Page 74 of The Princess and the P.I.

The door slammed open with a force that rattled the frame, and Detective Ryan charged in first. He barked orders to the other officers, and they spilled in.

And then Maurice appeared.

He didn’t rush—he strode in slow, his beanie tilted and his trench flapping behind him like something out of a movie. His eyes swept the scene, landing on Fiona, and his expression changed. Whatever fury had been burning in his gaze flickered and shifted.

Fiona’s face was swollen, her sweater torn, her hands and his heavy gun trembling at her sides.

She must look a mess. She took one step toward him, then another, and before she knew it, she was rushing into his arms. He caught her and swayed back from the force of her embrace, and his hand cradled the back of her head.

“Let me see.” His fingers ghosted across her face, pausing on the bruise blooming across her cheekbone, then trailing lower—down her arms, her ribs. His thumb pressed under her chin, tilting her face up. His eyes searched her for damage like it was his own.

“I got him,” she whispered against his neck, almost breathless. “He placed himself at the play party. He admitted to orchestrating Tameka.” Her voice cracked with something like triumph. “Maurice—he was giving it all away.”

She pulled back, but Maurice wasn’t smiling.

He was shaking.

Fiona felt the shift in him. The hard coil of rage threading through his chest, the way his breath shallowed.

He whispered in her ear, “I’m sorry.”

Maurice whirled around to David, who was standing with his hands high as he looked from person to person in confusion, which gave way to poorly concealed fear. He knew. He knew what was coming.

Maurice took a slow step forward, his face dark. Then another step. Fiona barely had time to register the shift before he pulled the gun from her hand and leveled it straight at David’s chest.

David flinched, but Maurice didn’t move.

The air in the room turned electric, thick with the promise of something irreversible.

Detective Ryan snatched a look at her, but she could control Maurice’s mood as much as he could.

“Bennett.” A warning. “Put it away,” Detective Ryan said.

“No. Maurice, a private citizen, has an unrelated beef with David, a private citizen, not yet under arrest. Write that in your little report.”

“If you fuck up my arrest—if he walks on a technicality—that’s on you. Put. It. Down.”

Fiona could feel the storm inside Maurice, the violence pulled so taut it could snap with the slightest push.

“Please,” Fiona said, stepping closer, feeling the tension in his arm, the rigid way he held himself, the breath that barely moved through him.

“Maurice. Look at me. I’m fine. Occupational hazard, right?”

A muscle in his jaw ticked. Then suddenly, he flipped the gun, gripping it by the barrel and clicking the safety in one swift-fingered move, and swung it like a club.

The crack of metal against bone was sickening. David’s head snapped sideways, his legs buckled, and a dazed, gurgling sound escaped his lips before he swayed. A heartbeat of silence.

Then Ryan was on him, yanking David up, twisting his arms behind his back, and slapping the cuffs on with a satisfying, final click.

“You are under arrest for the murder of Sara Al Haddad. You have the right to remain silent.”

Maurice exhaled sharply, rolling his shoulders, the tension bleeding off him in slow waves. He turned to Ryan, his expression blank but his voice wry. “Anything in service of Ryan for sheriff.”

As they led David out, the muffled roar of the congregation spilled into the room.

The bountiful harvest festival was reaching its peak, the energy in the sanctuary feverish and frenzied.

The crowd swayed as one, their voices chanting, their movements making the room seem liquid.

At the center, resplendent in a flowing white robe, was Amelia. She stood with her arms raised, tears streaming down her face.

“This church saved me,” she declared. “It freed me from a broken marriage, from people who never loved me. It brought me to a love I have never known, a peace I can never understand.” She sobbed openly, clutching her chest. “Thank you for allowing me in. I am yours.”

“And you are mine,” the congregation thundered in unison, their voices like a wave crashing over her.

Maurice’s grip on Fiona’s hand tightened, anchoring her as she swayed on her feet. “This is it,” he murmured. “We bring it all down. Right now.”

Amelia stepped forward, the spotlight catching the tears streaming down her cheeks, glinting like tiny jewels.

She clutched the oversized check to her chest with both hands, trembling slightly.

Fiona watched her, the star of the show, the woman the church would exalt as long as the money kept flowing.

Salvation—for four easy payments of $19. 99.

“This,” Amelia began, “this check is my testimony. It’s proof that even the most broken among us can be healed, redeemed, and made whole again.”

She paused, letting the words hang heavy in the charged air. Behind her, the choir hummed softly, a plaintive melody rising and falling like a heartbeat.

“I didn’t grow up in the light,” she continued.

“I was married to a man who didn’t see me.

Didn’t know me. I chased success. I thought money, power, prestige—that was the way.

But all it brought me was emptiness. And when I lost Robert…

” She faltered, a single sob escaping her throat.

“When I lost him, after every humiliation, after doing everything right. He left me with nothing.”

Fiona watched the crowd, their faces shining with tears, nodding along like Amelia’s pain mirrored their own.

“It was all for nothing,” Amelia pressed on, gaining fervor. “When I found this church, I found you. You lifted me. You taught me that my worth wasn’t in who I married but in the Way.”

The crowd erupted into murmured amens and hallelujahs, their hands rising instinctively.

They ate it up. The choir rose, their sopranos piercing, their voices climbing higher and higher until it was almost unbearable. The band joined in, drums crashing, guitar wailing, and the room tilted into frenzy.

Fiona saw him then—Detective Ryan. Even in the chaos, his timing was impeccable. He mounted the stage, flashing his badge like a talisman, and with one swift kick sent poinsettia displays flying.

