Chapter 5: The Interrogation Room
The air in the room tasted like stale coffee and regret. Dimitri sat perfectly still in the metal chair, its cold seeping through his uniform pants. Across the scarred table, two Internal Affairs investigators regarded him like a specimen. The older one, Greer, had a face like worn leather and eyes that missed nothing. The younger one, Ruiz, just looked bored, tapping a pen against a notepad.
“Let’s go over it again, Officer Volkov,” Greer said, his voice a dry rasp. “From the moment you entered the convenience store.”
Dimitri kept his hands flat on the table. He’d been here ninety-seven minutes. The fluorescent light buzzed a single, persistent note that was drilling into his temples. “I already gave my statement. Twice. The security footage corroborates it.”
“We’ll be the judge of what corroborates what,” Ruiz said, not looking up from his pad.
They were circling. They always circled. Dimitri knew the drill. They weren’t here for the teen who’d pulled a knife during a botched robbery; they were here for him. For the split-second decision, for the way his body moved when threat presented itself. They were here to see if the monster they imagined under the badge was real.
“You approached the counter,” Greer prompted.
Dimitri exhaled, forcing his shoulders to relax. “I was buying a pack of gum. The kid was at the cooler. He saw the uniform, got nervous. I saw his hand go to his waistband. I identified myself as police and ordered him to show his hands.”
“And he complied?”
“He turned. He smiled. Then he went for it.” Dimitri’s voice was flat, a recitation. “I closed the distance, secured the weapon, and took him down. No strikes. No kicks. One controlled takedown. Clerk called it in.”
Ruiz finally looked up. “The clerk said it was… fast. That the kid didn’t have a chance.”
“He had a chance to not pull a seven-inch hunting knife in a well-lit store with a cop six feet away,” Dimitri said, the first flicker of heat in his words. He clamped down on it. “My use of force was appropriate and proportionate. The DA’s office already reviewed it.”
Greer leaned forward, his chair creaking. “We’re not the DA. We’re the people who decide if you keep your badge. Your file has notes, Volkov. ‘Aggressive posture.’ ‘Intimidating demeanor.’ You’ve got a reputation for being a little too hands-on.”
The ghost of every past shove, every cruel laugh in a high school hallway, rose up in Dimitri’s throat. He swallowed it. That wasn’t the reputation they meant, but it felt like the same rotten root. “My arrest record is clean. My convictions stand.”
There was a long silence, filled only by the hum and the tap of Ruiz’s pen. Then Greer leaned back, the fight seeming to drain out of him. He opened a manila folder Dimitri hadn’t noticed and slid a still photograph across the table. It was a grainy black-and-white freeze-frame from the store’s camera. The teen’s hand was clearly wrapped around the knife’s handle, pulling it from his waistband. Dimitri was a blur of motion, already in the frame.
“Came in this morning,” Greer said, his tone shifting from interrogator to bureaucrat. “From the hard drive the techs pulled. Corroborates your account to the letter.”
Ruiz stopped tapping. The room seemed to get a fraction brighter, the air a little lighter.
“So,” Dimitri said, not touching the photo.
“So, you’re cleared. No suspension. Mandatory psych eval next week, but that’s just a formality now.” Greer closed the folder with a definitive slap. “You can go.”
Just like that. The tension that had been holding Dimitri upright evaporated, leaving him feeling hollow and heavy at the same time. He stood, the chair legs scraping loud against the linoleum. He didn’t thank them. He just nodded and pushed through the door into the empty, fluorescent hallway.
The relief was a physical thing, a cold wash that left his skin tingling. He leaned against the cinderblock wall for a second, just breathing. The institutional cleaner smell couldn’t mask the underlying scent of sweat and fear this place always held. He wanted out. He wanted air that didn’t taste like lies and accusations.
He fished his phone from his pocket. His thumb hovered over the screen, his heart doing a slow, hard roll against his ribs. He needed to hear her voice. Needed the one thing in his life that didn’t smell like this.
He hit the call button. It rang once, twice.
Her voice was a soft, warm breeze through the static. “Hello?”
“Elena.” Her name was a release of breath he didn’t know he was holding. “It’s me.”
“Dimitri? Is everything okay?” He could hear the worry, the immediate jump to concern. It undid him.
