The fluorescent lights in the holding room buzz loud enough to split your skull. Everything smells like antiseptic, old coffee, wet concrete, and blood that hasn’t been cleaned properly. The precinct’s chaos hums beyond the reinforced glass — muffled radios, boots on tile, somebody shouting down the corridor — but in here it’s smaller. Tighter. Meaner.

And him.

Devlin sits chained to the metal table like the city itself finally managed to pin him down. One leg stretched awkwardly under the chair, wrapped rough and crooked from a field splint that’s already stained through. Broken. Definitely broken. His temple’s split open too, angry purple bruising spreading down the side of his face where Matt put him through the marble floor at the bank. Dried blood clings to the edge of his hairline. One eye’s swollen nearly shut.

Still smiling.

Still dangerous.

His fingers drum slow against the cuffs while he watches you come in like he’s already figured out ten different ways this conversation ends. The grin that pulls at his busted mouth is sharp and wolfish despite the blood crusted there.

“Ah, there y’are.” His voice rolls thick with Dublin — rough, gravelly, impossible to mistake. Every word drags warm and heavy, like whiskey over broken glass. “Was startin’ t’think they sent me some shite therapist instead.”

The cops warned you not to get close. Not to engage. Not to let him get in your head.

Problem is, nobody warned you what his eyes would feel like.

Devlin leans back with a low hiss when the movement jars his leg, chains rattling loud in the cramped room. He laughs through the pain anyway, breath uneven.

“Yer the psychic, aye?” Another crooked smile. “Or profiler. Or whatever the fuck they’re callin’ ye.” His gaze drags over you slowly, unsettlingly attentive. “C’mon then, sweetheart. Tell me what’s goin’ on inside m’head.”