I wanted to argue. Wanted to stay awake, stay vigilant, make sure nothing else went wrong. But Axel's hand found the small of my back, and the weight of the last forty-eight hours crashed over me like a wave.
"Come on," he murmured. "Let her mother us."
I let him lead me inside.
The shower was scalding, almost too hot to bear.
I stood under the spray until the water ran clear, watching rust-colored streams swirl down the drain. Not all of it was other people's blood. A cut on my forearm I didn't remember getting. Scrapes across my knuckles from the fight with Slash. Small wounds that would heal without scarring.
Other wounds would take longer.
These things happen to old women. Especially when someone decides they should.
Chen's voice echoed in my head, soft and venomous. I pressed my forehead against the tile, let the water scald my shoulders, almost failing to breathe through the tightness in my chest.
She'd given me nothing I could prove and everything I couldn't stop imagining. That was the cruelest part. She'd givenme something I could never resolve—a question with no answer, a wound that would never fully close.
"Kai."
Axel's voice pulled me back. I hadn't heard him enter, but he was there—stepping into the shower behind me, still half-dressed, jeans soaking through instantly.
"You've been in here forty minutes," he said quietly.
"Have I?"
"Yeah." His arms wrapped around me from behind, pulling me against his chest. The water cascaded over both of us now, hot and relentless. "Talk to me."
"I don't know what to say." My voice came out hollow. "We won. We saved them. Chen's in custody. And all I can think about is whether she killed my grandmother."
"She didn't."
"You don't know that."
"I knowher." His chin rested on my shoulder, his breath warm against my ear. "She's a manipulator. A predator. She finds the thing that hurts most and she twists. That's what she did to you."
"But what if?—"
"Then she wins." He turned me around, made me face him. Water streamed down his face, plastering his hair to his forehead, and his grey eyes were fierce. "She's in a cell, Kai. She's going to spend the rest of her life in a concrete box, knowing that we beat her. That's real. That's justice. And if you let her poison your memories of your grandmother—if you let her take that from you—then she wins anyway."
I wanted to argue. Wanted to point out that logic didn't erase doubt, that knowing something intellectually wasn't the same as believing it.
But I was so tired. So goddamn tired. "I don't know how to stop thinking about it," I admitted.
"Then let me help." He cupped my face in his hands. "Every time your brain goes there, come to me. Tell me. And I'll remind you who Michelle Chen really is—a desperate woman who lost everything and wanted to hurt you one last time on her way down."
"That simple?"
"It won't be simple. It'll be work. But we'll do it together." He pressed his forehead to mine. "I’m there for you. We have time."
Time. Such a strange concept after days of counting hours, counting minutes, racing against death.
"Okay," I said. "Okay."
He kissed me—soft, gentle, tasting like water and exhaustion and something that felt like hope. "Let's get you dried off," he murmured. "You need sleep."
"So do you."
"Then we'll sleep together." A faint smile. "That's the point."