“Yeah. It’s okay now. They… it’s done. I’m done.” He started walking down the hallway, his boots echoing, pushing toward the exit, toward the world where she was. “Where are you?”
“At your mom’s. We’re shelling peas on the sunporch. She’s telling me about the time you tried to dye the dog blue.”
A laugh, rough and unexpected, broke from him. “Christ. I forgot about that.”
“Are you sure you’re alright?” she asked, and he could picture her, forehead lightly creased, those big blue eyes full of a sincerity that still shattered him.
“I will be. I’m coming over. I need to…” He didn’t know how to finish. See you. Hold you. Bury my face in your hair and forget this fucking room. “I need to come over.”
“Okay,” she said, simple and certain. “We’ll be here. I’ll save you some peas.”
He ended the call, pushing open the heavy door to the parking garage. The afternoon sunlight was blinding, washing the gray concrete in gold. He stood for a moment, letting it burn the chill of the interrogation room from his skin.
He was cleared. He was free. And he was going to her. The momentum of that thought propelled him toward his car, a current pulling him inexorably home.
The momentum of that thought propelled him toward his car, a current pulling him inexorably home. He drove across Austin with the windows down, letting the humid air scour the sterile IA feeling from his lungs. The familiar streets blurred into a stream of taillights and neon, but all he saw was her face from the steakhouse booth, leaning into his touch.
He parked in his mother’s driveway. The garden she tended was a riot of color against the fading evening. He could see them through the sunporch screen, two silhouettes bent over a brown paper bag. His mother was laughing, a sound he’d heard too rarely since his return.
He stood by the car for a second, watching. Elena’s small hands moved with a quick, practiced grace, splitting pea pods and letting the contents tumble into a ceramic bowl. Something in his chest, something knotted from the day’s interrogation, began to loosen.
“You gonna lurk out there all night, svoloch?” his mother called out, her voice teasing but weak. She’d seen him.
Elena’s head snapped up. Her eyes found him in the dimming light, wide and instantly searching. She smiled, but it was tentative, a question. He pushed off the car and walked inside.
The sunporch was warm, smelling of earth, vinyl cushions, and the sweet, green scent of fresh peas. “Hey,” he said, the word coming out rougher than he intended.
“You look tired,” Elena said softly, wiping her hands on a towel.
“Long day.” He came closer, drawn to their circle. He nodded at the bowl. “You saved me some.”
“I said I would.” She pushed the bowl toward him, their fingers almost touching on the rim. “Your mom was just telling me more about the blue dog. The detergent kind?”
“The whole neighborhood smelled of lilac breeze for a week,” his mother cackled, shaking her head. She patted Elena’s knee. “This one’s a much better listener than you ever were. And she doesn’t track mud.”
Dimitri grabbed a handful of peas and popped them in his mouth. They were cool, bursting with a flavor that was nothing like the stale coffee of the interview room. He looked at Elena, really looked. There was a smudge of dirt on her cheekbone. He had the sudden, overwhelming urge to lick it off.
He shoved his hands in his pockets instead. “Cleared me. No suspension.”
Elena’s breath caught. “That’s… that’s good, Dimitri.” She said his name like it was something fragile.
“It is.” His mother’s voice turned serious. “Those vultures. They see a strong man and they try to peck.” She struggled to her feet, gripping the arm of her chair. “I’m going to lie down. You two… talk. Or don’t.” She gave Dimitri a look that was all knowing exhaustion before shuffling slowly inside.
The silence she left was different from the IA room. This one was full of cicada songs and the rustle of pecan trees. Elena kept shelling, her gaze fixed on her task. “Was it bad? The questions?”
“It’s just a game. They have to play it.” He pulled a chair closer and sat, the metal legs scraping. He watched the line of her neck, the way her hair fell over her shoulder. “You’re the only thing I thought about in there. The only clean thing.”
Her hands stilled. She didn’t look up. “You shouldn’t say things like that.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s a lot.” Her voice was a whisper.
“It’s the truth.” He reached out, ignoring the warning in her posture, and caught a strand of her hair between his fingers. It was as soft as he remembered from the steakhouse. Softer. “You have dirt. Right here.”
She finally lifted her eyes to his. In the porch’s golden light, they were a bottomless blue. She didn’t flinch. She didn’t pull away. She just waited, her lips slightly parted.
