JAKE

I couldn't take my eyes off her.

Even after Ashford left, even after the door clicked shut and she was left alone with nothing but the hum of the vents and the steady blink of the camera's light, I couldn't look away.

Her posture hadn't shifted once. Her shoulders stayed squared, her hands folded neatly on the table as if she were holding herself together with sheer will—bracing for a storm she'd already chosen not to fight.

Her words kept replaying in my head. The confession. The insistence she had acted alone. The calm, the unwavering certainty when she turned down a lawyer, when she said she was ready to face whatever came next.

But I knew better. I knew her. Emma wasn't saving herself; she was burying herself. For Eric. And, God help me, maybe even for me. She was burning her own life down just to keep ours intact.

The thought turned my stomach. I clenched my fists at my sides, digging nails into my palms, willing myself not to pound my hand against the glass and demand she stop lying, stop sacrificing herself like this.

"Jake."

Luke's voice cracked through the silence, low and careful. I turned my head slowly, still half lost in Emma's shadow. He stood by the door, shoulders drawn tight, that familiar crease etched deep between his brows.

"You should go home," he said again, softer this time. "Let us handle it from here."

The words landed like an insult. Home. As if I could just clock out of this like it was another routine bust. Like Emma wasn't sitting on the other side of that glass, tearing herself apart to shield everyone but herself.

I shot him a look sharp enough to cut. His mouth snapped shut before he could finish the thought.

Luke's jaw tightened. He exhaled slowly through his nose, then slid his hands into his pockets. "We've got her brother," he said quietly.

My head snapped fully toward him. "Eric?"

Luke nodded. "In another room," he said, and there was a flicker of something in his eyes—hesitation, maybe even sympathy.

I stared at him. Of all the scenarios I had run through in my head, that wasn't one of them. Eric should've been gone by now. Disappeared. Vanished into whatever escape plan they had drawn up together. After all, that was what Emma bought him with her silence, with her confession.

Luke must've read my confusion. "He showed up at the apartment while the team was sweeping it," he explained. "Walked right up to them, asked about her and demanded to see her."

I didn't give myself time to second-guess it. "I'll interview him."

Luke stiffened immediately. "Jake, no. You're too close to this. Let Ashford handle it."

I was already moving toward the door.

"Jake," Luke warned, stepping into my path.

I stopped just long enough to pin him with a look, the kind that made rookies back down in the field.

Luke wasn't a rookie, and he knew me better than anyone. He held it for a moment before his shoulders slumped as he sighed. He let out a low curse under his breath and stepped aside.

I didn't thank him, didn't explain myself. I just walked out of the observation room, my footsteps echoing in the corridor, carrying me toward the other interrogation room.

I didn't care if it was against protocol, if Ashford had already assigned someone else. This wasn't their interrogation. This was mine.

I crossed the hall in a few quick steps and slipped into the other box, watching him for a moment through the glass before stepping inside.

Eric sat hunched forward in the chair when I walked in, elbows on the table, hands clasped tight like he was holding himself together by sheer force. His foot tapped once, sharp against the floor, before he stilled it, too aware of the tell.

Apparently, Emma was the better liar in the family.

The moment I opened the door, his eyes snapped to mine. He glared at me like he could cut me open with just a look. If looks could kill, I knew I would already be bleeding out on the floor.

"Am I under arrest?" His voice was clipped, impatient.

"That," I said, folding my hands in front of me, "depends on what you have to say."

He scoffed, leaning back with a show of ease he didn't own at the moment. "Then the answer's no." His jaw twitched as he looked me dead in the eye. "I want to see my sister."

I let out something that might've passed for a laugh if it hadn't been so humorless. "I'm afraid that can't happen."

"Why?" His voice sharpened, chest rising with a quick, angry breath. "Why was she arrested? What the hell do you even have on her?"

My mouth curled into something that didn't feel like a smile, but it was close enough. "It's funny, you asking me that." I leaned back, studying him the way he was trying to study me. "You know, I always figured we'd end up sitting across from each other one day. A nice little chat. Emma kept putting it off. Guess she didn't want to mix worlds. But here we are. I've got questions, Eric. And you're going to answer them."

Eric didn't bite. He just stared at me, unblinking, like he was trying to measure me. Maybe wondering if I was the same man his sister must have told him about, the man who had loved her, or the agent who had arrested her.

I opened the folder in front of me, sliding two photographs across the table. "Recognize the setting? The Met. Recognize her?"

His face faltered before he could stop it. It was quick, but not quick enough. The mask cracked, just slightly. His throat worked, swallowing hard, before he forced out a laugh that landed wrong.

"This is bullshit," he said, shaking his head. "Some AI-reconstructed photo? That's all you've got? You, of all people, should know that's not evidence. It's smoke and mirrors."

I met his defiance with a smile that had no warmth in it, only edge. "Maybe. But here's the problem..." I tapped the photos with one finger. "Emma already gave a full confession."