Then the cops swarmed the stage, shoving church leaders to the ground and handcuffing them with rough efficiency.

The room dissolved into chaos. The congregation’s cries of disbelief swelled, colliding with the metallic clink of handcuffs and the barked orders of officers roaming the aisles.

Each arrest sent a ripple of murmurs through the congregation, their fervor dulling to a fearful hush.

And then, Fiona’s breath stopped.

One officer stepped toward her father.

“Kofi Addai, you are under arrest for the murder of Robert Thorpe, and criminal negligence in the murder of Tameka Bryant.”

Fiona’s knees nearly buckled. “What are you talking about?” she shouted. “Dad, you didn’t know about Tameka! You lost your position because of this!” Her finger shot out, trembling, pointing at David. “Tell them the truth!”

Ryan’s expression tightened. “Your father provided a signed confession, Fiona. It was included in the material he gave us—evidence about his son’s murder, Robert Thorpe’s private security firm, everything.

” He paused, his gaze steady but not unkind.

“The confession included a timeline and admission of a cover-up in the Tameka Bryant case.”

Fiona’s breath hitched. The room seemed to fold in on itself, the noise, the lights, the crushing weight of it all. “No,” she whispered. “No, this isn’t true, though.”

“It was under my leadership. I am responsible,” Kofi said softly, meant only for her.

“Dad!” Fiona’s cry cracked the air, but the police officer was already guiding him away.

“Detective, wait!” she called, desperate.

Kofi began to hum a low and mournful rendition of “It Is Well.” The officer led him toward the stained glass double doors, and Fiona’s vision blurred as memories crashed into her.

Her father on street corners, his loudspeaker in hand, calling for repentance.

Her father at Christmas, dancing to African soul singers, his hands on her mother’s waist as he nuzzled her neck.

Her father telling Fiona she was just like him.

She’d denied it then, fiercely, but now the truth burned through her chest: she was.

His hand slipped free from the officer’s grip for just a moment.

One last embrace, a gesture so filled with love and regret it nearly shattered her.

He never said I love you . And Fiona didn’t need big American proclamations of love from her father, but this brush across her face felt like a tidal wave.

Tears blurred Fiona’s vision as she whispered, “There was another way.”

Her father shook his head. “The truth is the way.”

The officers ushered him through the doors, and the sound of them closing behind him felt like the end of something enormous. Her lawyer—a public defender, exhausted and overworked but sharper than anyone gave him credit for—followed closely behind.

Fiona stood there. Her family was shrinking by the second, dissolving into nothing. Just as the darkness of loneliness wrapped itself around her, Maurice’s hand slipped into hers, warm and solid.

“He’s going to work with the cops, cut a deal,” Maurice said against her ear.

“There was no way you could have stopped him, Fiona. He’s been determined for three years.

Maurice’s hand squeezed hers. “You’re not alone. And you never have to be again.”

She nodded, letting herself feel the comfort of his presence for one full minute before pulling back and pushing the doors open. Outside, the chaos waited.

The cameras swarmed like bees. Detective Ryan stood front and center, flashing a smile as church elders, hands cuffed, were loaded into waiting police vans. Reporters jostled and shouted, hungry for a scrap of drama.

“Detective Ryan, can you comment on this operation?” someone yelled.

Ryan straightened. “We’ve obtained video footage showing the alleged perpetrator.

” His tone was measured, designed to draw the room in.

Fiona felt disloyal to Maurice to think it, but Detective Ryan really was a natural.

“This individual was deeply invested in the continued success of iVest after Robert Thorpe’s passing.

The footage is now in the hands of law enforcement and will play a crucial role in the ongoing criminal proceedings. ”

Every reporter leaned forward. They would kill to get their hands on that video. If the prosecution deemed it inadmissible, well, Princess_PI knew exactly how to make it public.

Ryan’s voice dropped an octave. “As difficult as this footage is to watch, it provides undeniable proof of the lengths the Prince George’s County Police Department is willing to go to safeguard our citizens. Working tirelessly and never forgetting those cold cases.”

This set the reporters in a choppy frenzy.

“Which cold cases have you closed?”

Detective Ryan chuckled. “It’s too early to say. But as we confirm some leads and details, we will let you know.”

Maurice nodded toward his smoky black Mercedes, and Fiona folded her arms.

“He really is going to say it’s all him? Robert Thorpe, Tameka—doesn’t this make your blood boil?”

But Maurice wasn’t looking at the scene. His gaze was fixed in the distance, soft and far away, like he was watching an old friend walk out of sight.

“No,” Maurice said, a little dreamy. “I feel…lighter, actually.”

She looked back at the police van. Through the dark glass, she could just make out the church elders, her father among them, his head bowed low.

Also there, in the distorted window, she caught a strange reflection: the stained glass window of the church doors was illuminated by the spinning blue and red lights, and it looked animated somehow and teeming with life.

It was the scene of Lazarus rising. The same one her father had a copy of in his home.

For years, she had hated that window, the easy lie that death could be undone.

Hadn’t she prayed for such a miracle for her brother?

But tonight, she saw something she hadn’t before: the people at his feet, waiting for him to stand.

She’d never noticed them before, those small figures, their postures poised in despair and devotion.

This scene was about them too. The ones who stayed, who’d mourned, who’d demanded God make something of their pain. She, Mark, Esi, her father. Even Sara. They’d held love in their hands and refused to let it die.

Fiona’s breath caught as her gaze flicked to Maurice. When he turned to meet her eyes, she thought that maybe the miracle wasn’t undoing death, maybe it was finding people willing to drag you from the depths with their love alone.