Within These Walls

Chapter Seven: The Paper Trail

Nova Starling Quinn

My loft smells like overpriced espresso and the lingering scent of the gun oil I used to clean my Beretta an hour ago. I’m pacing. I hate waiting. I especially hate waiting for a man who moves like a glacier and carries enough baggage to fill a warehouse.

When the buzzer finally rings, I don't even check the camera. I know that heavy, impatient rhythm.

I swing the door open. Dante is standing there, still in his work clothes, looking tired and twice as large as the doorway. He’s holding a six-pack of glass-bottle beer in one hand and a grease-stained pizza box in the other.

"You're late," I say, stepping back to let him in.

"Traffic was a b***h, and I had to shake a tail from the precinct," he rumbles, kicking the door shut with his heel. He sets the food on my kitchen island and looks around. "Nice place. A bit minimalist for a 'fiancée,' don't you think?"

"It’s called taste, Dante. You should try it sometime. That suit looks like it was cut with a chainsaw."

"Eat my s**t, Nova."

He cracks two beers and slides one across the counter to me. I take a long swig, the cold liquid cutting through the heat in my throat. We stand there in a tense, vibrating silence for all of thirty seconds before the door buzzer goes off again.

"If that’s another hitman, I’m letting them kill you," I mutter, walking over to the door.

I open it to find Lena standing there, looking radiant in a silk wrap dress, holding a bottle of wine. She takes one look at me—disheveled, hair in a messy bun—and then looks past me at the giant, surly detective leaning against my kitchen counter.

"Well, well," Lena smirks, stepping inside without an invitation. "Did you two become best friends overnight, or am I interrupting a crime scene?"

Dante and I look at each other at the exact same time. The sheer disgust on his face probably mirrors mine perfectly. We both let out a short, harsh laugh.

"Friends? I’d rather be friends with a cactus," I say, crossing my arms.

"I’ve met suspects in interrogation rooms with more charm than her," Dante adds, taking a bite of pizza.

Lena rolls her eyes, setting the wine down. "Right. The 'I hate you' energy is so thick I could slip on it. I just came by to drop this off, but clearly, you’re busy with... work." She winks at me, making my blood boil. "Try not to kill each other. I don't want to have to testify at either of your funerals."

She heads for the door, but as she reaches for the handle, her heel clips something on the floor. She looks down, frowning.

"You're getting messy, N," Lena says, bending down to pick up a thick, manila folder that must have slipped out of my bag when I got home.

She hands it to me, her expression shifting from playful to curious for a brief second before she waves and disappears into the hallway.

The door clicks shut.

I look down at the folder in my hand. My stomach does a slow, sickening roll. I didn't pull this from my bag. I’ve never seen this specific folder before.

"What is it?" Dante asks, his voice losing its edge. He’s standing right behind me now, his heat radiating through my thin hoodie.

"I don't know. It wasn't in my files," I whisper.

I walk over to the sofa and dump the contents onto the coffee table. Dante hovers over my shoulder, his hand resting on the back of the couch, his large frame casting a shadow over the papers.

As I spread the documents out, the air in the room turns freezing.

The Contents of the File:

* Photographs: There are grainy, black-and-white surveillance photos. One is of a house—my house. The one that burned. But the photo is dated two days before the fire. There are red circles around the window of my bedroom.

* A Ledger Page: A photocopied sheet from a private bank in the Caymans. It shows a transfer of $2.5 million made the night of the fire. The sender is a redacted trust. The recipient? Marcus Thorne.

* The Shock: But it’s the third document that makes my breath hitch. It’s a copy of a birth certificate. Not mine.

I pick up the paper, my fingers trembling. I look at the names.

* Mother: Elena Beatrice Hawke.

* Father: Samuel David Hawke.

* Child: Dante Richard Hawke.

Paper-clipped to the back of the birth certificate is a handwritten note on yellowed legal pad paper. The handwriting is elegant, old-fashioned.

> "Marcus, the Hawke boy saw too much. He was in the crawlspace. If the fire didn't get him, the system will. Make sure he’s placed somewhere he can't talk. I’ve attached the Quinn girl’s details too. They shouldn't be a problem if they never meet."

>

I feel the world tilt. I look up at Dante. He’s staring at the paper in my hand, his face deathly pale, his eyes wide and fractured. The "Giant Prick" is gone, replaced by the ghost of a boy who lived in a crawlspace while his world turned to ash.

"You were in the crawlspace," I whisper, the words tasting like smoke. "You saw them."

Dante’s hand drops from the couch. He sinks into the cushions, his head falling into his hands. "I saw the boots," he rasps, his voice breaking. "Black leather boots. And I heard a voice. A man's voice telling Thorne to 'finish the paperwork.'"

I sit down next to him, the folder forgotten on the table. For the first time, I don't want to fight. I don't want to bicker. I reach out, my hand hovering over his broad shoulder before I finally let it rest there.

"Dante," I say, my voice raw. "Look at the bottom of the note."

He lifts his head, his dark eyes searching mine. I point to the signature at the bottom of the instructions to Thorne. It isn't a name. It’s a symbol—a small, stylized bird of prey stamped in red ink.

"That's the same stamp I found on my father's hidden safe," I say.

The realization hits us both like a physical blow. Thorne didn't just ruin us separately. He was working for a single entity that targeted both our families at the exact same time. We aren't just two people with the same enemy.

We were the two loose ends they forgot to tie.

"We’re not going to just arrest him, are we?" Dante asks, his voice turning cold and sharp as a razor. He looks at me, and for the first time, there is no detective left in his eyes. Only the hunter.

"No," I say, my grip on his shoulder tightening. "We’re going to burn his f*****g world down."

Dante Richard Hawke

I stared at that red stamp—that goddamn bird of prey—and felt a hole open up in the center of my chest. All these years, I thought I was alone in that crawlspace, clutching my breath until my lungs screamed. Seeing the Quinn name on the same page, seeing our lives mapped out like collateral damage in some rich bastard’s ledger, made the air in the room feel like it was made of lead. I looked at Nova, really looked at her, and the anger that usually fueled me shifted into something heavier. Something shared. We weren't just bickering over a case anymore; we were two ghosts haunting the same man. I wanted to break something. I wanted to roar until the glass in this loft shattered. But instead, I just felt the weight of her hand on my shoulder, and for the first time in twenty years, the silence didn't feel like a threat.