“Ah, yes—the domestic assault case. Are you his grandmother?”
“Elellanena Stone.”
Something changed in his face when he heard my name. He turned slightly pale. He looked at me more closely, as if trying to remember something.
“Stone? Like Commander Stone?”
I took out my expired badge from my pocket and placed it on the desk. The officer took it, looked at it, and his expression changed completely. He stood up immediately.
“My God… Commander, I’m sorry. I didn’t know you were family. Allow me.”
“Where is my grandson?” My voice came out firm, without hesitation. The same voice I had used hundreds of times to interrogate, to order, to make people understand that I was not playing games.
“In the waiting room, with his parents and, well… with the complainant. Captain Spencer is in charge of the case.”
“Spencer?” That name made me pause for a second. “Charles Spencer?”
He had been one of my subordinates years ago. A good officer—fair, intelligent.
“Take me to him.”
The officer nodded and led me down a hallway that I knew like the back of my hand. I had walked these same floors hundreds of times during my career. Every corner, every door, every crack in the wall brought back memories of a life I thought I had left behind.
But that night, I understood something: you never stop being who you are. You just pretend you’ve forgotten.
We arrived at the waiting room, and there, in that cold space illuminated by fluorescent lights, I saw the scene that would change everything.
Ethan was sitting on a plastic chair, his right eyebrow clumsily bandaged with gauze. His eyes were red from crying so much. When he saw me, he jumped up.
“Grandma!”
He ran toward me and hugged my waist as he did when he was a child. I felt his body tremble against mine. I stroked his hair and whispered:
“I’m here, my boy. I’m here.”
But my gaze had already found the other two characters in that scene.
Rob was standing by the wall, arms crossed and jaw clenched. He looked at me with an expression I couldn’t decipher—shame, anger, guilt.
And next to him, sitting with her legs crossed and a perfectly rehearsed victim expression, was Chelsea. She wore a wine-colored satin robe, as if she had been dragged out of bed. She had a bruise on her left arm that looked freshly made. Her brown hair fell in perfect waves over her shoulders. She looked at me with those big, teary eyes as if to say, “Look what your grandson did to me.”
But I knew that look. I had seen it in dozens of criminals who tried to fool me during my career. The look of someone who knows how to act. Someone who knows how to manipulate.
“Elellanena,” Rob said in a dry voice, without moving from his spot. “You didn’t have to come.”
Those five words hurt me more than any physical blow.
I didn’t have time to respond, because at that moment an office door opened and a man in his fifties came out in an impeccable uniform and a serious expression.
Captain Charles Spencer.
When he saw me, he stopped short.
“Commander Stone.”
“Hello, Charles,” I said calmly. “It’s been a while.”
He approached, clearly surprised.
“No… I didn’t know you were involved in this case. If I had known—”
“Now you know,” I interrupted him. “And I need you to explain exactly what’s going on here.”
Because something told me that what I had heard on the phone was only the tip of the iceberg, and I was about to discover how deep the abyss my family had fallen into really was.
Spencer took me to his office. Ethan came with me, clinging to my hand as if he feared I would disappear. Rob and Chelsea stayed in the waiting room. I could feel my son’s gaze fixed on my back, but I didn’t turn around.
I wasn’t going to give him that satisfaction.
Spencer’s office was small but tidy. A metal desk, two chairs in front of it, a filing cabinet in the corner, and a crucifix on the wall. Not much had changed since my time. Even the smell of old coffee and paper was the same.
“Sit down, please,” Spencer said, closing the door behind us.
I sat in one of the chairs, and Ethan settled next to me. His gaze was lowered, his hands clasped in his lap. Spencer sat on the other side of the desk and opened a folder. He sighed before speaking.
“Commander, the situation is… complicated.”
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