The walk from Newtown Station took twenty minutes in the driving rain. Trent didn't try to find an awning or walk fast. He just let the water hit him.

He felt lighter. It was a terrifying, hollow kind of lightness. For ten years, the badge and the Glock had been physical anchors on his belt. Without them, he felt untethered, drifting through the grey streets of the Inner West like a ghost.

He turned down his street. The narrow Victorian terraces stood shoulder-to-shoulder, their cast-iron balconies dripping onto the pavement. The lights were on in his front window.

Trent unlocked the front door and pushed it open. He stood on the mat, dripping water onto the floorboards.

Darrell walked out of the kitchen. He was wearing track pants and a faded grey jumper, holding a mug of tea. The last three months had been a quiet, tense standoff between them. They shared the house, they shared a bed, but the space between them was filled with the unspoken weight of the ninety-four days since Liam Connor's murder.

Darrell stopped in the hallway. He looked at Trent's soaked clothes. Then his eyes dropped to Trent's chest.

The shoulder holster was empty.

Darrell set his mug down on the hall table. He didn't ask what happened. He closed the distance between them, reached out, and pulled Trent by the soaking wet lapels of his jacket into a tight, fierce embrace.

Trent let out a long, ragged breath. He dropped his head onto Darrell's shoulder. The cold war was over.

"I'm done," Trent said, his voice muffled against Darrell's jumper. "Stokes pulled the pin. I'm suspended."

"Thank God," Darrell whispered. He held Trent tighter, ignoring the freezing water soaking into his own clothes. "Thank God."

They stood there in the hallway for a long time. The tension that had been strangling Trent for three months finally snapped. He wasn't a homicide detective anymore. He wasn't the sole protector of the beats. He was just a man standing in a hallway with his partner.

"Come on," Darrell said, stepping back but keeping a grip on Trent's arm. "Get out of those clothes. You're freezing."

Trent stripped off the wet layers in the bathroom and stood under the shower until the water ran cold. When he walked out into the bedroom, Darrell had left a pair of dry track pants and a t-shirt on the bed.

Trent walked into the kitchen. Darrell had made a fresh pot of coffee and plated up some leftover lasagna.

Trent sat down at the small timber table. He looked at the food, realizing he hadn't eaten since the meat pie Mac brought him before the raid. He picked up a fork and started eating.

Darrell sat across from him. "Do you want to talk about it?"

"We found the chop shop," Trent said between bites. "We found the ute. Holden was there. The tactical team botched the perimeter, and I broke orders to try and stop him."

"Did you get him?"

Trent shook his head. "I fired a warning shot. He dropped the evidence bag and went over a wall into the residential blocks. Stokes took my badge on the spot."

"And the evidence? Is it enough?"

"We've got the zip ties and the hard drives from his gym. We've got the ute. It links him to the park." Trent set his fork down. "Mac and Harris will process it. They'll get warrants. The state will hunt him down."

"But not you."

"Not me," Trent agreed.

Darrell reached across the table and covered Trent's hand with his own. "I'm sorry I walked out of the bedroom that night. I'm sorry I let you sit in the dark by yourself."

"You were right," Trent said quietly. "I was using the case to isolate myself. I thought I had to carry it. But I was just destroying everything else."

"We fix it," Darrell said. His grip was warm and solid. "We take a week. We go up the coast. Just you, me, and the dog. We turn the phones off."

Trent looked at him. For the first time in months, he actually pictured a future that didn't involve a crime scene. "Yeah. Up the coast. I'd like that."

---

They went to bed at midnight. Trent fell asleep the moment his head hit the pillow. It was a deep, dreamless sleep, completely devoid of the flashes of violence that usually plagued him.

He woke up instantly at 3:15 AM.

The rain was still hammering the tin roof, a relentless drone that masked the ambient noise of the city. But Trent hadn't woken up to the rain.

He lay perfectly still, his eyes adjusting to the dark. Darrell was asleep beside him, his breathing steady and rhythmic.

Trent listened.

There it was again. A sharp, distinct crack from the back of the house. The sound of a crowbar popping a wooden window frame.

The training kicked in automatically, overriding the sleep. Trent slid out of bed, his bare feet silent on the floorboards. He reached instinctively for the bedside table, his hand grasping empty air where the Glock usually sat in its lockbox.

He swore silently. He was naked, unarmed, and there was someone in the house.

He moved to the bedroom door and eased it open. The narrow hallway was pitch black. At the far end, the faint ambient light from the streetlamp in the back alley filtered through the kitchen window.

A shadow moved across the light.

It was massive. Too big for a standard burglar looking to steal a laptop.

Trent didn't hesitate. He slipped back into the bedroom, grabbed Darrell by the shoulder, and clamped a hand over his mouth.

Darrell woke with a violent start, his eyes wide in the dark.

Trent put a finger to his own lips. Quiet.

Darrell nodded, his heart hammering against Trent's hand.

Trent leaned in, putting his mouth an inch from Darrell's ear. "Someone's in the house. Get your phone. Call Mac. Do not come out of this room."

Darrell grabbed his mobile off the nightstand. Trent let go of him and slipped back out the door.

He needed a weapon. He moved silently down the hall toward the kitchen. He knew the layout of his own house perfectly, avoiding the floorboards that creaked. He reached the edge of the kitchen archway and stopped.