His face went still. And in that instant, I saw it—the panic. The sharp inhale he tried to cover, the way his knuckles whitened where they pressed into the table. Yet, he stayed silent, probably waiting for me to make my move so he could build on it.

Okay, let's see how long you can hold on, Eric.

I raised an eyebrow. "So, you're not even curious? Not wondering what Emma said in there? Who she might've implicated along with herself?"

That landed. His sharp blue eyes snapped back to mine. Then he laughed, a short, bitter sound that echoed in the room. Then he shook his head like I had just told him the oldest joke in the book.

"Play another game, Agent," he said. "This one's boring."

I steepled my fingers together on the table with deliberate calm. "So that's it, then? You're just going to sit there and let her take the fall for you? When we both know you're just as deep in this as she is." I let the words hang for a second before adding, "You're one hell of a software engineer, Eric. Don't insult me by pretending otherwise."

This time, I watched as his mask really cracked. His jaw locked so hard I saw the muscle twitch. His eyes glossed over, not from weakness but from holding too much back, like he was strangling the truth before it reached his lips.

When he spoke, his voice was steadier than his face. "I don't know what you're talking about. I have nothing to do with this."

"Where were you," I asked, my tone sharp now, "on December twenty-third of last year? The night of the Met heist."

He was silent for a moment, then he let out a quiet huff as if he had accepted the role he was supposed to play.

"Massachusetts," he said. "I was with some friends from my MIT days. You can check with them. It was a holiday party. I stayed the whole weekend. Christmas too. Emma told me she had plans in the city, that we couldn't be together, so I made other plans."

I didn't break eye contact, didn't blink. It was bullshit. Every word of it. I could hear the script in his tone, the way it rolled too clean, too ready, like he had rehearsed it in the mirror just in case this moment ever came. And I knew it had been rehearsed.

They had ‌planned this. Of course, they did. Contingencies. That was what they had built their lives on.

If one of them fell, the other stayed standing. Emma had already buried herself for him. Now Eric was bracing himself to bury her sacrifice under a lie, because that was the deal.

But I could see it as clear as day. The rigid set of his jaw, the glassiness in his eyes... it wasn't the look of a man content to let his sister burn. It was the look of a man being torn in half, and holding himself together with spit and willpower.

But I wasn't about to let him off the hook that easily.

"The heist wasn't an amateur's work," I said, my voice even, sharp enough to cut. "It was precise, meticulous. Someone spent months planning it. So tell me, Eric... did you always know your sister was a master criminal? Or did she just forget to mention that part of herself?"

He didn't answer right away. His eyes flicked to the side, narrowing, like he was weighing whether to lie or laugh in my face. Neither came. Instead, after a beat, he leaned back, the faintest smirk tugging at his mouth.

"She's my sister," he said. "That's the beginning and end of everything."

My teeth ground together. He was hiding, slipping behind Emma's shield. And he was good at it, better than I had given him credit for.

Then, without warning, he shoved his chair back and stood, his voice firm. "As far as I know, I'm not under arrest, so I'm done here. Now, I'm going to see how I can help my sister."

"You can't," I said, rising too, the words coming out rougher than I meant. "She made her choice."

Eric froze for a beat, then turned toward me, eyes burning with something sharp and unspoken. His jaw was set like stone.

"She made her choice a long time ago," he said softly. "Even if it was the most fatal mistake of her life... and I think you know it, Agent Parker."

Before I could respond, he rapped his knuckles against the door. A second later, it opened from the outside. The agent waiting in the hall gave me a questioning glance but didn't stop him. Legally, we couldn't. We had nothing solid on Eric—no fingerprints, no direct link, no confession. He walked out free, just like that.

I stayed behind, staring at the empty chair across from me. My hands pressed flat against the table, knuckles whitening with the effort it took to keep still. The silence stretched, pressing down on me until I had to move or suffocate.

When I finally pushed out of the room and made my way back to the other observation window, the marshals were already there.

Emma stood where they placed her, wrists already offered forward, like she knew resistance would only cheapen whatever shred of dignity she had left. Her sweater sleeves had slipped back just enough to reveal the red, raw impressions carved into her skin by my cuffs. My cuffs.

The first marshal brought the bracelets forward, the chain clinking faintly as the metal closed around her wrists. She didn't flinch. Not even when the second marshal tugged the chain lower, fastened it to the belt at her waist, and secured her ankles in heavier shackles.

She lifted her chin instead. Shoulders back. Steady steps.
She held her head high, like that was the only thing left she could control.

Something inside me fractured then, sharp and final.

I wanted to hate her.

God, I wanted it to be that simple. I wanted to let her go, wash my hands, pretend I hadn't seen the way her voice broke when she said she loved me. But at the same time, every bone in my body screamed to run to her, shove the marshals aside, undo the shackles, and hold her like I could still fix this.

But I couldn't. I just stood there and watched her go.

And with every step she took, something hollowed out inside me, until all that remained was the echo of chains.