The police station was too bright.

Fluorescent lights hummed overhead, washing everything in a cold, flat white that made the late hour feel even later. The chairs were hard plastic. The air smelled like stale coffee and floor cleaner. Rina sat near the front desk while a medic wrapped her arm in a compression bandage — sprained, not broken, but the bruise was already darkening from her wrist to her elbow.

"She’ll need to keep it elevated for a few days," the medic said.

Rina nodded without really hearing. Her eyes were on the other side of the room.

Tess sat beside her, the broken camcorder cradled in her lap. The screen was shattered, a spiderweb of cracks spreading from one corner, but when she pressed the power button, the display flickered. Still alive. Still holding everything. She hadn’t put it down since the club.

Mari stood near the window, her arms crossed, her phone finally put away. She hadn’t called anyone. There was no one to call who would believe what had happened.

Angelika Sinclair was in a chair against the far wall. Audrey’s coat still draped over her shoulders, swallowing her frame. The torn sleeve of her dress hung loose at her elbow. The bruise on her wrist was the same color as Rina’s. She’d stopped crying somewhere between the club and the station. Now she just sat, her hands limp in her lap, her eyes drifting across the room to Arianne every few seconds.

Brent’s voice carried through the station before he appeared.

"This is outrageous. Do you know who my father is? Do you have any idea what my family’s lawyers will do to this department?"

An officer walked him past the waiting area, his wrists cuffed behind his back. His suit was rumpled. His hair had lost its slick. The confidence was still there, but it was fraying at the edges, turning shrill.

"You have no idea who I am," he said to the officer. "My family will have your badge. All of your badges. These women attacked me. I’m the victim here."

The officer didn’t respond. Standard procedure. Let them talk until they ran out of air.

Brent’s eyes swept the waiting area. Arianne was standing near the desk, her coat still clean, her hair still in place. Sam was beside her, flexing her reddened knuckles. Audrey was speaking quietly with a female officer. None of them looked at him.

"You’ll regret this," he said. "All of you."

No one answered.

An officer approached with a clipboard. Standard procedure. Names for the report.

"Ma’am." He looked at Arianne. "Your name?"

"Arianne Summers."

She said it without hesitation. Without emphasis. The way she said everything.

"Samantha Pemberton."

"Audrey Sawyer."

The officer wrote them down. His pen paused for half a beat on the second name. Pemberton. Then on the third. Sawyer. His eyes flicked up briefly — recognition, quickly suppressed — and then back to his clipboard.

Across the room, Brent’s voice stopped.

The silence was sudden and total. The kind of silence that meant something had just changed, some calculation had just been recalculated, some terrible understanding had just dawned on a man who was not used to being on the wrong side of power.

He stared at Arianne.

His mouth opened. Closed. The color drained from his face.

He didn’t know her face. He hadn’t recognized her outside the club, hadn’t recognized her when she’d driven her knee into his groin, hadn’t recognized her when Mira pressed him into the pavement. But he knew the name. Everyone in this city knew the name.

Arianne Summers. The fifty-million-dollar lawsuit. The press conference that had dominated every news cycle for a week. The woman who had stood at a lectern and told the world she was coming for the money.

And Noah Hart — the superstar who had stood behind her at that same press conference. If a fraction of those fans learned what Brent had done tonight — if the story reached the entertainment press — his name would be ash.

And Sam Pemberton. Her brother was Gilbert Pemberton, whose company held contracts with half the city. And Audrey Sawyer, the journalist rumored to be dating Gilbert himself, who could publish whatever she chose about tonight.

Brent’s companions, sitting cuffed in the holding area, had gone very still.

Arianne gave her statement in the same calm voice she’d used outside the club.

"Angelika Sinclair was supposed to meet us at the club. Ms. Pemberton, Ms. Sawyer, and I were waiting in a private booth. She never arrived. It was only after my bodyguard reported the commotion outside that we discovered Ms. Sinclair was being forcibly taken by a group of men."