The intruder was standing by the back door, dripping water onto the tiles. He was holding a short-barrelled pump-action shotgun, scanning the living room.

It was Brett Holden.

He looked feral. His face was bruised and scraped from his escape over the brick walls in Greenacre. His clothes were covered in mud.

Holden hadn't run to a Vanguard safehouse. He had run straight at the man who blew his operation.

He got my plate at Maroubra, Trent realized with sickening clarity. He got the RMS to run the unmarked Commodore, and he found my residential address.

Trent glanced at the kitchen island. The heavy wooden knife block was sitting three metres away. Too far.

Holden turned, the barrel of the shotgun sweeping toward the hallway.

Trent didn't have time to think. He relied entirely on aggression.

He lunged out of the hallway, closing the distance in two massive strides, and drove his shoulder straight into Holden's chest.

Holden grunted as two hundred pounds of muscle slammed into him. He stumbled backward, crashing heavily into the stainless-steel fridge.

Trent grabbed the barrel of the shotgun with both hands, wrenching it upward, pointing it at the ceiling. He drove a brutal knee into Holden's groin.

It would have dropped a normal man. But Holden was running on pure adrenaline and whatever synthetic gear he pumped into his veins at the gym. He barely flinched.

Holden let go of the shotgun with one hand, grabbed Trent by the throat, and threw him.

Trent hit the kitchen island hard, his hip bone cracking against the granite edge. He scrambled for purchase, grabbing the wooden knife block.

Holden racked the shotgun with a terrifying, mechanical clack.

"Don't move," Holden roared, his voice thick with hate. He levelled the barrel squarely at Trent's chest.

Trent froze, his hand inches from the knives. The bore of the shotgun looked the size of a tunnel. At this range, it would cut him in half.

The bedroom door opened down the hall.

"Trent?" Darrell stepped out, holding his phone, squinting into the darkness.

"Darrell, get back!" Trent screamed.

Holden pivoted instantly. He didn't shoot. He closed the distance down the hallway with terrifying speed, grabbed Darrell by the front of his t-shirt, and slammed him against the plaster wall.

Holden pressed the barrel of the shotgun hard under Darrell's jaw.

"Drop the phone," Holden ordered.

Darrell dropped it. It clattered onto the floorboards. His eyes were locked on Trent, wide with absolute terror.

Trent stepped away from the kitchen island, his hands raised. "Holden. Stop. This is between you and me."

"You're right," Holden breathed heavily, water dripping from his shaved head onto Darrell's face. "You took my gym. You took my gear. You took my boys. You think you can walk into my space, Williams? Now we're in yours."

"Let him go," Trent said, keeping his voice dead level. "You shoot him, every cop in the state will descend on this house in three minutes. You shoot me, it's the same thing. You have no exit."

Holden smiled. It was an ugly, broken expression. "I'm not shooting anyone. Not here."

Holden pulled a heavy coil of black industrial zip ties from his jacket pocket. He threw them onto the floor at Trent's feet.

"Pick them up," Holden said, digging the shotgun barrel deeper into Darrell's throat. Darrell gagged slightly.

Trent looked at the zip ties. The same hardware that had cut into Liam Connor's wrists.

"Pick them up, Williams, or I paint your hallway with his brains."

Trent slowly knelt down and picked up the heavy plastic ties.

"Loop one, put your hands through it in front of you, and pull it tight with your teeth," Holden instructed. "Make it tight. If there's slack, he dies."

Trent looked at Darrell. Darrell gave a barely perceptible shake of his head. Don't.

Trent ignored him. He looped the thick black plastic, slid his wrists through, and grabbed the tail end with his teeth. He yanked his head back, pulling the mechanism tight. The plastic bit instantly into his skin, locking his wrists together in front of his chest.

"Good," Holden said. He stepped back from Darrell, keeping the shotgun trained on them both. "Get some clothes on. We're going for a ride."

"Where?" Trent asked.

"To where this started," Holden sneered. "I'm going to string you up in the dirt right where you were looking for me. I'm going to leave you for your degenerate mates to find."

"I'm not leaving him," Darrell said, his voice shaking but defiant. He stepped toward Trent.

Holden swung the butt of the shotgun around in a vicious arc. It caught Darrell flush on the side of the head.

Darrell went down instantly, collapsing onto the floorboards in a heap.

"Darrell!" Trent yelled, lunging forward, but the zip ties threw off his balance.

Holden kicked Trent hard in the stomach. Trent folded over, gasping for air.

"He stays," Holden said, grabbing Trent by the back of his t-shirt and hauling him upright. "He stays alive to tell the cops exactly what happens to pigs who cross the Vanguard. Now walk."

Holden shoved the barrel of the shotgun into the small of Trent's back.

Trent stumbled forward toward the back door. He looked over his shoulder. Darrell was out cold on the floor, a dark pool of blood starting to form against the pale timber.

"Keep moving," Holden growled.

They stepped out into the freezing rain.

Holden had parked a stolen Toyota sedan in the back alley, the engine running. He shoved Trent into the passenger seat, keeping the gun trained on him, and walked around to the driver's side.

Trent sat in the car, his bound hands resting in his lap. The plastic was already cutting off the circulation to his fingers. He had no badge. He had no gun. He had no backup.

Holden dropped the car into gear and accelerated down the alleyway, heading east.

Heading toward Sydney Park.