Two Can Play (Celeste and Dominic) novel Chapter 325

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Chapter 325

I shook my head at him. A small, sharp motion, the kind that would not draw the officers’ attention but would be unmistakable to a man trained to read body language. He stopped mid-motion, his thumb frozen over what I assumed was Dominic’s contact, his brow furrowing with confusion.

I walked toward him, ignoring Officer Rivera’s quiet sound of protest, and pressed my car keys into his palm. ‘I will not be long at the station. Bring my car around and wait for me. And…” I lowered my voice until it was barely above a whisper. “Do not let Dominic Ford find out about this, under any circumstances. Am I understood?”

“But Mrs. Fisher, Mr. Ford gave explicit instructions that…”

“I do not care what instructions he gave. If you call him, I will never forgive you.”

There was a beat of silence. Then he swallowed. “Yes, ma’am.”

“Good.”

I turned and walked back to the police van, my heels clicking against the pavement with a rhythm that sounded almost like confidence. Felix was already inside, staring at his hands with the blank, uncomprehending expression of a man watching a movie of his own life and failing to recognize the protagonist. The doors closed behind us and the van pulled away from the hospital.

The station processed us with the efficient indifference of an institution that had seen far worse than a domestic dispute turned fatal. I was led to an interrogation room, offered coffee that I declined, and asked to give my statement. I narrated the events of the morning with the precision of someone accustomed to documenting laboratory procedures: Felix storming into my office, the confrontation, the lobby, Sierra’s arrival, the shove, the blood, the ambulance, the hospital. I did not embellish. I did not editorialize. I simply laid out the facts in the order they had occurred, and when I finished, I pulled out my phone.

“I have security footage from Helix Laboratory’s lobby. It captured the entire incident.” I placed my phone on the metal table between us, the screen already queued to the timestamp. “You are welcome to verify its authenticity. And if that is not sufficient, every employee who was in the lobby at the time can be called as a witness. The receptionist, the lab technicians near the turnstiles, the security team that restrained him.”

Officer Rivera watched the footage in silence, her face betraying nothing. When it ended, she rewound it and watched it again, this time focusing on Felix’s hands, on the two-handed shove, on Sierra’s body hitting the floor with that terrible, muffled thud that I suspected would haunt my dreams for days.

She stood up without a word and carried my phone into the adjacent room where Felix was being held. Through the thin walls, I could hear her voice, calm and measured, asking him if the footage accurately depicted what had happened. I could hear Felix’s silence stretching, could hear the catch in his breath when she added, “If you lie to us now, Mr. Adams, and we go through the trouble of verifying this footage with independent experts, the consequences will be significantly more severe than if you tell the truth. This is your one chance.”

The silence that followed lasted perhaps fifteen seconds. Then Felix’s voice came through, muffled but audible, stripped of all the bravado and fury that had filled my office an hour earlier.

“It was an accident. I did not mean to push her. She grabbed me and I just… I pushed her away. I did not mean for her to fall. I did not mean for any of this to happen.”

The door opened. Officer Rivera returned my phone and gestured for me to stand.

“You are free to go, Mrs. Fisher. We apologize for the inconvenience. Thank you for your cooperation and for being a good citizen.”

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“It is not a big deal.” I slid my phone back into my jacket pocket. “You were doing your job.”

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As I walked toward the exit, I heard the clink of handcuffs being tightened behind me, the low murmur of Felix being read his rights, the scrape of a chair as they began the process of booking him. And then his voice, suddenly loud, suddenly desperate, cutting through the precinct noise like a blade.

“Celeste! Celeste, please! I am your brother! Mom will be devastated if she finds out about this. Please, Celeste, help me!”

I stopped walking and turned around. Felix was standing between two officers now, his hands cuffed behind his back, his face wet with tears, his eyes searching mine with the desperate hope of a man who believed, against all evidence, that blood was thicker than the pool of it on my lobby floor.

“A man who valued a cheap whore more than the life of his unborn child can never be my brother.” My voice came out cold and quiet and utterly final. “This time, Felix, I have cut ties with you for good.”

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