He leaned in slowly, giving her every chance to stop him. He brushed his thumb over the smudge on her cheekbone. The contact was electric, a live wire running straight down his spine. Her skin was warm. He could feel the faint, rapid pulse at her temple.
“Elena,” he murmured, his voice gravel.
“Yes?” It was barely a sound.
“I’m not the kid from high school.” The confession hung between them, ugly and necessary. “But what I feel for you now… it’s worse. It’s bigger.”
“Worse?” she echoed, a faint line appearing between her brows.
“More dangerous.” He was close enough to see the gold flecks in her irises, to smell the green on her hands and the vanilla of her shampoo. His control, the rigid discipline that had held him still for two hours under Greer’s glare, was fraying at the edges. “For me.”
Her gaze dropped to his mouth, then back to his eyes. A decision settled over her features, softening them. She didn’t smile, but the fear he usually saw in her when he got too close was gone. Replaced by something else. Something open.
She leaned forward, just an inch, closing the last of the distance.
It wasn’t a kiss. She just pressed her clean cheek against the rough stubble of his jaw. She held there, a quiet, steady pressure. Her small hand came up and rested, feather-light, on his chest, over his heart. He went utterly still, every sense focused on the points where their bodies connected.
He could feel her listening to the frantic drumbeat under her palm. She didn’t move. She just held on, as if anchoring him to the spot, to the moment, to the simple, solid reality of the two of them on this creaky porch.
“It’s okay,” she whispered into his skin, her breath a warm shock. “You’re home now.”
He let out a shuddering breath he didn’t know he was holding. His arms came up, slowly, to circle her waist. He buried his face in the curve of her neck, inhaling her. The chaos of the day, the latent aggression, the guilt—it all receded, dampened by the profound quiet of her embrace.
They stayed like that for a long time, as the sky deepened to indigo and the first fireflies winked on in the garden she’d revived. He knew then, with a certainty that felt like a sentence, that he would ruin anything and anyone that ever tried to take this from him.
He knew then, with a certainty that felt like a sentence, that he would ruin anything and anyone that ever tried to take this from him. The thought should have scared him. It only settled him, a dark verdict accepted.
She finally pulled back, just enough to look at him. Her hand remained on his chest. “Your heart is going crazy.”
“You’re touching it,” he said, as if that explained everything.
A car door slammed somewhere down the street, and she flinched. The spell fractured. She withdrew her hand, folding it with the other in her lap. The evening insects filled the sudden space between them. He missed her weight immediately.
“I should finish these,” she said, gesturing to the half-full bag of peas.
“Let me help.” He didn’t ask. He pulled his chair closer, the legs screeching on the porch concrete, and grabbed a handful of pods. His big, tattooed hands looked absurd and clumsy on the delicate work. He fumbled with the first pod, squashing a pea.
“Like this,” she said softly. She took another pod, her fingers deft. A quick twist of the stem, a zip down the seam, a thumb’s gentle push. The peas rattled into the bowl like green rain. “You don’t have to force it.”
He watched her, the concentration on her face. “You do this for her every week?”
“Tuesdays and Fridays. The farmer’s market has the best stuff early.” She didn’t look up. “It’s peaceful.”
“After what I did,” he started, the words coming out low and rough. “In high school. The notes. The gum in your hair. Calling you those names by your locker. You shouldn’t be within a mile of me, let alone here. Shelling peas.”
Her hands stilled. She placed a pod carefully on the table. “I thought about that. A lot. When you first came back.”
“And?”
“And your mom needed help. It wasn’t about you.” She finally met his eyes, and there was a quiet steel in her gaze he hadn’t seen before. “It’s still not all about you, Dimitri. She’s a good woman who’s lonely and in pain. That’s bigger than my old hurt.”
He felt her words like a physical correction. He nodded, absorbing the sting. “You’re better than me.”
“That’s a low bar,” she said, and a tiny, unexpected smile touched her lips. It was gone in a second, but it had been real. “You were a real asshole.”
A shocked laugh burst from him. “Yeah. I was.”
“You’re different now. Mostly.” She resumed her work, the rhythm calming. “You look at me now and it’s not… hateful. It’s something else. It’s intense.”
“It’s everything else,” he admitted, the confession ripped from him. He managed to open a pod without destroying it. Three perfect peas rolled into his palm. He offered them to her.
