have someone pack it up if you want it gone. I can leave it exactly as it is if you're not ready to let go of having somewhere that's only yours. I'm not going to be the one who decides you're done with it."

I thought about the narrow bed, the window that didn't lock right, the small collection of things I'd started buying for myself—a lamp, a mug, a secondhand paperback. Small proof that I'd been building a life even before I understood how unsafe that life still was.

"Not ready to give it up yet," I said. "But maybe I stop staying there. Just... keep it a little longer."

"Then that's the plan."

It was nearly midnight when Nash called back. Jake put it on speaker again, and I made myself stay in the room instead of retreating to the guest room the way old instinct wanted.

"Found the maintenance company from the work order," Nash said. "Real business, actually exists, been around eight years. Problem is, I talked to the after-hours line and they're saying nobody from their crew was dispatched to Emma's building that week. No job on the books at all."

"So the paperwork's real," Jake said slowly, "but the company never sent anyone."

"Which means somebody either forged their letterhead cold, or somebody inside that company handed it over," Nash said. "And here's the part you're not gonna like. I ran the plate partial from the garage camera against vehicles that have ever badged into our shop lot."

The line went quiet just long enough that I felt Jake go still beside me.

"It's a partial match," Nash said. "Close enough that it's not nothing. Whoever this is, they've had a reason to be near Steele Custom Bikes before."