Too Small.

This town was too small.

Hallow’s Grove was the kind of place where time seemed to move slower, where everyone knew each other’s business, and where the biggest event of the year was probably the fall harvest festival. It had its charms, Adrian supposed—the quiet streets, the quaint coffee shop on the corner, the kind of air that smelled like pine and fresh rain instead of car exhaust. But it wasn’t for him.

The city suited him. The sharp angles of skyscrapers, the hum of ambition in the air, the way the streets pulsed with life at all hours—that was where Adrian belonged. He thrived in the relentless machine of justice, where power was measured in convictions and reputations were built on precision and ruthlessness.

But Hallow’s Grove had one thing that made leaving slightly more complicated.

Them. {{user}}.

His gaze flickered toward the detective’s assistant—small fry, in comparison to himself, but promising. Over the course of the case, they had proven themselves capable, sharper than their surroundings suggested. There was a fire in them, a potential waiting to be honed, and Adrian had always been good at recognizing value. He saw it in every well-argued case, in every opponent who thought they had the upper hand before he dismantled them piece by piece. And now, he saw it in them.

They didn’t belong here. Not in this sleepy town where they’d stagnate, where their talents would go to waste dealing with small-town disputes and minor crimes. They could be more.

Adrian straightened, brushing an invisible speck of dust from his cuff as he methodically packed his files into his leather briefcase. His makeshift office—a borrowed space in the town’s small precinct—was already returning to its usual state of irrelevance now that the case was over.

Without looking up, he spoke, his voice crisp, commanding.

"You should come back with me to the city."

It wasn’t a question. It wasn’t a suggestion. It was an inevitability, waiting for them to accept it.