She looked at his open hand, then leaned forward and ate the peas directly from his palm. Her lips brushed his skin. The air vanished from his lungs.
“Intense,” she repeated, sitting back, her cheeks flushed.
From inside the house, his mother’s weak cough carried through the screen door. It was a sound that spoke of encroaching darkness, of time running out in small, measured fits. Elena’s eyes flicked toward the sound, her whole body tilting with innate concern.
“I should check on her,” she said, already starting to rise.
His hand shot out, gently encircling her wrist. He didn’t squeeze. He just held. “Wait. Two minutes.”
She settled back, her pulse hammering under his thumb. He could feel the fine bones, the incredible smallness of her. He traced the blue vein there with his gaze.
“The IA guys,” he said, his voice quiet. “They called me aggressive. Intimidating. They have a file. They think it’s a problem.”
“Is it?” Her question wasn’t an accusation. It was genuine.
“With them? No. It’s what keeps me alive some days.” He turned her hand over, exposing her palm. He ran his index finger along her life line, a slow, deliberate stroke. “With you? I don’t know how to be soft. I just know I need to be.”
“You were soft just now.”
“That wasn’t soft. That was desperate.” He let her wrist go, feeling the loss of contact like a withdrawal. “I’m asking you… to teach me. How to do this without breaking it. Without breaking you.”
The enormity of the request hung in the humid air. A moth batted itself silently against the porch light. Elena stared at her hand, then closed her fingers slowly, as if holding his touch inside her fist.
“You don’t get to be my student, Dimitri.” Her voice was firmer now. “That’s not fair to me. You have to just… be. And I’ll either stay or I’ll go.”
He absorbed that, the truth of it a clean, sharp cut. No manuals. No guarantees. Just the terrifying gamble of presence. “Okay.”
“Okay,” she echoed. She stood, gathering the bowl of peas. “I’m going to check on her, and then I should get home. It’s late.”
He stood too, the motion sudden, making her step back. He forced himself to be still. “Let me drive you.”
“It’s four blocks.”
“It’s dark.” The thought of her walking alone, even for a minute, sent a current of pure adrenaline through him. It was irrational. Austin wasn’t Grozny. But the image was there, vivid and unacceptable.
She saw it in his face—the possessiveness, the protectiveness twisting together into something undeniable. She didn’t argue. “Alright. But you have to promise not to… loom. When we get to my door.”
“I don’t loom.”
“You absolutely loom. You’re looming right now.” She walked past him into the house, the screen door sighing shut behind her.
He waited on the porch, listening to the muffled sounds of her speaking softly to his mother, the creak of the bed, the closing of a door. When she came back out, she had her little woven bag over her shoulder. She’d washed the dirt from her cheek.
They walked to his car in silence. He opened the passenger door for her, and she slid in, her dress brushing against his jeans. The short drive was filled with Hank Williams from the steakhouse still playing in his head, a ghost of another charged silence.
True to his word, he killed the engine and didn’t move from the driver’s seat. He just looked at her, the streetlight painting her profile in gold and shadow.
“Thank you,” she said, her hand on the door handle. “For dinner last week. For tonight. For coming home in one piece.”
“Elena.”
She turned. “Yes?”
He had a thousand things to say. Apologies, promises, pleas. They all jammed in his throat. What came out was the raw, unvarnished truth. “I’m going to want to see you tomorrow. And the day after that.”
She held his gaze for a long moment, her blue eyes unreadable in the dim light. Then she nodded, once. “I know.”
She got out and walked to her door without looking back. He watched until she was inside, until the lock clicked into place and a soft yellow light filled the window. He drove away only when another light, a bedroom light, came on upstairs.
His own house was dark and empty. He didn’t turn on the lights. He stood in his kitchen, the hum of the refrigerator the only sound, and replayed the feel of her cheek against his jaw, the weight of her hand on his heart.
He picked up his phone, thumb hovering over the screen. He typed a single message. Not goodnight. Not I’m sorry. Just three words.
The peas were good.
He put the phone down on the counter. He didn’t expect a reply. The sending was the point. It was a thread, thrown across the darkness between them. A tenuous, fragile thing.
He waited in the dark, the sentence of his certainty a concrete weight in his gut, and watched the screen. It stayed black, and silent, for a very long time.