CHAPTER 17: SCARLETT
486 Words
The office was too clean.
The kind of clean that didn’t make sense for someone like Harold Jones—not this late, not with the stack of files Damien had seen on surveillance just two days ago.
Now the desk was empty.
Cleared.
Sanitized.
Like someone knew we were coming.
My heart didn’t race—but my teeth clenched. Jaw tight. Shoulders tense. A thread of cold pulling down my spine.
Damien moved behind me, already searching. Cabinets, drawers, vents. All empty.
No files. No laptop. No backup drives.
No Harold.
---
I turned to him slowly.
"Where. Is. He?"
He didn’t answer right away.
He was still trying to figure it out—his hand hovered above the last drawer, as if hoping something would magically appear.
“Everything’s wiped,” he finally muttered. “This was full on Tuesday. And that camera out front—it didn’t glitch. He knew.”
My fists curled.
“He ran.”
Damien’s jaw flexed. “Yeah. He did.”
---
For a moment, the air between us was heavier than the silence.
I stepped forward—slow, deliberate.
“You said we had twenty-three minutes.”
“We did—”
“You said we had time. You knew his schedule. You said this was clean.”
His face didn’t flinch, but I saw it—the flicker of guilt in his eyes. A hesitation he tried to bury.
“And I believed you,” I said quietly. “I f*****g believed you.”
“Scarlett—”
“I should’ve come in alone.”
I looked around the room again. That bastard had gutted it. Scrubbed it of anything useful. And now he was probably halfway out of the state.
He knew.
He knew I was coming.
He still gets to run. He still gets to win.
I could feel the heat rising behind my eyes, but I bit it back. No tears. Not now.
Just fury.
Bitter. Sharp.
Personal.
---
Damien stepped closer, voice low. Careful.
“I didn’t know he’d run. I didn’t know he was watching the feeds this closely. But this isn’t over, Scarlett. We can still find him.”
I looked up at him, the burn in my chest growing hotter.
“And what if he keeps running?”
“Then we chase him.”
He held my gaze.
Not with pity.
Not with fear.
Just the same fire I felt in my own bones.
---
Still, the weight in my chest didn’t lift.
Harold had taken everything from me once.
And tonight, he did it again—one step ahead. Always just far enough to leave me holding air instead of blood.
---
But not next time.
Not again.
“I’m not done,” I said, stepping past Damien, eyes still locked on the door Harold had vanished through.
“Good,” he said quietly. “Neither am I.”
- Writer
