She nodded. “Let’s start with choices,” she said, voice still coarse from the roughness of her attack.
I placed my hand on my knees, steady, so she’d see them and knew those days where she’d needed to brace for my nastiness were over.
“About your aunt and uncle,” I said, voice low, careful. “The money they took, your parents’ inheritance, it wasn’t theirs to touch. You can file a civil claim, try to get your parents’ money back. Or you could get the authorities involved on account of fraud.” I paused, letting the words sink in. “Or both, of course.”
Her fingers twisted on the edge of the couch, brushing against my leg. Her body still showed the aftermath of the attack: purple shadows beneath her eyes, the occasional exaggerated rise of her chest, that frayed voice that unknowingly governed the beat of my heart for longer than I’d realized. She might look fragile, the havoc of her own body and family written across her face, but all I could see was the strongest, most beautiful woman I’d ever known. I’d once wanted her to hate me, wantedanyemotion from her to the point I’d twisted everything. Now I just wanted to be the person she trusted not to add to the shit hand she’d been dealt.
“Your house, the one they sold,” I said, watching her face for a reaction, “was worth more than they told the court. They pocketed the difference. Then there’s the contractor work your father did, all the assets tied into that. The thirty grand you did get…. Your parents had so much more. Maybe not in cash flow, but still?—”
I reached inside my coat’s inner pocket and pulled out the folder. “These are just the highlights. You have every detail and number in there.” I set it down in the space between us. Her arm shifted away from it, as if the file was something toxic shecouldn’t let touch her. My jaw locked, heat rising in my chest. “I won’t lie. It’s sickening. That Vinny knew?—”
“I don’t want to talk about Vinny.” The words were sharp, but her voice broke at the edges. Her chest stuttered with a shallow breath.
I nodded once, letting it go. “That’s fine. But Nina, they deserve to pay you back. I don’t think they can do it with money, but in some way—they need to be held accountable.”
She stayed quiet, her gaze going distant, shoulders curling inward. “Do I have to do anything?”
“Yes.” I reached over, stilling her twitching fingers against the couch cushion. “You need to rest.”
“I don’t want their fucking money.” She hissed it through a ragged exhale. Her chest trembled with the effort, tears springing hot to her eyes. “I just don’t know if I have it in me to send them to jail.”
I nodded slowly. I’d suspected this might be the case, so I’d told Carmen to keep everything under wraps. “It’s your choice.” I slid my thumb over the back of her hand, steady and deliberate, feeling the pulse on her wrist. “And whatever you decide, I’ll handle it. Making calls, setting up meetings, whatever you need. You just breathe.”
Her shoulders softened a little, as if I’d gained enough of her trust that she believed me. “That… actually helps.”
I let the quiet stretch for a beat, her words settling deep into my chest. This was the opening I’d been waiting for—my chance to uncover the rot inside me and what it’d done to what could have been.
Turned out, she wanted that choice for herself too. “What about you?” she asked, pulling her hand from mine, raising those defenses I thought she was too tired to leverage. “You talk a big game about holding my aunt and uncle accountable. You were cruel, Lincoln,” she whispered, low but slicing. “And nowyou’re here treating me as though I’m someone precious to you. Like I’d always been someone precious to you. Why?”
My throat worked around the jagged edge of her truth. I almost looked away, almost swept my own pain and hers under anger the way asshole Lincoln would have. But this time, I stayed and faced her pain. I let it sting, and burn. Because she was right—she deserved an answer that didn’t dodge or deflect. I could do this. I’d rehearsed this in therapy.
“I went to see you at Reality Bites. Almost a month ago, you know?” My gaze slid to the window for a breath before I forced myself back to her face. She deserved to see this in my eyes.
Her fingers stilled against her knee, jaw tightening enough that I knew she was bracing.
“I let myself in, after it closed. I heard ‘Songbird’ on.” My throat burned, remembering. “And it all just came rushing through me. I understood then what you’d been saying. There was no coming back from all that shit. You’re right—I was cruel, and I got off on it.”
The words scraped on their way out, but I stayed steady, present, because she needed to hear all of it.
“So I left you here, thinking I was keeping you safe. But it took me a minute to figure out I owed you, at least, an explanation.”
Nina’s breath hitched, almost imperceptible, but her eyes didn’t waver. “You think an explanation’s going to make it better?” Her voice was quiet, the kind that carried more hurt than shouting ever could.
“No, I don’t.” I leaned forward, elbows braced on my knees. I wasn’t hiding. I knew well about hurt. “I’ve been obsessed with you since that day you stepped out of Vin’s parents’ car in overalls, listening to that song. You’d lost people too, and I thought—” My throat tightened. “I needed someone who got it, Nina. No one did. They’d say cliché things and tell me it’d getbetter with time, but time didn’t help, and my father kept getting worse.”
Nina’s lips parted slightly, her lashes fluttering. She knew exactly what worse meant.
“And when I looked into your eyes that day…” I shook my head, meeting her gaze. “I don’t know how to explain it other than I saw my own pain there and knew no one would understand me like you would.”
Her chest rose with a slow, deliberate breath, but she didn’t look away. It cracked me open a little more.
“I felt the same thing, I think,” she admitted, voice low. “I think that’s why it hurt from the very beginning, you know?”
I scrubbed a hand over my jaw. “I understand now, thanks to my therapist, that I wanted you to grieve my way. To relieve my pain over something you’d also lost.” My knee bounced, restless, until I forced it still. “I had no right.” I exhaled with heaviness at how toxic I’d been and how much worse I’d become. “So when I asked you out, and you said no, I?—”
“When did you ask me out?”
I blinked at her, confused. “That day. When I met you. I came up to you and asked you to take a walk with me and talk. You told me no.” I put my hand on my thigh to keep myself from shaking. “You shut me out of grieving with you. So you obviously thought you had more right to your pain than I did to mine because you wouldn’t let us mourn together. It’d been years since I’d lost my mom, and everyone, my father more than anybody wanted me to just get over it. I thought that’s what your rejection meant.”