She didn’t embellish. She didn’t perform outrage. She stated facts in the order they had occurred, each one clean and irrefutable.

"I asked Ms. Sinclair if she was leaving with them. She said no. She said she wanted to leave but they wouldn’t let her. When Mr. Brent approached me, he made inappropriate comments and attempted to touch me without consent. I defended myself. My companion Ms. Pemberton defended herself and the other women. My bodyguard apprehended Mr. Brent."

The officer wrote it down.

Mari spoke next. Her voice was steady but her hands weren’t. She described the street. The men dragging Angelika toward the car. Rina shouting at them to stop. The shove that sent Rina to the ground. The man grabbing Tess’s camcorder and throwing it.

Rina, clutching her bandaged arm, added that she’d tried to pull one of the men away from Angelika. "He pushed me. I hit the car. Then I hit the ground. I don’t remember the order."

Tess held up her camcorder. "I have footage. All of it. I cut the irrelevant parts — the drive there, the waiting — and kept what was needed. The original file has everything. You can check both."

Brent’s denial was automatic.

"She’s lying. They’re all lying. Whatever is on that video — it’s taken out of context. I was trying to help her. She’d had too much to drink. I was being a gentleman."

The officer took the camcorder from Tess. The screen was cracked, but the footage played.

Angelika, stumbling, her wrist twisted in a man’s grip. Her dress tearing at the sleeve. Her voice, thin and desperate: "I’m not drunk. I don’t know them." Rina shouting. The shove. Rina hitting the ground. Tess screaming, the camera jolting, the sound of the camcorder hitting pavement. Brent’s face, unmistakable, turning toward the lens. His voice: "Get that thing away from her." Then Arianne’s voice, cutting through the chaos: Angelika. The frame tilting up from the ground. Arianne walking into the shot like she was walking onto a stage. Brent reaching for her shoulder. The blur of her knee. The howl.

The video played to the end.

Brent said nothing. There was nothing left to say.

The officer looked at Angelika. "Ms. Sinclair. Do you want to press charges?"

Angelika’s voice, when it came, was barely more than a whisper. "I don’t — I don’t have the money. For lawyers. For a case. My family — "

She stopped. Didn’t finish. Everyone in the room understood what she wasn’t saying. Her family wouldn’t help her now. They’d probably blame her for the embarrassment.

Arianne spoke before the officer could respond.

"We’ll file charges."

She didn’t just mean Angelika. The officer looked at her. She met his eyes.

"Ms. Sinclair. Myself. Ms. Pemberton." She gestured at the three fans. "All three of them. Each a separate complaint. The footage is evidence. The injuries are documented. The witnesses are here."

She paused.

"We’ll demand compensation. Hefty compensation. For each of them. Medical costs for her arm." Rina. "Replacement for her camcorder." Tess. "Damages for attempted abduction and assault." Angelika. "And my own legal fees. I don’t need compensation. But they do."

The officer wrote it down.

Angelika stared at Arianne.

Her mouth opened. Nothing came out. She had been wondering all night — through the chaos outside the club, through the cold station, through the fluorescent lights and the hard chairs and the medic wrapping a stranger’s arm — why Arianne was helping her. They were not friends. They had never been friends. Angelika had cornered the twins at the banquet. She had resented Arianne since high school, since Alex, since every hallway and every party and every moment of being second to a woman who never seemed to notice she was winning.

And yet here Arianne was. Filing charges for her. Paying for lawyers. Extending an olive branch Angelika had done nothing to deserve.

Angelika didn’t know how to say thank you. She wasn’t sure she had ever learned.

So she just stared. Her mouth open. Her eyes wet again, but not from fear this time.

Arianne was already on the phone. "Gio. I need lawyers. Five complainants. Assault, abduction, property damage. Yes. Tonight."

She turned slightly, her gaze passing over Angelika without lingering. Not cold. Just — moving on. Already handling the next thing.

The camcorder sat on the officer’s desk. Its red light was finally off.