I don't even want to think about what dear old dad will do to me, or Angelo. I don't listen to Raffael; I only become aware of things again when he slows the van and stops by a large park. We wait for him to come around and open the sliding door, and as it slips back, we are greeted by the sight of several black SUVs waiting for us. Subdued, we climb out of the van. Men step up, all of whom we know. I recognize Gigi's guard; his face is set in fury. Shit, they're all here, except I don't see Rufus.
We give each other quick hugs before my friends are ushered off by their guards, and then it’s only Raffael and me. He leads me toward one of the SUVs, opens the door, and I climb in all the way into the backseat. He follows, sitting down next to me. Then he does something I never would have expected. He takes my hand and asks, "You okay?"
His hand is warm and so much larger than mine, and it's everything I always dreamed of. But right now, my mind is too muddled to fully appreciate it. I want to tell him everything and nothing. I want to tell him that I wasn’t afraid when the man flashed his gun while we were inside. I’d seen my fair share of guns over the years, so that wasn’t an immediate trigger. I didn’t even feel fear when he ordered us to follow. No, the fear hit after. After I threw my name at him like a weapon, certain it would stop him the way it always had. And he laughed. That was the moment I realized my world had shifted. My name, my father, my family, none of it mattered to this man.
He laughed at me.
Laughed.
That was when the fear hit.
That's what I want to tell him. But I don't. Instead, I say what I always say, "I’m fine."
He looks over at me then, really looks at me. “You sure?” he asks again, softer.
I lower my eyes, afraid he might see the lie, “I am.”
I sitwith my back flat against the leather, the partition a hard wall between us and the driver up front. The engine hums like it’s trying to drown out the night. I picked up the discarded mag from earlier before I drove the girls out of there. It's in my pocket now, and my fingers keep finding it, worrying it like a prayer bead.
I’m mad. So mad I can taste it. Mad at her for ditching Rufus. Mad at her for thinking she could play at being reckless and then come home whole. Mad because if anything had happened, Carlos would have unmade me, slowly. He’d have made an example of me, piece by piece. That thought is a slow, hot stone in my gut.
But that’s not the part that has me grinding my teeth. The part that really gets me is the image of what could’ve been. The thought of what those men would have done to her—what they would have usedher for—unwraps something under my ribs and makes an animal raise its head. Fury grows bright and white-hot, but it’s not the same as the cold, efficient anger I carry to jobs. This is a deeper, uglier thing. It screams of claws and possession, and a protective ache that surprises me with its strength.
She looks like a mess. Her hair is a dark tumble; her makeup is running down in streaks on her cheeks; there is a smear of blood at her temple from the man I shot. Her dress is torn in several places. It irks me even more to see her so harried, yet she looks more beautiful than ever. The sight of her, spent and small and real, should harden me the way the work does. Instead, it softens me in a place I thought had long been dead.
She’s not wailing. She’s collapsed into that numb, stubborn pose that says she understands the consequences without needing anyone to spell them out. I see the set of her jaw, the little tilt of her chin; she knows she fucked up. I don’t need to say it. She already has. That ought to make this easier. It doesn’t.
I want to scream at her. I want to tell her what could’ve happened. I want to tell her about Carlos and the slow things men in power do to other men when they fail. I want to force the terror into the parts of her that still believe the rules will always protect her.
Instead, I let the air go out of me and reach for her hand.
My hand is bigger than hers, and callused where hers is soft. I close my fingers over hers and the pressure says thethings my mouth won’t: you’re alive, you’re here, don’t do that again. I don’t give it the melodrama she’d expect from a man who’s been taught to wear his threats on his sleeve. I keep it simple because simple holds better than speeches.
“You okay?” I ask—another lie-check. My voice is lower than it was when I knelt in that alley. Softer. Not fatherly. Not bossy. It’s the voice of a man who could have lost the thing he didn’t know he wanted to keep.
She looks at me. For a second, her eyes search my face like she’s cataloging the cost. I want to hammer the lesson in. I want to say,Don’t leave your guards, don’t disappear, don’t test the line. But no words can match the storm I'm sure is already thundering in her brain. What will sink in is what she just lived. What will sink in is the proof of consequence sleeping under her skin.
So I do the only other thing I can do. I tighten my grip for a beat, harder than necessary, until she gives me that small, angry huff she does when she’s trying not to cry. Because this night carved a message into her harder than any words ever could. Because the things that break a woman used to being in control can also teach her to stay that way.
Outside, the SUV slides up to a traffic light, soft and patient. Inside, my hand closes and opens on the magazine in my pocket. I count the weight of it, the fact I picked it up at the alley, the quiet proof that I was there. Proof that I can hurt people who try to hurt her.
I don’t know what that makes me. Soldier. Protector. Monster.
Finally, she answers my question with, "I’m fine."
I've interrogated, threatened, and harassed enough men to know a lie when I hear one.
“You sure?” I check again, softer.
She lowers her eyes and doubles down, “I am.”
“Don’t lie to me,” I say before I know I’ve said it. My voice is too flat, too small for the anger under it.
She blinks, and for a heartbeat, I see the exact moment the lie cracks. A single tear slips free and tracks down the side of her face, cutting clean through the smeared mascara. It’s ridiculous how much that one tiny thing affects me; it’s a bell that says she’s human and not the neat, unbothered image everyone’s been paid to believe.
“You don’t know my father very well, do you? Or Angelo?” she says in a thin voice, that's already pulling the words together like a shield.
The problem is I do. I know them all too well. I know what men like Carlos Orsi and his son Angelo do when someone in their house doesn't walk the line. I know how they make examples. I tell myself they won't hurt her, but the thought of those hands on her—what they might do to her, and me not being able to stop it—churns in my gut like acid. I’m a low man in a tall machine. I’m a foot soldier; my name goes on lists, not in the ledger of decisions. In the grand scheme, I’m a blade another manpoints. That gap between them and me is a canyon so deep nobody can jump from one end to the other and live.
