chapter 3
2208 Words
Whitney — POV
At the station, everything smelled like old sweat, bleach, and metal. I was processed like an object: fingerprints, mugshot, paperwork stamped in triplicate. The officer handling me didn’t look at my face once—just my wrists, my signature, my charges.
They didn’t let me use my phone until after processing. The screen lit up to six missed calls from my lecturer—then nothing. Not Derek. Not anyone.
I called my aunt first. Straight to voicemail. Then my cousin, who texted sometimes when she needed outfit advice—no answer. Friends… well, people I thought were friends. They each declined, one after another, until the phone felt heavier than my own hands.
The last name on my list was Delan Sinclair.
I stared at his name for a long time before hitting dial. We weren’t close. He was Derek's brother. But Delan had always been civil with me, polite even—cool eyes, immaculate suits, soft-spoken manners that hummed with something darker.
When I called, it rang once, twice… then straight to voicemail.
I hung up before the beep.
That was the first night.
They put me in a holding cell with eleven other women. The steel bench was cold enough to sting my spine, and the fluorescent lights buzzed into the early hours. I cried quietly until I couldn’t breathe, then stopped because crying didn’t fix the air, didn’t open doors, didn’t summon anyone.
I thought Derek would call. Or come. Or at least send a message.
He didn’t.
Three days stretched into a week. Then a second. Time was measured by roll calls, watery porridge, and the sound of keys scraping metal at dawn.
I stopped asking for my phone after day ten. No one was coming.
On day nineteen, a guard finally appeared and rattled the bars. “Benjamin. Court date. Two days.”
My cellmate, a rail-thin woman with tattoos and eyes that saw far too much, pulled me aside when the guard walked off.
“You don’t want court,” she said, voice flat. “Court means you’re not getting out. Court means someone wants you gone.”
My chest tightened. “I didn’t do anything.”
She laughed—a hollow sound without humor. “Everyone in here didn’t do anything. That’s not the point.”
That night I lay awake staring at the tiny window sliver above the toilet. I thought about Derek’s threats, Ona’s smirk, the baby and how quiet betrayal could be when designed by someone who knew you so well.
On the morning of day twenty, I asked for a phone again. The guard hesitated but handed it over with a warning.
“No long calls.”
My hands shook as I scrolled. There was no one left to dial. My thumb hovered over Delan again.
The first time it went unanswered. The second too. The third—miraculously—rang.
Once. Twice.
“Sinclair.” His voice was clipped, controlled, unmistakably irritated.
My throat burned. “Delan… it’s Whitney.”
Silence. A pause long enough to make me think the line died.
“Where are you?” he asked finally.
“Remand. I— I need help. Please.” I gave him details of where I was.
No questions. No lecture. No polite discomfort.
“I’m coming,” he said, and hung up.
Just like that.
The guard took the phone back. My heart thudded against my ribs, not with relief exactly, but with something that felt suspiciously like hope.
For the first time in weeks, someone was coming.
Someone had heard me.
Someone cared enough to move.
They called my name again in the afternoon. This time the guard didn’t sound bored—he sounded annoyed.
“Vembo Benjamin. You’ve got a visitor. Move.”
Visitor.
The word slammed into me. My knees buckled when I stood, and I had to grip the wall just to keep from collapsing. No one visited people in here. Not unless they were family or lawyers or someone who wanted to see how far you’d fallen.
The hallway was colder than the cell. They led me through a door with peeling paint into a small interview room divided by thick glass and a metal phone receiver. I sat. My hands wouldn’t stop shaking.
When the opposite door opened, the room seemed to fill before the man actually stepped in.
Delan Sinclair didn’t walk so much as command space. Tailored suit, charcoal coat draped over one arm, eyes like carved stone under the fluorescent light. He looked wrong inside a place like this—too clean, too sharp, too powerful to exist in fluorescent yellow and chipped paint.
For a moment he just stared. Not blinking. Not breathing. Just absorbing.
And I watched shame crawl up my throat, thick and choking. I wanted to disappear. I wanted to scrub his eyes clean of whatever he just saw—me, gaunt and hollow-cheeked, in a faded jumpsuit that smelled like someone else’s sweat and bleach.
He finally lifted the phone. I picked up mine.
“Whitney,” he said, and my name had never sounded so steady.
I thought I was ready to speak. I wasn’t. The first sound out of my mouth broke on a sob. He flinched, barely, jaw tightening.
“What happened to you?” His voice was low, controlled, dangerous in its calm.
I told him. Everything. Not all at once, not pretty, not coherent—but the pieces tumbled out like glass from a shattered window.
Derek said he was traveling.
The mall.
Ona.
The baby.
The car.
The rain.
The drugs.
The arrest.
The silence.
I felt myself shrink smaller with each detail. If he hated me or pitied me or thought I was stupid, he didn’t show it. His expression didn’t move, but the air around him—that changed. It went colder. Sharper. Like the temperature in the room dropped ten degrees.
When I finally whispered, “I didn’t do it. I swear on everything I have left, I didn’t,” Delan closed his eyes for the first time since he walked in, as if the confession physically hurt him.
Then he leaned slightly forward, voice low enough to bruise.
“I know.”
Two words. No hesitation. No doubt.
My throat closed. My eyes burned. For weeks I’d been defending myself against silence and suspicion. Those two words nearly destroyed me.
He looked me over again, slower this time, gaze catching on the bruises beneath my wrist from the cuffs, the hollow under my cheekbones, the cracked skin at my lip.
“How long have you been here?” he asked.
“Three weeks,” I whispered.
He swore—quiet but vicious, in a language I didn’t recognize. His knuckles whitened around the phone.
“Don’t speak to anyone else,” he said. “Don’t sign anything. Don’t answer any questions without me knowing. Do you understand?”
I nodded.
“I’ll be back,” he said, and straightened, decision already made in his posture. “You’re leaving this place.”
He stood. The guard moved to escort him, but Delan looked at me one more time—just for a second—and there was something raw in that look. Not pity.
Rage.
Not at me.
For me.
The door shut behind him and I pressed my forehead to the glass, breath shaking.
For the first time since the mall, I didn’t feel abandoned.
Someone was coming back.
Someone who meant it.
Delan — POV
She had lost weight. That was the first thing I noticed when I saw her walking through the door from.the cell prison clothes that looked too big. She was a shell of the woman she used to be.
Prison did that to people. I talked to her and she told.me.how she came to be in that place. Drugs found in her home. That was a setup. And from.what she told.me u had an inkling of what might have happened. First things first though. She had to get out.
The moment I stepped out of that visitor room I stopped thinking like a brother and started thinking like a Sinclair. Emotion was useless. At his thing Whitney was tangled in, required precision.
The administration desk was a joke—two bored clerks, a dusty fan, and paperwork piled like termite mounds. I didn’t bother with courtesy.
“I need to speak to whoever authorized the arrest of Whitney Benjamin,” I said, voice quiet, which made both clerks sit up straighter. Quiet was worse than loud. Quiet meant intent.
“We—uh—we don’t handle—”
“Then can I see who does.” I cut in.
She pointed toward a hallway like a student afraid to correct a teacher. I walked before she could name the door.
The Chief Inspector’s office was three floors up. The corridor guard glanced at me, about to speak—then recognized the surname on the form I’d been given. Recognition hit like a slap. His spine straightened so fast I could have laughed.
“Sir—right through here.”
Of course.
The Chief Inspector stood when I entered, hand already extended, smile already plastered on with too much teeth and too little sincerity.
“Mr. Sinclair. I didn’t know you had… interests here.”
Everyone always assumed I had interests. They were rarely wrong.
“Whitney Bejamin,” I said, ignoring the handshake. “Drugs charge.I am.here for her.”
He blinked once, turned to his secretary, snapped for the binder. It took less than a minute for the case to appear. That alone told me everything I needed to know: the system hadn’t been slow, just sloppy.
“In charge of the arrest?” I asked, flipping pages.
“Detective Moyo, but he’s currently been reassigned to—”
“I don’t care where he is. Call him.”
He dialed without question. The speakerphone crackled. A tired voice answered.
“Moyo.”
“This is Inspector Kapari. Sinclair wants to know on what grounds you detained the Benjamin woman.”
A beat. Paper shuffling. Nerves over static.
“Anonymous tip. We found merchandise in her apartment. That was—uh—the probable cause.”
“Fingerprints?” I asked.
Silence. Then: “Unprocessed.”
Of course they were.
“So you arrested her without verifying evidence,” I said, “and kept her in remand for twenty one days without counsel, without a state-appointed lawyer, without a bail hearing, and without chain-of-custody documentation?”
Kapari swallowed so loudly it was audible. “It—uh—it was supposed to be temporary, sir. There was a delay—”
“In competence,” I supplied.
Moyo rushed to defend himself, voice jittering. “The officer who was in charge of the arrest said someone would pay for her release.”
“Pay?” I repeated, the word icy and slow. “Who is paying for anything?”
“The original officer in charge of the release told us to hold her until he contacted us. He—he never did. That’s the reason for—”
Enough.
I stood. Decision made.
“She walks out today,” I told Kapari. “With bail pending investigation. And you will follow protocol this time. Full report by morning. Chain of evidence, fingerprints, warrant justification, and source of tip. We’re not playing games.”
Kapari nodded so quickly I thought his head might detach. “Of course, Mr. Sinclair.”
“Good,” I said, and turned for the door, coat draped over my arm. “And Kapari?”
He froze. “Yes?”
“Never lose a Sinclair in the system again.”
He went pale.
Whitney was processed out within three hours, wearing the same jumpsuit, the same heartbreak, the same exhaustion. The guard handed her a plastic bag with her clothes and belongings. She went to dress and came back dressed but had no shoes on silently, not meeting my eyes, not meeting anyone’s.
In the car she buckled in and stared out the window. People think my world is built on dominance—fear, money, influence. They misunderstand. It’s built on loyalty. And betrayal is the only unforgivable currency.
“Where to?” I asked.
“My apartment,” she whispered.
“No.” It came out sharper than intended. “Not tonight.”
She finally looked at me. Not stubborn. Not dramatic. Just tired.
“I just want to go home.”
And that was the problem—where she lived wasn’t home my home. But I wasn’t going to drag her into my house against her will. I didn’t need gratitude. I certainly didn’t need theatrics. I just needed her safe.
“Fine,” I said, because I had no choice and at least I could.know she was home. I was definitely going to post a security detail though. Simeone.whomwouks would be checking on her if I am.not doing it myself.
The city passed in silence until she spoke again, barely audible.
“Thank you.”
I didn’t answer. Because thank you implied a debt, and Whitney didn’t owe me a damn thing.
Not yet.
- Writer
